See a photo of Gregg, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Q&A with Gregg Morris, Question 6:

Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

A: Work on your listening skills. Grow bigger ears. In my experience, the better we listen the better our storytelling becomes. We seem to have entered an age of conversational storytelling. An age where we are being encouraged to live, share and tell our own personal stories as well as our organizational stories. In telling those stories we need to give others the opportunity to connect their stories with our own, on as many levels as possible. And, from a business standpoint, we need to be able to equip our customers with the tools and space necessary to tell their stories as well as our own. The concept of brand democracy via storytelling is absolutely fascinating to me. Being able to do all of this will be an enormous asset to have at one’s side moving forward.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Gregg, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Gregg Morris, Question 5:

Q: If you could identify a person or organization who desperately needs to tell a better story, who or what would it be?

A: I can’t pass this question up. I suppose at the moment BP would be first on just about everyone’s list but, hands down, I think it’s the Roman Catholic Church. Maybe it’s because I was raised a Catholic, was an altar boy, went to parochial schools, considered the seminary once upon a time (eeks!), my parents were both very devout Catholics, and my dad was a man of unshakable faith. Somehow or another I managed to avoid all of the abuse stuff as I was growing up. I think that it was the generation behind me, and those behind them, that really bore the brunt of all of that.

Regardless, they need to desperately tell a big, big story. It seems somewhat ironic, in this age of social media and storytelling, that an institution that could survive Gutenberg and an empowered Martin Luther and those who followed after him, one that was so rich in mystery and storytelling, is now faced with the storytelling and narrative challenges that they are.

I have no idea how that will all play out, but of one thing I am certain. The next pope will have an opportunity to reinvent the church, with the help of story I would think, like very few before him have. The College of Cardinals will need to elect a truly gifted storyteller. For my money, they need to pay close attention to what’s happening to institutional trust and process all around them for there are few, if any, institutions bigger than they are.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Gregg, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, and Part 3.

Q&A with Gregg Morris, Question 4:

Q: What people or entities have been most influential to you in your story work and why?

A: I had been reading Annette Simmons’ books during the last year of my time in the C-suite, and as I started to investigate and research the world of storytelling I found the pioneering work of folks like you, Doug Lipman, Steve Denning, Rolf Jensen, Thaler Pekar, Sean Buvala, Jim Loehr, Michael Margolis, Mike Bonifer, and so many other wonderful people in the field of storytelling and narrative. There was, I found, a vibrant “solar system” of story, as Michael Margolis likes to call it. I have always loved the workings of narrative and story and the emotional connections they enable. That solar system (community) has been an awesome surprise.

I hope you’ll let me toot your horn a bit because once I started to explore your site I was just blown away by the breadth of the storytelling culture and world. I know you probably chuckle at my references to you as my hero but your work and your site really helped me to see the potential of being able to work with narrative and story outside of the traditional marketing and PR landscape. Now, when someone asks me where they can go to learn more about story and storytelling I inevitably point them to your site as the place to start.

[Editor’s note: Thanks, Gregg; I’m honored and flattered.]

Other books that have influenced my thinking on story and narrative are Rolf Jensen’s The Dream Society, Doug Lipman’s Improving Your Storytelling and Storytelling Coach, Steve Denning’s The Leader’s Guide To Storytelling, Dan and Chip Heath’s Made to Stick and Switch, Francis Flaherty’s The Elements of Story, Jim Loehr’s The Power of Story, and Michael Margolis’ Believe Me. From a storytelling technique standpoint, I’m not sure there’s a better book than Robert McKee’s Story. I am currently reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and it’s a wonderful book about narrative and story. A must read for anyone who has an interest in those things.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Gregg, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, and Part 2.

Q&A with Gregg Morris, Question 3:

Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?

A: This question fascinates me, and I could talk your ear off about it for quite some time. I think that the movement toward storytelling has been gaining momentum since the mid 1990s. Digital technologies were beginning to bear on a global disruption that we are still in the middle of. There was a lot of “high tech, high touch” talk at the start of that time period and what is more high touch than the emotional connection of a great story? (As an aside here, I haven’t researched this, and have no data to support it, but based on the last few, it would seem that the end of one century and the beginning of the next have a habit of shaking things up quite a bit.)

The technology drive that was led by the integrated circuit and then ethernet and then the Internet and World Wide Web have totally disrupted a publishing world put in place by Gutenberg in the mid 1600s. It has given all of us the chance to be publishers if we wish (social media), and it has wrecked havoc with the economies of distribution of content (stories).

Take a moment to go back and look at the influence of Gutenberg on society and on storytelling. Up until the invention of the mechanical press, story was “the” delivery mechanism. We wrote, and we drew, of course, but those were very time-consuming tasks, and we didn’t rely on those for “reach.” We told stories to teach, to deliver messages, to entertain and as anthropologists have told us, to make sense of our world. Gutenberg’s invention turned all of that upside down.

Printing and then audio and then video became the delivery mechanisms of our world. And it was damned expensive to produce and deliver stories. As a result of that, large corporations, who could afford the delivery technologies, grew to be our trusted media and content (stories) sources. All the while, technology continued its march forward, and while it’s interesting to note that a lot of people lay the blame for our feelings of alienation and connection at the feet of that technology, and thus contributing to the rise of interest in story, that very same technology is what has enabled us to connect on a global scale, has upset the distribution applecart, has enabled us each to become publishers and has pretty much shattered our trust in institutions and redirected it towards processes and people.

In that, I believe, lies the explosive growth of storytelling. As individuals we need to tell stories to connect to our emotional worlds and to each other. We need to tell stories to make sense of this ever challenging, ever changing world. As businesses, we need stories to be able to connect to our customers and to give our customers the chance to connect with us. The old distribution mechanisms of packaging messages and propositions have been replaced by conversations and social media. It was very difficult, if not impossible, to tell a story or start a conversation in a 30 second slot. As we move beyond that, story has room to spread its wings and fly.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Gregg, his bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Gregg Morris, Question 2:

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: My earliest memories are story-related, so I guess I’ve been involved in it since I was a young boy. My parents got married quite young, and we lived with my maternal grandmother when I was growing up. In effect, since both of my folks were working to provide for us, she wound up raising me. She was a terrific storyteller. I think that in another set of circumstances she would have been a writer of some kind. Anyway, she’s the one who instilled in me a lifelong love and interest in story, storytelling, and narrative.

