What Happens When Everyone Has the Power to Tell the Story?

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That’s what We Media and Ashoka’s Changemakers are asking in a Power of Us contest that has a Jan. 21 deadline. The sponsors describe the competition as …

… the search to find the best new ideas for inspiring a better world through media and technology. We are looking for business and non-profit venture ideas and will award $50,000 in seed funding to the innovators who can bring the best ideas to life. Submit your entries by January 21, 2009 6 pm EST

You can also read the 46 entries, many of them story-driven, that have been submitted as of this writing.

Changemakers.net also offers a section of stories. (I wish the site gave more context for these stories).

Changemakers, its web site says, “is building the world’s first global online ‘open source’ community that competes to surface the best social solutions, and then collaborates to refine, enrich, and implement those solutions.”

Digital Storytelling Exploded in 2008

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Karen Smith apparently conducts a poll through her blog, DIGITAL STORYTELLING — The home of e-folklore (the blog’s purpose is to “link together useful digital storytelling resources”), in which she discovered a 120 percent gain in the number of digital storytellers from last year to this year. Smith also reports a 200+ percent gain in digital-storytelling awareness. Smith notes that most of those polled who describe themselves as digital story “viewers” expressed interest in creating their own digital stories.

I was especially interested in — and perhaps a bit surprised by — the reasons for creating digital stories that Smith gleaned from her blog’s readers (I’m not sure if the order of these has any significance):

  1. family memories
  2. extraordinary events
  3. deep sorrow (e.g., death of a loved one)
  4. deep love (e.g., first kiss)
  5. business improvement (e.g., organizational conference focus)
  6. personal improvement through digital portfolio (e.g., the story of my career)
  7. love of pets
  8. personal expression (e.g., poetry)
  9. professional writing in multi-media for business
  10. news release (e.g., family news and events)

Most of the references to digital storytelling I see are in the context of either education or journalism. I guess that’s why the above list surprises me; most of the listed reasons for creating digital stories don’t fall into either category.

Smith’s poll affirms my belief that digital storytelling will continue to grow and will become increasingly important in the world of applied storytelling. It will also play a key role in the transformation of newspaper journalism and will continue to make inroads in the classroom.

I have a number of theories about the reasons behind the growth of digital storytelling — and applied storytelling in general, but one of them is simply that we have increasing numbers and types of technological tools to help tell these stories.

I still think of digital storytelling as slightly peripheral to my direct storytelling interests — or perhaps as a topical stream that runs parallel to applied storytelling. Digital storytelling isn’t so much a genre or form of applied storytelling as it is a medium for rendering storytelling. What do others think?

[Above illustration taken from http://dc-mrg.english.ucsb.edu/gradconf.html]

Addendum [added 12-29]: For those interested in getting into digital storytelling, the KQED Digital Storytelling Initiative offers a no-cost manual for download, The Art, Skill, Craft, and Magic of Digital Storytelling: A How-Come, How-To Guide, 2008 Edition, broken into chapters to download separately.

Another Addendum [added 01-16]: Another resource is an article in PDF from EduCause, 7 Things You Should Know About Digital Storytelling, 2008 Edition.

Simply the Best 2008 Entry in A Storied Career (?)

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I stumbled upon a group writing project at ConfidentWriting.com in which bloggers are asked to choose their best entry of 2008 and, in 30 words or fewer, finish the sentence, “This post is simply the best because ….”

I chose my post about an article in The American Scholar titled “The End of the Black American Narrative.”

This post is simply the best because it was intellectually challenging, thought-provoking, and reinforced by the election outcome. I stepped out of my comfort zone as a white woman writing about the black American narrative.

A Good Day for Stories of Random Acts of Kindness

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I was interested in learning more about Boxing Day, traditionally celebrated the day after Christmas in the UK and Commonwealth nations.

Wikipedia says Boxing Day “is based on the tradition of giving gifts to the less fortunate members of society.”

Thus, it’s a good day to read stories of Random Acts of Kindness at — where else? — The Random Acts of Kindness Home Page.

The site’s own story is intriguing. Site owner Duen Hsi Yen explains:

This site is dedicated to recognizing those beautiful, faceless, nameless people out there that do things that help out someone they don’t know, and never will.

