Chunking & Curating

Whether you read my articles and posts, attend a program I deliver, or engage in executive coaching with me, I have the same goal: that you will have a moment (if not moments) of epiphany as well as validation. In other words, I am working toward your having both an Aha! of great and practical insight, and a self congratulatory, Yup, I am so right in my approach.

Seventeen years ago, I was a Fellow in Leadership NewJersey. It required a monthly overnight commitment, and whenever I went away, my friend Betty would say, “Oh, you’re going to camp for the gifted and talented.” Betty helped me to truly appreciate my participation in the program, and to take the time to reflect on the lessons I was fortunate enough to learn each month. Her words continue to resonate, and I now apply that respect to all of my clients:

If you are investing time with me, I want you to be rewarded.

If you are doing something right, I want you to recognize that, and do more of it.

Last week, for the first time in a long time, I got to be a camper again instead of a counselor. Coming off a year of non-stop work, I attended the Neuroleadership Summit in Washington, DC. Here are some select notes of what I learned:

Josh Davis, Term Assistant Professor of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University presented the AGES model for learning, saying that Attention, Generation, Emotion, and Spacing “must all be high for our brain to encode information optimally.” Davis said, “We grow our memories. We don’t just put them in a file box. There are structural changes that have to occur. That is why spacing helps in learning.” He also noted that, “a little bit of emotion is good for learning. It can be good or bad. There are, however, more benefits to positive emotion: easier collaboration, more creativity, better focus.”

Things must be learned in chunks. This was validating, as it is the adult learning method we use at Thaler Pekar & Partners: introduce the concept, enable participants to explore and work with the concept, facilitate reflection, then move on to a new concept.  As a result of Davis’ session, we will now be asking ourselves, How can we raise attention, generation and emotion in each chunk?

Tony Bingham, CEO of the American Society for Training andDevelopment (ASTD), said that “The majority of learning that occurs within an organization is through social tools, and they are not being dealt with by training leaders! The majority of learning is informal, yet not being optimized.” Bingham said it is time for trainers to “move from Sage on a Stage to more of a curator and facilitator. The analogy that hits home is museum curator: a curator takes what is hidden in the basement and brings it out for all to appreciate. This is what brings about curatorial success.”

Curator was an interesting way to think about the work we do helping smart leaders and organizations find and share stories. We facilitate the uncovering of memories and experiences and we are thoughtful about which ones are shared and in what ways. There are high ethical considerations and standards to our work, and we think deeply about both the person sharing the story and the people who will be reading/watching/listening to the story. Respect for both is paramount.

In summary, I offer this Edmund Burke quote that I saw at the conference: “To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”

Compelling and Devastating.

"The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food" by Michael Moss will appear in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

Free. Jazz. (or, Sidney & her man Clovis)

May I suggest that you set aside an hour before clicking through to listen to Jason Moran's amazing (and free!) "Live: Time On The Quilts Of Gee's Bend" Suite?

From the NPR website:

Jason Moran, composer and piano
Alicia Hall Moran, vocals
Bill Frisell, guitar
Tarus Mateen, bass
Nasheet Waits, drums

"Disruption is overrated."

"'Disruption is overrated,' [Stone] said. 'If you tell good stories, the platforms are sort of beside the point. We made the most analog thing you can think of, a play at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, and it worked out as well as anything we have ever done.'"

-Matt Stone, quoted by David Carr today in the NewYork Times.

"Good morning Baltimore! Every day's like an open door."

"My ma tells me no 
   but my feet tell me go!"

-from "Hairspray"'s opening song "Good Morning Baltimore!"


Tickets are still available for "Hairspray in Concert" narrated by Mr. John Waters with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Meyerhoff Hall, Baltimore, tonight and tomorrow night, plus Saturday and Sunday matinees. Saw the world premier last night at Strathmore; laughed so hard I cried. And how often does that happen at the symphony?