While I remember “listening to” and “telling” stories from a young age, my earliest memory of written experience with story came when I was in the second grade. We had to write a story about why we wanted to be a pilot. As luck would have it, my story won the competition and one of the perks was that I got to read it on national radio. If I hadn’t already been hooked on stories and storytelling beforehand, that experience probably did it for sure.

In college, I majored in English and minored in religion and political science so I got to do a lot of story and narrative work there as well. A religion professor, Dr. Ed St. Claire, introduced us to the early work in narrative done by Stephen Crites, who wrote the Narrative Quality of Experience. Working on our “personal stories” in that class gave me a perspective on story, narrative, and emotional connections that I hadn’t been exposed to before.

I wound up working in sports, education, business, and technology. During that time I found that I was constantly using what I had learned about story and narrative techniques in daily business interactions. I left the C-suite just over a year ago, and my plan was to write (tell stories) and do some business consulting in sales, marketing, pr, and social media. What I found when I started doing the consulting part was that what people and businesses really wanted was help with their narrative and their story.

They needed help in those other areas as well, but, with the changes in customer attitudes, interaction and sentiment, it seemed to me that growth in those critical business areas was only going to be achieved with narrative and stories that resonated emotionally with customers. The real ‘niche’ in marketing that would lead to more sales was going to be found by tapping into that part of us that is “story.”

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Gregg Morris, of whom I learned probably in the last six months or so, has a blog, What’s Your Story?, that is — gasp — a bit of a “competitor” to A Storied Career. We both focus on applied storytelling and both “curate” content from the applied-storytelling world. Rather than feeling threatened, I am especially grateful to Gregg for picking up the curation slack during the time when I am still dealing with our move to Washington state and finishing building our house here. The first question in this Q&A, in fact, addresses his curating activities. I’m proud to present his Q&A over the next several days.

Bio: Gregg Morris has lived and experienced quite a few stories in his life. After graduating from college with degrees in English, religion, and political science, he spent 12 years as a tennis professional, and when skin cancer forced him to reinvent himself, he proceeded to embark on a career in software and technology. He has worked in software retail and started a software technology consulting company that worked with Lotus, Coca Cola, ABB, Head Sports, and Head Sportswear. He worked as director of sales and marketing at two software companies and spent 15 years at the top of the C-Suite running a software company. He left that 18 months ago and now works as a consultant focusing on narrative and storytelling. He has worked with businesses, non-profits, and individuals on helping them to understand and use narrative and storytelling. He is also at work on the Great American Novel, along with several hundred other writers who have the same idea.

Q&A with Gregg Morris, Question 1:

Q: What storytelling trends and discoveries have you come across while curating stories for your site and preparing your storytelling-week-in-review feature? What surprises you?

A: Those weekly stories and reviews have turned into daily ones. That was one of the surprises! The sheer volume of interest and talk that surrounds narrative and storytelling is incredible. Applied storytelling in the corporate and non-profit worlds seems to be the biggest trend that I have seen. I don’t suppose that’s surprising given the work of you, Doug Lipman, Steve Denning, Rolf Jensen, Thaler Pekar, Sean Buvala, Jim Loehr, Michael Margolis, Mike Bonifer, and a lot of other very fine people.

The strength and interest in oral storytelling was a real surprise. Coming across The Moth and Story Slams, folks like Bill Ratner and Eric Wolf, storytelling festivals of all shapes and sizes, led by the Pigeon Forge/Smokey Mountains Festival, and the growing interest in personal memoir has all been very enjoyable to read and write about. Also, the amount of work being done with story and storytelling in education was surprising and is very encouraging. The supporting technology that it growing up around that is fascinating to follow as well.

Transmedia and gaming are two areas where a lot of very creative and pioneering storytelling are taking place. An area that I am really interested in is storytelling in the mobile space. I think that location-based services, coupled with some creative software technolgies, have the potential to lead to an explosion of interest in stories and storytelling.

Lastly, I was surprised at the number of different definitions of narrative and story that I have come across. It’s a dizzying array but I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. It seems to point to a vibrant and growing storytelling world which can only enrich and enliven us all.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

It’s always nice to share the activities of folks who’ve been part of my Q&A series.

• Recent interviewee Lisa Bloom is presenting this year at the International Coach Federation National Conference in October in Fort Worth, TX, on the topic of how Storytelling Empowers the Art of Coaching.
• Q&A subject Stephanie West Allen has co-authored a piece on fear and storytelling.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Ever since I first encountered Stewart Marshall, the “financial storyteller,” I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the concept of financial storytelling. It has been difficult for me to grasp because I am not a quantitative thinker.

Now Stewart has developed a lively, attractive, nicely illustrated white paper, Financial Storytelling: Making the Most of the Numbers, which is available for free download.

First, Stewart defines financial storytelling:

Financial Storytelling strengthens the understanding, appeal and value to a business of established and evolving financial tools and methods. For example it takes numerically intensive approaches such as competitive analytics and business intelligence as well as techniques such as ratio analysis, discounted cash flow, pro-forma financial statements etc. and translates them into an easy to master and familiar language. Financial Storytelling helps you to discover and communicate the underlying business narrative. It is a very human answer to the question: “What is going on?”

Then, he discusses several kinds of financial storytelling — entrepreneurial, the mid-sized company’s story, and the big-business story.

Stewart closes with a kind of FAQ on how financial storytelling is done.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

This is a story I never expected to write.

A dear friend, Monique, died suddenly yesterday at age 43.

We were colleagues and friends at Stetson University, where we taught in the Management Department, and in fact, Monique was responsible for my getting into teaching, the job I’ve loved the most in my career. Back in 1996, long before I was truly qualified to teach at the college level, she suggested me for a teaching position in the department. Eventually I was asked to step aside in favor of someone with a PhD, but as I approached the end of my own PhD program, Monique brought me back to Stetson to teach in 2005 after my replacement left.

But I knew Monique well before Stetson. She was in the management PhD program at Florida State in Tallahassee at the same time my husband Randall was in the marketing program. I was a bit suspicious and jealous of Monique back then since she was young, pretty, single, and spending a lot of time with Randall. But she soon met and married Chad, the love of her life. Beginning in Tallahassee, Monique and Chad, who did not want children of their own, developed a special bond with our two children.

