Thu 3 Jan 2008
Art of Storytelling
Posted by Iain Hamp under Productivity
[4] Comments
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about storytelling as a dying art form. From the popularity of reality shows to the lack of time we spend with our kids telling them stories (as in making them up out of your head, in an entertaining way, rather than reading them for someone else), this may in fact be the case. Whether or not we are in fact losing the knack for storytelling as a culture, practicing the use of storytelling as a way to learn faster, prepare for exams, and retain information longer might be a good way to push ourselves to enhance our storytelling ability.
Holistic learning is based on the principle that learning works as a whole and not through rote memorization. When all of your ideas are connected together, it becomes far easier to remember them. When you have many different associations to the same idea, you can still retain the information even if you forget one association.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm[...] idea I had, spawned from a post and then comment I made on my Hacking Your Passions blog regarding the importance of storytelling as we humans grow and try to make sense of our world and the culture(s) we’re a part of, is [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 am
Storytelling is far from dying, as you metioned. We have a huge cache of resources at http://www.storyteller.net. I make my living in teaching and presenting storytelling http://www.seantells.com.
What we do have a lack of is skilled presenters who KNOW the subject of storytelling. What we are seeing lately is a glut of “trainers” who jumped on the storytelling-as-buzzword train who are hacking and slashing at teaching storytelling in the corporate world. Many companies are shreddign their budgets with unqualified trainers. That’s too bad as good storytelling really is essential in today’s marketplace.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Thank you for sharing that Sean. I think the significance of storytelling is something I’m going to be giving a lot more thought and attention to in 2008. And you’re right, in business I believe a story told well is worth far more than any PowerPoint deck ever created (unless the PowerPoint was used to enhance the telling of a story – in which case you still need the good storyteller).
January 8th, 2008 at 7:53 am
@Iain,
Just found your blog through a trackback from lifehack, and I too have been giving a great deal of thought to the “lost art of storytelling.”
Occasionally I see a storytelling festival somewhere (Chattanooga, TN has one every year) or some similar event, but with fewer people sitting down without a TV or computer in front of them to “just visit” the art of storytelling is simply not as pervasive as it once was.
My 2-year-old son has been a great inspiration to develop storytelling skills of my own. Fortunately, a 2-year-old’s criticism is generally light.
@Sean – Thanks for the links. I’ll be checking those sites out.