Our Role as Storytellers

By Kim Nielsen

I don’t often think of myself as a storyteller. I’m not a novelist, and I don’t share stories with children sitting on the floor around me as I recall my grandfather doing when I was young.

Regardless of the mental picture I have of storytellers, those of us in the PR, marketing and communications professions really do have stories to tell – the stories of our company, organization or client. I’ve become increasingly reminded of our role as storytellers (especially through technology) over the past few weeks.

Just today, as an alumna of the MA program in Marquette’s College of Communication, I received an email asking me to complete a survey on a graduate sequence in digital storytelling that the school is devleoping. The courses explore and apply the integration of technology and storytelling through blogs, documentaries, websites, etc.

Even before receiving the survey, the topic was already fresh in my mind. I recently attended a conference where Jonathan Harris was a keynote speaker. He combines storytelling and technology in amazing ways. If you aren’t familiar with Harris, I strongly recommend checking out some of his work here. One of my personal favorites is We Feel Fine. Commissioned by MOMA, I Want You to Want Me (highlighted in the video) is also pretty neat.

 

We’ve always been storytellers. When you really think about it, though, we can tell our stories in an incredible number and collection of ways.

Butterflies About Blackberrys

By: Sam Sova

When most of us give presentations, we naturally get butterflies before we deliver to any size audience. Eventhough we have prepared and practiced and “know our stuff” we still have that natural fear – Our natural fear of speaking in from of an attentive audience – all eyes on you, right…

Well the game has changed big time with crackberrys and iPhones basically in pocket’s reach of all of your attendees. Now, presenters are going to have to keep their presentations so interesting that they keep the eyes on them…instead of one’s portable device. 

Over the last year I have been to a respectable amount of conferences, have been in numerous presentations, and have even been giving my own presentations to groups ranging from 1 to 125. The one thing that I have noticed is the number of people that are checking email during the presentation – I am even a victim of it. I was at the Online Marketing Summit last week and saw this first hand. Overall the conference was good, but there was one presenter that was just so damn boring that I had to pull out my blackberry (like everyone else!) and check my email. In a way I felt bad, but I was paying to see her speak and even more – giving up valuable work time to see it. And obviously everyone in the room felt the same!

So here is the scoop. If you are planning a presentation in the near future, it has to be interesting enough to hold your audience. Less text, more videos and photos. If you are talking about a Web site, go to it and give a quick demo. Embed some videos or have an entire slide with just a photo that your discussion will be revolved around. The old days of text-heavy presentations are done. If you are going to take the time and/or money of others to hear you speak, do it right or you will be talking to a crowd focused more on their email or the Web than with what you have to say.

We’re Back…Take a Breath and Step Back

By Sam Sova

So it has been a while since any of us have posted anything. For those of you not in Milwaukee, when summer hits things get hectic. Nights are filled with sports, grilling, beer, brats, and of course wine (for those that go to Jazz in the Park). So for those of you that were/are following this blog, I will speak for everyone and say that we are sorry. 

So anyway, in the last month off of this blog I have been through some awesome experiences at the day job around Web 2.0 and social media. I have been building a social media strategy for the organization during the last year and am amazed of the number of people that just want to “dive in” to social media…not only in our organization but what others in the industry have done. It is absolutely insane that after giving presentations I will get a plethora of emails and calls that start with “we should do a blog on… or we should start a podcast on… or even better, lets start a social network like facebook. Clearly, just impulse behaviors (unfortanately how my buying behaviors are!). But the real question is, once you do that one blog post or podcast, what is next?

Here’s the deal. If you look at companies that have tried the Web 2.0 thing and have focused JUST on the tools, they have most likely failed. They were the ones that bought into the emails and calls described above. They were the “impulse buyers” of social media that did not take a step back and look at the big picture. They did one awesome video podcast and were left saying….”great, what’s next?”

As cool as all of this new stuff is like Twitter, Friendfeed, Digg, and the basics of blogs and podcast, you have to take a step back and look at the big picture. Is your culture even ready for any of this yet? Are they ready to have to figure out how to use RSS and download podcasts to their mobile? Or are they behind in the tech wave and have difficulty watching online video? These questions (and many more) are ones that need to be taken in order to have a shot of being successful, because in a large organization (Fortune 1000) sometimes you have one shot to do it right.