When she came to Stetson to teach a couple of years after Randall had begun to teach there, she instantly developed a reputation as a superb and student-centered teacher. Two weeks to the day before her death she had won Stetson’s most prestigious teaching award. She was universally beloved by her students. All the RIP notices on Facebook yesterday called her the greatest teacher students had ever had.

Many students also called her a mentor, and though she was a dozen years my junior, she was a mentor to me, too.

Monique and I were close in the sense that either of us could always have called on the other in a time of need (and I called on her far more than she called on me). But we did not spend huge amounts of time together. So one of the many tragic aspects for me of her too-soon death is that I didn’t know that much about her story.

She was adopted. She grew up in Columbus, GA, a city I visited long before I knew her and dubbed the most depressing city I’d ever been to. She was a good and attentive daughter who spent countless hours helping her mom move and acclimate to Florida after Monique’s pharmacist dad died. Monique really liked to have a good time. She had a deep, throaty, infectious laugh. She and I shared a Myers-Briggs type — INFP. She loved the Beatles. Chad called her Moni, and so did Randall and I.

Is that really all I knew of her story? One of the lessons I have quickly learned from her untimely death is that life is, of course, too short, and you never know how quickly and suddenly your opportunity to spend time with someone will be cut off. The other hellish aspect for me is that I had tried to say goodbye to Moni before we moved to Washington, but we couldn’t work it out. I thought our move might mean I’d never see her again, but I could not have imagined it would be this way.

If there is any comfort to be had, it is in the fact that thousands of stories about Moni are out there, carried by hordes of former students, along with family, friends, and colleagues. Because she was such a shining light who touched so many lives, stories of her by those she taught, mentored, and loved will live on and on.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Penelope, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Penelope Starr, Question 6:

Q: You blog for TucsonCitizen.com, where the tagline of your blog is “Creating Community One Story at a Time.” In your experience, what are some of the ways stories help to create community?

A: People come to Odyssey Storytelling because they want to hear stories from their friends and neighbors and because they want to hear from someone they might not meet in their everyday life. We are sensitive to being inclusive of people from different ethnicities, races, religions, social and economic groups, ages, gender expressions and sexual orientations. In this way we celebrate the diversity that Tucson has to offer.

When Michael, a robust, bearded man told a story about when he was a little girl, many in the audience were very surprised. When Keon told a story about his father emigrating from a small town in a Middle Eastern country, an audience member (and stranger) was stunned because his father was from the same town. Doug would repeat the stories he heard at Odyssey to his elderly parents who where unable to leave their home.

An important part of every evening at Odyssey is the community announcements where we invite the audience to promote activities that they are involved in. These can range from Greyhound Rescue to political rallies, whatever our listeners what to share with each other.

These connections and many more are part of the magic of community storytelling. You’ll find this quote on the bottom of the program: “Because these stories are from our lives they may be amazing, messy, enlightening, disturbing, and entertaining … and more.”

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Penelope, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, and Part 3.

Q&A with Penelope Starr, Question 5:

Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

A: If you want to tell a personal story then just BE YOURSELF!

When people ask if the stories are true, we say they come from the lives of the tellers; things they’ve experienced or have been told (i.e., family stories) and they tell their version of the truth from their memories.

The tellers who have the hardest time with this form are professional storytellers, actors, and writers. Performers are used to learning their material and presenting a finished product to the audience. Writers fall in love with specific phrases and long to reproduce them orally. Neither of these approaches work especially well in personal storytelling.

We coach tellers to know the point of their story, have an opening line and an ending and remember a few points they want to make along the way. The stories we hear in rehearsal are always different from the ones people tell on stage when they are reacting to the response from the audience. The fluidity is part of the planned spontaneity of this unique artform.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Penelope, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, and Part 2.

Q&A with Penelope Starr, Questions 3 and 4:

Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?

A: With people plugged into their own personal electronic devices, eating meals in their car, using the TV as a babysitter and turning to pharmaceuticals to control their moods, we have a desperate and truly human need to connect. And what better way than telling our stories? The time for community storytelling is now before we forget the stories, the skills and our basic humanness.

Q: How important is it to you and your work to function within the framework of a particular definition of “story?” (i.e., What is a story?) What definition do you espouse?

A: A personal story at Odyssey Storytelling is an individual’s narrative from their life that they have crafted into a 10-minute oral presentation. The stories are not read or memorized; they are told from the experiences and creativity of the teller.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Penelope, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Penelope Starr, Question 2:

Q: How do you go about choosing the people who participate in Odyssey Storytelling (See yesterday’s entry)? Do you ensure that they are good storytellers? What has the audience response to the event been like?

Q: For the first show on March 4, 2004, I had to do a lot of fast talking to convince some of my friends to go on stage at this untried event. I could tell them the concept but I couldn’t answer any questions yet. Now we have a reputation as a fun and interesting monthly event, a large mailing list and a pool of fans that spread the word.

We have posted the themes for the rest of the year so people can visit our website and see where their favorite story will fit in. They call or email with a synopsis of the story and a brief bio, and we go from there. We have a rehearsal before each show where they meet the other storytellers, practice their stories, and give and get feedback. Adam Hostetter, who joined Odyssey two years ago as assistant producer, and I offer coaching at the rehearsal and are available for 1:1 sessions if requested.

Since one of our goals at Odyssey is diversity, sometimes a theme will need someone with a certain backgrounds and expertise. In that case, we will contact a community member and invite them to be a teller.

We do not “ensure that they are good storytellers;” we help each person be the best storyteller that they can be. Some are better than others; there is lots of variety. The main focus is on the sincerity and realness of each teller and that is what the audience responds to.

Audience response has generally been very positive, depending on the combination of the content and the skill of the teller. The most common feedback we hear is how a story touched a listener personally, evoking empathy and connection and triggering their own memories of similar situations.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I believe I learned about Penelope Starr when she kindly cited this blog in one of her columns for the Tucson Citizen. I’ve followed her columns about storytelling since. I’m so pleased to present this Q&A with Penelope, which will run over the next several days.

