Storytelling As Social Media Conversation Gasoline

Flickr Photo by Lab2114

Chris Brogan started a wonderful "open thread" that ignited quite a few comments and discussion.  Beth Dunn, who was getting up at 4:00 am, stayed up late to respond her blog.  As of Friday evening, there 77 comments on this post.  Impressive.   And, there have been many spin-off conversations on other blogs as a result.  Take for example Connie Bensen's post and story.

As Holly Ross notes on the NTEN blog, Chris doesn't like to call himself an expert.   I understand Chris. Expert would imply  that you are not a learner.  There in lies the key to effective conversation sparking.  Being a learner.  What does that mean? 

It means that you don't assume that the your students, participants, stakeholders, or audience knows nothing and that your job is to fill them with knowledge.  That their an empty vessel.  It means asking questions and letting the audience, your students, or your stakeholders teach you.  Those who work in education will certainly immediately recognize "Constructivism"

There is also another thread that runs through the stories and advice generated by Chris's thread - learning from doing and doing from learning.  What does that mean exactly?  It means experimenting while working towards perfection.

All this brings me to Andy Goodman and Storytelling as Best Practice.   When someone is new to a field or an organization, there is an orientation period.  There is much more learn beyond the formal training.   So, what are the campfire stories that social media evangelists tell?  What ignites our own personal fire?

Andy talks about the sacred bundle or a group stories that an organization should have (or expanded in this definition a loosely coupled community or network should have).  I've translated Andy's organizational stories into network stories:

• The story of how the organization was founded.  Chris's question is the story of how people got started using social media.
• Emblematic victories that demonstrate social media effectiveness over time and across different aspects
• What-we-learned-in-defeat story.
• The story of one person that shows levels of creativity and passion
• Stories about the problem that social media solves

So, Chris is collecting stories from social media professionals that relate to all this.

How have you used storytelling to help people understand social media?

Comments

[Connie Bensen]

Thanks Beth for linking to my story.

Having recently come from the library world I agree that storytelling is a powerful thing - it's what the greatest books are made of! :)

Thanks for exploring the concepts that drive social media conversation. It's definitely food for thought. We're all learning together!

[Avi Kaplan]

Here's a nice example of story telling in social media. Stacy used twitter to share her story of social change and ultimately got to share her story helping transform lives in Tanzania with a ton of people. The story of how she connected with Sam and guest post to his blog, is part of what makes the story about her project compelling.
http://gobigalways.com/guest-post-stacey-monk-goes-big/

I find this a compelling story of the success of social media. What other stories have people used to explain social media?