I curate organizational storytelling, business narrative, career storytelling, and job-search storytelling using Scoop-it. You can see the curation here or in the widget embedded below:

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

When I was teaching, I was so appalled at the prices of college textbooks that I used an assortment of popular-press books instead of texts.

I knew from Walter Isaacson’s bio of Steve Jobs that Jobs, too, was appalled, and one of the next things on his agenda was to revolutionize textbook publishing the way he revolutionized the recording industry.

With the announcement today of the (free!) iBooks Author app, the fulfillment of that part of Jobs’s legacy has begun. And as soon as I heard it, I knew I wanted to organize a crowdsourced (and probably peer-reviewed) textbook on applied storytelling, focusing especially on organizational/business narrative and brand storytelling.

How awesome would it be if some of the luminaries of storytelling each contributed a chapter to such a textbook?

Stay tuned for more on this idea as it burbles through my brain. You might just be receiving a Request for Proposal soon.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

When Raf Stevens first challenged me to present more examples of good storytelling two years ago this month, I scarcely imagined I would later get involved in his effort to produce an important new ebook in the applied-storytelling space.

I had criticized the lack of storytelling quality among the winners of a slideshow contest, and Raf wanted to know what elements would have contributed to better stories. Raf’s question sent me on a quest that resulted in at least seven blog posts in which I explored the question of what makes a good story — especially in presentations.

Now, in his just released ebook, No Story No Fans, Raf devotes a whole chapter to what makes a good story.

I’m honored to have played a small part in this book’s development; I wish I had done more. Raf asked me to do several things for the book that I ended up not doing, but I think other shining stars in the story world did those things better than I would have.

Raf has created a remarkable compendium on the value of storytelling as “the New Trade.” In an attractive, accessible, reader-friendly volume with many extras (such as QR codes!), he frames the book as “start of a conversation” rather than a how-to; yet he offers tons of how-to suggestions.

Raf also includes the thought leadership of the most brilliant luminaries in the storytelling world. The chapter on the ROI of storytelling is a treasure unto itself.

Here are 10 ways this book really stood out for me:

1. Its generosity of spirit. I have found that most story practitioners freely give away their work and ideas. Raf does so with No Story No Fans, as illustrated in the early oages of the book, where he writes, “You are given the unlimited right to spread this story. Feel free to copy parts from this book or to distribute it via email, your website, or any other means. You can print out or scan pages and put them in your favourite coffee shop’s windows or your doctor’s waiting room. You can transcribe my words onto the sidewalk, or you can hand out copies to everyone you meet.” He also gives away a preview of the book on its Web site.
2. Some of the best-known and highly touted books about using story in business are surprisingly light on … stories. The same cannot be said of Raf’s book, which offers a cornucopia of stories.
3. Bulleted lists of lessons in red type provide easily digestible how-to information.
4. Chapter 3 about what makes up a good story is must reading for anyone interested in applied storytelling. Raf uses excellent examples to vividly illustrate what makes a good story. He also quotes participants in my Q&A series on how they define story.
5. Raf nicely sums up each chapter with an “elevator pitch” at the end.
6. Case studies in Chapter 4 illustrate some of the many ways story can be used effectively in business.
7. Raf introduces his own model for storytelling, The Matryoshka Principle, based on nested Matryoshka dolls: “Like the nested dolls, re-storying your company, or even yourself, can only be successful if you take all layers of the power of storytelling into consideration.”
8. Raf teaches practitioners to get at those layers through exercises.
9. The book’s “checklist to help you design your (bigger) story” is a gem, though I wish it were longer.
10. The list of “7 bullet points on why storytelling is useful in a business context” in the penultimate chapter sums up why this book is so valuable; through the learning gained in No Story No Fans, practitioners can apply stories to each of these contexts.

The site for No Story No Fans is also a terrific new resource, with lots of ways to connect and learn, including extended book content.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Here are two resources that convey a point of view about storytelling in audiovisual fashion.

My friend Karen Dietz turned me on to the 15-minute video, The Arc of Storytelling, noting:

Run, don’t walk to watch this incredibly inspiring video about what we are all searching for in our storytelling.

