storytelling – Page 2

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.

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.

A conversation with Jeanne Dasaro, Co-Founder, NPi

May 5, 2010 by Nabil Leave a Comment

This afternoon I had a great conversation with Jeanne Dasaro, co-founder of The New Prosperity Initiative (NPi), a nonprofit that publishes hopeful stories of people and organizations that are working to build social and economic prosperity in their communities.

I asked Jeanne for her advice regarding my summer project and she imparted some great wisdom. Specifically:
– When conducting an interview, do the video afterwards. Video has a way of taking the air out of the room.
– Beware: It’s easy to get caught up in an interview, lower your threshold for good answers, and then come home realizing that you didn’t get much that you can use.
– Phrasing questions to get a good answer is a lot harder then it seems. At the basic level it’s the difference between: “how was your day?” versus, “tell me about something that happened today”

Jeanne also pointed me to a few great resources that I’m excited to look into:
– I Heart Strangers: A running (daily!) compilation of photographs, and the stories of people in them. Created by Joshua Langlais.
– Theatre of the Oppressed: A theatrical concept where spectators are brought into the performance of a play about social issues. I’ve been thinking about how to mix improv with true narrative and this is an exciting manifestation of this.
– The Small Story: A site based on the belief that everyone has a story. Created by Cara Solomon.
– Positive Detroit: A website which publishes only positive news from the city of Detroit.

Here’s to positive narratives that build community and understanding-

My MBA Internship as a Storyteller

April 19, 2010 by Nabil 4 Comments

This summer I’ll be heading to Los Angeles to practice storytelling. While not a traditional MBA internship, my friends and faculty at MIT Sloan have been super supportive, often connecting me with whoever they feel will be helpful on my journey. There is, however, one question that always crops up: Why storytelling? And what does this have to do with getting an MBA?

The seed for my journey was planted in 2005 when Christopher Adkins, my former professor at William and Mary, invited me to speak to his undergrads about potential career paths. As I thought about what to say, I remembered a recent article that I had read about Shotei Ibata, a Japanese calligrapher. As a young man, Shotei was advised not to go into calligraphy because it was super competitive, and prospects for earning a living were slim. Shotei nevertheless followed his passion, and in the process invented a completely new type of large format calligraphy (i.e. giant circles drawn with a 6 foot brush) that brought him worldwide acclaim and a steady stream of clients. As I relayed Shotei-sensei’s story to the undergrads, there are two lessons that I highlighted: First, passion is a competitive advantage. Second, behind every passion lies a business model (even if your passion is to draw circles).

So what is my passion? To answer this question, I sat down at my desk last Fall and I created a matrix. I plotted Creative, Business-Esque, Technical, and Intuitive on opposite ends of the X and Y-axes, respectively. Next, I took a deep breath, told myself to suspend all judgment and awareness of my work experience (e.g. an MBA with a consulting background), and started jotting down activities that I enjoyed. As I looked over my filled out sheet of paper, I felt a wave of joy: all of the opportunities looked exciting. As I mulled over the matrix over the next few days, another realization became clear: the more that the opportunity maxed out on the creative and intuitive ends of the spectrum, the more excited I was about it. The idea with the highest score? Storytelling. And thus my summer plans.

So what does storytelling have to do with my MBA? In short: I’m not sure. And that’s okay. In a 2005 commencement address at Stanford, Steve Jobs shared his story about dropping out of college and “dropping in” to activities that piqued his interest. One such activity was a local art class, where Jobs learned how to make beautiful typography. At the time he had no idea how this class would serve him, but as he was designing the Mac — the first computer with beautiful fonts — it all made sense. Jobs said, “It was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.” The essence of Jobs’ message is that there’s a lot of value in bringing together unlikely experiences, especially when they’re rooted in genuine interest. With this principle as my basis, I have faith that my storytelling internship will bring value to my MBA. In fact, some of the dots are already starting to connect.

So where do we go from here? Currently I’m working to raise funds to cover my expenses this summer, brainstorm potential storytelling frameworks, and build out my network in Los Angeles. If you suggestions on any of these, please drop me a line. Otherwise I will post updates on my new project website — www.mbastoryteller.com — as I continue my journey. Thank you to all of you who have supported me so far.

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