My Latin-Scholar Story and a Convergence with a Story Icon

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When I was preparing to enter high school, my father told me I had to take Latin. His mother had been a Greek and Latin scholar at Wellesley, and later briefly taught these classic languages. I was not enthusiastic about Latin. I wanted to take French. My father and I compromised. I would take two years of Latin.

My Latin teacher, as it turned out, was fresh out of college and in his first year of teaching. He was only nine years older than I was (even now in his 60s, he still has a boyish look, as you can see in the photo at right).

And he was a fabulous teacher. Energetic, interesting, and passionate about his subject matter, he brought the allegedly dead language vibrantly to life. I immersed myself in studying Latin with Mr. Rhody, a.k.a. “Magister,” the Latin word for teacher. I was a good student in most of my subjects, but I worked especially hard in Latin and earned excellent grades. As you may have guessed by now, my compromise with my dad proved unnecessary because I eagerly took four years of Latin (I did also take French, but that experience was far less memorable). I enhanced my immersion in ancient Roman culture through involvement in Latin Club and two spring-break trips to Italy. At the end of the four years, I won the Latin Prize, an accomplishment I have always valued more than most (even though I kind of thought my cousin Vicki deserved it more than I did; she earned straight A’s for all four years of Latin, where I had gotten a B in the first grading period because I had mono).

Even after the years of high school, college, and graduate school, David Rhody remains — by far — my favorite teacher and one of my greatest influences.

Not that many students take Latin today, and many schools don’t even offer it. (I would have invoked the same requirement for my two children that my father did for me, but Latin was not offered at their highschool.) That’s a shame. As my Magister taught me, 60 percent of the English language comes from Latin. Mr. Rhody assigned us to keep “derivative notebooks” to catalog the English words derived from Latin. My four years of Latin were an enormous boon to my vocabulary and my life as a writer. A knowledge of Latin helps a person figure out the meaning not only of unfamiliar English words, but also words in any of the Romance languages.

But I digress … I have kept in touch with Mr. Rhody over the (too many) years since high school, and last year, we became friends on Facebook. He has been retired for several years now, but I like to think his legacy lives on just as vibrantly in the classroom (jokingly referred to as the “Latin wing” of our high school) since his successor is one of his students.

A few weeks ago, I received a Facebook friend request from Larry Smith, co-founder of SMITH Magazine, which I’ve written about many times in this space. Larry had noticed we had a mutual friend — David Rhody. Turns out Larry had had the Magister experience 15 years after I had.

It’s fascinating to speculate about whether anything about our mutual high-school or Latin experience led us both to storytelling. In fact, Larry told me Latin class did influence him, noting that he couldn’t remember where his passport was but could vividly remember Hannibal crossing the Alps on elephants. For me, The Aeneid mesmerized me with its storytelling by the poet Vergil.

I have a good chance to learn more about Larry’s Latin-storytelling connection as he has agreed to participate in a Q&A soon.

Storytelling Ning Groups Are at a Crossroads

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Earlier this year, Ning, the site that allowed anyone to create a social network at no cost, announced that it was ending its free service. Administrators (known as Network Creators) of roughly 300,000 Ning networks were faced with either paying for their networks or moving them to different platforms. (See details here.)

I belong to several Ning groups and have just begun to receive notices from administrators announcing their plans to deal with this transition.

John Caddell, Network Creator of The Mistake Bank, announced he was shutting the site down.

Shawn Callahan, Network Creator of Worldwide Story Work, asked members to contribute to the cost of the network. I have not yet learned if member response has reached the levels Shawn hopes for. UPDATE: Shawn writes: “… we had a very good response from members donating more than enough money to keep the site going. We have 500+ members, so it only needs a small percentage to help out to keep the whole thing going. Very similar to the amount of conversation you get in a community of practice. It would be interesting to see if the people who donate are also the people who speak.”

Kevin Cordi of The Storybox Project, told members he was considering either seeking grant funding or would find another platform for the network.

It’s unfortunate that Ning’s business model (primarily supported by Google ads) eventually put the company in such straits that these kinds of choices have become necessary. I always felt Ning was an excellent resource for those seeking to start their own online networks.

