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.
Kathy: Honored to see my name on your blog. Gregg Morris is a terrific resource on the various directions storytelling is coming from in contemporary America. Gregg and I had a couple of long chats about storytelling which he was kind enough to post as audio interviews on his blog. I do voice-overs for a living and I’ve gotten hooked on L.A.’s storytelling slams http://www.themoth.org/ They’re great entertainment - real people telling real stories on stage, and the competitive aspect is great fun (I’m telling a story in next Tuesday night’s The Moth Grand Slam Story Championship at EchoPlex - a rock’n’roll club in Los Angeles on the theme of “Big Breaks.” I had lunch recently with Jennifer Hixon, The Moth Producer of the New York Story Slams, and I told her The Moth has added so much to my life. I asked her how a non-profit storytelling organization like The Moth can stay alive in today’s economy, let alone thrive and grow as it is while charging low ticket prices at all its venues. She said, “We’ve been around long enough that Fortune 500 marketing execs have become acquainted with our shows and have come knocking on our doors asking, ‘Could you send some Moth folks our way to teach us how to tell our corporate story?’” (There’s now a “Corporate” button on The Moth’s website.) Upon hearing this, the other shoe dropped for me. I find the national storytelling movement and its iterations fascinating - the convergence of personal memoir, old fashioned tales well-told, with the needs of individuals and corporations to tell their stories, and thus get some clarity on who they are, where they’ve been, and where they’re going. And in your business I have no doubt there’s a new importance for job-seeking clients to be able to tell their story succinctly (you get five minutes at The Moth contests before the hook comes out) and with clarity, without making the interviewer yearn for an intermission. Love your site. Thanks for the service. Bill Ratner, Los Angeles