Stream – Page 4

10 Storytelling Lessons from a Journalist

May 23, 2010 by Nabil 5 Comments

Last week I had coffee with Cara Solomon, a former journalist for the Seattle Times and founder of thesmallstory.com. Cara’s site is based on a premise that I believe in deeply: that everyone has an interesting story to tell.

Through Cara I uncovered a treasure trove of tips and tricks for my storytelling project. Among them, these were my favorites:

On unraveling a new town:
– Visit community gathering spots: often the town diner, coffeeshop, or park, and sometimes (surprisingly) the town dump.
– Ask strangers: who should I hang out with if I want to get a sense of what this town is about?
– For ideas on what to cover in town, as well as who the players are, read the events and help wanted sections of the local newspaper.

On choosing a topic:
– Be flexible: if I try to fit everything into a mold, I will miss out on a lot of great content.
– Approach interviews with as few preconceived notions as possible. Listen hard. What I thought might be most interesting thing about a person at the start of the interview may not be what I find most interesting at the end. That said, if the story is not holding my interest, it will not hold someone else’s; cut my losses and move on.

On hero stories:
– People like hero stories however they’re not rooted in reality. Everyone has a weakness, and it’s that weakness that makes them even more interesting. Discover it.
– Ask: We already know what you’re good at, so what do you wish you were better at?

On dealing with an interviewee’s anxiety:
– Focus on the person, not my questions. Many reporters don’t take out notebooks until later in the interview.
– Explain to people why it is that I’m interested in speaking with them.
– Don’t introduce the video camera without permission, and don’t use the tape to simply recap the interview. Instead, after the interview I should ask myself: what are the five questions that I now want to answer? Use this as my starting point for the taped segment.

I know that Cara’s advice has saved me from making countless mistakes on my journey, and I feel fortunate to have been introduced to her. I also particularly love Cara’s reflection on her work. Writes Cara: “Through the lens of their lives, I can see more clearly my world.” Here’s to the small stories.

Poetry Open Mic @ MIT

May 23, 2010 by Nabil Leave a Comment

One of the things I cherish most about MIT is its openness and irreverence. Today was no exception, when the MIT Club of Boston hosted a super energetic, diverse poetry slam on campus. Some of the performances were funny, others were musical, and a few — performed by recovering drug addicts and former prisoners — were gripping.

One older gentlemen who performed shared a line that I loved: “In the beginning, my stories belonged to somebody else. And then they belonged to me And now they belong to you.”

Rapid Prototyping my Internship

May 21, 2010 by Nabil 2 Comments

One of the trickiest aspects of pulling together my internship has been staying focused on my goal, of extracting stories through interviews and performing them. As I wrap up my first week of summer break, I’ve either performed or gone out to interview folks four times. Not only do I wish that I had done more, but I’m surprised by how hard it was for me to make even these four outings happen. In the moment before each outing, I was deeply entrenched in figuring out logistics for my project (e.g. fixing up my car, amassing video equipment, trying to find a collaborator in Los Angeles, raising funds) and felt really conflicted about dropping it to go out and perform or interview folks. And yet when I’ve gone out, I’ve never regretted the decision.

As I think about this challenge I’m reminded of a story about Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, as recounted in the chapter on “Rapid Prototyping” in Tom Kelley’s “The Art of Innovation.” Writes Kelley, ” Rapid prototyping is about acting before you’ve got the answers, about taking chances, stumbling a little, and then making it right. [When Bezos decided that he would launch Amazon] he quit his job on Wall Street, called a moving van, and packed and had his things taken before he even knew where he was going. Incredibly, Jeff hadn’t yet figured out where to cast his e-commerce seeds. His short list included Portland and Lake Tahoe. Unable to make up his mind, he instructed the moving van to simply head west. Think of it: nothing on paper, no place to land his imagined company yet he was already hurtling toward his destiny.”

With Jeff’s example in mind, my new measure of success for my internship is not the quality of my recording equipment, or the number of sponsors that I’m able to recruit, or how well I’ve packed my car, but rather the amount of time that I’m out in the world interviewing people and performing. The rest I’ll figure out as I go along. With that, come hell or high water, on June 1st I start my drive to LA.

A Date at the Gun Range

May 17, 2010 by Nabil Leave a Comment

This weekend my classmate Nitin Rao pointed out that a story slam was taking place in my neighborhood. Today I stopped by to pay a visit. I recounted a story about what transpired when I took a girl on a date to the gun range.

Practical Advice on Creative Success

May 15, 2010 by Nabil Leave a Comment

On Tuesday I had an inspirational call with Derrick Ashong (aka DNA), a West-African born musician, social entrepreneur, and host of The Derrick Ashong Experience on Oprah Radio.

Derrick inspires me for two reasons: First: he has guts. With the prospect of a lucrative career on Wall Street, Derrick (at the time a senior at Harvard) had the courage to strike a risky path for himself and co-founded Soulfège, a West African band with beats as catchy as their message is positive. Second: he pays the rent. Through speeches, performances, consulting gigs, and his radio show, he has designed a career that enables him to express himself artistically yet also supports him financially.

