I could not be more pleased to present the second in my series of Q&A interviews with story practitioners. This interview is with Jessica Lipnack, whom I first encountered early in this decade through her expertise in virtual teams, another one of my interests. I read her book (co-authored with … Continue reading
Author Archives: KatHansen
Dog’s Gonna Die (Mad Men Spoiler Alert)
There’s a storytelling convention in TV and movie scriptwriting that I really don’t like. If a dog — or a cat or horse, but most often a dog — is introduced into the plot, there is a better than 50-50 chance that the animal will die as part of the … Continue reading
More on Stories and Health
Here are two sites that offer slightly different takes on storytelling and health: Healing Story Alliance is a special interest group of the National Storytelling Network that “explore[s] and promote[s] the use of storytelling in healing. Our goal for this special interest group is to share our experience and our … Continue reading
Q&A with a Story Guru: Molly Catron
I’m delighted to initiate this series of interviews with some of the gurus of both performance and applied storytelling. First up is Molly Catron, whom I had the pleasure of hearing speak at the 2005 Golden Fleece Conference. Read more about her below. Bio: Molly Catron left her day job … Continue reading
Two Views on Leadership Stories
Susan Scanlon writes about the Leadership Story in The Type Reporter, a newsletter about [Myers-Briggs] personality type “and how it affects you in all stages of life.” Her husband, John, developed the concept of the Leadership Story, “a narrative that excites people about what you stand for.” John, she said, … Continue reading
Q&A Series Begins Tomorrow!
My five-question interviews with some of the best-known folks in both applied and performance storytelling will commence Tuesday, Sept. 1. Eighteen practitioners are featured in these Q&As: Molly Catron, Terrence Gargiulo, Jon Hansen, Loren Niemi, Gabrielle Dolan, John Caddell, Shawn Callahan, David Vanadia, Svend-Erk Engh, Sharon Lippincott, Tom Clifford, Ardath … Continue reading
What is the Purpose of Storytelling?
In the blog The Mythology of Humanity, “jessaslade” recently mused about the purpose of storytelling and listed: To achieve immortality, of deeds and for the storyteller To explain otherwise senseless phenomena To entertain/educate To moralize/terrify To beta test new versions of reality To exorcise* the imagination To land a movie … Continue reading
The End of a Story … and a Beginning
In 1991, my mother came to visit my family in Tallahassee. The first words out of her mouth were, “Elly had her baby!” An outside observer might have thought she was talking about a mutual family friend or a relative. But she was talking about Elly Patterson, protagonist and centerpiece … Continue reading
Identifying Your “Only-ness” as a Job-Seeker
Rebecca Ruby wrote recently about the importance to nonprofit organizations of differentiating themselves, finding their “only-ness” (I think uniqueness is a better term). As often happens, I couldn’t help adapting Ruby’s formula for job-seekers (sorry it’s a little blurry; it didn’t reduce as well as I would have liked): Then … Continue reading
And One More “About” Story I Really Like
I’ve been writing recently about telling organizational stories in “About Us” pages, but, of course, “About Me” pages, seen most often in blogs, serve a similar purpose and come off best when told in story form (which I realize this blog’s “About Kathy Hansen” really doesn’t. Must fix that). In … Continue reading