Q&A with a Story Guru: Tom Clifford, Part 1

Posted on by

It’s a great treat to present the 13th in my series of Q&A interviews with story practitioners. I came across Tom Clifford in the blogosphere, and we’ve become good social-media pals since. Tom’s Q&A will be in five parts, with one question and answer each day this week.

About Tom, from his Web site (where there are lots of links to more info about him, including his “One Sheet”): Tom is an award-winning filmmaker and he thinks “remarkable organizations deserve remarkable videos.”

For 23 years, Tom has been helping companies tell their story by producing award-winning remarkable documentary videos.

He finds out what matters most to organizations — what they want their market and the world to know about them.

That’s why companies from Fortune 500’s to non-profits use his films for marketing, recruiting and retention, sharing corporate values and more.

From CEO’s to the front-line, Tom makes people feel comfortable being in front of the camera.

Q&A with Tom Clifford

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: I become involved in storytelling through rock n roll.

Ever since the British Invasion days of 1964, music captured my imagination like nothing else; the lyrics, the rhythm, the cadence all combined to create endless stories in my mind.

One day I found a guitar in the house when I was a kid. I picked it up and taught myself how to play. I eventually took lessons, then studied classical guitar; all while playing Alice Cooper, Steppenwolf and Grand Funk Railroad on weekends throughout much of junior high and high school and into college.

My grand plan? To become a famous rock n roller; the same as everyone else at that time! Those plans were short-lived as my band learned that our performance before a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert were cancelled at the last minute.

I graduated from high school. I came home one day in the summer and found a college brochure on the kitchen counter. It just happened to be open on the pages with photographs of a television studio. I instantly jumped! This was it!

What attracted me to the video/film world was the ability to capture and tell a story and have an audience go, “Wow!” I was hooked.

I loved combining sight and sound to emotionally move someone into action with an interesting story. In many ways, it reminded me of playing live on a Saturday night with my band. Watching your audience, through music or storytelling, is thrilling.

I’m fortunate. 25 years ago, I found my passion. I found my voice. It is to enable the voices of others through video stories. I found my calling early in life. I never had another job.

This is what I was born to do.

For Job Action Day: Nikki’s Story of Getting Creative in Tough Economic Times

Posted on by

Today is Job Action Day, and the Quintessential Careers family of sites and blogs has united to encourage readers to take at least one proactive step to shore up their jobs or careers in the face of the current economic crisis. A Storied Career today brings you the story of Nikki Maxwell, who, though in a precarious economic position, is applying pluck, optimism, and creativity to her next steps:

Three years ago, I left my stable job to become a consultant (in the nonprofit sector), expand my earning potential and have a more flexible lifestyle conducive to being a Mama. My husband’s prospects as a freelance video game writer were bright, and it seemed like a good time to make a leap of faith.

Yeah. good times.

The landscape has been shifting over the last three years. Like a moving target. My husband’s prospects dried up, and I lost one of my two major contracts right away after I quit the j-o-b. Wah.

He is now employed through January, and that’s all we know. I was laid off my second contract this fall.

For the first time since I remember, I do not have a paycheck. My middle-class work hard and do-good ethics are not bearing fruit. Yikes.

Here’s the thing though — when times are tough, people get creative. There is no safe bet for me. I can’t go backwards to where I was before, and I’m not really sure what the future holds for me. It’s not a good time to try and be a freelance consultant in the nonprofit world. Nobody has money to pay me upfront, and I don’t want to work on commissions.

Right now, I am in the process of designing a plan as best I can to try and weather the current economic mess, find a way to stay in LA to keep the dream alive and to feed my family.

I’ve decided to try some other markets to find an anchor position I can do from home since that’s my main objective and I don’t want to lose ground on the progress I have made getting out of an office.

I like my lifestyle being flexible, but not laid-off flexible!

Part of what I am finding is the energy to dig deep and connect with who I am. I have always made safe, good choices with my career. Now, there really are not any of those around. That means I have to get creative and think out of the box. I am finding my voice and my passion again.

I am connecting with people and ideas with the intention that by reaching out I will find opportunity.

I have until January to get it worked out.

Good times.

Stories of Joyful Joblessness

Posted on by

Barbara Winter tells an envy-provoking story of becoming a “gypsy teacher and seminar leader.” She always wanted to travel, doubted her career choice, and was bored in her early jobs. So …. she became Joyfully Jobless:

I was afraid something was terribly wrong with me, that I might be a perpetual malcontent. What I know now is that a bigger dream was trying to be born–a dream of a creative, passion-filled business.