Bio: Penelope Starr founded Odyssey Storytelling, a monthly, volunteer-run storytelling event in Tucson, AZ, in 2004. As producer and artistic director, she’s coached hundreds of people who have told personal stories at the performances. She has taught storytelling classes at Pima Community College and Casa Libre en Solano and has conducted workshops for community groups, businesses and organizations. Her blog for the online Tucson Citizen is called “Telling Stories.” Adam Hostetter joined Odyssey in 2009 as assistant producer. They are developing curriculum for bringing community storytelling “on the road” to share their knowledge of how to create a personal storytelling event with other communities. Odyssey is now a program of StoryArts Group, Inc, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation.

Q&A with Penelope Starr, Question 1:

Q: You are founder and producer of Odyssey Storytelling, a community storytelling event in Tucson in which you invite local people to share 10-minute personal stories based on a changing theme. How did you get the idea for this event?

A: The first time I went to Porchlight Storytelling in San Francisco, I was hooked on personal storytelling. Listening to an eclectic collection of people tell funny, tragic, amazing, and touching stories from their lives ran me through a gamut of emotions and admiration for each teller brave enough to get up in front of a room full of strangers and share their lives. Right then decided that I would bring this stunning event to Tucson.

And I was the most unlikely person to undertake this venture. I was a visual artist with little experience in performing arts, but I did have some experience in organizing events. And I knew a lot of people.

With some guidance about the basic structure from my daughter-in-law Beth Lisick (co-producer of Porchlight along with Arline Klatte) I jumped into a foreign world. In the past six years I have learned how to emcee, tell a story, recruit volunteer storytellers and help them form their stories, run a rehearsal, negotiate for space, get the word out and be the spokesperson. I have been interviewed for TV, written a magazine article, kept a blog, given workshops and taught classes on personal storytelling.

I have learned by reading everything I can find in books and online and from hands-on experience. I keep saying I’ve made every mistake that can be made, but then I find new ones!

Now Odyssey Storytelling is a nonprofit as a program of the newly formed 501(c)(3) nonprofit StoryArts Group and many more challenges are ahead. One of my goals is to go “on the road” with Odyssey and teach people in other places how to produce their own community storytelling.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

After our big cross-country move, I’m still playing catch-up — in a very big way — in curating story news and conducting synthesis and analysis. Here are a few items of interest that have popped up in recent weeks:

• Seth Kahan, one of the leaders on the Washington, DC, storytelling scene, has a new book out, Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out, published by Jossey-Bass, with an initial print run of 7,500 copies. You can read about it and order it through Seth’s website.
• Michael Margolis is now contributing to PSFK.com, a leading online magazine for marketing, design and culture. His first article is Lessons in Brand and Social Media Storytelling. Of particular value is his list of tips on How to Find Your Brand Voice (which I believe will work just as well for personal branding as for product/service branding). Given that Michael was encouraging folks to comment on the article two weeks ago, I’m quite late to this party, but I’m sure Michael would welcome more comments joining the 24 already there. He has a new column on the site inspired by the film Exit Through the Gift Shop. Also of great interest among Michael’s many offerings is his podcast of the latest edition of his The New Storytellers interview series. Last week’s interview was with the wonderful Paul Costello (pictured). The interview’s theme was “a new theology for storytelling in this modern world. Exploring the re-defining boundaries of narrative across time and space, and culture.”
• Jim Ballard, a subject of my Q&A series, has launched service as a writer of people’s life-stories. You can download his brochure, MyLifeAsABook.doc.
• Bernadette Martin’s book, Storytelling about Your Brand Online and Offline, is getting ever closer to publication, and I got more intrigued by it when I saw a sneak preview of the manuscript. Should be a quick, fun read at 78 pages.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

In celebration of today’s International Day for Sharing Life Stories, here’s a little piece of my story:

Martha Beck recently told me everything I did wrong with my vision board in 2008.

So what’s a vision board, who’s Martha Beck, and what does any of this have to do with storytelling?

A vision board, says the site WikiHow, “is a collage of images, pictures and affirmations of your dreams and desires. It can also be called a dream board, treasure map or vision map.”

The sample shown at right is from EvolvingTimes.com. A vision board is a way to visualize your goals. Here’s where it gets very woo-woo, new-age-y: Supposedly, says the Squidoo lens on vision boards:

The law of attraction states, that which is like unto itself is drawn. What that means is if you are maintaining a vibration that matches what you are wanting, more things will come your way to make you feel that way. … A vision board is a tool to help you create a matching vibration to what it is you want to have/be or do in your life and in your world.

I submit that a vision board facilitates a kind of storytelling because it enables the user to craft a visual representation of a future story for himself or herself.

In 2008, I was experiencing the last gasp of my unsuccessful search for a new job teaching at the university level. I had made the short list of finalists for a position at a Southern California university and had been invited for a campus visit, a.k.a., a grueling day of interviews, a research presentation, and a teaching demonstration.

Oh man, how I wanted that job … and how I was absolutely sure I would get it. I had a slight networking “in” in that I had met a member of the search committee. The school was similar to the one at which I had taught for more than six years, and it was facing an accreditation process that I knew a lot about.

Around the time I was prepping for the campus visit, I learned about visions boards, so I decided to create one about my desire to teach at this California university. I cut out a picture of a wall with the school’s name on it and then cut out a photo of myself and pasted it so that I was standing behind the wall. I surrounded this main image with photos of the university’s campus.

I stared and stared at the finished vision board, trying to manifest the idea of me belonging on that campus. I carried the board around with me everywhere, including to the campus visit.

Arriving a few days early, I underscored my manifestation of success by having Randall shoot a real photo (at left) of me in the actual spot in which I had collaged myself on my vision board.

I should have caught on pretty quickly during the campus visit that the outcome would not go my way. The chair of the search committee did not even show up for my visit. His wife, also on the committee, told me he was suffering from allergies. The day was set up with a lot of downtime for me, the candidate, which seemed both considerate and a poor use of time. I spent a lot of time hanging out in the office of a search-committee member. We could have used that time to get to know each other better, but she didn’t talk to me much, and I didn’t engage her because I could see she was busy. A faculty member knocked me off my game during my research presentation by asking a question, though I had asked the audience to hold questions until the end (amusingly, the question was “How do you define storytelling?”). And only two members of the committee bothered to show up for my teaching demo. I should have realized the search committee was just going through the motions. But I was in denial because I so wanted the job.