Even though Bobette Buster is speaking about the entertainment industry, her words are incredibly important to anyone who is crafting and sharing their business stories.

Bobette talks about the most powerful stories (and this applies to our biz stories) being ones showing transformation, becoming fully alive, and offering hope. When we think about stories in marketing/branding we often forget these fundamentals. The majority of ‘business story’ videos I watch these days totally miss these themes and end up being more like digital brochures than real compelling stories that build a growing cadre of loyal customers.

But think about this for businesses: a founding story of an organization is often about being faced with a challenge and overcoming it — that is showing transformation and offering hope to others.

Business stories about people (customers/staff) and the obstacles they’ve overcome + the results produced offer the same messages.

I could go on and on. It’s better to just watch the 15-minute video. Bobette talked 2 years ago at the Storytelling in Organization’s Special Interest Group (SIO SIG) and was masterful. The book The Uses of Enchantment she cites was a textbook in my PhD program. I’m currently reading Inside Story: The Power of the Transformative Arc, and it dovetails nicely with Bobette’s talk. I hope you get inspired and lots of ideas by watching this.

The other is a Prezi slideshow by Peter Fruhmann called Use your narrative space: How to make better use of stories in organisations by collecting, connecting and sharing.

The presentation offers for steps for telling the right organizational story: 1) Listen/Collect, the step Fruhmann spends the most time on; 2) Analyze; 3) Synchronize; and 4) Tell/Connect.

He also proposes a 3D matrix (at left) he calls the Narrative Space of the Organization.

Both of these presentations are worth your while.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Lou Hoffman’s telling infographic has been making the rounds this week. In the blog post in which he introduced it, he writes: “… we contend there’s often a gap between the content developed by the PR function and the type of content needed by journalists, bloggers and other influencers. Our infographic strives to capture this disconnect.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

The other day, I saw that Park Howell had posted a new slideshow on SlideShare about how to craft a story. As he has in the past, he also posted excellent and comprehensive Speaker’s Notes so the slideshow makes sense without narration. I was excited because I was already including Park’s suggested story structure (see this post) in my upcoming workbook to accompany my book Tell Me About Yourself, and the presentation would provide an additional resource for readers. I especially liked the fact that he was talking about three-minute stories, which are only a bit longer than what I recommend in a job-interview situation.

But then yesterday — even better — he posted a 15-minute video of himself delivering the presentation. What a rich combo — slideshow, speaker’s notes, and the actual presentation. The presentation, embedded below, includes a hilarious storied commercial Park’s firm created. (The embedding isn’t working as I publish this post, but you can click on the link below where the embedded video should be.)

The presentation builds on what he’s been doing for a while now, inspired to some extent by the writing of Donald Miller. Some of his posts that show the background and evolution of these ideas include:

• Review of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

Park’s two posts based on attending one of Miller’s Storyline seminars

• My next chapter opens on Donald Miller’s “Storyline Conference”
• Write, create, produce, and 12 other ways to develop a better storyline for your life

In his blog post about the presentation (which took place at the annual International Super Rally of Forever Living Products, Park talks about the training he conducted:

Storytelling workbooks were handed out to what’s essentially the United Nations of network marketing. Forever Living is the world’s largest grower, manufacturer and distributor of aloe vera-based health and beauty products; a $2.5 billion operation with millions of Horatio Alger stories the world over. Our job was to help these distributors bring their unique experiences to life… in three minutes or LESS.

Using the workbooks, the audience outlined their stories as the training progressed. Some of the Forever faithful even found the gumption to come on stage and share their journeys to demonstrate the power of well-told tales.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

My story-practitioner friends are at it again — creating and offering wonderful resources to story fans like me. Here are three from this week:

In the magazine The Executive, Lori Silverman and Karen Dietz have published Let it Grow, Let it Grow, Let it Grow: Gaining Members Through Telling Stories, about how associations can use stories to add members. On Facebook, Lori indicated a willingness to provide the article as a PDF.

Two more of my story buds have converged in a podcast this week on Blog Talk Radio, Storytelling with StoryMojo Michael Margolis, hosted by Trey Pennington. Here’s the description:

Michael Margolis helps entrepreneurs tell powerful stories. We’ll be talking about his newest educational, transformational program The New About Me.