What I didn’t anticipate was that becoming Joyfully Jobless was a passport to the adventurous life of my childhood dreams. As a gypsy teacher and seminar leader, I’ve acquired more than a million miles of travel on a single airline. My business has led me to wonderful cities and towns in the US, Canada and Europe where I’ve met fascinating people I never would have known had I stayed home. My world continues to get bigger every day.

To guide others to live the Joyfully Jobless life, Winter wrote a book, Making a Living Without a Job. Winter, who calls herself “a passionate storyteller her entire life,” says “she would rather read a great story than an instructional manual any day.” blogs stories of and thoughts about her Joyfully Jobless life at Buon Viaggio.And one of the workshops she leads is called Compelling Storytelling!, about which she writes: “What if you could make your message so memorable that people would want to hear what you have to say? What if you learned to approach marketing from a storyteller’s perspective?”

At her main Joyfully Jobless site, she collects stories from others who are Joyfully Jobless.

I remain conflicted about whether I’m joyfully jobless (see my entry on my “retirement” story). I know I’m joyful and have great freedom to plan my time. I’m just not sure if I’m jobless or not. I work (hard) and get paid for it. I’m just not sure if it counts as a job.

The Web’s Secret Stories

Posted on by

I’ve been super-swamped this last week and feel like I haven’t given my best to my blog entries, but I have vowed to blog every day. I won’t say enough or as much as I want to about this one, but at least I am sharing.

This TED talk features the amazing Jonathan Harris, creator of the remarkable blend of storytelling and online technology, The Whale Hunt, talking about some of his other storytelling projects, which are equally technologically amazing.

But are they storytelling? Is technology changing our definitions of storytelling? Is it even important to define storytelling? All valid questions, as are some that commenters raise at the site of Harris’s talk.

 

 

The Storytelling Bug: Roots in Childhood?

Posted on by

In a lovely post with beautiful photos (they look hand-tinted), “Dara,” who describes herself as “a twenty-something year old Christian and an aspiring historical fiction writer,” posed some interesting questions:

  • Do you remember what age you started to read?
  • What were some of your favorite books as a child?
  • Were there any children’s books that inspired you?

For Dara, who says she is “currently … working a novel, set in Japan in 1890” (which is titled Chrysanthemum Promise, also the name of her blog), the answers to these questions point to her life-long love of storytelling.

For those, like me, with a passion for storytelling, these questions are as good as any for getting at the roots of the passion.

I don’t think there was anything extraordinary about the age at which I learned to read. Like most kids in my era, I learned in the first grade. I do remember taking to it exceptionally quickly and impressing teachers with my skill. They often wanted to place me in advanced reading groups, even ahead of my grade level. I was amused at Dara’s comment: “And of course, it was my duty as a big sister to teach my little sister how to read.” I had not realized that the little-sister-reading-tutelage I undertook with my sister Robin was a common activity. The fact that she could read well before school was often cited as a reason she was so bored with school and had difficulty attending.

I also know I was read to as a child, as in the photo above, and my father also told a continuing story with me as the protagonist: A little girl named Kathy rode her pony, Stormy, down a lane and met various critters along the way. Stormy was real; the critters were made up.

And I read voraciously as a child. The book I read the greatest number of times was Pollyanna. I was in a children’s book-of-the-month club that sent wonderful books ranging from one about Angelique the duck to “chapter books,” like Herman the Brave Pig, and biographies. I loved books by Frieda Friedman, Beverly Cleary, Catherine Woolley, who also wrote under the name Jane Thayer (I just googled her and saw that she died at age 100 in 2005 and had written 87 children’s books).

Books that inspired me? I don’t think I can single one out, but those writers cited above made me want to be a writer because they wrote about characters, often young girls, that I could identify with.

As a pre-teen, I tried my hand at writing a children’s picture book — something about a little girl who wanted to become an “ambassador-ess,” succeeded in doing so and put on a parade for her constituents. I also recall book ideas involving the phrases “The Platinum Pencil” and “The Florentine Ballet” (these might have been part of the same book idea).

