Blog Posts About: storytelling

Kurt Vonnegut's Shape of Stories

As the OpenCulture blog explains, Kurt Vonnegut once proposed a master's thesis at the University of Chicago about the shape of stories. The idea was rejected because it "was so simple and looked like too much fun." That sounds familiar. People have asked us before if our style of video production is appropriate for serious subjects. 

Open Culture writes:

The elegant simplicity and playfulness of Vonnegut’s idea is exactly its enduring appeal. The idea is so simple, in fact, that Vonnegut sums the whole thing up in one elegant sentence: “The fundamental idea is that stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper, and that the shape of a given society’s stories is at least as interesting as the shape of its pots or spearheads.” 

What a neat idea. Here's how Vonnegut himself explains the shape of stories: 

Graphic designer Maya Eilam made this idea into an awesome infographic:

Kurt Vonnegut - The Shapes of Stories

The next time you see an opportunity to explain an idea in the form of a story, think about this simple idea: stories have shapes that we can visualize. Where does your story begin and end? Where does it go in-between?

NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.

Explaining vs. Storytelling for Startups

Seattle investor and “startup guy” Chris Devore recently wrote about four categories of effort that will help founders show that their startup is growing and healthy.  

There are four important categories of effort that every startup team needs to keep in mind. Too much -- or too little -- weight in any one of these areas can lead to disaster when it comes time to raise the next round:

The first three categories are:
  • Product
  • Sales / Distribution 
  • Recruiting
 
All important points, but it’s the fourth point that I find most interesting:
  • Storytelling
Devore writes:
 
It may seem odd to rank this skill up there with the others listed above, but I'm convinced it rates equally among winning startups. It's not enough to hire amazing people, build great products and sell the shit out of them -- you also have to convince a world full of skeptics that your crappy little startup is actually going to make a dent in the universe. So in addition to all the showing you do, you have to get good at telling.
 
I'm not sure if storytelling is an innate or learned skill, but it's the kind of thing that hustlers excel at without thinking. Someone in the company has to be your Steve Jobs -- the guy (or gal) who makes people feel the magic, share the passion and join the parade as fans and advocates. Just as products don't sell themselves, stories don't tell themselves.
 
I think this is a solid point and one that many people in technology forget. But I might suggest a slightly different perspective. Storytelling can certainly be valuable, but it is only part of this solution - storytelling itself does not innately solve a problem.  
 
Complex ideas in story form do not cease to be complex ideas. 
 
Instead, I think a focus on explanation, of which storytelling is a part, is what startups should consider as a category.  By learning to explain their product, team, strategy and vision they can achieve something a story cannot: real understanding. Before anyone can see the magic or become an advocate, they must see and understand the big idea first. This means building context and making connections to ideas the audience aleady understands. It means empathizing and starting with the forest instead of the trees. I think these factors are one reason the video we created for Dropbox was on their home page for 2.5 years.
 
Look at it this way: Explanation is an activity that can influence every category of effort listed above.  Marketing, raising money, recruiting and product development are easier with effective explanations in-hand.  Unfortunately, as a skill or category of effort, it's often forgotten.  From my perspective, stories are only a part of effective explanations and together they can achieve real, lasting outcomes in the form of understanding and motivation.
 

NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.

Ira Glass on the Building Blocks of Storytelling

We're big fans of Ira Glass and the This American Life radio show/podcast.  We listen to every show on the podcast and there are few broadcast storytellers that I respect more.  Via an older post on the Explainist blog, I found these videos of him describing the process of researching and crafting stories from back in 2006.  He names two building blocks of storytelling and how they work together. Really great perspectives that you can hear in every story he tells.

The video above is actually part of a 4 part series and the other parts are less applicable to our work, but still worth the time to watch, especially if you're interested in broadcast work like his show. View Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.