Story Stuff
What worthy things can and have been said about stories
"Stories work because they arrange things in memorable ways".
In his book 'Moonwalking with Einstein', Joshua Foer embarks on a personal quest to rediscover the lost art of remembering. He discusses the virtues of memory and describes several strategies and techniques for memorising complex and at times random information. The following quotes are inspired by Foers' descriptions of how some of the memory techniques work.
"[Stories are] the ultimate structuring device for [meaning]." (Foer, J. 2011:128).
"...take [disparate] bits of information, run them through a filter (stories) that appl[y] meaning to them, and make that information much stickier." (Foer, J. 2011:62).
On 'stickiness'
Foer uses the word 'stickiness' as a metaphor to describe how readily information is held in memory. The word itself is readily associated with a number of memorable concepts, such as viscosity and persistence. It effectively conjures up images of sticky substances, such as honey, chewing gum and glue. All the additional synaptic links that are forged in our minds when we connect abstract concepts such as stickiness to personal experiences with sticky substances help to make the concept more real and therefore memorable. So the word 'stickiness', is itself sticky.
Individuals and Groups Active in story-related work
MIT Media Lab: Center for Future Storytelling
Socratic Arts and the work of Dr. Roger Shank
A Storied Career - Kat Hansen's blog (no longer active, but is interesting archive.
The power of narrative in business
Better User Experience With Storytelling (Part 2)
Anecdote: Story-powered communication
Storytelling Theory and Practice
Articles
Online Resources
Storyteller Tactics, a 'card deck of storytelling recipes that help you influence and inspire your team, stakeholders and customers.'
Books
Denning, S. (2007) The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative. Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (October 12, 2007).
Greenberg, S. et al., (2011), Sketching User Experiences: The Workbook. Morgan Kaufmann.
Lupton, E. (2017) Design Is Storytelling. Cooper Hewitt.
Quesenbery, W. & Brooks, K. (2010), Storytelling for User Experience Design. Brooklyn: Rosenfeld Media.