Dara also discusses how she and her sister invented stories involving their dollhouse people. These “games of imagination” were the stuff of my childhood, and, I’m sure, a major incubator for my story passion. They involved playing “house,” “baby and mommy,” “brother and sister,” “horses and men,” Barbies (later devolving into Barbie’s Prostitute Service — I kid you not), trolls, “trading post,” and more.

I had not previously connected early reading with my fascination with storytelling, and I’m grateful to Dara for providing this food for thought. How would you answer Dara’s questions, and to what extent would you connect the answers with your interest in storytelling?

Change the World: Rate Rakontu, A Community Story Tool, by Nov. 1

Posted on by

My virtual friend, Cynthia Kurtz (about whom I’ve blogged here and here and who will be the subject of a Q&A in December), is heading a team that prepared a grant application directed at the Knight News Challenge for a project to develop open-source software to support community storytelling.

Says Cynthia: “It has been shaping up into a really exciting project with the potential to help change the world with storytelling, and we’ve got a great group of people involved in supporting it.”

Apparently the grant-application process, which ends Nov. 1, is open to the public for reviewing, and public rating is important. Cynthia encourages those interested in seeing this software developed to add a rating by going here.

Here’s a little more about the software:

We are building a free and open source software package called Rakontu (“tell a story” in Esperanto) to help communities share and work with raw stories of personal experience for mutual understanding, conflict resolution and decision support. …

Rakontu will help communities tell, annotate and connect stories; discover insight-creating patterns in them; and use stories to resolve conflicts and make decisions together. This degree of support is only available today through the help of experienced narrative practitioners. Rakontu will embody understandings about narrative in communities so that people will not have to know anything about narrative to benefit from its use. Some possible outcomes are better understandings of opposing perspectives, a greater diversity of voices being heard, better consensus on tough choices, more problems dealt with before they get worse, safer streets, fewer footholds for extremism and paranoia, and greater common strength in times of crisis.

Stories told in natural conversation are richly associated with socially relevant context, organized in multiple meaningful ways, and linked with other stories to form webs of resonant meaning. But stories on the web today are devoid of context, poorly organized, and isolated. Rakontu will help people preserve context and organize and link stories in meaningful ways.

Rakontu will help communities tell, annotate and connect stories; discover insight-creating patterns in them; and use stories to resolve conflicts and make decisions together. … Rakontu will embody understandings about narrative in communities so that people will not have to know anything about narrative to benefit from its use. Some possible outcomes are better understandings of opposing perspectives, a greater diversity of voices being heard, better consensus on tough choices, more problems dealt with before they get worse, safer streets, fewer footholds for extremism and paranoia, and greater common strength in times of crisis.

Why Tell a Rape Story?

Posted on by

I was raped when I was college age on the streets of the city in which I first went to college. I have written about that experience a couple of times in the years since.

Why tell such a personal story?

In the case of Alice Sebold, author of the bestselling novel The Lovely Bones, telling her rape story in the nonfiction book, Lucky, seemed to be a way to deal with the brutality of the attack, her frustration with the difficulty in bringing her rapist to justice, and the anguish caused by people around her who could not possibly understand what she was feeling — who, indeed, suggested to her that she was “lucky” her attacker had not killed her.

I did not suffer deep psychic wounds as a result of my rape the way Sebold did, and it wasn’t hard for me to talk about it the way it is for many victims. Telling my story may have been a way of dealing with the assault, but I think I mostly wanted other rape victims to know they weren’t alone.

Sometimes rape stories are told by surrogates who stand in for victims who are no longer able to tell their own stories. I happened to notice that Andrea Cooper, the mother of a victim, is speaking soon at my former university. Her daughter, Kristin, cannot tell her own story because she killed herself after she was raped. From the Web site, Kristin’s Story:

Kristin’s Story is a mother’s tale of her daughter’s rape and subsequent suicide. A vibrant 20-year-old…, Kristin committed suicide shortly after she was raped by a friend in 1995. Her … mother Andrea Cooper made the difficult decision to share her daughter’s tragedy with college students all over the nation.

Cooper explains her reason for telling her daughter’s story:

“I am sharing this because I hope by telling Kristin’s story that other lives will be saved, and other young women will not be victims of acquaintance rape, and that those suffering from depression, for ANY reason, will get help,” Andrea explains.