I hope we don’t lose more storytelling networks as a result of the transition.

Stories of Islam May Help Generate Understanding

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I have to admit, at this time of heated debate over religious freedom, that my knowledge of Islam is virtually nonexistent. Although I unconditionally support religious freedom, I admit to feeling slightly uneasy about Muslims.

Knowledge is, of course, the way to eradicate uneasiness and fear.

In a highly thoughtful essay, The Power of Storytelling: Creating a New Future for American Muslims, Wajahat Ali talks about the exalted position of storytelling and storytellers in early Muslim culture. Throughout history, of course, stories have “inform[ed] and influence[d] a cultural citizenry of its values and identity.”

But in the US today, stories of Islam and Muslims have devolved into “daily stories of vile stereotyping, fear-mongering, and hysteria,” prompting Ali to predict, “If these stories persist with such simplistic, one-dimensional caricatures and formulaic narratives, then the predictable third act can only end in tragedy.”

The answer, Ali suggests, is “finally telling our own stories in our own voices and using art and storytelling as a means of healing and education.”

The second half of Ali’s essay offers a number of resources in which Muslims are telling their stories. Writes Ali:

These stories will ultimately influence the greater American narrative reminding fellow citizens that no group is a cultural monolith worthy of being painted with only black and white colors, and that even Islam is capable of benefitting America with its unique spiritual and cultural gifts.

I, for one, would like to make an effort to learn more about Islam through its stories and those of its followers.

Ali’s piece is superb. I recommend it.

How Storytelling Could Preserve Net Neutrality

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I have heard the term “net neutrality” for years, but I can’t say I really paid attention to it or even understood it.

But a guest posting by John S. Johnson on the site Hope for Film not only explained the term but offered up storytelling — and a free, downloadable communications guide — as a way to preserve it.

First, what it is and why it’s threatened:

… this principle of net neutrality that allows all sites, services and applications on the Internet to have equal access to consumers, and vice versa, is being fundamentally threatened. Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is looking to revise rules that have kept Internet Service Providers (ISPs) at bay for decades. These companies, like AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon, would love to become the gatekeepers of the Internet, reserving preferential bandwidth for those sites and services that make them the most money.

Johnson goes on to note that “service fees [could] force all but the super-rich from accessing and producing online content.” The answer, Johnson says, is to tell “the compelling story of how the loss of an open Internet will affect our daily lives” and “harness the power of entertainment and mass media to tell stories about key social issues, such as the fight for net neutrality, that will resonate with a broad audience and promote action.”

To that end, Johnson’s organization offers FTW! Net Neutrality For The Win: How Entertainment and the Science of Influence Can Save Your Internet, which “explains how we can use the untapped potential of narrative to increase support for net neutrality. Telling stories about how vital the open Internet is to our livelihoods is the key to getting people to take notice and take action.” You can download the free guide here.

Although the guide is very specific to the issue of net neutrality, its techniques can be adapted for other causes. In fact the technique, which Johnson’s research group the Harmony Institute calls “Entertainment-Education,” is explained in generic terms in the back of the guide, with examples of how it has been used for other issues.

Readers Theatre as a Storytelling Medium

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Tonight I am making my theatrical “comeback,” after not having acted on the stage in some 35 years.

I enjoyed acting as a teenager and thought I was kind of good at it. I always felt I might like to try it again someday. I auditioned for a production of Woodland Theater Productions here in Kettle Falls, WA, in part because I wanted to get involved in the community. Despite extreme shyness, I wanted to cultivate some social life because I feel as though when my husband and I have only each other to interact with, we have the potential to get on each other’s nerves.

I was cast in a small role in one of three one-act plays comprising “Readers Theater,” which is more or less synonymous with a staged reading. Readers Theater usually entails “no memorizing, no props, no costumes, no sets.” In our production, we are using minimalist sets.

