Storytelling Methods

Moving from marketing to an entertaining delivery of useful information creates a much higher likelihood of successful communications between an organization and its stakeholders. Like gamification, storytelling entertains the online reader/viewer/listener, earning their interest. Compelling stories convert dry boring content into worthwhile time expenditures.

Success assumes a few of things: 1) That the storyteller understands what compels its stakeholders; 2) the information presented in the story is useful; and 3) the return on investment for an organization is asked for in a tasteful manner. Meeting those three fundamental building blocks empowers an organization to make storytelling work.

There are many approaches towards storytelling. Personification, third person storytelling, embedded journalism, and metaphors are just four ways to enliven content. Take a deeper look at Geoff Livingston's Blog

Stories as Agents for Change

Linked via Organisational Storytelling Examples

I realized that the conventional mode of consulting was insufficient for the quick, wide, and lasting assimilation that was essential for valid research implementation feedback.

My answer to this problem was storytelling. Why? Because I realized that my role was similar to that of an optometrist -- trying to convince people that in order to change the way they viewed the world, they would have to change their eyeglasses. I also realized that people's minds are changed more through observation than through argument. I therefore thought that the telling of real-life stories by credible and successful managers, colleagues from their own company, would serve as an efficient substitute for observation.

The idea that successful and busy project managers should set aside the time to tell and write stories was not adopted easily. First I had to overcome the prevailing feeling that stories are meant for children and not for managers. Even including the word 'story,' in the title of a booklet we produced as a pilot, was deemed inappropriate. Then I had to overcome the disbelief of the managers in their own writing ability and convince them that the effort was worthwhile. But once we started, there was no way back. Almost everyone who saw the booklet became enthusiastic immediately and wanted to contribute his/her own success story.

NASA - Stories as Agents for Change

Organisational Storytelling Examples

Good examples of policies, processes or incentives to encourage storytelling embedded in this article

Knowledge Ecology

"Knowledge ecology" is an interdisciplinary field of management theory and practice, focused on the relational and social aspects of knowledge creation and utilization. Its primary study and domain of action is the design and support of self-organizing knowledge ecosystems, providing the infrastructure in which information, ideas, and inspiration can travel freely to cross-fertilize and feed on each other.

Read more and sample the resources here

The Expressive Energy Grid

I'll confess to being a metaphor man. I'm always seeking and assessing different ways of describing the world that help me understand and explore it better, and help me describe and discuss that world with students and colleagues. But when it comes to describing the part of that world I serve -- the arts and culture industries, either narrowly or broadly defined -- I've usually come up flummoxed.

A colleague describes the network of arts and culture organizations as 'a multi-national corporation with thousands of branch offices and no headquarters.' That metaphor tends to draw affirming nods and laughs from a room. But like most metaphors, it comes bundled with assumptions, in this case, that there should be a headquarters (which I don't believe is probable or even desirable).

So, here's what I'm thinking lately: The arts and culture organizational infrastructure is a power grid, a loose-knit collection of utility companies that discover, refine, and distribute a unique and essential form of energy.

Read more at The Artful Manager

@storytellin

I've been impressed of late with the quality of the links tweeted by @storytellin - my new favorite follow given the work I do. Rather than create multiple posts for each article of interest to me on this blog, I'll consolidate today's haul into this one post and forgo the titles and teaser:

http://www.artsmarketing.org/resources/article/2011-03/rethinking-online-video-content-matters?utm_source=MagnetMail

http://www.the-storytellers.com/blog/199?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheStorytellers+%28The+Storytellers%29

http://www.nyvs.com/courses/lessonslist/Video-Storytelling-Basics

http://www.microsoft.com/education/Story.aspx


http://jontangerine.com/log/2011/03/web-design-as-narrative-architecture

http://www.uni.edu/icss/researchhelps/miller.pdf


http://www.am-psychotherapists-new-york-city.com/counseling/resources/12-stages.html

http://www.story-telling.com/References/WebSites.htm


http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?q=storytelling&subject=All+subjects&grade=All+grades


http://digital-stories.wikispaces.com/


http://www.media-and-place.org/

http://www.howtotellagreatstory.com/articles/article66.html


http://k12media.usc.edu/

2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report

In this free report, you’ll discover:

• The top 10 social media questions marketers want answered
• How much time marketers invest with social media activities
• The top benefits of social media marketing and how time invested affects results
• The most used social media tools and services
  
• Marketers’ future social media plans
• Activities social media marketers are outsourcing
• And much more!

