Annette Simmons

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Episode #8 – Jane Praeger: Story and Suspense for Business Presentations

Using Personal Stories and Adding Suspense to your Storytelling

jane-praegerJane Praeger’s thirteen years of documentary filmmaking helps her coach executives and improve their presentations. She says,

“I realized I could bring all I learned about narrative, theme, characters…to the business world… where it was missing.”

Initially Jane delivered media training. One day a client complained, “Everyone falls asleep when I speak.” He sent Jane a video but “he didn’t seem too bad.” Only after she read his speech did she understand the problem.

The content of his speech was painfully boring. He didn’t need presentation skills – he needed better content!

websitepodcastgfxRather than go into media training mode and film him speaking she spent the entire session helping this man rework his content, his thesis, and his point of view. Most importantly they added stories and made it suspenseful. She said they never got around to using the camera but told him “go try this out and call me in three weeks and we will do some camera work.” After he didn’t call she checked in. He told her “I don’t need media training anymore! Everyone is awake and I even get applause now!” Media training was targets delivery and performance but most of the time it is a content problem.

The best part for me is how Jane explains using suspense and surprise makes stories exciting.  Here is a clip from the end of one of Jane’s documentaries.  Heart stopping, suspenseful, and packs a punch.  Have a look:

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Feed link: http://ia801002.us.archive.org/26/items/StoryFactorPodcast008/StoryFactorPodcast008.mp3

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Episode #7 – Facilitating Story Search and Meaning

David-HutchinsAn interview with David Hutchens about capturing the wisdom of an organization.

“Stories are incredibly efficient containers of knowledge, mental models, assumptions, beliefs, emotions and key information.”

– David Hutchens [Read more…]

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Episode #6 – Two GREAT Questions! from Karen Dietz

Karen DietzThe closest thing to mind control is asking a good question.  As in the old example:

Q: Are you thinking about a pink elephant?

A: No. Yes. Well, I wasn’t thinking about a pink elephant until you asked me if I was thinking about a pink elephant!

This podcast includes a fantastic short clip from my first interview with Karen Dietz.  I tell a story so she can  demonstrate the questions she uses to encourage “reflection and flow.”  It is less than ten minutes long. [Read more…]

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Episode #4: Michael Margolis – Your Story on Facebook

Michael MargolisMichael Margolis discusses his introduction to storytelling in a workshop by Paul Costello.  He said he felt like he had “come home” and found one of his tribes.  He found the  ethics Paul developed doing narrative therapy (Michael White) helps us dive into a juicy creative tension!  For instance, whose story do you have a right to tell?  Whose story do you inhabit? Whose story did you inherit?

To ask ourselves these questions changes the way we go about storytelling.

To ask ourselves these questions changes the way we go about storytelling. We end up with juicier stories by being more ethical and taking these questions seriously.

The very notion of identity is being challenged by our interactions in social media.

The very notion of identity is being challenged by our interactions in social media.  It forces us to question “who am I?” much more often than we used to  Even the avatar we use – different photos for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, give us the freedom to be anyone but we have a dispersed self – we don’t know where we start and where we end.

Do you have a different picture for different social sites? Have you hired someone to create a photo? What “look” are you going for? How much do we let people see?

Michael entertains the idea that we are becoming “homo-narratons” as well as homo-sapiens.

We weren’t designed for this level of over-communication and this forced intimacy sometimes leads to “ego masturbation” or “bleeding all over the place.” online. Michael entertains the idea that we are becoming “homo-narratons” as much as homo-sapiens.

I remember the days when we had some control of our “image” but now we are all over the place. I ask Michael to talk about his course “The New About Me.” He explains some of the steps from this intentional process of writing your“About me” page – an image that has replaced the face to face kind, for anyone who googles you before meeting you.  We don’t want to go “open-kimono” and share everything but we still want to be authentic.

Listen in to our frank conversation about how Michael interprets  how storytelling applies amidst these many changes.

  • MP3 Download or play this episode directly.
  • iTunes Subscribe to The Story Factor Podcast directly in iTunes.
  • RSS Add the podcast to your RSS reader, podcast player or manually into iTunes.

Feed link:  http://archive.org/download/StoryFactorPodcast004_201311/StoryFactorPodcast004.mp3