A Storied Career

How About Some Free Irish Stories?

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:59:13 +0000

When I was a preteen, my favorite uncle read aloud Irish fairy tales by James Stephens to me and my cousin at our family’s vacation cottage in Western Massachusetts.

I don’t remember anything about the tales themselves, but I recall being enthralled not only by the stories but by Uncle John’s rendering of them.

Those stories and the pleasure of having them read to me sprang to mind when I was offered a review copy of The Last Storyteller, a novel by Frank Delaney. I don’t often write about fictional stories in this space, but the connection with Uncle John, James Stephens, and those Irish fairy tales was irresistible. Here’s a snippet:

Every legend and all mythologies exist to teach us how to run our days. In kind fashion. A loving way. But there’s no story, no matter how ancient, as important as one’s own. So if we’re to live good lives, we have to tell ourselves our own story. In a good way.” So says James Clare, Ben MacCarthy’s beloved mentor, and it is this fateful advice that will guide Ben through the tumultuous events of Ireland in 1956.

In conjunction with the release of The Last Storyteller, Delaney has launched The Storytellers Project:

Long long ago, when the pigs ate the apples off the trees and the birds flew upside down — so begins a tale by an Irish fireside. And thereby Frank Delaney, the New York Times bestselling author of Ireland, launches Storytellers, a new series of short stories in the oral tradition, created specially for e-readers. In his first story, this master of the legendary form creates The Druid, a fascinating character full of cunning and false magic, who tries to win the hand of a beautiful girl.

Now, here’s the cool part: The first two stories in Frank Delaney’s new series of Storytellers e-books, “The Druid,” and “The Girl Who Lived on the Moon,” will be free on Amazon for two days, starting today, February 7.

By the way, you can also read James Stephens’s fairy tales for free. Since they are in the public domain, they are available in several formats through Project Gutenberg. I might just peruse them to see if any of them tickle my memory.

Q and A with a Story Guru: Megan Sheldon: Branding is About Listening and Interpreting People's Experiences

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:37:58 +0000

See a photo of Megan, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Megan Sheldon, Questions 2 and 3:

Q: When did you see the connection between marketing and mythology?

A: Growing up, I was always suspicious of marketing; the last thing I wanted to do was build brands that were inaccurate or deceitful. What I recognized in storytelling was the ability to embed many different experiences into a single story, allowing people from all walks of life to connect with a brand message. For me, branding is about listening and interpreting people’s experiences and finding the common threads that connect them back to a business. I always ask my clients “What do you want people to feel when they hear about your business?” Our day-to-day experiences with a business impact our decisions and ultimately determine the success of a company.

Q: Describe one of your favorite projects or initiatives.

A: When I worked in Ghana as a community engagement coordinator, I saw the power of story first hand with the young girls I worked with. While I was living there I was introduced to the work of Shannen O’Brian, a fellow Vancouverite who was working tirelessly in Northern Ghana to build a charity (Create Change) that sends young girls to high school and university and provides rural communities with access to clean water. I was immediately inspired and told Shannen about my vision for Narrative Communications. Shannen approached me last year and I worked with her to build the brand story for Create Change, which is being launched later this year, as well as the brand story for her new social enterprise Karma Exchange, a way for businesses to align themselves with charity while marketing their products to new audiences. Shannen brought four of the girls from Ghana to Vancouver this past November for a six-week documentary speaking tour (For Our Daughters), and I volunteered to be their story coach, helping them weave together their experiences into a powerful presentation. Working with Shannen on all three of these projects has proven to me that storytelling can be a powerful way to connect people to a cause and ultimately change people’s mindset.

Q and A with a Story Guru: Megan Sheldon: Patterns and Archetypes in Myths Inspire Career as Strategic Storyteller

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:51:55 +0000

It’s a great pleasure to feature another up-and-coming story practitioner, Megan Sheldon, in this Q&A series. Canada seems to boast a strong contingent of story folks, and since my state of Washington borders British Columbia, it’s a treat to spotlight a BC neighbor. This Q&A will run over the next several days.

Bio: With ten years of experience in public relations, marketing, and advertising, Megan has worked both client and agency side with clients such as UNICEF, Sarah McLachlan Foundation, and the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC). Narrative Communications is a story writing and branding agency that works primarily with artists, entrepreneurs, social enterprises, and small businesses. Megan is a Strategic Storyteller who draws out the many stories that surround an organization and then turns those stories into a powerful brand. Through her network of creative individuals, including designers, web developers and videographers, she collaborates to then bring that brand to life by producing and launching integrated marketing and social media campaigns.

