To the uninitiated, the cookies appear rather simple. They are probably best appreciated by those of us who grew up on them precisely because they connect us back to our family history and our grandmother. But the cookies are also part of the experience of the younger generation, those who did not know their great-grandmother personally, but who will instead associate those cookies with our annual family gatherings and make connections from their own vantage points. They are developing their own stories to share, stories that will extend our family’s narratives.

Story telling is important for organizations as well. There are many ways to tell our stories. One way is to share interesting practices and successes, as suggested by Lisa’s post below. How we present ourselves online is another way of relating our stories.

In what ways does your online presence depict your organization’s story? How does it reflect the diversity of your membership and its experiences? What are the values, beliefs, and rituals projected in your online narrative? How would someone new to your community – a new “reader” – interpret your organization’s story? And in what ways can we facilitate connecting these stories to the larger, ever expanding, intricately interwoven community?

Chag sameach!

Oftentimes as we manage Facebook groups or blog posts or even in surveys we ask people to share their stories. “Tell us about an experience when…?” Shawn and Mark at Anecdote develop courses on storytelling, and digital storytelling. Their discovery is that you have to tell stories to hear stories. That by modeling the style, length and risks taken in talking about your own life, you given permission and frameworks for others to do the same. We take cues from our peers about what’s appropriate. And especially in online settings, many people are still discovering/learning/evolving their comfort zones and the cultures of various online forums. From their blog:

Here’s an example. When I see my teenage daughter after school I would often ask how her day went, whether anything interesting happened at school, and the standard response is often monosyllabic: yep, nup. In fact the more questions I’d ask the shorter the answers. So I changed tack and rather than ask questions I simply recounted something that happened in my day. I would launch into something like, “I met a bearded lady today. This morning I drove down to Fitzroy to run an anecdote circle for …” and immediately my daughter would respond with an encounter from her day. A conversation starts and it’s delightful.

So next time you seek to hear other people’s stories, consider how you invite them to do so. Finishing a blog post with a question or invitation is a great way to encourage comments. And also consider sharing some of yourself. Blogging is a lot about developing a community — commenting on your friends’ and co-workers’ blog posts to tell you story is a great way of establishing a norm and permission for others to tell theirs.

What approaches have you found most successful or useful for inspiring dialog in your groups and blogs?

[Thanks to Naava Frank of Knowledge Communities and Kehilliyot for turning me on to this concept.]

Google is introducing a new web browser, Chrome.

Knowing that people seek, access and absorb information in many different ways, they have offered many different points of entry for learning about the browser. The most important part of their campaign is how they are inviting us inside to understand the process, not just selling their product.

Through cartoons, video, and text (blogging), they are telling the story of why and how they developed a revolutionary new offering. And it’s powerful. As a user/reader/watcher you are invited inside the process and the story — and invited to become part of the story by actually using Chrome.

In addition to these storytelling offerings, Google also has produced videos to introduce you to the features of the browser – a “how to” guide.

So… What can we learn from this?

First, “how to” may be necessary but it is not sufficient. Logistics are only part of the story, and the personal connection (even to a developer in another state from another generation who is using words that sound Greek to you) is critically important to feeling engaged. American Jewish World Service has done a great job of this with their videos developed with See3 to show the real experience of real people who are involved with AJWS. Donors, volunteers, staff all have powerful and important stories to tell.

Megillat Esther, by JT Waldman

Second, visuals, and especially video, offers more momentum than plain text. While I would be hard pressed to READ the whole story, I’m delighted to watch a few minutes of video.  JT Waldman transformed Megillat Esther into a comic book (it’s kosher!) which has engaged young (and old) in a text that they otherwise might not have ever studied. (BTW, he’s now working on the Tagged Tanakh project — way cool.)

There are many circumstances when we have a hard time capturing the attention of our audiences for important things. The congregational meeting, for example. Introducing a new staff person or board chair. Showing the added value of the new classrooms that are under construction to fuel the final stages of a capital campaign. Sharing the impact of participating in a mitzvah day. Orienting new families to the traditions and customs of your congregation.

What do you learn from these various approaches? How do you see it applying to you work? Got something to share? Tell us!

See below to hear the Chrome Story for yourself: