Applied Narrative

It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It

The following video arrived in my email inbox today. I find it fascinating for so many reasons:

Heekya: Digital Social Storytelling

Sharing digital stories online was once a dream. Now it’s a reality. The new website Heekya.com is working to make digital storytelling fun and easy.

I’ve signed up to be invited to use the site when it opens for beta testing because I wonder if FaceBook will beat Heekya to the punch. With everyone already networked together and using FaceBook, how hard would it be for the social network giant to add multimedia capabilities beyond what it’s already got? How will Heekya go above and beyond? Watch the video below and see for yourself.

What do you think about the video? Did Heekya excite and engage you?

A Hook in the Form of a Note

This note was stuck to the outside of the front door of my building yesterday.

I love this note because it contains mystery in the form of a hook and forces those “outside of the know” to create story. 

Who is Charlie?
Who’s apartment was he in?
Did he really just leave to have a smoke?
Why didn’t he just dial up on the call box?
Did he forget the person’s name?
What is their relationship?
Did he get the books back?
Where did he get the pen, paper, and tape if he was just going outside for a smoke?

10 Tips for Giving a Business Talk

I attended a talk just an hour before writing this post. The things I took away from the experience are as follows.

1. Talk about what the title of your talk says you’re going to talk about.
If the title says you’re going to discuss sustainability in architecture, tell us about sustainability in architecture. Talk about the topic rather than about yourself. Doing so makes the speaker look like they’re trying to convince the audience that they are an expert. The audience is already there to hear you talk.

2. Speak to the whole audience.
Tonight’s speaker spoke primarily to one corner of the room. I thought it was because he was nervous, but it turned out that there was someone influential in that corner. This sent a message that the rest of the audience was less significant.

3. Speak up and enunciate.
Nothing is worse than trying to listen to a speaker that you cannot hear. Straining to listen is taxing. Trying to hear what someone is saying for over an hour is pure torture—especially if you want to hear about a particular topic and the speaker does not deliver. If possible use an microphone with your voice lightly amplified. If you’re in a small room, simply speak louder. 

4. Don’t pretend to know what you’re talking about.
Tonight, the architect showed us renderings of his upcoming buildings. He came to a slide with a rendering of a ten-speed bike attached by cable to a bike bar. He paused to tell us that his firm has a strong bike culture and so they specifically told the artist to render a “cool” bike for the image. Then he pointed out that the bike shown was “some kind of Italian single speed fixed gear bicycle.” But he was mistaken. The bike was clearly a multi-speed 70’s Schwinn of sorts. If the speaker was into bike culture he’d have known that. He obviously doesn’t ride. Know what you’re talking about and don’t pretend to be hip to something you’re not.

5. Get to the point.
If you have an hour to talk, speak for half of that time and answer questions during the second half. Provided you know what you’re talking about, the talk goes so much better when you are answering questions from the audience. Answering questions shows that you are a people person (or what kind of people person you are) and that you can “defend” your position, make the sale, or articulate further than a canned talk. Taking questions also shows that you are confident and interested in the audience. It says that you care. Place a watch facing you on the podium and cut yourself off when you hit time. Less is more and questions allow you to get into more if the audience wants.

6. Don’t read.
So that little joke you wrote down and wanted to tell gets forgotten. So what? Don’t read. If you must, write the names of the people who need to be thanked but don’t read them. Only ever read if you absolutely must deliver some information that cannot under any circumstance be missed and you have not memorized it. But I must say, it looks insincere if you read names in a ‘thank you’ talk. If you have people to thank, you should KNOW who they are. Don’t read. Just don’t.

7. Be careful about your meta message.
The architect explained about a massive project that he’s working on. It’s a large building going up in the heart of the city. What I took away from his talk was that he REALLY wants to erect the building because it’s a great opportunity for his firm and his reputation. It’s good business. But he didn’t talk about how he’s passionately trying to offer something to the community. In fact he admitted that he’s working with a third party to create the marketing around the building based on what will work to make the building go up. None of this seemed sustainable.

8. Be passionate.
In the first part of his talk, the architect said that he does this work because he’s passionate about it. But when he said that he actually mumbled and we could barely hear him. It was as if his passion for his work had him up overnight and he was tired and falling asleep right before our eyes. Guess what we wanted to do. We wanted to passionately get up and leave or fall asleep as well. People will forgive and possibly even not notice your short comings if you are sincerely passionate about what you are talking about. Or in other words, don’t phone it in.