Q&A with Megan Sheldon, Question 1:

Q: How did you initially become involved with storytelling?

A: When I was in my late teens, my mom introduced me to Joseph Campbell and other Jungian mythologists as a way of understanding my place in the world. At the time, I was studying English and media at McGill University, and I wanted to be a journalist. Six years later, after working as a journalist, an editor, a PR strategist, and a marketing consultant, I decided to pursue this passion for mythology and completed a master’s from the University of Edinburgh examining myths that have been told and retold over the centuries. I started to recognize the patterns and archetypes that emerged from so many stories, and wanted to explore our innate connection to stories further.

A Parable about the Hidden Job Market: Guest Post by Robert McIntosh

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:11:04 +0000

Bob McIntosh (pictured) is a Career Trainer with “a tenacious appetite for learning and staying abreast of the latest job-search trends, and disseminating that knowledge to jobseekers of all levels.” He shares an interest in storytelling in the job search. He was kind enough to submit this parable.

A risk not taken is an opportunity lost

Many people with fishing poles are standing around a vast body of water with their fishing lines cast in it. They believe the water is abundant with fish, and, in fact there are some fish. They’re content standing there exchanging a word or two, speaking of hope and opportunity. They feel like old friends who are in it together.

Before a cave stands one man looking into it, and from within the cave eyes stare at him. The eyes are frightening, for they could be the eyes of monsters; but on the other hand they could be the eyes of friendly people. The man’s just not sure which. So he waits. The people are comfortable standing around that body of water with fishing line dangling from their poles. There’s comfort in numbers. The weather is fine — fine as in comfortably cool, not sticky hot. Life is grand.

Because the man in front of the cave is afraid of dark spaces, he won’t enter it even if someone were to beat him with a stick. It’s better to wait, he thinks.

Eventually the people grow tired of standing around the body of water with nothing happening. Hours have passed, morning turned into afternoon into early evening….They get hungry and their arms get tired from holding their light fishing poles. They start lowering their poles, grumbling from hunger. Life isn’t so grand.

The man standing before the cave doesn’t feel particularly courageous and stands before it wondering if it’s worth entering. It’s damn cold out and whatever’s inside the cave seem to be comfortable. Whoever’s in there continue to look out, almost taunting him. It’s as if they know something he doesn’t, and this begins to bug him.

Risks are hard to measure and the outcomes are not certain. Because they’re hard to measure, safety (as in numbers) and a common belief (there has to be plenty of fish in the water) seem to be more viable. This is exactly why the man is having a hard time entering that cave; it’s risky. Unbeknownst to him, he is a risk taker, an explorer. At the moment he’s unsure of what to do.

The people at the body of water, who are now beginning to drop their fishing poles and swear about being hungry, aren’t risk takers. And look what it’s getting them. They’re getting no fish. Further, they’re beginning to think that even if there are fish in the water, there are too many people with whom to share the fish.

Eventually the man standing at the entrance of the cave decides that entering the unknown is better than standing there and getting nothing accomplished. He takes a breath and puts one step forward, backs up, takes another breath, again puts the foot forward, then puts the other foot forward, until he’s in the cave. And guess what, it doesn’t seem that dark when his eyes adjust.

What he sees around him is opportunity that was hidden from him until he took the risk of entering the cave — only it wasn’t really a risk, as it turns out. He only has one regret; he wishes he’d entered the cave a lot sooner.

Meanwhile the people round the body of water have left, each believing that there are fish in the water. The fish weren’t biting today, but tomorrow will be a new day with hope renewed. They’ll discover much later that the promise of fish was an empty one.

Learn more about the hidden job market.

Some Employers Offering Opportunities for Job-Seekers to Tell Their Stories

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:53:31 +0000

As a refreshing change from the periodic articles that declare “the resume is dead,” Rachel Emma Silverman’s No More Résumés, Say Some Firms merely notes that some employers are turning to methods other than resume screening to initially evaluate candidates.

These methods include LinkedIn profiles, a job-seeker’s Web presence, and videos. Each of these venues is an opportunity to tell a story.

I should note that Silverman’s article doesn’t mention story or storytelling. She does however, quote employers saying things like:

A résumé doesn’t provide much depth about a candidate.
We are most interested in what people are like, what they are like to work with, how they think.
A résumé isn’t the best way to determine whether a potential employee will be a good social fit for the company.
If we had just looked at their résumés … we wouldn’t have hired them.

