"C480782"

I shared on Facebook photographs of Weston model 301 milliammeter number 480782, made in Newark, NJ; acquired by the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering; surplussed by the MIT Department of Physics. Check it out.

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.

Why Story Matters

"Communication is more than transactional. Communication can be transformative."

Stanford Social Innovation Review just published an excerpt from a lecture I recently delivered at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University (my alma mater).

Click here to see my advice to future professional communicators, including:

• Why focus on storysharing, as opposed to storytelling
• The importance of story elicitation in business communication
• The transformational power of story

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.

Connecting Your Organization’s Past, Present & Future

My new article helps you connect staff and board members to the vision of your organization, and offers practical suggestions for guiding them toward understanding and embracing what seems like change.

Values as Visuals

My new article explores the use of new tools for articulating values, vision, and mission.

Imagine using the Dialoogle and Picture Your Legacy cards with colleagues, helping to commence group discussions, and to move into collaborative problem solving. Imagine using the iPhone app to spark your own creative ideas, or conversation with a friend.

Who loves that?

From Mark Levy's, new blog post, Telling an Appreciative Story:

Consider, then, trying this exercise for the next 24 hours: Look at things that you’d normally pass by, or that scare or confuse you, and ask yourself, “Who loves that?” Once you’ve come up with an answer, ask yourself why they love it.

By looking at things through appreciative eyes, you'll likely come up with unanticipated ideas and untold stories that deserve a spot in your work.

not just reading, but seeing

I recently heard about the Slingshot Fund's use of video to share knowledge, and I reached out to Will Schneider, Slingshot's Executive Director, to ask about why and how Slingshot chose video as a story sharing tool.

The Slingshot Fund describes itself as "a collective giving community for next generation philanthropists," providing unrestricted grants to "innovative Jewish organizations." Will told me he realized grantees were taking a lot of time to prepare the requested three- to five-page mid-grant reports, and that although he himself read all the reports, donors did not read each and every one. The Slingshot community wanted to more effectively share their stories about impact.

So, last year, in addition to the grant itself, the Slingshot Fund gave each grantee a Flip video camera “to document their programs and projects” and asked “grantees to submit a mid-year video so that we could share their good works with the Slingshot community.” Will admitted, “We fund innovation, and it’s pretty clear we had to be innovative ourselves.”

He elicited compelling stories by telling grantees, “We just want to see what your work looks like,” and asking them, “What do you wish a donor could see?”

“The cameras went to Jackson, Mississippi to document Jewish life in the South, they taught us how Hebrew schools can use visual aid strategies to engage children with special needs, they showed us the side of the West Bank Security Fence we have never gotten to see, and provided dozens of other moments that a written report could never have conveyed.”

Will points out that the videos are "not a replacement evaluation technique", but rather, "an effective way to share information we were excited about." As a result of the videos, he told me, “Our donors are not reading a brochure about great the program is, they are seeing it.”

It’s not just the donors who now, as Will says, “get it, because they saw it,” it’s also board and staff members – and the grantees themselves, who are now able to more easily learn of each other’s work.

And you, reader: several of the videos are posted to YouTube, and you can view them at http://slingshotfund.org/# <http://slingshotfund.org/>