Learn How to Transform Your Bio Into a Distinctive Story

The New About Me is an Online Toolkit that teaches you step-by-step how to tell and share your personal story online without the need for bragging, boasting, or hiding. You’ll emerge with a new bio story that you can use on your “About” page, LinkedIn, Facebook, and all the places where you need to talk about yourself.

Every successful person and every successful business has an amazing story — we always remember their story, don’t we? You too have a story that is the key to attracting clients, making money, and getting the recognition you deserve. I know the power of your story and I want to help you find that story so you can create the real impact you’re here to make. It’s time to play big, isn’t it?

The episode is embedded below:

The third goodie isn’t new — it’s from 2009 — but Karen Dietz newly brought it to my attention. It’s a white paper, Project Management & Stories by Camper Bull of Armiger International and Terrence Gargiulo on Scribd. As sometimes happens with Scribd, the site wanted me to either upload something of my own or pay for the privilege of downloading this paper; however, one can easily read it onscreen. Here’s what Karen said about it:

OK — you are working on a project with others, whether it be in a company you are working in, or as a business owner with other colleagues. How do you keep the project flowing? Knowing how to use stories in the various stages of project management is key. Read the complete guide here (it’s even downloadable).

Thanks to friend and colleague Terrence Garguilo for putting this article together and so generously sharing it with us.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

My friend Karen Dietz has a whole flurry of story activity going on under the new brand “Just Story It.”

She has rebranded her Web site from the former Polaris Associates to Just Story It, offering tools, videos, and e-books for tips, strategies, skill building, and resources.

She’s also offering a free Story IQ Assessment to measure storytelling skills, knowledge of how/why stories work, and awareness about applications for story in business. Karen says each part takes about three minutes to complete.

1. Storytelling skills
2. Story knowledge about how and why stories works
3. Awareness about story applications in business life

I haven’t taken the assessment yet. I’m scared. What if it turns out I’m a story moron after all this time?

Karen also has a Facebook page for Just Story It and a Scoop.it curation, the best articles from across the web that she can find on using stories and storytelling in business. “I’ve chosen them,” she says, “because they actually make a contribution to our knowledge and wisdom about stories, show us how to apply stories to growing our business, or give valuable how-to tips.” I’m curious about what keywords Karen uses for her curation because her finds don’t seem to overlap much with those in my own organizational storytelling Scoop.it curation.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I am often dumbfounded at the richness and generosity of resource offerings by story practitioners. Notable is my good friend Terrence Gargiulo, who has made many white papers available on the Scribd site.

These are all invaluable resources for story practitioners and people like me who follow story. With one exception, they are free. For awhile there, Scribd was wanting me to either upload something of my own in exchange for downloading or wanted to charge me, but that seems to have stopped.

Here are some of Terrence’s recent treasures:

Framework for Story-Based Consulting provides a detailed analysis of nine functions of stories and their unique effects. Originally derived in 1992 this framework guides all of MAKINGSTORIES.net’s consulting work. This paper is shared in response to people’s request to understand how Terrence crafts interventions. It is not intended to be a “How to,” piece. Links to complimentary and fee based resources/guides/tools are offered at the end of this paper.

Tell to Win and Win and Win: A cautionary tale and a traffic light system for business storytellers (co-authored with Graham Williams of The Halo and the Noose): In response to a recent emphasis on a storytelling-to-win focus (which, the authors say, “carries some potential for misuse — to manipulate others into doing what you want, telling in order to serve self” and to be “tools for the Machiavellian, narcissistic, even sociopathic. (a noose),” the authors propose “a self‐regulatory traffic light system for storytellers.”

In Bringing Corporate Social Responsibility to Life Through Storytelling, Terrence and Daniel Korschun, PhD, propose that “stories provide an ideal platform upon which stakeholders can interpret [corporate social responsibility] in uniquely meaningful ways.” They present case studies of companies that are “bringing [corporate social responsibility] to life through stories.”