I went home to Florida. Weeks passed with no word. I’m not sure the committee ever would have told me I didn’t get the job had I not pestered the committee member I was acquainted with.

The vision board had failed. I decided vision boards were a bunch of hooey and that I would never fall for anything like them again.

I had no intention of reading Martha Beck’s column on vision boards in the June 2010 O Magazine, but I really like Beck’s writing, and I was curious.

So, let’s say I don’t think vision boards are hooey. Let’s say I believe in them and assume that I did something wrong with mine in 2008. What does Beck say I messed up?

If I thought Basic Vision Board was woo-woo/new-age-y, Beck was even more so, and I don’t totally follow everything.

First, I apparently shouldn’t have been so literal and specific with my images. Beck says eschew the familiar in favor of the unfamiliar, “images that trigger physical reactions.” Unstated but implicit is the idea that I should not have created a vision board for a specific want but rather a more general feeling for what I wanted in the future.

Next, all that staring and manifesting was exactly the opposite of what I should have done, according to Beck. I should have stopped thinking about it and even lost or recycled my vision board. “The biggest mistake aspiring reality creators make,” Beck writes, “… is continuing to push something you’ve already set in motion.”

Beck’s prescribed third step is to be ready to take action when the reality you want presents itself. I may have gotten this step right.

Because here’s the thing … If I had gotten that job, we would have had to move to Southern California. The town in which the university is located is idyllic, but as for the rest of Southern Cal … ewwwww (no offense to those who like it there). A few months after the abortive Southern California experience, Randall stumbled upon cheap land in Washington state. That September we traveled to Washington, fell in love with a piece of land in Kettle Falls, and bought it. Last year we started building our house and decided to move here permanently (instead of being bi-coastal as we thought we would). And this year, here we are, deliriously happy permanent residents in an almost-finished house.

I thought I wanted a certain vision, a specific future story. But the Universe had other plans for me.

I’m thinking my vision board worked after all.

If you are considering the possibility that vision boards aren’t a bunch of hooey and are interested in learning more, you can find all kinds of resources by Googling “vision board.” You can even find vision-board Web applications, like Oprah’s (registration required).

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Cathryn, her bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Cathryn Wellner, Question 5:

Q: I’ve had quite a few Canadians as subjects of this Q&A series, giving me the impression that storytelling is thriving in Canada. As a transplant from the US, what similarities and differences do you observe in the storytelling environment between the two neighbor nations?

A: John Ralston Saul may have the answer in his extraordinary book, A Fair Country. He points out that one of the major differences between the US and Canada is the latter’s Métis roots (which he also says we ignore at our peril). Saul writes that the first European arrivals had an egalitarian relationship with the First Nations people who were already here, a relationship destroyed by latter settlers, who brought cultural genocide.

The book is a bestseller in Canada and has led to a great deal of vigorous dialogue. If he is right (and from my perspective, he is), then perhaps it is not surprising this is a fertile land for storytelling.

When I arrived on Vancouver Island in 1990, I found a thriving storytelling community in three communities that were reasonably close by: Vancouver, Victoria, and Nanaimo. Coming out of a milieu in which personal stories had become the darling of the professional storytellers’ repertoire, I was surprised by how small a role those narratives played among Canadian tellers. Traditional stories and mythology were acceptable fare, but stories of a personal nature were considered self-indulgent.

I think I was under the same misperception so many Americans are, that Canada is really just like the States, just colder. In fact, with a different founding mythology and a different history, it is a country unique from its southern neighbour. I had to learn how to be a storyteller in Canada.

It wasn’t until I got into community development that I discovered storytelling in organizational settings had more of a history in Canada than the U.S., at least in the health realm. That was where the bulk of my contracts came from, and my storytelling background was viewed as an asset, not as some quirky bit of fluff.

Back in 1996 Ron LaBonte and Joan Feather wrote an excellent manual for Health Canada, Handbook on Using Stories in Health Promotion Practice. Reading it, I found a methodological underpinning to some of the work I’d been doing on a trial-and-error basis. (It is referenced widely, but I haven’t been able to find an online source. However, an Australian manual based on their work is available online.)

In subsequent years I came across other Canadian resources that helped to inform my work. I found a receptive audience for the value of storytelling in all the work I did and am grateful to my adopted country.

Here are some Canadian storytelling resources your readers might find interesting:

• Communities Act! — Making Change Happen: Stories from British Columbia diabetes projects
• Get Real: The Art and Power of Storytelling in Workplace Communities
• Once Upon a Time: The Use and Abuse of Storytelling and Anecdote in the Health Sector
• Our Stories: Demonstrating Change through Storytelling
• Seniors As Storytellers
• A story/dialogue method for health promotion knowledge development and evaluation
• Storytelling and the Voluntary Sector in Canada: Capturing the Individual and Collective Stories

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Cathryn, her bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, and Part 3.

Q&A with Cathryn Wellner, Question 4:

Q: What’s your favorite story about a transformation that came about through a story or storytelling act?

A: Although I know many instances of transformation through a story or storytelling act, I keep coming back to two I had the honour of witnessing. Both were published in The Healing Heart~Communities and are on my Catching Courage blog.

The first is about a woman named Paula Ziegelstein. I had no idea she was facing some inner and outer giants when I told the story of The Little Hen and the Giant. In fact, I didn’t even meet Paula at the gathering where I told the story.

The story was new to me, and it was my farewell story. I was moving from Rochester, NY, to Seattle, WA. I wanted to tell a zinger of a story, something for people to remember by.

From my perspective, the story fell flat. I was really disappointed and did a fair bit of self-flagellation over it. So imagine my surprise four years later when I met Paula at a storytelling conference in Rochester and learned the story had been life-changing for her.

The second story happened in Seattle. I’d been invited to tell stories in the burn unit of Harborview Medical Center. One of the stories I chose was Bill Harley’s “The Freedom Bird”. The bird of the story gets hacked, boiled and buried. Adults squirm when they hear it, but kids love it.

The bird had been shot out of the tree, hacked to pieces, and was bubbling on the stove when it hit me. My entire audience had been roasted in horrible fires. I didn’t know what else to do but finish the story, but I went home mortified, ready to hang up my storytelling shingle.