We tell stories as personal as a rape experience to bring about change — to change people’s attitudes, the change young women’s fears, to change their reluctance to seek out the counseling that might prevent them from doing what Kristin did. As the site goes on to say:

Here’s the conclusion of a story of how Cooper’s work has helped one young rape victim:

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such an amazing influence on my life. Honestly, if it weren’t for you, I probably would have kept it all to myself and slipped into a great depression. I’m sure I am not the only girl whose life you’ve saved, and I truly hope you take comfort in knowing that.

Q&A with a Story Guru: David Vanadia

Posted on by

 

I am so pleased to present the twelfth installment in this series of interviews with some of the gurus of both performance and applied storytelling. This interview is with David Vanadia, whom I came across in an interesting way. Last fall, I sought resumes that I could make-over, fictionalize, and publish in my book, Top Notch Executive Resumes. David responded to my solicitation. I forget exactly why I didn’t use his resume, but I know I wanted to because he is a storyteller. Learn more about David next to his photo.
 David Vanadia’s bio:
A professional storyteller since 1994, my original stories have been heard in the United States and abroad in festivals, conferences, schools, bars, nightclubs, parks, sidewalks, theaters, and on the radio. I have presented at events such as StoryCon, the Digital Storytelling Festival, and the Yukon International Storytelling Festival.

I have been teaching since 1990 and have led workshops of all kinds for organizations of all sizes. I am also a corporate consultant experienced in providing *storied* solutions for public and private enterprises. Using a do-it-yourself ethic, I offer a unique approach to both non-linear time-based media and so-called “narrative environments.”

After experiencing September 11th I decided to leave the rat race, Stop Being Sweet, and move from New York City to follow my heart and live a simpler, more fulfilling life. I now reside in the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon where I host DIY Stories, bike commute in the rain, and teach Tai Chi, Qigong, and Yoga and practice my art.

Q&A with David Vanadia:

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: It’s rather cliche, but my grandfather used to say, “Tell me a story.” My dad used to give my brother and I tape recorders for toys. We’d write scripts and make audio shows. In second grade I became the undefeated champion of the talking contest by being able to speaking sensibly, non-stop, without repeating myself. In sixth grade I wrote a puppet play and recorded it on videotape in the library. Video cameras were something special back then. The librarian at my school (I wish I could remember her name) also allowed me to take home a Super 8mm movie camera (at my request) to shoot my first movie. I got into music in middle school and art was a constant. By the time I was on my own I found myself frustrated by trying to choose between one of the many forms of expression I had enjoyed for so long. Any time I focused on one, I’d feel another was missing. Eventually I discovered storytelling and all of those forms of media fell into place. What I love most about this field is that it’s so old and yet so new. It’s like studying the weather.

Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?

A: It’s the media. People who create media are going through tools at a rapid rate. Just twenty years ago students of a photography program in college were learning darkroom and film techniques. Today they’re learning Photoshop. They upgrade cameras every year (if they can afford it) and the same thing has happened in other areas of focus. When your livelihood is threatened on a regular basis and the tools you use are obsolete as soon as you purchase them, we examine what skill we can latch onto and develop through the changes. The one thing that everyone can do regardless of where or how they work is create and tell stories. By focusing on the storytelling aspect of their work a photographer, for instance, can use the latest format and still produce amazing photographs. By focusing on story, it doesn’t matter if people use cell phones, RSS, webpages, newsletters, management meetings, or movie screens. Telling a story is something that everyone does and something to which everyone responds. It’s all about the story and now we can more easily discuss narrative via the Internet.

Q: The culture is abuzz about Web 2.0 and social media. To what extent do you participate in social media (such as through LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Second Life, blogs, etc.)? To what extent and in what ways do you feel these venues are storytelling media?

A: I feel that all media is storytelling media. That’s what media is. Media is a way to tell stories over distances of time and space. I take part in web 2.0 by creating my own website and maintaining it to the best of my ability. I take part in some social networking sites but mostly it makes my head want to explode. I don’t have time to wake up every day and Twitter on Twitter, connect on Facebook, link in on LinkedIn, and make friends on MySpace. I look at the web like the suburbs. I take care of my own yard. Social Networks are like nightclubs where you’re trying to pick up as many people as possible and bring them home with you. Although some people live there…

Q: Are there any current uses of storytelling that repel you or that you feel are inappropriate?

A: None. In fact, it’s the so-called “repulsive” uses of storytelling that are even more fascinating to me because these areas are overlooked or ignored, yet most often play a vital role in being human.