Those observations suggest that candidates have an excellent opportunity to project their personalities and help employers get to know them better by telling their stories. I’ve written about the storytelling potential in many of the methods Silverman discusses.

Many experts are suggesting LinkedIn profiles be less resume-like and more story like, as I wrote about recently.
It’s tricky to tell a cohesive story about yourself across your entire Web presence, but a good beginning may be a social-media resume or a transmedia effort.
I don’t believe video storytelling will ever become mainstream for hiring — because it’s time-consuming and problematic for record-keeping — but from what I’ve seen when companies do seek videos, those that tell stories are far more compelling and engaging than those that don’t. Here’s a case in point.

Even the methods cites that would not seem to provide storytelling opportunities might be. For example, one company asks candidates to complete a questionnaire. A questions like one of the samples Silverman lists, “What’s the best job you ever had?”, begs for a story.

Permanent Post: What Story Practitioners are Tweeting

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:29:27 +0000

Here’s a little widget with the tweets of all the story folks I follow on Twitter on my @AStoriedCareer account. Sometimes you won’t see it because it reaches a “Twitter API connection limit” and has to reset.

To see tweets from this list of storytelling practitioners in another format, check out the “daily newspaper” version, created on paper.li.

Tweet Blendergreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

Project 365 Vets Collecting and Sharing Veterans Stories

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:12:21 +0000

Project 365 Vets is a site I would normally list on one of my inside pages rather than featuring here, but because its mission is so worthy and may be time-limited (it’s not clear to me whether the project will continue for more than one year), I’m giving it the spotlight.

The site was found by two moms “who are on a mission to honor a Veteran a day, every day of the year.” The founders say:

We want to honor veterans through their stories told in their own words. Our goals are simple. We want to honor our heroes, raise awareness about the issues veterans face every day, and preserve veteran’s stories for future generations.

Project 365 Vets actively seeks veterans who would like to share their stories. Wednesdays have been set aside for Memorial Stories, so that those who would like to honor a fallen hero may also participate.

Those interested in participating in the project are encouraged contact the project founder Tina Shang.

Daily Literary Quote

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:28:17 +0000

Thought it would be nice to have a daily lit quote as an entry:

Permanent Post: Story Practitioners Daily

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:16:06 +0000

This is my automated “curation” of content from people who are on my Story Practitioners Twitter List. Read more about the Story Practitioners Daily here.

Permanent Post: My Curation of Personal Storytelling

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:19:42 +0000

Here is my curation of personal storytelling, lifewriting, memoir, journaling, life story, personal history, life narrative, and narrative identity theory content. You can see the curation here or in the widget embedded below:

In the spirit of this latest curation, I’m embedding a very good TED talk on the power of personal narrative in which Robert Tercek talks about society’s emergence from 60-some years of being consumers — of stories chosen for us and fed to us, mostly be television — to a more democratic model in which we can all choose to tell stories not just in support of buying stuff (a la commercial TV) but to change the world.

Facebook Log-In Now Available for Comments

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:22:11 +0000

One of the most persistent and frustrating issues I’ve had with this blog in its history of nearly seven years is the comments function.

At various times, it has not functioned properly, or it has been difficult for readers to log in. When I’ve removed all barriers to commenting, I’ve been bombarded with spam.

The current setup calls for commenters to log-in. To the existing choices of logging in via Movable Type (this blog’s platform), Google, or Yahoo, I’ve just added the option of logging in via a Facebook account.

It’s still not the perfect setup perhaps, but it does provide commenters with another option.

Don't Just Warn About Stories; Tell Us How to Make Them Better

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:57:50 +0000

I’m intrigued that a TED Talk about stories that is nearly three years old is getting attention. If I had seen any buzz about Tyler Cowen’s presentation about the problems with stories when it was first posted, I would have written about it or certainly seen others write about it.

I first wrote about the speech earlier this month. I’ve included a question about it in the set of general questions I ask my Q&A participants, and Jim Signorelli and Doug Rice have weighed in with their responses.

Donald Miller (pictured) is the latest story guru to offer a rejoinder to Cowen.

In railing against stories, Miller notes, Cowen is “telling a story and he’s made himself a character in that story.”

Miller contends that by the time Cowen confesses to have told a story, it’s too late:

He’s already positioned story as suspect, the way a culture might present shovels as suspect if they’d been used in too many murders. I’d rather have him show us how to use a shovel than scare us about how we are going to be killed by them. What we need, then, is people who tell great stories with their lives, based in truth. We need people to live better stories so those around us can learn to live better stories themselves.