Download it at Social Media Examiner

The 25 Most Influential People Tweeting About Augmented Reality

The 25 Most Influential People Tweeting About Augmented Reality - TNW Social Media

What's Our Story? A challenge for Alice Springs

The narrative of Alice Springs is under construction. In the midst of a perfect media storm, the current chapter is being written at a furious pace by many urgent voices, focusing our attention on identifying solutions to the things that divide us.

But what of the things that unite us? What processes do we have for exploring and amplifying universal themes that help us describe aspects of the intercultural zone?

There is an opportunity in the near future for you to explore this notion : HOME is a collaborative artwork developed by internationally respected artist Craig Walsh and presented as part of Digital Odyssey

In HOME, individuals from across our community will share how circumstances and experiences have shaped their perceptions of ‘home’, and what remains important to them in defining this term. These video portraits will then be screened in public spaces across Alice Springs, May 12-14.

On behalf of Watch This Space and the Museum of Contemporary Art (NSW) I'm inviting you to participate.

Interviews will be recorded May 3-6 at the Watch This Space gallery. Please reply email or tweet me @transmediaNT to arrange a suitable time.

Watch a video about Craig here. An ABC Arts video here.

  

Example Social Media Policies & Plans

museumsocialmedia : Example Social Media Policies and Plans

Implementing Knowledge Cafes

Knowledge Sharing is a key issue for Knowledge Management and for organizational success. But real Knowledge Sharing requires an open mindset and continues to be a challenge for many organizations. In fact, it can be difficult to even get people to talk openly to one another other about their specific corporate interests, opportunities and responsibilities.

One way of energizing an organization to take real advantage of conversation and consequent tangible business benefits is the use of Knowledge Cafés. A Knowledge Café is an effective vehicle for opening up conversations and discussions that lead to a deeper understanding of the business world that is turn leads to improved decision making, new ways of working and innovation.

A Knowledge Café is a tool that is used to share tacit knowledge. It can be used within teams, Communities of Practice or across silos to question entrenched assumptions, to help facilitate learning from others and gain a deeper collective understanding of a subject – through conversation.

It is not just about talking and networking though these are secondary benefits but allowing people to engage each other in "dialogue" with the aim of learning from each other rather than entering into unproductive debate and attempting to impose their views on the other which invariably end in failure and frustration.

Knowledge Cafes can be used to many businesss ends. Here are some specific examples:

• turn a traditional chalk and talk, death by powerpoint presentation or meeting into an engaging learning event
• transform an internal conference from a series of boring lectures into an exciting day
• transform traditional management training courses where younger managers learn from more experienced ones
• as a powerful sales tool to engage customers in conversation and thus better understand their needs for and them to betetr understand your product or service
• surface hidden problems and opportunities that exist in the organisation or in a department or project - especially ones caused by lack of communication
• break down organizational silos
• encourage knowledge sharing and the creation of a knowledge sharing culture
• give people a voice so that they feel heard and are thus less cynical and more engaged in their work
• bring managers and technologists together after a merger to build relationships, surface new opportunities and address cultural issues
• build and improve relationships
• improve business networking and make new connections
• solicit input and obtain buy-in for a new project or initiative
• as part or replacement for a paper survey or interview (the problem is that until people talk - their knowledge fails to surface)
• as a stimulus to innovation: Knowledge Cafes connect people to people; people to ideas and ideas to ideas; they challenge people to reflect on their thinking; surface new ideas and make new connections

In effect the Knowledge Café is an easy, low cost way to make Knowledge Sharing really work for you and your organization.

Masterclass: Implementing Knowledge Cafes (Edinburgh) , 07 Jun 2011, Edinburgh, United Kingdom (Gurteen Knowledge)

Creating digital stories to enhance vocational learning

This pilot study sought to improve the vocational learning and literacy development of learners through the making of their own digital stories. The findings were that digital story telling supports vocational learning and literacy development, reflective conversations encourage deep learning, and collaboration fosters empathy and transformative learning.

Read more at Ako Aotearoa

9 web accessibility tips

9 web accessibility tips to make your site much accessible

Harnassing institutions to serve communites' knowledge needs

Skilled people, appropriate technologies, and reliable and relevant information are the building blocks of a successful communications environment. What generates news and information in that environment, however, is not just those building blocks. It is engagement--specifically, people's engagement with information and with each other.

I think that when people "engage," some of the things they do include:

• Discussing information with other people, including people who have different values and interests, in order to make sense of it;
• Using their knowledge to help them manage public resources, run organizations, and work on public problems together. In turn, their experiences as they work together generate information, knowledge, and understanding;
• Recruiting other people, including young people, to be interested and concerned about important public issues and giving them the skills they need for interpretation, analysis, collaboration.

