Periodically I like to do a roundup of storytelling goodies from the generous world of applied storytelling. Fans, students, and practitioners in this field can build a nice little library of white papers, ebooks, tools, checklists, online videos, and much more without spending a dime. It would be fun to look at every post I’ve ever done on these freebies and discover just what a treasure trove it is.
Here are the goodies I’ve come across recently:
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- Sample chapter of Storytelling Pocketbook by Roger Edward
Jones: This 16-page, user-friendly excerpt from the larger book of the same name discusses the power of storytelling in business, why we need to tell more stories, where stories beat facts, common objections to storytelling (that’s something that doesn’t get much discussion and is a welcome topic), and an exercise on becoming a story detective. - A Checklist for Business Leaders on Introducing Organisational Storytelling into Your Organisation from Australia’s onethousandandone consultancy. The one-page downloadable PDF offers important principles for deploying storytelling in an organization.
- Sample chapter of Storytelling Pocketbook by Roger Edward
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- Story Juice: How Ideas Spread and Brands Grow, a colorful, reader-friendly, 85-page free ebook by Julie Fuoti and Lisa Johnson of The Grapevine Group. See the foreword; here’s a snippet below:
When brands and businesses add a missing story ingredient the authors have dubbed — Story Juice — it’s transformative. … it has “juice” (excitement, energy, movement and possibility).
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- Lifescapes Handbook: A guide for creating a writing program for senior citizens: Tons of ideas, tools, prompts, and resources populate this 95-page downloadable ebook that tells how to start a writing program for elders, including how participants can write memoirs. Includes reproducible handouts.
- The Story Behind The Gift, from Norma Cameron of The Narrative Company, a wonderful three-page handout that guides nonprofit fundraisers in collecting and sharing “legacy stories” so “that those who receive the benefit of the gift will know a little about the donors and why they decided to be so generous to [the] organization.” Read more about The Power of Legacy Stories
- How to Use Powerful Storytelling, a five-video series from Michael Margolis. I don’t usually promote items I haven’t previewed, but I trust Michael. Users who give their names are promised “instant access” to the videos, but first they have to wait for email confirmation. When they click on the link in the email, they are told the videos aren’t ready yet (at least at this writing), but offered a downloadable copy of Michael’s popular Believe Me storytelling manifesto, while I already have. I don’t know how long the videos are, but the topics are “Stand Out from the Crowd,” “Against All Odds,” “The Ultimate Question,” “The Re-Storying the Future,” and “Get It Now.”