Originally, this page was started in July of 1997 by Douglas W. Hull, when he was having a last walk with a dear friend of his. They were walking along the Portage river that divides Houghton from Hancock in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. While walking there together saying their goodbyes before he left her to seek his fame and fortune in Oulu, Finland, they came upon a small bottle, it just looked like a salt shaker, but they picked it up anyway. Upon closer inspection, they discovered that there was a message in the bottle. Just a little missive sent from one person to another, randomly.

Doug thought that he might like to tell people about the wonderful message that he had found. The Web seemed the perfect place for such a story. He had hoped that somebody had already created a Random Acts of Kindness home page. He searched but found none. His philosophy about the Web has been that if you are trying to find a page on a certain subject and you can not find one, it is somehow your duty to create one. Well, that’s how it got started!

Now Doug is very busy and so he indicated on his website that he did not have the time to maintain it and would someone out there please adopt the site. Then, in May 1999, while doing a search on “kindness,” I stumbled onto his website. It was love at first sight, and so I did my own Random Act of Kindness, sending him a note via email that I wished to adopt his site. He wrote back, indicating he didn’t want to give the site to just anyone, and had a whole list of questions to ask of me. Fortunately, practically all his questions were already answered by webpages that I had previously posted on my Malama website. So folks, that is how it got here.

The stories on the site are categorized by topic, and they seem to represent acts performed by the writer, acts performed to benefit the writer, and acts that the writer has observed. Most stories seem to appear anonymously. Once you are reading a story, you can continue reading the next story in the queue by simply clicking a “next story” button.

Here’s one that I found both touching and seasonal:

While living in New York some years ago I found out that there were thousands of letters addressed to Santa Claus North Pole at the Main Post Office in Manhattan. I was curious so I went and looked at some. Most of them were lists of toys that children wanted. But among the letters, I came upon a number that were so sad they made me cry. So I sent each child a telegram “Will be at your house. Wait for me. Santa”.

My wife made me a costume and I showed up. It was so wonderful that I did it for the next twelve years. I then moved to California. Some years ago I wrote the story for friends, I just called it “A Christmas Story” and somehow, the story had its own wings and went everywhere. Although I can’t make children happy any more I find that my story makes people feel good. How lucky can you get?

— Jay Frankston

A Christmas Wish for the Newspaper Industry, and especially The Alligator

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I was starting to read an article by Robin Good entitled, “How To Be Happy Without Becoming A Monk — 10 Things I Have Changed To Live A More Self-Directed Life,” but got no further than the first item:

Stop Being Dependent-Addicted To Old Media: Drop all time-wasting devices that you do not need anymore to realize your goals: phone, television, newspapers.

I suppose I could go back and read Good’s rationale, but I should end my addiction to these media just because they’re old? OK, phones I could happily do without (except for texting). TV would be harder; I’m less addicted than I used to be, but I still enjoy some viewing.

But regular readers will know that I am a newspaper reader, and my morning newspaper ritual is one of the few non-negotiables of my existence. Does this relaxing ritual of eating my breakfast while reading the newspaper help me realize my goals? I don’t know, but does everything we do have to help us realize our goals? Can’t we sometimes just relax, or vege out in front of the TV?

Things continue to get grimmer and grimmer every day for the newspaper industry. Seems like every day, we read of a new cutback (like the Detroit Free Press cutting home delivery to 3 days a week) or the death of a paper.

The difficult and changing state of newspapers also affects training grounds for journalists. One of the best experiences of my life was the time I spent as a staffer on The Independent Florida Alligator, the paper that serves the University of Florida and Gainesville communities. I felt a wonderful sense of belonging there, learned a ton, met my husband, and brought my infant daughter to work with me in the newsroom.

I recently learned that The Alligator is in crisis. No one applied to be its next editor, the first time in the paper’s history that that happened. I wrote an encouraging note to the staff urging them to hang in there, and recalling my great experience. I cannot tell you how many terrific careers in journalism I have seen launched at The Alligator.

It seemed at first blush that the Alligator staffers and would-be editors were discouraged by very low wages, but the current editor sent a note out to all the alumni like me who had sent cheery notes. Seems money’s not the issue; the problem is the Alligator’s inability to launch journalism careers anymore because of antiquated equipment and insufficient training for the increasingly video- and Web-driven world of newspaper journalism. The Alligator apparently no longer provides the kind of technical training that today’s journalists need. The editor told us that in addition to the no-new-editor-applicants dilemma, the paper is down to just five staffers.

