A Storied Career
Kathy Hansen's Blog to explore traditional and postmodern forms/uses of storytelling.
|
Comments Temporarily Disabled
Not that I get a huge number of comments anyway, but just wanted to let regular readers know this blog underwent a huge spam attack on Aug. 22, so I disabled the comment function. Trying to get it back but having difficulty. If you are champing at the bit to comment, thanks for your patience. |
|
Stories of Islam May Help Generate Understanding
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.... |
|
How Storytelling Could Preserve Net Neutrality
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... |
|
Readers Theatre as a Storytelling Medium
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... |
|
Would You Grieve for Virtual Friend You Barely Knew?
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... |
|
Not to Be Outdone, Twitter Launches Twitter Tales
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... |
|
Defining Storytelling and Leveraging My Passion for It
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... |
|
More Boje: Storytelling Consulting Bibliography
I wrote recently about the site scholar David Boje has set up, StoryOrgs, where folks can ask questions about the organizational storytelling concepts he researches and writes about. Another of the vast resources Boje offers online popped onto my radar recently and is worth sharing: David Boje’s Annotated Bibliography on Storytelling and Consulting. |
|
Stunning (and Risque) Brand Storytelling By Perrier
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... |
|
Improving Your Storied Brand in Social Media, Part 3
Came across a couple of additional postings that relate to the upcoming Social Story: How To Tell Your Story Through Social Media Conference (Aug. 24 in Denver). Anthony Townsend is annoyed that “There aren’t any stories” on venues like Twitter and Facebook. “Some conversations become really good stories,” he writes, “but unless you follow them in real-time you’re S.O.L. They dissipate and hang there in the cloud like a cool blue mist of vaporized bank... |
|
Have You Been Following TED's Playlists?
Not all TEDTalks contain storytelling, but terrific stories are at the heart of most of these superb presentations. In fact, TED generally frames the presentations as stories. For the uninitiated, TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader, as you can see here. Check out this article Fast Company has just published... |
|
Improving Your Storied Brand in Social Media, Part 2: Storytelling about Your Brand Book Is Here
I’ve written more than once about Bernadette Martin’s book, Storytelling about Your Brand Online & Offline: A Compelling Guide to Discovering Your Story. The book was “forthcoming” in those posts (and also had a slightly different title), but now it’s here, published in both hard-copy and ebook formats, and I’m mentioning it in conjunction with the Social Story Conference coming up later this month. Much has been written about personal branding in recent... |
|
A Plethora of Tips for Better Storytelling
Back in the spring, M. Amedeo Tumolillo, a.k.a., Flying Flashlight, published lists of storytelling tips by three well-known storytellers, the late novelist Kurt Vonnegut, playwright David Mamet, and screenwriter/screenwriting teacher Robert McKee. While the authors of these tips work(ed) primarily in the fiction realm, these tips work equally well for nonfiction story applications. Add to those this juicy nugget from Jenny Munn (which reminds me a lot of Annette’s Simmons’s advice... |
|
The Story Guru Q&A Process
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 about the characteristics I look for in a Q&A interviewee: When I first began sending out invitations for the Q&A series in the summer of 2008,... |
|
Deploying Stories to Instill Company Values
I always especially appreciate content about storytelling related to employment. While my personal crusade is about storytelling in the job search, I’m also interested in the flip side — how employers use stories to entice, retain, and engage employees. Employee engagement is a major hot-button topic in HR, and some companies are using stories to excellent effect in this quest. One of them is Juniper Networks, reports Martha Finney, who interviewed Juniper’s Stacey Clark Ohara... |
|
Four Perspectives on Story in Healthcare
I’ve come across (somewhat) recently four ways storytelling is being used in healthcare. Here are some perspectives on those approaches: Patient stories are widely available on the Internet but are not always trustworthy: In a guest post on e-patients.net, Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, notes three kinds of patient stories that can be found on the Internet: unedited user-generated stories in online health communities and patient blogs; professionally edited or “as told to”... |
|
Storytelling and Postmodernism
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 had asked me about the relationship between storytelling and postmodernism. I view the current storytelling movement as an outgrowth of postmodernism. Postmodernism... |
|
Do We Tell Our Stories Differently Online Than Offline?
I’ve been fascinated for awhile about whether we construct our stories (identities, personas) differently online than we do offline. Back in the spring at the conference Digital Storytelling ‘10, Molly Flatt of the agency 1000Heads looked at “look at how — and if — social media is changing the way we tell our own stories, brands tell their stories, and how the two collide.” Here are some highlights of her exploration: I think social media encourages a architectural,... |
|
Job Posting Invites Candidates to Start Their Story with Organization
Gregg Morris yesterday turned me on to what he thinks might be the first job posting ever to use “story” in the way this posting does. It is certainly the first one I’ve seen that does so. The posting is for the position of Social Media Specialist. Here are some snippets showing how Cancer Treatment Centers of America seeks someone who can tell its story, as well as someone to begin his or her story with the organization: Stories of Life. Stories of Hope. Imagine a place... |
|
A List Too Great Not to Reprint
In an exuberant blog entry called The Chemistry of Storytelling, Marguerite Grant has created an inspiring list that answers the question, “Why story?” We don’t just buy a product, we buy the story behind it. We don’t just join a company, we join because of its story. We don’t just join a cause, we join the story behind it. We don’t just vote for a presidential candidate, we buy into his story of what the future holds. We don’t just follow the leader,... |