Cautionary Tales for Business

Sometimes storytelling that teaches a lesson is inadvertent. It’s not intended as “business narrative” or one of Steve Denning’s springboard stories meant to spark change. It’s just good reporting and writing that tells a story that provides a lesson businesses can learn from. Want to convey the lesson that you … Continue reading

Moon Landing Stories

I don’t have a good moon-landing story. Forty years ago, I was 15. I watched the grainy, black-and-white video of the landing on a snowy, black-and-white TV. I always associate the moon landing — for some reason — with the Miracle Mets of 1969 and with my fervent participation that … Continue reading

What Is Storymapping?

I’ve mentioned storymapping before but am now seeing enough new material on the subject that a definition seems in order. The blog Emerging Upstate Arts Professionals describes what storymapping, a project of The Center for Digital Storytelling, is: Essentially, “storymapping” is a method of reclaiming the dialogue and character of … Continue reading

Using Story to Teach [Hi]story

Clay Burrell says history isn’t learned, but story changes that problem. He suggests scrambling “the major periods of history in a random cluster on the board or a handout: “Medieval Period,” “Cold War,” “Roman Empire,” “Enlightenment,” “Age of Exploration,” “Classical Greece,” “Industrial Revolution,” “Greek Heroic Age/Trojan War,” “Renaissance,” “Sumer,” “Solomon … Continue reading

Three Interesting Story Prompts

Whether we are storytellers, story practitioners, journalers, writers, bloggers, memoirists, or just folks seeking personal growth and self-actualization, we can always use good story prompts for inspiration. Here are three I liked that I came across recently: Tell the story of the most inspiring, influential storyteller you’ve known. This one … Continue reading

Storytelling: Key to Our Species’ Survival

Why did homo sapiens survive while Neanderthals didn’t? Thriller novelist Lee Child wrote not long ago that it was because homo sapiens developed language. “But then something strange happened,” Child wrote. “We invented fiction. We started talking about things that hadn’t happened to people that didn’t exist.” Speculating, based on … Continue reading