Just as an aside, when I was at The Alligator in the 1980s, we wrote stories — not just on typewriters — but manual typewriters. You would think we would have faced some of the same issues — were we technologically savvy enough to type stories on computers given our training on manual typewriters? I never recall that being an issue. Typing is typing, I guess, while today’s Web and video technologies require more hands-on training.

Sometimes I think the best I can hope for is that newspapers will at least last through the rest of my lifetime. But I’d like them to last longer — or at least morph into a form people like me are comfortable with.

And I want The Alligator to last — to remain the wonderful and valuable experience I had. I want journalism students to see the paper as the top-notch career launchpad it was in “my day.” I don’t think Santa has anything in his bag to solve the paper’s problems this Christmas, but I would like to see what I and other Alligator alumni can do to play Santa to this venerable student-produced paper in 2009.

iTales: Identity Crisis?

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Since I’m trying to do holiday-themed entries this week, let’s file this one under “Possible gifts that I’m not sure I support.”

iTales appears to be a relatively new story site that is slick in appearance. Unlike most (if not all) the story sites I’ve cited in A STORIED CAREER, iTales sells stories.

At first glance, the stories appear to be more along the lines of performance storytelling (as opposed to personal narratives), and in fact, iTales offers a commission to performance storytellers who sell their tales on iTales.

I’m confused about the the audience for iTales. The page title on the site says: “Short Stories For Kids : Audio Stories : Children’s Activities : Travel With Kids : Children’s Bedtime Stories,” but nothing else on the main page indicates the site is targeted at children (or, more realistically, their parents).

In fact a press release about the site says (emphasis added):

iTales.com is a newly launched, global storytelling community dedicated to giving a 21st-century voice to generations of life experiences. With the help of MP3 technology and worldwide accessibility, iTales.com offers a user-generated platform for the ancient art of storytelling, giving it new life for a new millennium. iTales.com is now available as a user-friendly tool for professional and amateur storytellers to market their audio stories, as well as a rich resource for story enthusiasts of all ages and backgrounds.

And when you go to the site’s Hear a Story section, you see all kinds of categories beyond kids’ stories, including personal narratives.

Given the widespread availability of stories on the Internet, I wonder if people will pay for stories. Granted, the stories at iTales have low, iTunes-like prices (generally less than $2). I do like the fact that these are oral stories; those are much harder to find on the Web than written stories. But I also wonder whether it’s a good idea for, say, parents, to buy stories for their children instead of telling or reading stories to them.

Another Perspective on Holiday Time …

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I’ve written the last couple of days about various ways of sharing stories (especially family stories) during the holidays. Saturday’s was about eschewing consumerism and instead sharing family stories; yesterday’s was about “digi-scrapping,” which my sister and I have apparently been inadvertently doing with some recent Christmas projects.

In the midst of all this, I received an e-mail from storytelling author (Storycatching) Christina Baldwin about a unique holiday tradition she observes:

For two weeks, in the heart of winter, my family and I go completely off-line. This tradition is a local phenomenon that many friends and colleagues use in part to add reflection to their holidays.

Completely off-line? Could I do that? I don’t think so. Since I went online 15 years ago, the Internet has been my lifeline, my social life. My husband can tell you how anxious I become when our Internet connection is down or when we’re on the road and encounter a spot without Wi-Fi. The online world is the refuge for this uber-shy, utterly phone-phobic gal who is much more comfortable communicating in writing.

Wouldn’t my story life suffer if I took two weeks off from being online? Would it be awful if I didn’t blog for two weeks? Would the world stop spinning if people didn’t know my Twitter or Facebook status? Even as I contemplate this notion of sharing family stories during the holidays, the Internet seems an integral part of researching, sharing, and visually presenting stories.

And yet … what Christina Baldwin describes sounds lovely — and tempting — too:

… this is exactly the holiday/holy day gift my partner and I give each other: two weeks of retreat, rest, reading, wandering, letting go of the never-ending-list of things to do. We’ve been doing this for years, ever since her children got on the plane to visit their father at Christmas…and after they were grown, we discovered it’s the only time the business really lets us stop. So, we do.

The Holy Nights, from Winter Solstice to Epiphany, are a magical time to reflect at the hearth. I turn off the wi-fi in my laptop, write bounce-back messages for the email programs, dictate “we are closed… we are resting…” voicemail messages for the business and private phone lines. And then it’s up to me to have the discipline to truly turn aside from distraction and business and commitments and projects in progress and BE WITH… myself, my story, my life, my spirituality, my sense of mystery and ceremony. Inside, and outside-to follow intuition and instinct rather than obligation and task. Shhhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhh. The song of snow, the whisper of waves.

