A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
Own one of the last remaining video stores in France, invite film-makers and actors in for a look around, strategically place films in-and-around the journey to spark conversation and story, film and share. Very simple and clever. Hats off to Konbini Video Club (who have a lot more fine actors / directors in their store doing the same walk and talk experiences). A fine example of situating the story in and around an array of the medium.
The cartoonist for the New Yorker (Zoe Si) taking a comedian, writer and voice artist through drawing one of her creations in this split screen journey. It’s a fun exploration of the creative process, starting with a brief, through to inking, ink wash, and caption, whilst neither of those involved can see what the other is doing (until the obvious end and reveal).
A written story about the rise and fall of Yahoo Pipes (loved playing with this platform back in the MediaSnackers days and showing clients of the possibility of mashing up web sources to create RSS feeds ). Have a scroll through this visual essay and see the story unfold.
“I can get through this.” / 2. “I’m not going to let myself be a victim.” / 3. “Life is hard.” / 4. “This, too, shall pass.” / 5. “What can I learn from this?” / 6. “I need some time.” / 7. “I still have things to be grateful for.” / 8. “It is what it is.” / 9. “I’m letting this go.”
“The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today unveiled its new Street Level Surveillance hub, a standalone website featuring expanded and updated content on various technologies that law enforcement agencies commonly use to invade Americans’ privacy.“
“The possible consequences of a changing concentration of the CO2 in the atmosphere with reference to climate, rates of photosynthesis, and rates of equilibration with carbonate of the oceans may ultimately prove of considerable significance to civilization,” Epstein, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology (or Caltech), wrote to the group in November 1954.
Experts say the documents show the fossil fuel industry had intimate involvement in the inception of modern climate science, along with its warnings of the severe harm climate change will wreak, only to then publicly deny this science for decades and fund ongoing efforts to delay action on the climate crisis.”
“The act of entering an airport starts with the removal of personal sovereignty. If you linger at a curb, you will be ticketed. If your bag is overweight, you are screwed. Inside, you are scanned, told explicitly what you can and cannot take with you, and people must submit or be punished. Often surly people are yelling at you about your laptops, shoes, and belts. It is now also taken for granted that if you wish to consume anything at an airport, it will cost 2-3X what it does in the wild.”
“One significant anniversary in 2023 passed almost without mention. In May 1923, the Welsh women’s peace petition was initiated – a plea from the women of Wales to the women of the US, urging the US to take its place in the newly formed League of Nations and encouraging its full participation in the permanent court of international justice, which had come into being in 1922. The text refers to American-Welsh cooperation in the 19th century, and welcomes the steps taken after the first world war to control the arms trade and tackle what we now call human trafficking and the movement of illegal drugs.”
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Chats about public speaking, coaching, presenting online vs in-person, event design and delegate experience development etc.—all the stuff I’ve been doing these past few years condensed into 30mins.
Dan produces a very impressive podcast with an eyebrow-raising amount of featured talent (like Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, Arianna Huffington etc.). Was lucky enough to spend some time rapping about what I’ve been up to in the past few years and hope you enjoy!
A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
This ninety minute video is both short stories of experience from a specific art school whilst also creating a hyper-realistic portion of an oil painting. It’s an odd but compelling and complimentary way . Scott’s candor and humility is evident as he navigates the boundaries of truth and compassion to those he’s sharing stories about, as well as his insane talent as he casually build out a portion of his painting.
Full of emotion and measured sentiment, situated in a political arena and specific to a cause, this is immense. It’s a poignantly delivered demonstration of how to both ask for something (health coverage for the first responders of the 9/11 attack) in a way which also illustrates the incredulous system for health care in the US (the bill did finally get passed for the workers to access to the coverage they needed).
A visual illustration of how the electronic duo Daft Punk snips samples from other songs to make up their own tunes. Offered without narration, this is another example of how showing rather than telling works so much better. It will also make you smile at how some of those well known tunes came into being. Clever stuff from Tracklib, an online record store for sampling.
All offered up to inspire, teach and make you smile / think.
A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
Touching. Funny. Poignant. Eulogies are an odd but if you think about it, obvious platforms for stories. I mean if there’s ever a second best time to express emotion and insights for loved ones it’s when others are gathered to pay that respect. David Grohl’s weaves a lovely journey of one mans little impact of his friend Lemmy Kilmister.
*first best time is now.
A classic. High energy and sigh-inducing. A teacher in flow. Illustrating everything he says with the aligned energy and practical demonstrations whilst also literally connecting to the audience with no consideration for usual etiquette. Sublime and an example I come back to often to show exuberant oratory.
It’s really hard to write text to sound flowing and spontaneous. It’s harder still to read a script with the energy and intonation of natural speech. This is a perfect example of both. A highly charged topic delivered with grace and sincerity, humanised through individual experience and gravitas. A peace-making call to arms in a troubled time.
All offered up to inspire, teach and make you smile / think.
How exposing yourself to out-loud speaking opportunities is one of the keys to finding voice.
