As our global public relations community intensifies its discussion and analysis of the storytelling approach to organizational communication, may I strongly suggest you make good use of this link to the just distributed issue of Warren Feek’s The Drum Beat newsletter, entirely dedicated to storytelling?
As editor Kier Olsen DeVries writes in his introduction:
This issue of The Drum Beat focuses on stories, asking: what do we mean by the use of oral history, or storytelling, in the context of social change? What is the rationale behind its use as a communication strategy, and how has it been used in diverse contexts around the world to address a myriad of development issues? How do new technologies influence the telling of traditional tales, and what does the relatively new approach called “digital storytelling” look like in practice? We also feature several tools from our Materials section designed to support the work of those integrating stories into their work and thinking, as well as a few evaluations assessing the storytelling strategy.
A very precious wealth of diverse materials which will assist many searching souls in better understand what the storytelling approach is about and how it differs from other approaches.
An italian recent book about storytelling and management:
http://www.ibs.it/code/9788845315565/fontana-andrea/manuale-di-storytelling-raccontare.html
Toni, here’s another interesting example: the US Dept. of Agriculture just launched a Rural Tour to collect stories from rural communities about their life, what’s working and what should be changed.
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/ruraltour?navid=RURALTOUR
Toni, thanks for calling our attention to a useful resource.
New Scientist says [the following has been edited to fit the Twitter caracter limit] “creating a story appeals to our brain’s love of pattern, reshapes the mind, promotes creativity and raises social status” http://bit.ly/HZARi
New Scientist goes so far as to say that storytelling is part of what defines us as human.