Today in PoST the class broke up into smaller sections to meet with storytelling coaches.
Take-away #1: meet with storytelling coaches at every opportunity.
Take-away #2: (especially in any situation where the above impossible) SHARE your presentation ideas with other people as early and as often as possible. Don't wait until you've gotten it to be "good."
The coaching session, as you might have gathered from the above, was awesome. In our session, my teammate Ryan and I (team "EnhancEducation"), got to meet with two other teams ("Project Baby Warmth" and "Always a Bridesmaid") to bounce our ideas off of storytelling coaches Raymond Nasr and JD Schramm. Each of our teams got to share where we were in our projects and how we were envisioning telling our stories in our final presentation next Monday. It was infectiously fun to hear our classmates' projects - and the feedback everyone got from the coaches and each other was both energizing and illuminating.
Take-away #3: Define your audience, but in a way that motivates you (as well as your presentation)
When Raymond began to suggest that for our project we choose as an imagined audience "the education..." I expected him to finish the recommendation as "the education community." Or perhaps "the education non-profit community" or something of the like. Something collective. Our video, after all, was hopefully going to reach many people, not few, right? And you should envision a suitably massive audience if you aspire to have big impact, no? But his sentence concluded quite differently than I expected, when he recommended we imagine our audience to be "the education editor of the New York Times." As soon as he said this, it completely changed my mental frame. When addressing a faceless multitude in your mind, it's easy to slide into persuasive strategy that is equally abstract. But if you're going to talk to a single person (even if only in your mind), your persuasion goal has to become very clear, and the appeal or limitations of your tactics are thrown into high relief. By selecting this individual "audience" - especially one that represents a creative challenge for you - it actually can galvanize you to think bigger, rather than smaller. We took away from Raymonds advice not only a new frame that clarified our goals, but also a completely unsought-for excitement that perhaps even we could make a video that would turn the head of the editor of the NYT.
Take-away #4: When your story is part of a larger story, think of a great 'hourglass' academic job talk.
Our coaches shared with us a great metaphor* for effectively situating your work into a larger context:
Think of an hourglass...
Begin at the wide top - the full picture or potential
(this is what this field of research is trying to do; this is the big picture of our organization's efforts on x)
Then narrow to what your particular piece of work is doing or achieving
(this is what my article contributes; this is what our division is working on)
Finally, flare back to the ultimate significance of your work and how it connects to the big picture
(this is what my research implies (or could lead to); here's how our division's work is transforming the entire organization's initiative)
*speaking of metaphors, find a powerful one to tell your own story! Metaphors can bundle the complexities of your story into a single concept that compellingly conveys your ideas. (brought to you, again, courtesy of your local GSB storytelling coaches)
Take-away #5 = take-away #2, again
I think all of us at points were surprised to learn what parts of our story ended up resonating the most with others, and each group walked out of the meeting armed with a couple stories or approaches that we previously hadn't thought of as our strong-suits, yet which turned out to be our listeners' favorites. You really can't know what will resonate with people until you test it out. Yes, a lot of the time you can predict reasonably-well which stories or parts of the presentation are the best -- but there will always be those surprise flops or favorites you just couldn't see on your own. So don't wait to show your presentation to your roommate or cubicle-mate or spouse. We'll always be surprised how much there is for people to respond to even when "it really isn't finished yet!"
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