A Storied Career
Kathy Hansen's Blog to explore traditional and postmodern forms/uses of storytelling.
|
Breaking News: Golden Fleece Conference Agenda Now Online
Had to get this out there as soon as I learned of it: The agenda for this year’s Golden Fleece Conference has been posted — now with its own Web site. And it looks as fabulous as ever. You can link to registration, speaker bios, and an overview, too. If you are into applied storytelling, I cannot recommend this conference highly enough. |
|
If Resume Is No Indicator of Person Behind It, Something Is Seriously Wrong
I was reading a blog entry by Corey Harlock directed at recruiters when this sentence stopped me dead in my tracks: A resume in no way, shape or form is an indication of the person who created it. The point of the article (I think) is that recruiters should not be so quick to dismiss applicant resumes. But seriously? A resume in no way, shape or form is an indication of the person who created it? With all the buzz about personal branding and authenticity, it’s disheartening to think... |
|
Story Takes Center Stage at Oscars
I wish I had been writing little hash marks each time “story” or “storytelling” was mentioned at last night’s Oscars. So many who spoke cited the importance of storytelling in the movies. The very first honoree, best supporting actor Christoph Waltz, cleverly crafted his acceptance speech in story form, describing his journey to playing his role in Inglorious Basterds, and weaving in the names of the “characters” in his journey that he wanted to thank.... |
|
Daily Literary Quote
Thought it would be nice to have a daily lit quote as an entry: if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('de2e1b2a-c9ff-4ae1-bf95-01cf18564f66');Get the Daily Literary Quote widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info) |
|
Here's Where to Review the Week in Storytelling
One of my newest discoveries, Gregg Morris (pictured, from his Twitter profile), produces a weekly feature in his What’s Your Story? blog called The Week in Storytelling. I freely admit that I am seduced by the fact that Gregg cites a number of entries from A Storied Career and calls me his hero. But he lists plenty of other sites and blogs in his review, so this feature is a great way to get a snapshot of what’s been written about storytelling in the past week. Gregg also runs a... |
|
Are Brands Static? Are Static Brands Storied? Are Storied Brands Static?
I’m still feeling curmudgeonly about the concept of personal branding, and when I read skeptical views about personal branding like one called “I am Not a Brand. I am Me,” by Gareth Jones, my curmudgeonliness is reinforced. One of Jones’s arguments against the personal-branding concept contrasts typical brands with humans: Brands are largely static. Brands don’t rationalise their actions. Brands don’t change their behaviour or opinion after life changing events... |
|
Tellers: How Do You Organize Your Stories?
Reader Stephanie Jones asked me a question I couldn’t answer but readers who are oral-performance storytellers perhaps can: Do you know of any web tools that would enable a storyteller to keep a log of the stories they tell, along with notes about the stories, sources, places they’ve told, etc.? I know I could use a blog or a wiki, but I would like something more like LibraryThing or Shelfari? I am going to be teaching a storytelling class online this summer for my school library... |
|
Permanent Entry: What Story Practitioners are Tweeting
Here’s a little widget with the tweets of all the story folks I follow on Twitter on my @AStoriedCareer account. It’s supposed to have a shell and a nice header. Who knows why it doesn’t. new TWTR.Widget({ version: 2, type: 'list', rpp: 30, interval: 6000, title: 'Tweets by', subject: 'Story Practitioners', width: 300, height: 300, theme: { shell: { background: '99FF99', color: '#ffffff' }, tweets: { background: '#ffffff', ... |
|
Things That Are NOT Stories
Recently, some of my favorite story practitioners have been registering protests over manifestations of “story” that they consider to be too loosely characterized or defined. I’ve written a number of times (most recently here) about the six-word stories that are the stock in trade at SMITH Magazine and have caught on in other venues. When an executive coach, part of a team at a school for professional speakers, announced a six-word story contest, Terrence Gargiuolo snarkily... |
|
Welcome, Transformative Narratives Blog
Because so many great storytelling sites and blogs exist out there, with new ones emerging all the time, I don’t usually write full blog entries about any single site or blog but rather group them together and/or list them on one of my inside pages. But I’m singling out the brand-new blog Transformative Narratives by Yvette Hyater-Adams (pictured) because her story practice really resonates with me, and I’d like to encourage and support her new venture (and hey, it doesn’t... |