Q: If you could share just 1 piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

Make sure you actually tell stories in “real life.” Get up in front of audiences and do it. That’s the best way to learn about the art. Everything else (media) is a box that you place between you and your audience further distancing you (and in some cases keeping you safe) from them. Nothing compares to the real deal.

Q: How have you been able to use story in your quest to encourage people to give up sugar?

A: People read my story about struggling with sugar addiction and see themselves in it. It’s like watching a movie and suddenly recognizing, “Oh my gosh, that’s me!” My story acts as a model that shows them that quitting sugar can be done. It makes people want to act because they can see that they are in the midst of their own addiction and heading down the wrong path. Since they are already looking for a way out it’s not hard for them to follow the path I already carved. My story becomes their story.

Q: Your Web site states: “I am an Interdisciplinary Artist who does many different things. Despite seemingly disparate skills, the common denominator in all of my work is STORY.” Can you elaborate on how story ties together all your other work?

A: Story ties all of my work together in the form of narrative. To me, narrative is everything. Every action I take makes up the story I tell and the story that gets told about me. My work is either crafting and creating an original story (for me or someone else) or living a story that will get told (by me or someone else.) The study and practice of storytelling is one side of the story cycle. Taking action and practicing conflict resolution (or conflict inspiration) is the other side of the story cycle. We are always in two constants — creating stories or telling them. It’s two sides of the same coin. It’s Yin and Yang. It’s the Tao. It just is.

Seeking Financial Meltdown Stories for Job Action Day, Nov. 3

Posted on by

A Storied Career seeks your story of the current financial meltdown and how it has affected you. We seek both stories about negative effects on your job/career and positive stories about how you are being proactive regarding your job or career in the face of the current climate. I’ll publish stories here on Nov. 3, Job Action Day. Your story can be published without your name, if you wish. E-mail your story or enter it in the comments section of this entry. Read more about Job Action Day below.

Quintessential Careers has declared Nov. 3 Job Action Day 2008 worldwide — a day for job-seekers and workers to confront the current economic crisis head-on and take action steps to improve their careers.

To rally those who have lost their jobs or are facing
possible job loss in the current devastated economic climate, Quintessential Careers has created Job Action Day, to be implemented on Monday, Nov. 3. Job Action Day 2008 aims to empower workers and job-seekers to take proactive steps to shore up their job and career outlook, said Quintessential
Careers Founder and Publisher Dr. Randall S. Hansen.

“For job-seekers,” Hansen said, “Job Action Day is a chance to take a break from the daily grind of job-hunting to take a look at the bigger picture of their careers and job-search strategies. It’s a day to strategize plans for developing new job and career options and devising new and better ways to track down job leads and position themselves for employment opportunities.”

For workers facing possible job loss, Job Action Day is a time “to not only examine their current job and employer, but also evaluate both the stability of that job and employer as well as their personal fulfillment with their jobs,” Hansen said. “It’s a day to take stock of their careers and develop a plan for their next career steps.”

Hansen said he deliberately set Job Action Day 2008 for the eve of the U.S. presidential election to encourage voters to think about job creation and the avoidance of further job losses as they cast their votes. Beyond the election, Hansen said, “workers and job-seekers must hold the next president’s feet to the fire.” Echoing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s battle cry at a recent rally in Orlando, FL, the concept of “Jobs, Baby, Jobs” must be a top priority for the new leader, Hansen said.

Quintessential Careers will mark Job Action Day 2008 with service-oriented articles and blog entries to provide workers and job-seekers with information, ideas, and concrete steps that they can take to secure their futures — both in the short-term and the long-term.

In addition, the Quintessential Careers family of blogs, including the
Quintessential Careers Blog,
Career Doctor Blog,
Quintessential Resume and Cover Letter Tips Blog, and
A Storied Career, will feature Job Action Day entries.

Hansen has invited bloggers in the employment and careers sector to join in blogging on Job Action Day about the importance of being proactive in their jobs and careers.

Pointing to a hurting U.S. economy — and ailing economies around the globe — along with daily announcements of employer retrenchments, mergers, and layoffs, Hansen explained that “no job is safe in these situations, but opportunities for hiring and promotions still exist – under the right conditions and with the right strategies.”

Job Action Day is intended to empower workers and job-seekers to confront the economic climate and take control for a brighter career future, Hansen said.