In this video, Jake McKee, former social media practitioner at Lego, "tells his story," writes Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang "on how he challenged and changed the culture within the organization to build relationships with customers, share proprietary information, and how customers were in line with employees."

The effect on the audience that hears such a story? They think, "maybe we can challenge the culture at our organization."

McLellan Creative (no individual blogger identified) begins the conversation by asking, "When was the last time you were drawn into a white paper by language that compelled you to read more? How many case studies have you found impossible to put down?"*

Joe Pulizzi writing at Chief Marketer notes that not only are white papers dull, but that "the majority of brands continue to use 'interruption' style strategies..." Yet even in the face of persistence of "interruption style," Pulizzi says, "some are turning to “storytelling” instead of overt advertising." Pulizzi explains:

Storytelling, sometimes referred to as content marketing or custom media, consists of delivering the brand product message as relevant and compelling information. Instead of marketers following a playbook, storytelling requires much the same mixture of rational and emotional messaging that you’d find in a New York Times feature, or even on primetime television drama.

McLellan Creative nods excitedly: "... if you want to build a brand or launch a new product or service, a great story will differentiate you faster than an array of colorful bar graphs. ... the best technicians create new platforms, the best storytellers bring them to life."

Indeed, Pulizzi agrees, "Smart marketers are realizing that they don’t have a choice anymore when it comes to reaching consumers. In today’s business environment, the 4 Ps of marketing can be copied verbatim by an outside competitor. The only separation is communication - how a marketer tells its story."

Scott 'Scotland' Drummond of Marketing magazine chimes in with an example, Penguin Books, which I blogged about here. Penguin, Drummond says, "is leveraging the incredible power of word-of-mouth. In this sense, Penguin’s marketing is all about the conversations happening around it’s new product range. The We Tell Stories range are amazing social objects, objects around which great conversations are taking place. This is the best kind of marketing you can’t buy, and in that sense is a great move from Penguin."

Continues Drummond: "And in a broader sense, stories are the ultimate viral. We love to hear them, the best ones have been adopted, retold, repackaged, extended, embellished, they are dynamic and change infinitely in the retelling, and in the end are founded on powerful conversations."

Drummond's blog posting, er, part of the conversation, was prompted by his reading the Cluetrain Manifesto, about which I've seen quite a bit in the blogosphere recently because it's apparently having its 10th anniversary. So Drummond sums up the "conversation" with his "Cluetrain-esque proclamation (with apologies to the authors):"

If marketers don’t think they are in the business of telling great stories, and now of allowing great stories to be told around their products/services/brands, then they are still labouring under the misapprehension that they are in control. They aren’t.

Recently saw the documentary film, My Kid Could Paint That, about Marla Olmstead, who in 2004 was 4 years old and commanding thousands of dollars for her abstract paintings.

The Binghamton, NY, reporter, Elizabeth Cohen, who initially broke the Marla story in the Binghamton Sun and Press Bulletin, noted in the film, however, that Marla's tale is not about a little girl who appears to be an art prodigy. I'm not quoting her exactly, but Cohen said Marla's story is really the story of a story and what the media does to such a story. Cohen notes that when the media is in a frenzy with a story at the forefront, inevitably the story has to change to feed the "monster" that is the media.

"It's like a hungry monster," says Cohen in the film. "It can't get enough. This is lunch. This is what they wait for."

In the case of young Marla, 60 Minutes changed the story by bringing in a child psychologist to question whether Marla really created all the paintings totally on her own -- or whether she had help from, say, her dad.

The tantalizing missing piece to the story, both in the film and on Marla's Web site (a really well done site, by the way), is what is Marla up to now. The film leaves Marla at age 6, stilling painting and selling her paintings, but not with quite the fanfare as before. Marla must be about 8 by now, and the viewer has to wonder if she's still painting and selling and how the media spotlight affected her.

It's an unfinished story to be sure.

There is a reason that narrative (story) is the genre of writing most common to the Holy Scriptures. It is because stories connect with us and God knows it. God chose to reveal the majority of the Old Testament in story form.