From the BSO website:

Jack Everly, conductor
John Waters, narrator (BSO debut)
Micky Dolenz, Wilbur Turnblad
Beth Leavel, Velma von Tussle
Paul Vogt, Edna Turnblad
Featuring:
Marissa Perry as "Tracy Turnblad"
Julie Kavanagh as "Penny Pingleton"
Nick Adams as "Link Larkin"
Rhiannon Hansen as "Amber von Tussle"
NaTasha Williams as "Motormouth Maybelle"
Marcus Terell as "Seaweed J. Stubbs"
Bret Shuford as "Corny Collins"
Alix Korey as "Female Authority Figure"
Chris Briante as "Male Authority Figure"
Also with: The Divas of Song (Natalie Renee, Nikki Stephenson, and Melissa VanPelt) as "The Dynamites."

"Then the machine turned on and began to let out a very annoying array of loud, high-pitched tones that then repeated, like a car alarm cycle."

At a recent conference in Sonoma, California, I met the novelist Reif Larsen.

Most of the conference attendees were architects and designers, but the speakers were from very varied fields. I showed how magnetic resonance imaging can reveal the functional organization of our brains, even when we are simply resting; he read from his amazing debut novel, "The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet."

I thought I saw a twinkle in his eye when Reif told me that he had learned about functional MRI for his novel. And, a few days later, I read this in Chapter 14, wherein the novel's 12 year old protagonist undergoes an MRI scan, the sounds of which remind him of a car alarm:

Then she told me to just lie there and think of nothing, although I of course thought of car alarms. I hope this did not screw up her data sets: she would unknowingly show an MRI of "Boy Contemplating Nothing" to her colleagues at a big conference when in fact it was actually an MRI of "Boy Contemplating the Terrible Nature of Car Alarms."

"Unknown engines underneath the city..."

You can hear "Transcendental Youth," the new album from the Mountain Goats that is due out next week, streaming live (and free) at this link, and you can see Mr. John Darnielle introduce and perform "Harlem Roulette" (from the new album) right here:

How to Gather Stories

How to Gather Stories, a piece inspired by my recent work with philanthropic foundation program officers, has just been published at the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog.

Here's an excerpt:

Ask: “Tell me about a time…” By asking about a discrete moment in time, you encourage the sharing of experience and the details and emotion that accompany the recollection.

Ask for superlatives....

We tend to remember the superlative moments in our lives. Probe for those experiences. Ask for heightened emotional moments. Emotion is often referred to as the “glue” of memory. Ask people about moments when they have felt connected, surprised, or touched. Ask for “Aha!” moments of epiphany and for turning points.

You can also share a story of your own—and then be quiet. Sit back, and transfer all your attention to the person with whom you just shared your story. Most likely, you will hear one in return. If necessary, ask: “Does that story remind you of anything?”

You can read the entire short piece here.

Adam Gopnik on Stories & Science

Good science is more like Proust than Mr. Popper’s Penguins; its stories startle us with their strangeness, but they intrigue us by their originality, and end by rewarding us with the truth, after an effort. It is the shock good stories offer to our expectations, not some sop they offer to our pieties, that makes tales tally, and makes comtes count. The story that tells us only that we like all kinds of stories lacks that excitement, that exclusionary power, which is the only thing that makes us want to hear stories at all.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/05/can-science-explain-why-we-tell-stories.html#ixzz1vheSMDdd

Mr. Feffer goes to New York.

With all due respect to Ms. Ginevra de' Benci, when it comes to the arts, one of the best things about Washington D.C. is the Capital Fringe Festival, and, for each of the past three years, one of the best things about the Capital Fringe Festival has been the plays of Mr. John Feffer.

For one night only, on Monday, April 23rd, NeuroCooking friends in the New York City area can see Mr. Feffer play seven characters in his 2011 work, "The Bird" ("In search of adventure in Poland 1989, a young man discovers a female assassin, a Jewish skinhead, a mysterious bird, and the end of innocence.").

That's at the Tada theater, 15 W 28th St, New York, April 23rd, at 8 PM. Tickets here.

Those who Espouse Only Evidence Typically Lose

Narrative vs Evidence-Based Medicine—And, Not Or was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Here at NeuroCooking, we have long argued, as this article in Scientific American states,

'Stories are an essential part of how individuals understand and use evidence,' [Zachary Meisel and Jason Karlawish] wrote. And they can have a powerful effect on public opinion and policy....'Narratives, when compared with reporting statistical evidence alone, can have uniquely persuasive effects in overcoming preconceived beliefs and cognitive biases.'