Venture Up is a four-week entrepreneurship programme for young leaders. I visited to share some insights on the art of storytelling and delivering it publicly (I have visited in previous years and talked about social media):
“DK delivered a workshop that gave our cohort rich insight into delivering a story that hits the hearts of audiences, while helping many to begin overcoming a deep rooted fear of public speaking.”
Aaron Power, Venture Up Programme Manager
At the session, was wonderful to hear the groups are invited every day to give a one minute ‘pitch’ or update on progress. This continued ‘exposure’ to hearing ones voice out loud and to gain that visual / emotional response from the rest of the group is one of the purest ways to get better at this stuff.
Just like a sportswoman needs to train and constantly work on specific aspects of their game, nothing can replace the true nature of that learning she gets during ‘match-time’—this ‘match fitness’ is what separates great speakers and story tellers from the rest as they have again and again, with intention, shared stories and hopefully, noted the impact and iterated when things did not land.
Learnings from developing / delivering an effective and profitable conference.
Last week, over 150 people attended Speaking With Purpose, a one day conference for those looking to increase their public speaking confidence and hungry to develop their storytelling techniques.
This was my first independently-produced, medium-sized, personally-funded event, with folks attending from Tuaranga, Christchurch, Queenstown, Auckland, Palmerston North, Dunedin and all over the Wellington region.
Here’s what I learned:
Pay Your Speakers
In NZ, paying conference speakers for their time / talent is not commonplace (unless you’re bringing someone in from overseas it seems).
Committing beyond the usual “we could maybe find a couple hundred bucks for your time” ensured there’s not only an expectation of quality but also a contractual effort from your deliverers. What better way to contribute towards building a trend for valuing this talent and skill.
I opted to run the whole show myself. Apart from paying a few friends on the day for their time to manage operations, I oversaw and did everything, including:
I didn’t use a ticketing service and invoiced everyone individually just to see if it could be done (both saving myself some money in ticketing fees and not passing those costs on to attendees plus allowing for a more personal touch). The seven day payment policy for attendees once they registered (which most stuck to) gave me the working capital which enabled quick payment of the 50% venue deposit (every ticketing service keeps the money till after the event you see).
A lot of the above could’ve been outsourced although it was just as simple for me to do than find someone, explain my expectations and follow up with it all.
Offers & Freebies
I experimented with the above offer although it yielded only four sales (the Early Bird rate sold out in a couple of weeks in January and 25s-and-under rate a few weeks before the event).
Finding and gifting on freebies to those in the community who do good things already, drove more traffic and sales than any other strategy as they positively shared the event details with their audience.
Was surprised with the small amount of creative pitches received for those who couldn’t afford the attendee rate (got three, reduced rated two). Although a few offered their services for the cost of attending which is an easy yes. Thanks to Francesca for doing the video above, Jane for looking after social, and Trent for taking some wicked pics.
Business Model
This wasn’t just a money making exercise, although, to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly on top of the meaty risk of covering the $20k venue costs plus speaker fees, printing charges etc., a financial profit was one of the blatant goals.
It took nearly 4.5 months of my time, probably 25 hours a week (then again I already knew every speaker plus have experience of running events via my TEDxWellington and Collider experience).
The total profit reached into five figures with no sponsors to bring the costs down or partners involved to take any of the operational activities on.
There’s are definite areas for improvement or just things I learned from this endeavour, including:
Refocussing success targets—I was very precious about selling out and hungry to do so. Even though there were only 10 tickets left, it bugged me that I didn’t (and not because of the money I would’ve made). Should learn to celebrate what was achieved instead of getting stressed out on this one big goal (see final lesson).
Invest in (ethical) PR—I could’ve afforded to pay for someone to get some coverage of the event in gatekeeper publications and in return would’ve probably sold out.
Learning to steer—being an MC is not my most comfortable role, although I’m getting better and a good skill to have in the arsenal, it’s still something which needs more honing.
Build a team—even though I hired my good pals from TEDxWellington to assist on the day, adding a couple more specifically to look after tech and little minor things would’ve been nice.
Find partners / sponsors—see business model above.
Celebrate—I just created a medium sized skill based event in a very small market and succeeded on all accounts. Yet I’m struggling to figure out why I can’t celebrate (with grace):
Future
There have been calls to replicate the event in Auckland plus some individual enquiries to repeat for specific organisations. Will follow up the latter to see if it’s viable, and explore the former through some partner organisations like the Council and economic development agency there.
Later on in the year, am looking to develop and deliver another broad skill / topic based event in Wellington and to build on this experience and learnings.
And next year, do it again as looking at the feedback there’s a desire.
Watch this space.
And finally, the event was wonderfully wrapped up by Ali Jacs, summarising the whole day in one superb poem:
Any successful presentation is not judged by what is said,
but by what the listener received.
So tell me,
What have you received?