I had quit my full-time job without any savings, filed for divorce, put my house up for sale, sold my major possessions, loaded the car up with my dog and relocated halfway across the country, moved in with my mother back into my childhood bedroom, withdrew money from my retirement account to get me through the first few months, and set up shop in my mother’s garage. I was just a failure waiting to happen, but I didn’t fail, amazingly enough. I use this story to illustrate the point that no matter what the odds, if you want to start a business and be successful, you can do it –and I’m living proof that anyone can do it — and if you don’t have all of these risk factors staring you in the face, you stand a much greater chance of success than I ever did!

The blogger also offers this advice on entrepreneurial stories:

Come up with a fairly short, 1-2 minute story statement of how you got to where you are today and how that impacted why you do what you do. Make it interesting, share the ups and downs and put your stories on your website, on your business card, in your brochure, on your blog, and incorporate them into your elevator speech. I guarantee you’ll start developing fans right away!

One of the commenters to seclater pointed out a video of Dame Anita Roddick, the late founder of The Body Shop, who used stories to educate the public and gain awareness for the store’s line of natural cosmetics. In the video, she discusses how effective story-telling became part of Body Shop’s PR program.

Oh, and one more cool thing about the blogger at seclater: He or she says: "One of my favorite pastimes as a child was to hang out with my mom and aunts for the 'adult conversations' that weren’t really suitable for children’s ears." Me, too! What I didn't realize until I read the seclater blog posting was that it was probably the stories that drew me to these adult conversations.

I've come across a couple of models for what I'd like to do. One comes from The Story Lady, Ronda Del Boccio, whose Web site Storyation asks: "What story do you create for yourself? She talks about finding patterns in one's stories and that the "path to success follows a pattern." The definition of Storyation, Del Boccio says, is "creating your story into the world," adding that "when you create a new life for yourself, you are not only telling yourself a new story but creating that story in your life." In reading her site further and viewing her blog, I think that the story work Del Boccio does is a little more geared toward entrepreneurs and folks seeking big success than the way I envision my work.

The other model that intrigues is the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process developed by Bernard Haldane (the current incarnation of whose firm has had kind of a mixed reputation in the career field; Google Bernard Haldane to see what I mean). The Dependable Strengths Web site describes the process:

... the heart of the process is storytelling. DSAP Facilitators are trained to elicit the kind of stories that illustrate a person's Dependable Strengths--those strengths characteristic of a person's best work. Participants tell their stories in small groups, and receive feedback in the form of written and vocal comments from each of the others in their group. Participants are encouraged to pay special attention to body language--that of the storyteller as well as that of the listeners.

Dependable Strengths offers DSAP facilitator training. I'm interested in learning more.

P&G also has a digital story in which a Martian appears before a group of six composite characters representing various organizations within P&G. The Martian wants to know who's responsible for innovation at P&G. As Linda Coffman, whom Steve Denning interviewed about storytelling at P&G, says: "The characters take turns in explaining why they think it is their organization. So this piece would be a good piece for new hires into the company to orient them to the different functions, and to communicate that innovation is important in P&G."

I think this is a ripe area for academic research -- how stories help socialize new hires in an organization. Anyone know anyone who's doing research in this area?

Oh, and one little side note: Coffman says that 3-5 minutes is the ideal length for a digital story.

For me, this issue is a tantalizing look at the question of nature vs. nurture. I believe it is possible that I was genetically programmed to hate games.

It seems that my mother also loathes and detests games. But I did not know of her hatred when I was a child. I learned of it only as an adult. Because she saw mothering (which she also wasn't crazy about) as Job One, she forced herself to play games with me and my two sisters.

Now, it's possible my loathing of games was learned behavior if my mother manifested any of her loathing while playing games with us. But I don't think she did. I was never consciously aware she hated games while she was playing them with us.

If you ask me why I hate games, I am likely to say, "I just do," but if pressed, I would say they are boring and I have many better uses for my time.

I will say, however, that as a child I enjoyed "games" that were more of the storytelling ilk – unorganized games of the imagination, such as "House," "Horses," "Brother and Sister," and playing with dolls and making up stories about them.

One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ...

Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."