A week later, I got a call from the burn center. A 15-year-old boy, burned over nearly his entire body, had lost his will to live. Had he been physically able, he would probably have committed suicide. The story of the unstoppable bird, who could not be killed, became his talisman. He became the freedom bird.

I haven’t told either story for a good 20 years, but remembering the impact they had has kept me believing in the power of stories.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Cathryn, her bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, and Part 2.

Q&A with Cathryn Wellner, Question 3:

Q: The culture is abuzz about Web 2.0 and social media. To what extent do you participate in social media (such as through LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Second Life, blogs, etc.)? To what extent and in what ways do you feel these venues are storytelling media?

A: I’m a fan of social media. I belong to several Ning [groups], am on Facebook, write three blogs, and read others. I’m on Twitter but don’t refer to it a lot. On the other hand, I check out YouTube regularly and Vimeo and other video sites occasionally. I get tons of ideas from all of them, more than I can use on my blogs. I also make good contacts on them. And I generally keep my usage in check so as to be able to be productive rather than just be a consumer of other people’s stories.

For me, they are all storytelling media. Over the years I’ve been part of the ongoing conversation concerning how we define stories. But I’ve been only a small part of the conversation because I haven’t found it useful to my own work.

I define storytelling very loosely, if at all. What interests me is how we are affected by the Big Ideas we absorb from our cultures and how they influence the way we act in the world. I call those Big Ideas stories because abstractions have less power over us than stories. So we tell stories to support our world view and have a hard time recognizing that the totality of our life experience shapes what we think, say, and do. We can’t step outside our minds and see the world totally fresh.

The various social media are a means of entering the world of story from different points. We can assume an avatar and jump into Second Life. We can try out a new story and test it on Twitter or Facebook. We can blog a different perspective and see who responds, and how. We can invent our professional persona on LinkedIn.

To me, it’s all part of the larger arena of storytelling. If we don’t fall into the trap of becoming an observer, if we actually engage and become creative contributors, we can experiment with creating new stories.

And perhaps we can be part of creating the new story that will persuade us to take care of our planet.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of Cathryn, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Cathryn Wellner, Question 2:

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: I dived into storytelling as a survival mechanism. I’d been a high school librarian and had told stories as a way of getting teenagers to read. I didn’t think of it as storytelling. I was doing “book talks.”

Then I spent a year in Germany and decided that when I came back I wanted to try working with young children. The school district reluctantly agreed and put me in the one vacant spot, a school with kindergarten through third grade. I had no early-childhood education and no experience working with little ones.

It didn’t take long for me to realize they didn’t need the Dewey Decimal system, at least not yet. They needed stories. Two years later I moved from Rochester, New York, to Seattle, Washington. By that time I’d become involved in a storytelling guild and felt as if I’d found my vocation. For the next 10 years, storytelling was my life.

Then one of those Major Life Transitions took me to Vancouver Island. I performed and taught storytelling classes and workshops. Then came another uprooting, to a ranch in Cariboo, in the heart of British Columbia. I no longer easy access to storytelling venues. What I did have was animals to feed and bills to pay.

That’s when I started doing community development. To be honest, I didn’t even know what it was, but I was desperate. I applied for the first contract that sounded like something I could do. The hiring organization didn’t know I was suffering from impostor syndrome. Three months later, they hired me to run the organization.

I gradually stopped discounting the value of storytelling to my work because I saw how effective it was in presentations to city councils, funders, media, and evaluators.

In a rural area, organizations don’t have the luxury of a large pool of consultants. Demands on my time grew to the point I decided to go freelance. I never had to look for work. Somehow it always found me. And it was always heavily influenced by storytelling. It didn’t take me long to realize that community development is about stories. When an existing story is no longer working or is not large enough, sometimes an outsider can help the group identify a new story that will move them forward.

So storytelling became the underpinning of everything I did. When I look back on the unexpected twists and turns of my professional life, I feel extraordinarily lucky. Storytelling allowed me to be happily employed, doing what I loved. Initially, I thought that meant performing and workshops. When that morphed into the world of community development, I realized I’d found my niche and have been happy in that ever since.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I first encountered Cathryn Wellner last year when she sent me an e-mail critical of my 9-11 blog post; I subsequently published her response as its own entry. We’ve kept in touch and become connected on some social-media venues. She is a powerhouse of thought and writing about storytelling and other topics. I’m so pleased to present this Q&A with Cathryn, which will run over the next five days.

Bio: Cathryn Wellner began her professional career as a French teacher and school librarian, in Idaho, Washington, and New York. She traveled for 10 years as a storyteller and workshop leader, mostly in the U.S., but also in Europe, the UK, and Canada. After moving to Canada, she spent 13 years as an organic farmer, small-scale rancher, and, when she realized community organizing was really about stories, a community developer. After serving as the first Project Coordinator for HEAL (Healthy Eating and Active Living in Northern British Columbia), she moved to Oakland, California to be storytelling director for Stagebridge (America’s oldest senior theatre troupe). She returned to BC to take on the post of food and health manager for Interior Health. She now lives in the beautiful Okanagan Valley and focuses full-time on storytelling and writing. She has three blogs on the go: Story Route, Catching Courage, and Crossroads.

Q&A with Cathryn Wellner, Question 1:

Q: On your bio page, you talk about transitioning from a performance storyteller to an organizational storytelling consultant: “Then I realized the secret. It was all about stories. I was in a rural community that needed to be able to tell compelling stories to urban bureaucrats, politicians, project funders, and its own citizens.” How did you come to this realization? Can you elaborate on how you applied your experience as a performance storyteller to your new career? Do you still do any performance storytelling?

A: The realization was not instantaneous. For the first while, I had the usual worries: Someone would find out I was actually a storyteller masquerading as a community developer. Then it would be game up.

What happened instead was that I began to insert stories into presentations and to use storytelling techniques to prepare reports. It wasn’t long before I was seen as a storytelling community developer. Or was it a community organizing storyteller?

As a performer, I’d always loved that moment when the room goes still, when it almost feels as if everyone in the room is breathing together. When I added stories to my community development presentations or used the narrative arc to frame a report, I experienced that same stillness, that total attention.

