“Stories are just data with soul” Brene Brown
Last year at 'The Story Catchers' we had a super busy and fun year working with several organisations, state and federal government departments using a variety of story methods for monitoring, evaluation and reporting purposes.
This year is already shaping up to be just as busy as word gets out about the visual story work we do and why it's a great way to deliver reports and engage with your audiences and communities.
LIFE’S A STORY – THAT’S A FACT!
Research, monitoring, evaluation and reporting are all about the data, the facts. The question is how can we best communicate these facts?
Researchers and evaluators spend a lot of time thinking about what they want to tell an audience, however not so much time spent on the how.
Information is often delivered using long and comprehensive written reports, factual PowerPoint presentations, excel spread sheets, graphs etc.
How many people read these reports? how engaged are they? and how can we do it differently to better engage our audiences?
Why Story
I believe the backbone of engaging presentations, interesting data visualisation and reports is good storytelling. This is why using story is an essential approach to understanding and sharing what is going on and why.
Story is a medium that is applied in all cultures and demographics and is fantastic for breaking down barriers and connecting communities.
Stories can be very powerful learning tools.
Stories have momentum so they are a great way to get unstuck.
Stories can be applied internally within an organisation by bringing together through story.
Story can also be used to bring people together across organisations, communities and countries.
Find the story!
Our brains are wired for story, however it is very important that the message does not get lost in translation. This is why we use visual storytelling!
It is ‘the story catcher’s’ job to find the story, sometimes this is very clear and other times the story is not so clear.
There are two types of stories that we look for:
Personal narratives/stories: theses are personal stories that relate to an event, incident, learning, viewpoint and or experience.
The BIG story: this is all the personal narratives/stories put together. This will help identify themes, barriers, enablers and the community narrative.
The Story Catching Tools!
There are a variety of visual tools that ‘The Story Catchers’ use to effectively communicate your messages. These include:
1. video- social impact stories;
3. animation
Infographics are compelling and attractive, they can scanned and viewed very easily and they are very easy to share.
Human beings are highly visual and because 90% of the information that comes to the brain is visual you need to tap into that “optic nerve” So infographic are a great way to share all those facts, figures and statistics.
5. participatory media;
Over the course of 6 months The Story Catchers - Inspireevery1 Productions worked with a community group in Arno Bay on the South Australian Eyre Peninsular to help them document their journey whist participating in the Champions Academy. Workshops where conducted in following:
Using your iPad as a media creation tool
How to tell a great story with an image
Image Framing and Capture
The importance of great audio and how to catch it
Interview techniques
Some great questions to ask.
The participants visually captured their journey over the past 6 months on their iPads, which was edited into this little documentary.
6. storytelling websites;
'NRM-Together' This website celebrates the connection between people, the SAMDB region and its natural resources.
Explore a range of stories, videos and images to find out how our projects are connecting people to place.
This is a community story website where the community can share their stories about working, living or playing on the River Murray ?
Helping to tell your story
Ask us how we can help you engage with your community/organisation through the power of story.