Today we’ve heard from some of the best
To help us put our storytelling to the test
Under the microscope of enquiry
To dig down deep
into our own stories
DK brought us the practical slide deck tips
To present like a ninja-boss
To make each word pop like a hot toast out of the toaster, perfectly done
Emotions wrapped up inside each and every word
And in every slide, a story
When it’s all said and done, at the end of the day,
What’s the word you want people to remember?
Speaking with Purpose
Kaupapa
–
Sometimes the quietest people have the loudest minds
And Dr Michelle Dickinson is one of those of those indeed
She started out as Santa Claus
Pulling out gifts of introverted wisdom from her sack,
for us to all receive
before revealing her true identity
Nano-girl!
The character she became to overcome
The sweaty palms and heart beating like a drum
Those balled up words that caught in the back of her throat
Nanogirl,
the superhero conjurer
Who can turn sabertooth tigers
Into a room full of kittens,
And with that, the warm, furry, fuzzies of connection began
to weave their way through the room
Michelle reminded us that successful presentation is not judged by what is said
but by what the listener received
And I don’t know about you,
But I received the glorious image of a room full of kittens,
And that’s pretty freaking awesome in my book
–
Sarb Johal reminded us,
That we should tread with our verbal footprints
Ever so carefully
Social relationships are not rocket science – they’re far more complicated than that.
With so many parts of the brain to process the stories we hear,
Language can be a bridge or a barrier across the spaces in between
For my interpretation of your “we”,
May be more than simply you and me
It could be,
my friends and not you,
Or we as in I,
Or we as in you
Or we as in every liked minded person on Earth
And all in all these situations, “we” has been found wanting in authenticity
And always remember,
Whether you’re finger tapping, gesturing or playing with intonation
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Never communicate that you are nervous, you’ll only be atrocious
if you don’t believe your message, your body will betray you
Be Mona Lisa calm, and you will always be tremendous
Just simply tremendous
–
Now just as that energy loan shark from the morning’s caffeine hit
was knocking on the doors of our attention, to collect….
Emma Hart took to the stage, to take us on a journey
Beyond the stats
Beyond the facts
Beyond communication just for relevance
Into communication for elegance
Whether we seek to shift the world with our words
Or just to stop being bullied in the boardroom
The metaphor is a tugboat
that can begin to turn the course
Of the freight liners of our predominant narrative
pulling us from the dull oceans of the mundane
Into the vast, limitless seas of visual language
Where we share our stories with intent
The less words, the more meaning,
Talk like you talk, not like you write
Any if all else fails, find your inner Eminem or Lauryn Hill
And channel the rapper within
–
To close us off for the evening,
We turned our attentive ears,
To Glenis Hiria Philip-Barbara, a living, breathing story of culture
The woman who last year inspired me to set out on a journey
Towards kotahi miriona kōrerorero i Te Reo Maori
One million conversations in Te Reo Māori
When you start the narrative of your life,
Where do you begin?
A good place to start is with the purpose
The foundations of your story
Kaupapa
Ka-u-papa
Literally to hold fast to your foundations
And Glenis’s middle name Hiria means to be held
So let’s hold these words like the gift of language
Balanced on the tips of our tongues
Or like snorkestral maneuvers in the wharenui
Punctuating the darkness until the early morning light of te rā whiti
Let’s store them in the treasure trove of our voicebox,
To call upon anytime we need to find our kaupapa
–
We each hold individual strands of story
That have unravelled behind us throughout our past
But when we weave them together,
With purpose, passion,
Presence and conversation
We get a beautiful rope of storytelling creation
One of the key lessons I’ve learned in telling stories is to be succinct,
So haere ra, ka kite ano koutou,
to both the introverts going home for a nap
And those heading downstairs for a drink
A one day conference for those looking to increase their public speaking confidence and hungry to develop their storytelling techniques.
The event will feature inspirational keynotes plus masterclasses and workshops so attendees can broaden their professional skill set.
Inspired by my recent tenure overseeing nearly 200 events in fourteen months, there’s an opportunity to assist and develop presenters here in Wellington, the wider region and New Zealand as a whole.
Have seen so many folks stand and speak about their particular topic then struggle with the storytelling aspect of their message. Or suffer with nerves and other nuances which detract from the talk in some. Or fail to understand the importance of a well crafted slide deck in assisting their delivery.
This conference is for them.
It’s the wrong time to be announcing any kind of new initiative, let alone a medium-sized conference, however, just couldn’t keep it under wraps till the new year.
Check out the current impressive line-up who will be sharing their wisdom (more to be added soon):
The early-bird offer along with the 25s-and-under registrations rates are currently active under a first-come-first-served scheme*:
As already mentioned, the day will include a mix of keynotes and workshops focussed on deconstructing presentation styles, understanding the psychology of what makes a good talk, exploring models of speaking, other good practice insights and delivery methodology. On top of the usual food and refreshments and networking opportunities.
*At the time of writing, over half of the early bird spots have already been registered, so please act quick.
Would truly appreciate you sharing the above announcement:
with team members, colleagues, friends, family members etc.;