From that point on, my performance storytelling has taken a back seat. I still do it occasionally, sometimes as a guest who’s asked to tell a few stories, sometimes in performance. But my focus has been on storytelling as a means of sharing the extraordinary work done by people and organizations working for the good of community.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Somewhat regularly, I hear practitioners espouse the idea that storytelling must be a required skill for businesspeople. Among the champions of this notion are Lori Silverman, Karen Dietz, and Gary Vaynerchuk.

Now add Ron Weisinger, principal of development for LINKS Consulting, to the chorus. In an article entitled Storytelling: The New HR Competency, Weisinger writes:

I’ve learned to use storytelling as a … powerful and persuasive tool that continually serves me as an HR business partner and leadership coach. Storytelling has become part of my toolbox and is every bit as effective and important a competency as some of the more traditional ones that define an effective HR professional.

Weisinger goes on to tell two stories about stories — illustrating how he has used storytelling to:

• Explain his presence as an HR director at a design meeting (In many companies, HR is not considered integral to business profitability).
• Catalyze an organizational-change program.

I am inclined to quibble that stories Weisinger cites are not so much stories as questions that incite narrative thinking in their audiences. He nevertheless succeeds in illustrating the value of storytelling in HR, and indeed, in business.

I also love this point he makes:

How many times has a leader complained about the lack of progress with an organizational change initiative or the effectiveness of a desired “cultural transformation”? Those frustrations are often rooted in two factors. First is the mistaken notion that organizations change and/or cultures transform. They don’t. People do. So when a leader is frustrated with the pace or quality of organizational change what s/he is really saying is that people aren’t behaving in the intended way.

That’s one of the points I attempted to make in my doctoral dissertation — that organizational change is rooted in individual change; thus, individuals not only need change skills but need the ability to tell stories that illustrate their change skills.

[Thanks to Terrence Gargiulo for making me aware of this article.]

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

It’s been a little while since I wrote about one of my favorite storytelling topics, storytelling in the job search.

Storytelling especially lends itself to responding to questions in behavioral interviews, the style of interviewing that has grown in dominance over the last couple of decades and is based on the premise that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior and performance on the job.

Now, a new twist on behavioral interviewing is emerging. As reported by John Zappe on ERE.net, Carol Quinn, CEO of Hire Authority, calls this new style “motivation-based” interviewing.

It’s very similar to behavioral interviewing, but there’s a subtle twist. Here’s the example she gives, as reported by Zappe:

Interviewer question: Tell me about a time when you satisfied an irate customer.

“Every person can tell you about a time like that,” Quinn says. Instead, her motivation-based method would finesse the question along these lines:

It’s the coda to the question that makes the difference: How you did it and what you got out of it.

Zappe:

That may not sound like a big difference, but it does kick things up a notch. The “how you did it and what you got out of it” part isn’t as amenable to a formula. It also has the benefit of surprise, and that is something every job seeker wants to avoid in an interview.

What Zappe means about “a formula” is that thousands of career gurus (including me) have proffered content on the Internet and in books that advises job-seekers to follow a formula when telling stories in response to questions like this. The formulas are along the lines of Situation —> Action —> Result (SAR), Problem —> Action —> Result (PAR), and Challenge —> Action —> Result (CAR), but many other variations exist.

Quinn advises interviewers to “go after details and pursue how they responded to challenges, especially impossible obstacles.”

Zappe:

“High performers achieve better results despite the obstacles,” she says. “Low performers think the obstacles are responsible for not achieving the high performance.”

So, when telling stories in response to interview questions, be sure to tell how you overcame obstacles. And don’t whine about how obstacles impeded your performance. Perhaps a new acronym/formula could be: Situation —> Action —> Positive Overcoming of Obstacles —> Result, or SAPOOOR!

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

The third annual International Day for Sharing Life Stories is a week from Sunday — on May 16. The day’s Web site notes that last year more than 200 organizations in 20 countries around the world held activities to celebrate the day, and to call attention to countless life story organizations and projects.

To be honest, I find the event’s Web site not well designed and frustratingly hard to navigate. The site makes the statement: “Through hundreds of reports, audios, and videos that were posted on the website, we saw many practical examples of how life story expands the process of democratization and transformation of culture,” but I cannot find these “hundreds of reports, audios, and videos.” It also refers to a mysterious blog where this year’s events will be posted, but I can’t find it. Perhaps one has to be a member of the site to find that information.

Among the types of activities that have been part of the past two events and are encouraged for this year are:

• Story Circles in schools, community centers, homes, and churches
• Public open-microphone performances of stories
• Exhibitions of stories in public venues as image, text, and audio-visual materials
• Celebratory events to honor local storytellers, practitioners and organizations
• Open houses for organizations with a life-story sharing component
• Online simultaneous gatherings, postings, and story exchanges
• Print, radio and television broadcast programming on life stories, and documentaries that feature oral histories and story exchanges

The event is a collaboration between the International Network of Museums of the Person (Brazil, Portugal, USA and Canada) and the Center for Digital Storytelling (USA, Canada, Denmark, South Africa), the founder and director of which, Joe Lambert, said of International Day for Sharing Life Stories:

The interest and excitement in life story work continues to grow. Everywhere our organization has traveled in the last year, China, Guatemala, Korea, and India, from the frozen tundra of the Canadian Arctic to the tropical forests of the Congo, we are seeing greater and greater interest in our methods of practice. We are also witnessing the development of new methods of capturing and sharing stories, and new approaches to using the stories to promote social change and democracy. Despite the struggle of working through this period of the international financial crisis, people are coming to see that listening to each others’ life stories is central to the development of cohesive societies.

Organizers note that the day is “an opportunity for you and your organization to meet to share stories with others from around the world.”

Will you be participating in International Day for Sharing Life Stories, and if so, how?

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of David, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with David Kennedy, Question 6:

Q: You write in a blog entry listing three ways storytelling and social media are alike: “Both offer the opportunity to follow characters. Admit it, we stick with stories or visit social media profiles because we enjoy seeing what the characters there do next.” What are some ways people can develop their “characters” in social media? Should people keep “personal branding” in mind when presenting their “characters” in social media?

A: You should keep personal branding in mind when you engage in social media. You can really paint a picture of who you are there. But don’t just jump onto social media because you think you should. Do it because you are passionate about something. Then share that.