I so hope that scientists throughout the world see past the poor title of this article and into the wisdom it contains - and engage in finding, developing (further developing), and sharing their stories! I am eager to assist.

Why Story Matters in Activism

On the Issues Magazine has recently published my article on why story matter in activism - and how to work with story in your own activism.

It opens, dear NeuroCooking readers, with a story about Sheila Thaler Pekar, mother of Jim and me:

I remember my first feminist act. It was Spring of 1974, and I was nine years old. My mother, Sheila Thaler Pekar, had gone to a car dealer earlier in the day, prepared to purchase a car. When it came time to sign the contract, however, the dealer required that she obtain my father's signature. Sheila had the deposit, the credit and the bank account. But, the salesman insisted, the dealership would not sell a car to a married woman without the consent of her husband.

When my mom returned home -- defeated, humiliated, and very, very angry -- she told me to follow her into my parent's bedroom. She retrieved the purse in which she kept her store credit cards. In those days, it was common for a middle class woman to have a credit card – in her husband's name – for every small, local department store. She sat me down on the floor, put a pair of scissors in my hand, and instructed me to cut up each and every one of the credit cards. As the scissors bore through the words “Mrs. Walter Pekar," my mom passionately spoke about the importance of a woman having her own money and being able to make independent financial decisions. And she spoke about the importance of women being respected, valued, and treated equally to men.

Click here to continue reading.

from SERIOUSLY COMMA

IT MUST BE DONE IN A WAY

IT CANNOT BE TAUGHT (HE

SIMPLY HANDED ME A SPEC-

IMEN AND WAS GENEROUS

ENOUGH TO SAY: IT IS EASY

TO IDENTIFY. HE SAID

NOTHING ELSE. I THEN

NOTICED THE OPPOSITE

LEAVES ARRANGED ALTER-

NATELY ON THE STEM AT

RIGHT ANGLES). IT REMAINS

TO BE SEEN WHETHER

I'LL REMEMBER, HAVE TIME

TO DIG.

- from SERIOUSLY COMMA by John Cage, originally published in Preuves (Paris) March 1966; reprinted in "A Year from Monday: New Lectures and Writings by John Cage", 1969.

Why & How to be Intentional About the Stories You Share

Stanford Social Innovation Review recently published my short essay, Invite Your Listener to Share the Story. It offers tips for finding and developing strategic stories, as well an example of the process. Click here to learn how to invite your listeners to imagine their part in your proffered solution.

The Ethics of Working with Story

When working with story and building a narrative organization, it is imperative that one maintain high ethical standards. I recently explored the ethical use of story in a lecture delivered at Kent State University’s Graduate Program in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management. You can watch the full 16-minute lecture here, and you can read written excerpts at PhilanTopic.

My colleague and mentor Cynthia Kurtz responded to my essays with smart and practical advice on her blog.

Benefits of Building a Narrative Organization

Increasingly, I am working with both for- and non-profit organizations to build narrative organizations. In a narrative organization, brand identity is clear and appealing; audiences are quickly and sustainably engaged; leaders appreciate and strategically share stories; and knowledge is easily gathered and shared. The Stanford Social Innovation Review just published my essay on the benefits of building a narrative organization.

"Yesterday, in the early evening, we went out to shoot..."

Yesterday, in the early evening, we went out to shoot the big cherry...

...and our friend came by with a dog and stopped to chat...

...during which we heard a noise from the creek, which turned out to be a beaver...

...so we went back in briefly to change lenses:

Something about a story is not a story.

If, upon watching a video on an organization's web site, your description of the video is, "It's the story of what they do", or, "It shows what they do", you've viewed a message, or a description, or lots of information, not a story.

If your response is, "That's a great story about what the organization accomplishes," or, "I could really relate to [the protagonist]", or, later that day, you find yourself sharing what you have seen, now that's a story.

Mark Trail, superhero?

Mark Trail is hiding in a closet.

You read it here first!

We "predict" that, this Saturday, Mark Trail will wind up on a secret island inhabited and controlled by nasty drug smugglers.