Storytelling Weekend 2008 in Washington, DC, is in the history books. I didn’t attend; I seem to go in odd-numbered years. But some bloggers have posted some nice recaps of the Smithsonian portion of the weekend, as well as the subsequent Golden Fleece Day:
Update on Stroke of Insight Story
Since comments are not very prominently displayed in this blog,
I wanted to call attention to Stephanie West Allen’s comments about
a recent entry, featuring the video of a presentation by Jill Taylor,
a stroke victim and neuroanatomist.
Apparently the science in this presentation has come under quite a bit of scrutiny, as illustrated by Stephanie’s blog posting, a collection of criticism for the idea’s Taylor presents in her talk.
While I feel a responsibility to point out that a number of people
question whether Taylor knows what she’s talking about, I was drawn
to the video not for Taylor’s claims, nor the science, nor her spiritual explanation.
I simply found the presentation to be riveting storytelling.
By the way, I see that Oprah is doing a 4-part Webcast with Jill Taylor. Will be interesting to see if any of the criticisms are addressed.
A Story of Challenging the Organizational Culture
2020 Note: I can no longer access the video that originally appeared here, but you may be able to using the link below (Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang).
In this video, Jake McKee, former social media practitioner at Lego, “tells his story,” writes Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang “on how he challenged and changed the culture within the organization to build relationships with customers, share proprietary information, and how customers were in line with employees.”
The effect on the audience that hears such a story? They think, “maybe we can challenge the culture at our organization.”
A Marketing Conversation around Storytelling
Recently came across three similar blog postings about storytelling in marketing and thought I would pretend the authors were having a conversation. Thus, sort of a made-up story with these bloggers as characters.
McLellan Creative (no individual blogger identified) begins the conversation by asking, “When was the last time you were drawn into a white paper by language that compelled you to read more? How many case studies have you found impossible to put down?”*
Joe Pulizzi writing at Chief Marketer notes that not only are white papers dull, but that “the majority of brands continue to use ‘interruption’ style strategies…” Yet even in the face of persistence of “interruption style,” Pulizzi says, “some are turning to “storytelling” instead of overt advertising.” Pulizzi explains:
Storytelling, sometimes referred to as content marketing or custom media, consists of delivering the brand product message as relevant and compelling information. Instead of marketers following a playbook, storytelling requires much the same mixture of rational and emotional messaging that you’d find in a New York Times feature, or even on primetime television drama.
McLellan Creative nods excitedly: “… if you want to build a brand or launch a new product or service, a great story will differentiate you faster than an array of colorful bar graphs. … the best technicians create new platforms, the best storytellers bring them to life.”
Indeed, Pulizzi agrees, “Smart marketers are realizing that they don’t have a choice anymore when it comes to reaching consumers. In today’s business environment, the 4 Ps of marketing can be copied verbatim by an outside competitor. The only separation is communication – how a marketer tells its story.”
Scott ‘Scotland’ Drummond of Marketing magazine chimes in with an example, Penguin Books, which I blogged about here. Penguin, Drummond says, “is leveraging the incredible power of word-of-mouth. In this sense, Penguin’s marketing is all about the conversations happening around it’s new product range. The We Tell Stories range are amazing social objects, objects around which great conversations are taking place. This is the best kind of marketing you can’t buy, and in that sense is a great move from Penguin.”
Continues Drummond: “And in a broader sense, stories are the ultimate viral. We love to hear them, the best ones have been adopted, retold, repackaged, extended, embellished, they are dynamic and change infinitely in the retelling, and in the end are founded on powerful conversations.”
Drummond’s blog posting, er, part of the conversation, was prompted by his reading the Cluetrain Manifesto, about which I’ve seen quite a bit in the blogosphere recently because it’s apparently having its 10th anniversary. So Drummond sums up the “conversation” with his “Cluetrain-esque proclamation (with apologies to the authors):”
If marketers don’t think they are in the business of telling great stories, and now of allowing great stories to be told around their products/services/brands, then they are still labouring under the misapprehension that they are in control. They aren’t.
The Story of a Story Wrapped in a Documentary Film
Recently saw the documentary film, My Kid Could Paint That, about Marla Olmstead, who in 2004 was 4 years old and commanding thousands of dollars for her abstract paintings.
The Binghamton, NY, reporter, Elizabeth Cohen, who initially broke the Marla story in the Binghamton Sun and Press Bulletin, noted in the film, however, that Marla’s tale is not about a little girl who appears to be an art prodigy. I’m not quoting her exactly, but Cohen said Marla’s story is really the story of a story and what the media does to such a story. Cohen notes that when the media is in a frenzy with a story at the forefront, inevitably the story has to change to feed the “monster” that is the media.
“It’s like a hungry monster,” says Cohen in the film. “It can’t get enough. This is lunch. This is what they wait for.”
In the case of young Marla, 60 Minutes changed the story by bringing in a child psychologist to question whether Marla really created all the paintings totally on her own — or whether she had help from, say, her dad.
The tantalizing missing piece to the story, both in the film and on Marla’s Web site (a really well done site, by the way), is what is Marla up to now. The film leaves Marla at age 6, stilling painting and selling her paintings, but not with quite the fanfare as before. Marla must be about 8 by now, and the viewer has to wonder if she’s still painting and selling and how the media spotlight affected her.
