How’s your Valentine Day? Mine was boring, no outing, no loving. That’s not the subject for today. Let’s do away with narrative and consider an Infosynthesis of quotable quotes on storytelling and writing. This is the Part 1. Enjoy it.
Transfer of values through storytelling
This story shall the good man teach his son;
King Henry V, IV, iii, 35
With weeping and with laughter,
Still is the story told,
How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.
Lord Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome, Horatius lxx
I love to hear the story
That angel voices tell.
Mrs Emily Miller, The Little Corporal, I Love to Hear
Transfer of meaning and knowledge through stories
But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze they young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand an end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Hamlet, Act I, Scene v
Stew Leonard’s ideas on storytelling
“How do you get your message heard in an organization with thousands of people? David Boje taught me the value of stories in an organization. Stories are the “oil” that makes the gears work.” – Stew Leonard Jr.
“If there’s no story, it’s too complicated to explain to over 2,000 team members”
If you hear a story being told in the company cafeteria by a front line worker, promote the manager that initiated that story!
“Our company is made up of lots of stories. We’ve found that “stories” get told and retold and become the fabric of an organization. “Policies” lay unread in the company handbook or training manual”.
Audience Connection
“Good storytelling establishes a personal relationship between the storyteller and the storyteller. Digital stories become a powerful tool for improving your business, your creative vision, your community, and your bottom line.”
Centre for Digital Storytelling, Berkeley, California, USA
We use metaphors everyday- usually as part of idioms and phrases. At one extreme, they can be fictional stories, like fables, parables and fairytales, but not always. Once we have created a key image in the heart and mind of the listener, key phrases and images will quickly and simply access the emotional power of the full story – an emotional shorthand, if you like.
Storytelling as a management tool is millennia old. For thousands of years, groups and communities have told stories to define group membership, values, behaviours and visions. Whether it was the mythology of Ancient Greece, Jesus’ parables or the story of Moses, stories have explained, guided and inspired.
Narrate Consulting
The activities that are the easiest, cheapest, and most fun to do—such as singing, playing games, reading, storytelling, and just talking and listening—are also the best for child development.”
Professor Jerome Singer, Yale University
I played with an idea, and grew willful; tossed it into the air; transformed it; let it escaped and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy, and winged it with paradox.
Oscar Wilde, playwright, novelist
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
John Cleese, English actor, writer
If you came and you found a strange man… teaching your kids to punch each other, or trying to sell them all kinds of products, you’d kick him right out of the house, but here you are; you come in and the TV is on, and you don’t think twice about it.
Professor Jerome Singer, Yale University
There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from the equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and manage a smile.
Edward Hoagland, novelist, essayist, nature writer
Eric Okeke is a storyteller, editor, business writer, motivational speaker and author of the best selling book: I Want a Husband. He is one of Nigeria’s most experienced financial journalists. He has published several articles in local and foreign publications and in websites such as http://www.ezinearticles.com, www.ezinearticles.com and www.writingcareer.com. He is currently running Infomedia Company, a media consulting and information marketing company. Visit his blog at http://sallywantsahusband.blogspot.com
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