Story Telling

an effective method of Framing, a technique of Sense Making?

see semi-related: Short Story

http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/

http://www.creatingthe21stcentury.org/ John Seely Brown, Steve Denning, Katalina Groh, Larry Prusak Why is there a resurgence of interest among today's business and organizational leaders (Leadership) in the ancient art of storytelling at a time when electronic communications might seem to make it obsolete? Human beings have been communicating with each other through storytelling since we lived in caves and sat around campfires exchanging tales. What is new today about the art of telling stories is the purposeful use of Narrative to achieve a practical outcome with an individual, a community, or an organization. Four of the world's leading thinkers on knowledge management explore how storytelling will become the key ingredient to managing communications, education, training, and innovation in the 21st century.

http://www.stevedenning.com/ "Let me tell you what happened in a little town in Zambia in 1995," says Steve Denning.

Bruce Sterling (1991) "The Wonderful Power of Story Telling" (to game conference) http://www.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/comp_game_designers.article

Apr'2011: it doesn't work if you do it wrong (if your goal is to drive human action) (uses examples from Non-Profit areas)

Sept'2011: Timothy Wilson, author of Re Direct, on driving Self Improvement by Story Editing. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) (cf REBT), for example, which is designed to identify and change people’s negative thinking patterns about themselves and the social world. CBT is an effective way of helping people, especially those with serious problems such as depression or anxiety disorders. But social psychologists have discovered another approach that is simpler and can help people with less serious problems. I call this “story editing,” because people are encouraged to edit their personal stories in beneficial ways. There are a variety of ways of doing this. In one, called “story prompting,” people are given information that suggests a new way of interpreting their situation. This is particularly effective when people haven’t settled on the narrative they will tell about what is happening to them... There are other ways to help people edit their stories. A variety of writing exercises have been developed that help people reinterpret troubling events from their past in ways that speed recovery from these events. Another approach is to get people to change their behavior first. (Fake It Til You Make It)