I start with the bias that we need institutions for these purposes. I am open to the idea that we need institutions less than we used to, because now we have virtual networks (like Facebook, or the Internet itself) that cut the costs of discussion collaboration. But I see no evidence that these networks have yet revived our democracy. And I think the tough questions to ask are:

• Can a loose, voluntary network really recruit people who lack motivation and interest in public affairs?
• Can a loose voluntary network reliably bring people into conversation with others who are different from themselves?
• Can a loose voluntary network be accountable to all its members in a fair way?
• Can a loose, voluntary network hold governments and businesses accountable consistently, over time?

Read more by Peter Levine here.

The Mixing Room | Lumen Digital

Interactive tables for museums etc. Nice work. The Mixing Room | Lumen Digital

More 360º Video Platforms

Imagine you're watching moving footage from a concert or sporting event, and you're able to look in any direction, peering into the crowd to see who's behind you or up into the air to watch halftime fireworks. No more 4:3 or 16:9 frames. No more boundaries. This is QTVR on steroids. Check out the yellowBird Video Platform

See also Ladybug

360º video

Following on the technological heels of Google, NASA and National Geographic, northStudio360 created the web-based video by using a custom-built rig to which they strapped six cameras to a pole and hung it out of a helicopter while flying over a 150 km track of stunning coastal mainland. To finalize the product, northStudio360 used their proprietary video merging software for a seamless flying experience.

To experience the software first-hand, visit www.nimmobay.com. More information is available at www.northstudio360.com.

To read the rest of the article click here.

Farming vs. Mining

Let’s come up with an analogy and then torture it like we’re the Cheney administration: imagine you’ve just purchased a plot of land. What are you going to do, mine or farm?
Read more here.

See also (video): China's Ghost Cities

Adobe Photoshop Video Tutorials

2008 best of at Smashing Magazine

psd tuts+ list here

honkiat list here

Psd tutorial blog list here

Business Models for DIY Craft

Read all about it at openp2pdesign.org

Heal with Media

Recommend dose: 1 healwithmedia download a day

Learning Through Digital Media

Outstanding essays on learning through digital media here.

How To Steal Like An Artist

Good advice here for creatives.

Connecting Meaning and Learning Through Storytelling

People instinctively organize their thoughts as stories. Well-crafted stories engage, inform, and inspire and inevitably resonate with us over time. The practice of storytelling is not a new one. Stories have always carried messages even before writing was the main carrier.

The art of storytelling in recent days has made a resurgence in business and marketing. People are realizing the power that narrative has in engaging and informing people about a product or a brand.

Within education, these same techniques can be used to create an emotional connection with curricular content. With the flurry of testing our students and teachers are now subjected to, education has become formulaic in its approach. Rubrics are given to students that define their success for them before they even attempt a task on their own.

Read more here.

Earth Charter

We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.

Read more here.

Holacracy

Over the past two decades, dozens of thought-leaders have pointed the way to new capacities organizations must develop to thrive amidst our 21st century challenges. These visionaries are highlighting the limits of our conventional views of organization and leadership, and offering a glimpse of new possibilities available to us – if we’re able to make the leap. Yet it has proven difficult to sustain a whole-system transformation by simply applying isolated principles and practices within our conventional frame. To really achieve the promises of the emerging new paradigm, we need a fundamentally new operating system for our organizations – a core upgrade to the way we govern, manage, and execute work.

Holacracy offers a comprehensive practice for governing and running our organizations. Its transformative structure and processes integrate the collective wisdom of people throughout the company, while aligning the organization with its broader purpose and a more organic way of operating. Holacracy takes the principles, ideas, and emerging mindset articulated by many cutting-edge thought leaders, and instills them in the actual structures and processes of the organization. This grounds them in practice and brings them to life, and the result is dramatically increased agility, transparency, innovation, and accountability.

Download PDF here

Constitution here

Web 2.0 Expo resources

Awe diddly some.
Speaker Slides & Video: Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2011 - Co-produced by O'Reilly Media & UBM TechWeb, March 28 - 31, 2011, San Francisco

Mobile Africa 2011

MobileAfrica_2011.pdf Regional Hubs of Innovation & Excellence.

Adobe Youth Voices

Demonstrating the power of technology to engage middle and high school age youth, Adobe Youth Voices provides breakthrough learning experiences using video, multimedia, digital art, web, animation, and audio tools that enable youth to explore and comment on their world. Learn more here.

10 Essential Web Application Usability Guidelines

Users should be able to simply, quickly, and intuitively use any web app, like with any tool in life, be it a car, phone, or anything else. After all, a useful web app doesn’t do much good if it’s a pain in the butt to use – many users will eventually give up and go to an easier-to-use alternative.
So how do you maximize usability in your web app? In this article we share 10 Web Application Usability Guidelines that we feel are essential.