The most exciting (to me) gem is the one that carries a cost. Given that Building An Index of Personal Stories: A Simple Guide to Mining Your Stories is a 36-page ebook, the $7.95 price tag is a bargain. In this fantastic guide the emphasis is truly in the personal; Terrence provides dozens and dozens of questions/prompts for getting at personal stories, I can see these being used for multiple purposes, such as memoir, journaling, sharing stories with children and grandchildren. But I can also see using the sets of questions for self-assessment/actualization — even healing and avoiding repeating destructive patterns. By looking at early influences — hobbies, school experiences, teachers, you can learn a great deal about yourself and even think about career paths.

Terrence provides lists of questions/prompts on 21 topics. The “Time in the Spotlight” chapter would generate excellent fodder for self-esteem, as well as for mining accomplishments for resumes, cover letters, and job interviews.

The ebook is a must-have.

Finally, I’ve already written about Terrence’s superb An Analysis of a Storied Approach to Crafting Influential Messages.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Some extraordinary work has emerged recently on ways to elicit stories in organizational settings. Here are some highlights:

In 7 Tips for Finding Stories in Your Organization, Thaler Pekar offers tips especially geared to nonprofits but applicable to other organizations as well:

1. Ask about moments of emotion.
2. Ask for the stories behind the words.
3. Plot stories on a timeline.
4. Ask for superlatives.
5. Play with objects.
6. Use visuals.
7. Create a living circle.

Love Heidi Cohen’s rich list of 29 prompting questions particularly for getting at a brand. Here are the first six:

1. How did your company start? Think in terms of your firm’s “once upon a time”.
2. What adversities did the company overcome, either in its early days or at some other critical point?
3. What’s a day in the life of your company like?
4. How did your company do something positive to make life better for its community or customers?
5. What did your company do to pitch in for a local problem? Think of Walmart’s effectiveness during Katrina.
6. Does your firm have a special association with a particular holiday? This doesn’t mean a sales promotion.

The Sparknow blog offers Five Great Questions to Elicit Stories, which I especially like because they would work equally well for individuals mining for accomplishments for various job-search communications (resumes, cover letters, interviews):

Tell me about a time when… Tell me about a moment when…

• you or your team faced a dilemma
• you or your team experienced a significant turning point
• you took a real risk and it paid off or didn’t pay off
• you encountered an obstacle and overcame it
• you saw positive changes happen as a result of your work

Finally, in Tapping Intuition: A Key Is Storytelling, Denice R Hinden tells the story of eliciting stories from a client organization. Here’s the pivotal moment:

We spent a few minutes on “what is organizational culture” and explained we were going to tell the organization’s creation story. We prompted the group with, “Why was the organization created? One person shared and others added to it. Then we asked, “Who founded the organization?” And “What were the founder’s motivations and background?” With each question another part of the organization’s story got into the room, like a puzzle taking shape. People that had been quiet all evening got the courage to share and you could hear a lot of “wow I didn’t know that” and “that just helped me understand something I see happening in the organization today.” We also asked the group to talk about “What actually happened to form the organization (the details of it getting started).” That surfaced a very painful part of the organization’s story, and people said we don’t want to talk about that. We made a note to come back to that in the next meeting when we will be talking about “survival stories,” another part of the ROC process … The last question we had time for was, “What was happening in the broader world (i.e., social, economic and demographic trends at the time)?” Someone in the group said, more importantly what was happening in our own community? Getting that into the room created more insight as well. The reflections on the times said a lot about how this organization came together when it did. Our questions and the stories the group shared brought to the surface elements of the organization’s history that had been forgotten and that many of the new people in the room never even knew. These included elements of deep passion, tireless hard work, hard choices, nurturing students, involving families, and so on. The short stories each person shared came together to create a whole new appreciation for what the organization is and how it got to be that way. There was a fresh buzz and the feedback was we made an important breakthrough that will surely help the group with its planning this time around.

I was especially intrigued because I’ve recently revived my interest in intuition. Here’s how intuition came into this process, Hinden relates:

Defenses went down and intuition opened up. The stories created awareness at a level that everyone in the room could identify with. There was a new found “knowing” about the organization that was buried under the surface because the group didn’t have a common way to share it before. The creation stories changed that. The power of the stories was evidenced in the openness that continued into the post meeting conversation.

[Image credit: Help My People Tell]

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.