It’s an unfinished story to be sure.
God Endorses Storytelling
OK, I don’t mean to be irreverent here, but I read some good news for storytelling fans who believe the Bible is the word of God and even for agnostics like me who aren’t sure. This comes from “Guest Author” at Impact, a blog for Southern Baptists:
There is a reason that narrative (story) is the genre of writing most common to the Holy Scriptures. It is because stories connect with us and God knows it. God chose to reveal the majority of the Old Testament in story form.
Entrepreneurial Stories
The blogger at the blog seclater (and I am unable to determine who this blogger is) extols storytelling as a marketing tool in a way that is not new to me. But he (or she) offers an “if-I-can-do-it-anyone-can” story of entrepreneurial success:
I had quit my full-time job without any savings, filed for divorce, put my house up for sale, sold my major possessions, loaded the car up with my dog and relocated halfway across the country, moved in with my mother back into my childhood bedroom, withdrew money from my retirement account to get me through the first few months, and set up shop in my mother’s garage. I was just a failure waiting to happen, but I didn’t fail, amazingly enough. I use this story to illustrate the point that no matter what the odds, if you want to start a business and be successful, you can do it –and I’m living proof that anyone can do it — and if you don’t have all of these risk factors staring you in the face, you stand a much greater chance of success than I ever did!
The blogger also offers this advice on entrepreneurial stories:
Come up with a fairly short, 1-2 minute story statement of how you got to where you are today and how that impacted why you do what you do. Make it interesting, share the ups and downs and put your stories on your website, on your business card, in your brochure, on your blog, and incorporate them into your elevator speech. I guarantee you’ll start developing fans right away!
One of the commenters to seclater pointed out a video of Dame Anita Roddick, the late founder of The Body Shop, who used stories to educate the public and gain awareness for the store’s line of natural cosmetics. In the video, she discusses how effective story-telling became part of Body Shop’s PR program.
Oh, and one more cool thing about the blogger at seclater: He or she says: “One of my favorite pastimes as a child was to hang out with my mom and aunts for the ‘adult conversations’ that weren’t really suitable for children’s ears.” Me, too! What I didn’t realize until I read the seclater blog posting was that it was probably the stories that drew me to these adult conversations.
Models for What I’d Like to Do with Storytelling
One of my long-term ambitions is to create and put on workshops that help people change their lives and careers through story: Change the Story, Change Your Life (or Career).
I’ve come across a couple of models for what I’d like to do. One comes from The Story Lady, Ronda Del Boccio, whose Web site Storyation asks: “What story do you create for yourself? She talks about finding patterns in one’s stories and that the “path to success follows a pattern.” The definition of Storyation, Del Boccio says, is “creating your story into the world,” adding that “when you create a new life for yourself, you are not only telling yourself a new story but creating that story in your life.” In reading her site further and viewing her blog, I think that the story work Del Boccio does is a little more geared toward entrepreneurs and folks seeking big success than the way I envision my work.
The other model that intrigues is the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process developed by Bernard Haldane (the current incarnation of whose firm has had kind of a mixed reputation in the career field; Google Bernard Haldane to see what I mean). The Dependable Strengths Web site describes the process:
… the heart of the process is storytelling. DSAP Facilitators are trained to elicit the kind of stories that illustrate a person’s Dependable Strengths–those strengths characteristic of a person’s best work. Participants tell their stories in small groups, and receive feedback in the form of written and vocal comments from each of the others in their group. Participants are encouraged to pay special attention to body language–that of the storyteller as well as that of the listeners.
Dependable Strengths offers DSAP facilitator training. I’m interested in learning more.
Stories to Socialize Organizational Newcomers
Just a postscript to an earlier entry about storytelling at Procter and Gamble:
P&G also has a digital story in which a Martian appears before a group of six composite characters representing various organizations within P&G. The Martian wants to know who’s responsible for innovation at P&G. As Linda Coffman, whom Steve Denning interviewed about storytelling at P&G, says: “The characters take turns in explaining why they think it is their organization. So this piece would be a good piece for new hires into the company to orient them to the different functions, and to communicate that innovation is important in P&G.”
I think this is a ripe area for academic research — how stories help socialize new hires in an organization. Anyone know anyone who’s doing research in this area?
Oh, and one little side note: Coffman says that 3-5 minutes is the ideal length for a digital story.
About My Issues with Games
Two commenters, Corvus and Liz, expressed curiosity about my statement that I loathe and detest games in this post.
For me, this issue is a tantalizing look at the question of nature vs. nurture. I believe it is possible that I was genetically programmed to hate games.
It seems that my mother also loathes and detests games. But I did not know of her hatred when I was a child. I learned of it only as an adult. Because she saw mothering (which she also wasn’t crazy about) as Job One, she forced herself to play games with me and my two sisters.
Now, it’s possible my loathing of games was learned behavior if my mother manifested any of her loathing while playing games with us. But I don’t think she did. I was never consciously aware she hated games while she was playing them with us.
If you ask me why I hate games, I am likely to say, “I just do,” but if pressed, I would say they are boring and I have many better uses for my time.
I will say, however, that as a child I enjoyed “games” that were more of the storytelling ilk – unorganized games of the imagination, such as “House,” “Horses,” “Brother and Sister,” and playing with dolls and making up stories about them.