I didn’t really think of the production as having that much to do with storytelling until I got an e-mail promoting the plays to the public. It read:

Like storytelling, reader’s theater can create images by suggestion that could never be realistically portrayed on stage. Space and time can be shrunk or stretched, fantastic worlds can be created, and marvelous journeys can be enacted. Reader’s theater frees the performers and the audience from the physical limitations of conventional theater, letting the imagination soar! [These words apparently come from the site above that defines Readers Theater.]

I’m telling myself to “break a leg,” not only for my comeback but for participating in a storytelling activity.

Would You Grieve for Virtual Friend You Barely Knew?

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Kate Bolick writes for The Altantic about a woman she knew peripherally at a former workplace. Bolick didn’t know the woman well — they worked in different departments — and both of them eventually left the company.

The woman later friended Bolick on Facebook, and in fact dominated Bolick’s news feed with tales and photos of her active and exciting social life. Next, the women, whom Bolick calls “S” in the article, embarked on a long-distance relationship with a man in London, and Bolick followed the narrative of their romance and eventual engagement. At about this point, Bolick writes …

… A year had passed since S had friended me. We never exchanged messages, or commented on one another’s postings, or saw each other in person (save for one early, awkward encounter in a furniture store, during which it took me a moment to place who she was). Yet I thought about her often, even when I wasn’t on Facebook, as I would any close friend in a similar joyful circumstance. More, in fact: her news thrummed inside my chest as if it were my own. I wondered where the wedding might take place, what she would wear.

Then, Bolick was in a house-sitting/pet-sitting situation with very limited Internet access. During a moment of access, in a torrent of e-mails, Bolick found one from a former colleague who announced that S had died. Bolick writes:

A loud sob broke out of me, like a bark. It was a frightening sound in that too-quiet house. I stood up, heart racing, and paced the rooms, switching on any lamp I could find. But the rooms weren’t familiar to me, and their features — shelves sagging with books I’d never read; ropes of garlic garlanding a cupboard; decades of dirt caking the floor seams — only enlarged my sense of unreality. Even the smudged windows framed a night so black that I could see nothing there but my own pale face. How do you cry for someone you hardly know?

Now here’s the kicker with which Bolick ends her article:
And for what was I crying? S or her story?

Wow. Nowhere have I seen better evidence that social media is storytelling media. Given that Bolick had met S, it’s possible Bolick was crying for the person rather than the story. Most likely, she cried for both.

But I immediately thought about all my friends on Facebook whom I’ve never met. (Out of curiosity, I calculated that 31 percent of my Facebook friends are people I’ve never met.) Two in particularly stand out as women I would most emphatically grieve for if they passed on. I can imagine feeling sad if any of my never-met virtual friends died, but I believe I would have the kind of emotional breakdown Bolick did about these two specifically. Why these two? Because I know their stories. I have gotten to know them, followed their lives, rejoiced at their triumphs, tut-tutted at the things that annoy them, and empathized with their difficulties.

Stories create powerful emotional connections.

Not to Be Outdone, Twitter Launches Twitter Tales

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About a month ago, Facebook launched Facebook Stories to mark the addition of Facebook’s 500 millionth user.

Now Twitter is launching Twitter Tales, which the microblogging site describes as “a growing set of articles that highlights creative individuals and businesses from all corners of the world that help make Twitter awesome,” adding that Twitter expects that “the examples of great Twitter use will also likely inspire others to use the service in innovative and interesting ways.”

When I learned of Twitter Tales, I groaned, thinking these stories would be limited to 140 characters. But Twitter and Facebook seem to be playing a role reversal in their launches of stories and tales. Where Facebook Stories are limited to 420 characters, Twitter Tales are detailed narratives several paragraphs in length. Where Facebook Stories are stark text blocks, Twitter Tales are presented in a graphically attractive layout with sidebars and images.

For the next several weeks, Twitter plans to offer a new story to the Twitter Tales homepage that users can access by clicking on the Twitter Tales icon on the sidebar of the Twitter Blog.

The first three entries focus on:
TwtTaleIcon.jpg

  • Life: @natashabadhwar is a mother/filmmaker/photographer/writer from New Delhi who sees Twitter as a form of self therapy
  • Community: @caltrain is a crowd-sourced Twitter account where people can help others avoid pitfalls on their daily commute
  • Humor: @thebloggess provides a witty and honest behind the scenes look into her blog writing

I continue to find it significant that these social-media giants are deploying stories to engage users.