"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career."
– Jill Bolte Taylor

For someone who prides herself on keeping up with trends, I have been quite slow on the uptake with Multi-User Virtual Environments, such as Second Life. I don't fully grasp this concept, and I haven't yet become a full participant, but I'm attempting to learn more and expect to post more as I do. Clearly, Second Life is a storytelling environment.

It should not therefore have surprised me that Second Life is also being used as a job-interviewing environment, but there it was in the New York Times.

Reporter Matt Villano told of his interview with Linden Lab, the owner and operator of Second Life:

Mr. Gould showed up in a Superman costume. Next, he invited me to sit down next to him in a chaise longue that overlooked the crashing surf. As we talked about my strengths and weaknesses, crabs skittered along the sand at our feet. At another point, in the middle of responding to a question about overcoming professional challenges, I stood up and performed a hula dance.

Finally, after thanking me for my time, Mr. Gould stood up, shook my hand and flew away.

Apparently, these interviews are indeed taking place, and companies are also using Second Life for Virtual Job Fairs. "Mr. Gould" told Villano that Second Life interviews are best supplemented with traditional recruiting methods.

I've posted some new events in my Story Events section – and some are coming up very soon.

Kaur's main point in her posting is how she was derided when she told people she was taking the storytelling class. People assumed it was an easy and lightweight topic. In reality, storytelling was Kaur's hardest class. She wonders if storytelling is looked down upon "because anyone can tell a story...?"

Is it because professors are often horrible storytellers, while humble working class folk often excel at it? Is it a women’s discipline? Is it a childish subject? Or are other races better at storytelling than people of European descent?

Kaur peppers her posting with some great quotes about storytelling, which I've now posted in my Story Wisdom section.

She concludes, "The capacity to tell our tales is neither easy nor is it trivial." Referring to the tendency of the revilers to compare the class to basket-weaving, Kaur declares: "I dare you! Weave a basket that holds water and lasts longer than your puny little lifetime."

In a sad postscript to her blog posting, Kaur notes that because of budget cuts, Western Washington U. has cut Vohs' classes down to one and told her to vacate her office.

In a recent newsletter, Terrence Gargiulio offered some great "trigger questions" for eliciting stories about parents and siblings:

• What stories do you know about your parents' childhood?
• What things did you do with your parents?
• Do you have any memories of shopping for food or clothing with your parents?
• Were you ever jealous of your siblings? Were they ever jealous of you?
• What things do you admire most about your parents?
• What aspects of your relationship with your parents were difficult?
• While you were growing up, were there any major events in your parents' lives?
• Did you ever see your parents frightened?
• How did your parents relate to one another?
• Who were your parents' friends?
• What hobbies or interests did your parents have?
• What things upset your parents?
• Did your parents give you chores?
• Did you have an allowance?
• How did your parents express affection?
• How did your parents express anger?
• Were you spoiled in any way?
• Did you or any of your siblings receive special treatment?
• Were your parents strict?
• What sort of rules did you have while growing up?
• Were your parents involved in the community?
• What did your friends say and think about your parents?
• Did your parents ever apologize to you?
• In what ways did you try to please your parents?
• What were some of the most memorable gifts your parents gave you?
• How did your parents express disappointment?
• What do you cherish most about your parents?

At The Learning Times Green Room, a podcast for Renewal, Retooling and Conversations about Learning, co-hosts Susan Manning and Dan Balzer offer a podcast on using storytelling for instructional purposes.

The Learning Times Green Room blog also offers notes to go along with the podcast. Susan's and Dan's discussion of "getting students engaged in solving a problem, making a recommendation, or breaking up problem down into simpler components are methods of using story" resonates with me. Susan and Dan also encourage listeners to check out Learning Scenarios Online based at Valencia College, which is near me. You can log onto a demo Learning Scenario course, Teaching for Learning, a story-based course described, in part, like this: "By engaging with the storyline, characters, and resources, and interacting with other participants, you will leave with the skills, attitudes and knowledge to assist you in creating a learning-centered classroom environment."

The Learning Times Green Room's show topics are often drawn from members of LearningTimes.org, a free online community of education and training professionals from across the globe. The LT Green Room gives listeners (and ourselves) an opportunity to reflect on what they're doing behind the scene that results in an effective learning experience.