9. Know what the talk is about and know your audience.
The architect didn’t talk about sustainability at all. Instead he showed images and told the story about how they purchased what looked like a huge truckload of raw Douglas Fir trees for use in one of his projects. He later explained that they want to destroy a building in town to build a new one in its place. The first home he designed used concrete—because they wanted to keep costs down. He never mentioned sustainability and, from his talk, I’m not sure that he cares about it at all.

10. Have an agenda to give.
Give the audience something. Some audience members will take something from your talk no matter what. Don’t let it be a list of things not to do when giving a talk. If you try to give (teach) your audience something then even if you miss they will still appreciate that you didn’t waste an hour of their lives.

How do you know if you did a good job?
Usually when you do a good job people stick around and ask questions. When you don’t they’re out the door and you never get any feedback.

Public speaking is hard. The only way to get better at it is to do it often. Expect to make mistakes. Record yourself with a digital audio recorder and listen back. You’ll be amazed at what you hear!

Are You Creating Stories or Are Stories Creating You?

Do you have a story played out on you? Are you locked at a job you hate because “the man” is keeping you down? Are you stuck in a creative rut and can’t seem to move ahead? Maybe you sleep through your day because everything is just so damn boring.

If this is you, you’re acting like an extra in your own movie. You’re stuck in the background and it really doesn’t matter if you’re in the shot or not. But guess what, you can move into the foreground because you are the star of your own movie!

Years ago I met a man who was rather wealthy. He told me I should wake up everyday and ask myself, “How can I earn money today?”

Lately I’ve been thinking along the same lines, but with a different question. The question I ask myself is, “What story am I creating today?”

In some cases the story of the day isn’t one of excitement or accomplishment. Instead it’s a small step in a larger tale that won’t get told for some time.

On other days I might be dealing with personal conflicts or boring tasks. It is during these times when there’s an opportunity to create a new and exciting story. A good story comes from the extraordinary. Some things seem to be mundane no matter what, but it’s still fun trying to try to jazz them up. How do you think televisions on treadmills and electric toothbrushes came to life?

By acting as the star of my own movie I find myself empowered. It takes a paradigm shift, but once you get the idea that you are able to craft your own tale, everything becomes interesting. 

What is the story that would get told about you today?

Storytelling Goes Pro

“The Business Innovation Factory is a community of innovators collaborating to explore and test better ways to deliver value,” according to their website. And they might have struck gold in the form of storytelling.

The organization has launched the Innovation Story Studio, a forum where innovative and influential professionals get 15 minutes (but no compensation) to tell a story. The stories are then recorded for display on the BIF website.

Another site similar in nature, but not necessarily just for storytelling, is TED - Ideas Worth Spreading which shows interesting live speeches by interesting people.

Imagine that! Corporate culture is embracing personal storytelling. Public speaking and digital media mastery has become quite the skill for professionals.

Informercials Get A Facelift

Internet advertising began with giant blinking banner ads that quickly went out of style. Google whipped up AdWords and everyone fell in love with web advertising again—until people learned how to subconsciously shut off the text links that run up the sides of many websites. Do you know if there are adwords on your favorite website? I doubt it. We tune them out.

Next came viral marketing in the form of a small line of text at the bottom of every email. That graduated into cool videos that everyone just had to see and voluntarily forwarded. Later we found out they were created by an agency in Portland who grabbed the idea from some guy in New England. ***

Now the web’s next big thing is going to be hard-to-ignore online interactive infomercials called StoryAds. StoryAds at best are involved, episodic, and emotional. At worst, they’re annoying images with voices that attack us while we’re surfing websites.

Things are changing. Forget TV-style commercials on the web. Our heros and villains will soon gorge themselves on specifically placed products as they fight to carry out their plans, and we’ll have to decide with a click which brand they chose. 

There are many of StoryAds on the web already and I’ll ad more in the future. In the meantime, check out these two and see what you think.

Get the Glass - Online game for Milk. One of the challenges is to keep the mother character from overheating into a fit of rage (she has PMS) due to lack of milk. 

Seduction 101 - A love rectangle story. How many products can you spot in this one?

There’s No Such Thing As A Free Story

There’s a price for everything. Storytelling is no different. When you stop to listen to a story, be it on television, in the newspaper, on the Internet, or in person, ask yourself what’s being exchanged.

Is it knowledge? Take, for instance, this blog. I write about story. I try to give away knowledge. In return I hope to gain nothing but happiness, joy, and good karma.

Do you believe that? It’s partially true. But while those are only some of the reasons I write this bog, they certainly aren’t the only reasons. 

Whenever you stop to listen to a story you are getting something (or searching for something). Do you know what it is?

Whenever you tell a story, you are getting as well as giving something.

Does it matter if the exchange is candid or covert?

Next time you find yourself listening to a story, ask yourself why.