As you develop your character, keep these things in mind:

Genuineness trumps all else. Be who you are, not who you think you should be. That also means that if you establish your character as a “biker type,” you probably shouldn’t flip the switch one day and become the “super mom type” That is unless your the biker/super-mom type. :)

Be human. That means be courteous and thank people. Share your work and the work of others you admire. Remember, it’s not all about you.

Don’t be completely predictable. People follow characters to see what they do next. Throw a surprise out there every once in awhile. You’ll seem more genuine.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of David, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, and Part 3.

Q&A with David Kennedy, Question 5:

Q: What future trends or directions to do foresee for story/storytelling/narrative? What’s next for the discipline?

A: The web is really driving storytelling now. It has changed everything. Television, newspapers, books and word of mouth have all begun a fast-paced evolution because of it. All these traditional and modern-day storytelling avenues will continue to change at a rapid rate. Here are my two big predictions and observations:

Stories will continue to become more “collaborative.” The web has connected us like nothing has before. As more people gain Internet access, thanks to mobile technology, the stories of society as a whole, of organizations, of brands, of individuals and the stories we tell for pure entertainment will become more of a organic, team-like process. The ability of any of these types of stories to exist on their own has long since gone. Different messages and values will intermingle with all of these, creating communities, small and large all over the world. The ability of stories to have a true, powerful impact will depend upon how well a community’s different authors embrace each other as co-creators.

People will demand “honesty” from stories. Again, the Internet has connected people in new and incredible ways. It’s easier than ever to ferret out the truth because we now have the wisdom of the crowd. I’m not just speaking about non-fiction and journalistic stories when I say honesty either. It’s harder and harder to hide the truth because of the wisdom of crowds, but it’s also more difficult than ever to tell a story (that really reaches a lot of people, and makes an impact) without putting some “heart” into it. So, honesty also means sincerity in this case as well.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of David, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, and Part 2.

Q&A with David Kennedy, Questions 3 and 4:

Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?

A: Think about it. Stories are how we communicate and how we’ve always communicated. Cave paintings came about as one of the first ways humans told their stories and the Internet is no different from that. One of my colleagues, Paul Wagner, calls Wikipedia society’s digital cave paintings. So in a sense, we’ve come full circle. Stories work.

They resonate because they are part of us, and our history. There’s a tremendous amount of information available today, thanks to the web. So people grasp the things that truly mean something to them. Most of the time, that’s a story. Stories have characters, emotion, twist and turns. More importantly, a good story gives us context, more meaning than most forms of communication.

Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

A: Embrace your own story. Without it, your are lost. If you are lost, you can’t tell stories very well at all.

And realize your story is a process. Trust it. Sometimes, you won’t have a clue as to where your own plot is headed, but hey, isn’t that fun? I think it’s glorious. Because there are never any right or wrong words in YOUR story. The only thing that matters is what you take away from each twist and turn.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See a photo of David, his bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with David Kennedy, Question 2:

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: I wrote a book in the second grade about my Dad and his time in the U.S. Air Force. It mixed truth and fiction, and included my own illustrations. We created our own book covers and bound the books as well, so in the end, it was like a real book.

Looking back, I was enamored by the notion that I could string 26 characters into words, sentences and paragraphs that made sense, and took readers on a journey. I’ve always been a dreamer, embarking on journeys of my own, so I want to enable people to do the same. And that’s really what I love about stories and narrative — the idea that people can go on a journey and learn something that could potentially change them in a dramatic way.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I was drawn to David Kennedy because his academic path — with storytelling at its center — is not unlike my own PhD program. He also grew up in DeLand, FL, where I lived for the last 18 years before moving to Kettle Falls, WA. This Q&A with him will run for the next five days.

Bio: David A. Kennedy is a multimedia specialist with a master’s degree in interactive media from Elon University. He was born in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and has worked as both a journalist and copywriter, writing for magazines, newspapers and corporations. Nothing enthralls him more than a good story, so he writes, hoping to enthrall others. To find out more about him and his work, visit his website and his blog, (e)INTERtain.

Q&A with David Kennedy, Question 1:

Q: You are pursuing my master’s degree in interactive media from Elon University. To what extent has storytelling been part of your master’s program? You list some possible fields you might want to get into upon your upcoming graduation. How is that thinking developing, and to what extent do you feel storytelling will be part of your future work?

A: I chose to pursue this degree because storytelling exists at its core. I originally wanted to obtain a MFA in creative writing. But every time I tried to finally decide on that path, it didn’t feel right. And I couldn’t shake that. Until I discovered Elon’s program.

To me, interactive media represents storytelling’s future. I wanted to be a part of that. I’m not saying creative writing is a dead form of storytelling either. I still get out my pen and write poetry or song lyrics longhand. But creative writing is just one aspect of interactive media, and to take on the challenge in integrating images, audio and technical tools with writing, my first love… well, it’s a challenge I couldn’t resist.

Look at my multimedia portfolio; there’s a story in every one of those projects. It’s at the core of how we communicate.

I graduate May 20, and don’t have a clear path in front of me yet. But I know, no matter what, storytelling will be at the center of whatever I do. Whether it’s multimedia journalism, digital public relations, educational technology or something else, I can’t not tell a story. I’m a writer at heart, but all writers are storytellers.

Paul Auster, one of my favorite authors, said this: “Becoming a writer is not a “career decision” like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don’t choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you’re not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.”

No matter what, I’ll keep walking that road.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

An ongoing emphasis here on A Storied Career has been defining story and examining how important it is to do so. For some, definitions aren’t important at all; for others, they are vitally important. (For a practitioner “conversation” about defining story, see this downloadable document: DefiningStory.pdf).

In a short new, visually stunning video, Terrence Gargiulo explores the beginnings, middles, and ends that, for many, define stories — but he takes that structure a step further to address the idea of making sense out of organizational discombobulation. Here’s how he captions the video:

Are things falling apart all around you? Have you been hit with discombobulation? This fast paced video turns our prevalent notions of sense making on its head. It’s always bothered me that when we talk about story we usually talk about stories requiring Beginnings, Middles, and Ends. I don’t disagree. I’ve finally been able to put my finger on what I felt compelled to articulate…

Watch and see what discombobulation, stories, and a new way of thinking about stories adds to your current way of thinking about them. Then be sure to add your voice to the conversation, after all stories beg us to co-create with each other.

What’s your response to Terrence’s “new way of thinking about stories?”

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.