Instead of merely exhorting us, Miller asserts, Cowen could offer suggestions for improving our stories:

A better method would not be to attack stories (who would win that fight? An earth without Middle Earth is boring) but rather to warn us about making our stories too simplistic, and warning us that stories can be used to manipulate.

Why do you suppose this talk is getting so much attention now (I admit I manufactured some of the attention by asking Q&A subjects about it) — and why didn’t it get attention back when it was posted in 2009? Or did it, and I somehow missed it?

Permanent Post: My Curation of Organizational Storytelling

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:00:20 +0000

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:

Q and A with a Story Guru: Doug Rice: For a Business, Each Decision Shapes the Future Story

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:57:31 +0000

See a photo of Doug, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A,Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Doug Rice, Question 5:

Q: How important is it to you and your work to function within the framework of a particular definition of “story?” (i.e., What is a story?) What definition do you espouse?

A: A story in general can be defined as an account of events in the lives of characters — real or imagined. I think it’s very important, though, to understand a particular definition of story in the context of business. Many people rightly have ethical reservations about the term when they equate it to lying or “making something up.” When I help my clients with their stories, I am not helping them create works of fiction. I am helping them frame who they really are and share it with the world. It’s more like a memoir. While some level of interpretation is necessarily involved, the point is to convey their true identities — not to create fairy tales.

Another distinction I would like to make is between discovering the story, crafting the story and telling the story. Whether the entity be an individual or an organization, the story itself is not only something that is created; it is also something that is revealed. I start the process with my clients by helping them understand their back stories — why they are in business, what they sell, who they serve, how they operate, and their industrial settings. What is in the past is something to discover and not something to construct. I would never ever encourage a client to manufacturer a history that isn’t there.

But the past isn’t the only part of framing the story. For a business, each and every decision shapes the future story. The story is an eternal work-in-progress. The present is the point at which you transition from discovering the story to creating it. The past is the past. It cannot be changed. But, going forward, the person or organization can always choose a better story. Crafting the story has to do with deciding what comes next.

The final component of a business’s story is actually telling the story. In business, this is called marketing. It’s the person or organization sharing what it has learned from its discoveries and what it intends from its creations. It is only lying if it is inconsistent with the business’s history or plans for the future. Otherwise, it is a wonderful thing to share a valuable story. That’s what I help my clients do.

Q and A with a Story Guru: Doug Rice: Businesses Can Benefit Greatly from More Truth in Their Stories

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:35:05 +0000

See a photo of Doug, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A,Part 2, and Part 3.

Q&A with Doug Rice, Question 4:

Q: Watch the TED Talk by Tyler Cowen about the trouble with stories and react to what the speaker says are the problems with stories — especially as it relates to your mini eBook, An Introduction to Storytelling in the 21st Century: A Resource for Small Business Owners and Independent Professionals [Editor’s note: Visitors to the preceding link can get Doug’s ebook by subscribing to his newsletter.] The speaker would probably characterize the kind of storytelling you discuss in your ebook as manipulation. How would you counter that characterization?

A: I highly respect Tyler Cowen as an economist (my undergrad is in economics) and agree with much of what he has written. However, I find his arguments against storytelling to be perplexing. Storytelling is inescapable; it is hardwired into the way we think. Even if we think we are making rational decisions, those decisions are based stories we are telling ourselves. A judgment is merely a story about the facts that we’ve gathered.

To characterize storytelling as manipulative, though, would depend on the definition of manipulation. If any attempt at persuasion is considered manipulation, then I would have to agree that it is manipulative. But, given this definition, I also believe that it is impossible for human beings to communicate with one another at all without being manipulative. Everything we say to each other contains some element of “spin” in that we are expressing our judgments about what we are speaking. But there is nothing wrong with that. It’s just the way we are.

Literally, to manipulate is to alter an outcome. But I think that most of us understand it as lying or cheating in order to alter an outcome. Merely trying to persuade another is not something we typically view as manipulative. It’s tricking them that we frown upon. Tyler Cowen mentions companies that use slick advertising to trick us into buy things that aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. I do not condone this kind of storytelling.

At the same time, I don’t believe that this is the only kind of storytelling there is. I believe there are companies out there that take such pride in what they do that the advertising is merely descriptive of the value they have to offer. Do they want customers to buy the products? Absolutely! But, are they lying to get the sales? Absolutely not! Just as there is a distinction between fiction and non-fiction in the world of literature, storytelling for business can be either a lie or a truth. I think businesses can benefit greatly from a little more truth in their stories.