Derrick had the following words of wisdom regarding my storytelling project:
– On growing my network: It’s not about who you know, it’s about who knows what you know. Tell people what I’m working on.
– On finding a mentor: A mentor will want to work with me because they care about me deeply, or they respect my work. The most efficient way for me to find a mentor is to go out to venues and perform (a.k.a Just Do It).
– On the art scene in LA: Some of the most talented folks in LA’s art scene are artists who most people have never heard of. Seek them out.
– On where to perform: Start with Zanzibar in Santa Monica.

I’m excited to track Derrick’s pragmatic approach to building a career of self-expression, and I hope that I can channel his courage and discipline as I build my own.

7 Lessons from a Storytelling Workshop

May 11, 2010 by Nabil 7 Comments

This evening I attended a super helpful workshop in Boston, hosted by seasoned storytellers Norah Dooley and Karen Chace. In our workshop I, along with eight others, practiced storytelling technique and then performed, on stage and with a mic. Brilliant.

A few key lessons that I learned:
– Shed my ego: To be a great storyteller I should realize that it’s not about me; I’m merely a conduit for the story itself. Once I realize this, and my ego subsides, I will connect with my story more deeply and so will my audience.
– Don’t memorize: I need to see the imagery in my story in order for the audience to see it. This is easier to do when I’m making up the story as I go along, as opposed to reciting a memorized transcript.
– Project confidence: If I appear nervous on stage, the audience will feel an urge to take care of me and will lose focus on the story itself.
– Slow it down: There is a lag between when I speak a word and when it is processed by my audience. Allow my audience to process one image before moving on to the next one.
– Kill my darlings: Superfluous narrative needs to go. No matter how beautiful it is, if it’s not the meat of the story, my words will lose my audience. We practiced this until 30 seconds felt longer than 60 seconds.
– Recover gracefully (clever): If I accidentally omit a part of the story that is critical to understanding the ending, rather than saying, “I forgot to tell you something,” instead say: “but what you don’t know…” or, “what I haven’t told you yet…”
– Take a moment: At the beginning and end of my performance, take a moment to connect with my audience. Starting too soon or leaving the stage too quickly will undermine the power of my story and might also slight my audience.

Among us was also a 10 year old girl. I was amazed at the ease with which she spun stories, and it reminded me that storytelling is less about learning a new craft and more about rediscovering an old one.

Choosing a Story to Tell

May 9, 2010 by Nabil 2 Comments

Lately I’ve had some great brainstorms on how to frame my storytelling project this summer. My friends, sis, and I have come up with a list of eight ideas that I’m excited about and, the longer I sit with this list the more excited I feel about one idea in particular.

The question that I want to answer is: Why will people be excited to move to Los Angeles in 10 years? In an era where Hollywood has been killed by distributed content creation and distribution (a la YouTube), where foreign investors are no longer pouring money into skyscrapers in Los Angeles (but rather new megacities in the Far East), where Americans are immigrating abroad for blue collar jobs, why will people still pack up their lives and move, with excitement and purpose, to the city of Los Angeles? What is it about LA’s DNA, its lifeblood, that will continue to draw both fresh immigrants and tourists? What are the immutable, timeless values that can be found in LA and nowhere else?

I like this question because it’s one that I’m genuinely curious about, and it’s one that I feel that Los Angeles, and America more broadly, will really have to grapple with if (when?) it’s overtaken, economically, culturally, and militarily, by the rising tigers of the Far East. Other former superpowers — take France for example — have gone through this introspective process (arguably after WW2), and have done a pretty good job at finding their core values (or articulating their story). Over 80 million tourists go to France annually (more than the country’s population!) to fall in love with French culture — that timeless, unique, immutable set of values that can only be found in the alleyways, boulevards, parks, and art galleries of France.

So why will people come to Los Angeles when its skyline is unimpressive, its economy is stagnant, and its cultural impact is negligible? What are LA’s other assets that fill a big hole in the hearts of its residents, many of whom may not be interested in Hollywood, or a glam lifestyle, or may have better job prospects elsewhere, but stay in LA because they love the idea of raising their families there? If I can help LA to answer this question, perhaps I can help America to find itself in a world where its economy is second to China’s (or, according to the Wall Street Journal, in 10 years).

My main concern about this story is that it’s so big. I have this hypothesis that the more specific the story, the more compelling it is. And so one of my challenges is how to tell this story in a way that’s extremely personal, and yet speaks to the larger narrative. Here’s to figuring that out-

A few related thoughts:
– Professor Antonio Muntadas: “The fastest way to determine if you have the right story is to try to tell it. Before you head to LA, interview people in Boston. You’ll know very quickly what works and what doesn’t”
– Professor Ricardo-Pitts Wiley: “The difference between story — and news — is how deeply the person is invested in sharing it.” What I like about this story is that I feel that most residents of Los Angeles (those who plan to stay there indefinitely) have a vested interest in sharing it. This is potentially powerful.
– If I do tell this story, I’d love to integrate it into my cross-country drive to Los Angeles. One idea is to ask for peoples’ (say a farm-hand in Kansas) opinion’s on Los Angeles. Perhaps people outside of LA have an easier time articulating why it’s a great city than those who live in it.
– As I think of this story, I’m often brought back to the “Lose Yourself in Melbourne” commercial presented in my marketing class by Professor Ritson.

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