|
Video Resumes as Holy Grail of Storied Job-Search? Not So Much
One of a whole list of possibilities I’ve considered over the years in my quest for what the perfect storytelling resume would look like has been video resumes, which I wrote about as recently as the Ink Foundry internship series that started here. I’ve long been aware of issues with video resumes, but my colleague Barbara Safani does a great job of laying out why they’re probably a bad idea in her article No One Wants to See Your Video Resume … Really!. Barb presents... |
|
These Questions Can Help You Position Your Story
Michael Margolis recently published a list of “20 questions that can support you in your story positioning.” Although a few of the questions are best suited for entrepreneurs seeking clients, the list as a whole is great for job-seekers, too. Michael writes: If you go about answering these questions for yourself, you’ll begin to stake out a bigger story really worth telling.” PERSONAL MOTIVATIONS What motivates you? What has shaped and defined you? What... |
|
Business-Storytelling Model May Inspire Additional Applications
Pam Hoelzle has developed what she calls a “visual and quick outline to aid in business and organizational storytelling.” Especially given the nifty graphic she’s developed to go along with the outline, I think we can safely call it a “model.” I was naturally intrigued to apply this model to my favorite type of business storytelling, storytelling in the job search. What follows is Hoelzle’s outline with my adjustments (in bold) What’s the BIG... |
|
New App Integrates Storytelling with Social Media
…. Well, with Facebook anyway. I’ve written about many forms of Twitter storytelling, but Snipisode is the first storytelling app I’ve come across for Facebook. Snipisode, developed Agency Zen, lets you type or paste in a whole story and then with a click of a button snip up the story either by line or by punctuation — periods, question marks, or exclamation points. Then you choose a frequency for snips of the story to appear as status updates — daily or every two... |
|
Consider These Rules of Engagement for Career Storytelling
What characteristics comprise good stories used in the job search (in resumes, cover letters, portfolios, personal branding, interview responses, and, as discussed in yesterday’s entry, networking communications)? Melinda Briana Epler, in a piece not long ago on Best Practices in Storytelling, provided a set of Storytelling Rules of Engagement that are well-suited to job-search stories. Here they are with my comments on how they apply to the job search: Authenticity: The employer should... |
|
Job-Search Storytelling to Rev Up Your Network Contacts
As I learned from the Career Diva blog of Eva Tahmincioglu, Tom McAlister created a comic book strip, Brandman to the Rescue, with himself as the superhero, Brandman. The comic, which you can see here, tells the story of McAlister’s career and accomplishments. Hiring managers, Tahmincioglu explains, weren’t the main target of the comic. McAlister distributed it to members of his network “to reenergize the key people that could help him land a job — his network of friends... |
|
Daily Literary Quote
Thought it would be nice to have a daily lit quote as an entry: if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('de2e1b2a-c9ff-4ae1-bf95-01cf18564f66');Get the Daily Literary Quote widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info) |
|
Jump-starting the Storied Resume: Resume Storytelling Checklist
I’ve explored the idea of the storytelling resume many, many times in this space, always on the lookout for what the ideal storied resume would look like. I still don’t know the exact form the perfect storytelling resume would take, but one place to start is with an existing resume. Karen Siwak (pictured), about whom I wrote here (be sure to read her comments on the entry), has formulated a checklist to gauge the storytelling quality of a resume. In a guest blog post on HRMargo,... |
|
So Many Barely Explored Opportunities to Tell Interesting Stories in New Ways
Today, the quote from Peggy Nelson that ended Sunday’s entry is our headline and the springboard for a look at some new ways of telling fictional and true stories with new media/social media/transmedia: Reader Stephanie Pride turned me on to a “‘micro-community’ of 17th century voices” that have clustered around the Twitter account @samuelpepys, the diarist Samuel Pepys (pictured). As reported here, “He kept a diary. Of everything. And what a diary it... |
|
User-Experience Storytelling Book Coming Soon
I’ve had several entries about storytelling in user-experience design (UX) recently, and now a book on the subject is imminent. Whitney Quesenbery reports that the book she co-authored with Kevin Books, Storytelling for User Experience, is now in production, and those interested can sign up to be notified when it’s available. You can read the table of contents here. |