Update (Aug. 20, 2010): Didn’t realize that Google also has stories.

Defining Storytelling and Leveraging My Passion for It

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Recently, storyteller Eric James Wolf turned the tables on me. I’ve conducted more than 57 Q&As with story practitioners — and now Eric has done a Q&A with me. I thought it would be worthwhile to excerpt some of it here because it explains some of my philosophies and approaches with this blog.

In this entry, Eric asked me how I define “storytelling” and why I’m interested in it:

I am among the storytelling fans who do not like to be boxed in by a specific definition of “story” or “storytelling.” I’ve found in the more than 57 interviews I’ve conducted with storytelling practitioners that most of them, perhaps surprisingly, prefer not to define “storytelling.” (However, a few feel a strict definition is vitally important.) Of the definitions offered by the practitioners who prefer to define story/storytelling, I’ve liked some more than others. One of my favorites is: “Story is context.”

I think I have been interested in storytelling for most of my life, but I didn’t really recognize the passion until I began my PhD program. I was taking an organizational-behavior course that focused on postmodernism. While researching the concept of postmodernism, I discovered an entire academic (and applied) discipline I had never heard of: organizational storytelling. This field instantly resonated with me, causing me to realize how much I had always loved storytelling, going back to eating up the anecdotes in Reader’s Digest as a child. I was so intrigued by organizational storytelling that I made it the centerpiece of my doctoral dissertation, which combined my professional background in career management and job search with storytelling.

While in my PhD program, I started [this] blog as part of my coursework. As I completed my doctoral program, my storytelling interests began to expand. Organizational storytelling was too narrow to encompass my interests, so I broadened the blog’s scope — and my own passions — to the field of “applied storytelling,” a term I first heard from Michael Margolis.

My work on the blog was sporadic for its first three years; I would go long stretches without blogging. But in February of 2008, I made a commitment to blog 7 days a week. I have mostly lived up to that commitment, although I have skipped some days during my recent major, cross-country move.

Stunning (and Risque) Brand Storytelling By Perrier

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Welcome to Perrier Mansion, a swanky and retro venue where you can follow American burlesque artist, model, and actress Dita Von Teese into the edifice and play slightly naughty games with her (as you might guess from Dita’s photo at right).

This decidedly R-rated Web story/game has been tweeted as the best Web production of this year. The production values are spectacular.

To enter the mansion, the user must enter his or her birthdate — presumably an attempt to keep younger voyeurs out. Dita performs a mild striptease as she walks into the mansion. (There’s no actual nudity, just a bit of exposure and lots of sensuality.) In a sort of choose-your-own-adventure (a.k.a, choose your own story) style, the user gets to a point of selecting between two rooms — The Dark Room and Roll the Dice. The Dark Room is quite remarkable; a camera graphic is superimposed on the screen, and the user sees the resulting still upon clicking this virtual camera. In Roll the Dice, the user clicks to — you guessed it — roll the dice, which tell Dita to do naughty little things like lick her lips. In the final activity, the user is instructed not to click on (“touch”) Dita. My hand was nowhere near my mouse, but a cursor on the screen clicked on Dita, who threw Perrier on me. Ultimately, I was unceremoniously asked to leave the Perrier Mansion for clicking on her. I have to wonder if some users get to stay, and if so, how.

The production is gorgeous, sumptuous, and engaging. But … target audience? I looked at some articles and blog entries about the piece and found that many people were bewildered by it. One anonymous commenter said “upscale, classy and sober image. Should appeal to a broad 20s and up male target audience.” I asked my PhD-in-marketing husband his thoughts. We thought the gamer aspect might be at odds with the retro look of the piece in terms of the age group Perrier is targeting. Perhaps the retro look is meant to align with the fact that Dita is a latter-day burlesque star.

I was surprised not to find more commentary in the blogosphere about this provocative production. You can read more about Perrier Mansion here, here, and here (for a compilation of links about the piece).