We spend long hours sitting by the fire, enjoying the Christmas tree, writing in my journal, reading novels. We walk in the woods and on the beach and don’t care when we get home. We develop little ceremonies within the days that rise spontaneously out of slowing down and noticing more. I try out new recipes and we linger at the table in long conversation.

Reading, writing, recipe-ing, conversing, following intuition? Being with my own story? Yummmm. One of my greatest laments of late has been lack of time to read. In fact, my New Year’s resolution is to carve out an hour a day to really read — beyond my non-negotiable ritual of reading the newspaper and the incalculable time spent reading from computer screens.

If I were to follow Christina’s lead, I think I’d need more time to mentally prepare. Maybe next year….

Digi-Scrapping: Who Knew?

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I never cease to come upon new forms of and uses for storytelling. Just discovered a site and blog called We Are Storytellers, which focuses on “digital scrapbooking” or “digi-scrapping,” which I’d never heard of. The illustrations of digi-scrapping pages look as though they are photos of paper scrapbook pages, but apparently they’re not — they’re all digitally generated.

I’m curious about the use of digital scrapbooks. Do people print them out? The fact that pages seem to be the same standard 8″ x 8″ as paper scrapbook pages suggest that perhaps they are meant to be printed out.

The discovery was timely for me. I’ve dabbled a bit in paper scrapbooking. And as I look at the digi-scrap pages at We Are Storytellers, I realize the photo-montage I made for my husband for Christmas (don’t worry, I don’t think he reads A STORIED CAREER) resembles digi-scrapping. I also just got an online family-history calendar from my sister Robin, who has been immersed in researching family history most of this year.

I’m intrigued to learn more about the software tools digi-scrappers use because I had a heck of a time finding the best tool for my photo montage. I ended up with ComicLife, a very nifty program that came bundled with my desktop Mac. Might seem like an odd choice, but it did nearly everything I needed it to do with drag-and-drop ease.

I’m also intrigued that We Are Storytellers sells products — borders and bits of artwork and so forth for digi-scrapping. I’m kind of tempted by some of these as they’re pretty cheap. I might use them for future photo-montage-type projects or for Web design. Or maybe right here in A Storied Career. The site also sells classes, such as a self-paced journaling class.

I’m surreptitiously sharing the photo montage with you as a pop-up (View image) because it’s kind of big and personal to impose on you right here in the blog. It commemorates 2008, a superb year for us. Probably the best year of our marriage.

Holidays Are a Great Time to Give the Gift of Family Stories

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In a column in Oregon’s mid-Willamette Valley newspaper, the Statesman-Journal, Jeanine Stice rails against consumerism at the expense of sharing family stories at Christmastime. She notes that she’s met people who …

… don’t measure their soul with statistics but instead with real-life stories.

So instead of reading statistics and scurrying around shopping with money you don’t have for things you don’t need, find time at home this week to listen and tell your family stories.

Anyone who’s been around people who’ve been through war, or experienced poverty, knows there’s immeasurable wealth gained through storytelling.

While I would have supported Stice’s view under any circumstances, her words particularly resonated with me because my husband and I had just been discussing a recent horoscope of his that said he should be sharing family stories that had been passed down through generations. Randall lamented that he didn’t really know any of this kind of family story, which is especially regrettable because both his parents were the children of first-generation immigrants to the US. He would have liked stories of the “old countries.”

I don’t have all that many family stories that span generations, but I can think of a couple — both winter/Christmas-related.

The winter story is my grandfather’s claim to have seen the cloven hoofprints of the Jersey Devil in the snow on the roof of his house.

In the Christmas story, two brothers (I’ve lost their exact relationship to me, but I believe they are from my grandfather’s generation, and the story takes place around the turn of the last century) exchange gifts, one of which is a brass cannon. Turns out the one brother got the cannon for his sibling because it was something he wanted for himself. From then on, any gift that has ever been given in our family that seems to be something the giver wanted for himself or herself has been known as a “brass cannon.” We use it as a figure of speech, as though everyone knows what a brass cannon is.

Why not take a moment (Freudian slip — I just typed “money” instead of “moment”) to see if you can recall any legacy family stories you can pass down this Christmas?