Storytime

I'm a storyteller. I was born this way. I talk with my hands and I talk reallyreallyfast.

I am unable to tell a story without describing the setting in vivid details and relating all points of view, conversations verbatim, and throw in my own analysis of what is going on. And I write like I talk - sometimes riddled throughout with segueways and descriptors.

I'm sure I drive most people mad with my storytelling ways. "Just get to the point already," I'm sure they are muttering under their breath. But the funny thing is, my stories are so vivid that I have had numerous people retell them back to me - as if the story happened to them, or to some one they refer to as happening to "a friend".

I am a huge fan of Chris Brogan. One of his recent posts is about the importance of storytelling. It got me thinking about how I use stories.

My husband is a chief culprit in stealing my tales. Although that probably stems from the fact we've been together 12 years and he's heard so many of them so many times, he's forgotten he wasn't there for the actual event.

But I've also had friends and coworkers retell my stories in my presence, completely unaware that it was me who told the story in the first place. And they retell the story with an incredible level of detail, with the exception of the fact that it happened to me. What does this mean?

Well, for starters - it proves to me that anchoring works. Two weeks ago I attended a fantastic event in D.C. called Artez Interaction, and got to hear the always brilliant Katya Andresen speak. She talked about anchoring - giving people a psychological anchor so that things make sense. I think in this instance, it is safe to say that because I put all the little details in someone's head, they used both sides of their brain to process the story, so they could visualize it completely in recall mode.

Instead of the person's brain trying to recall a vague story with little detail, they only had to remember a few facts and could visualize the rest to fill in the gaps. Like adding multiple tags to something you add to delicious - it make it easier to find later.

So what does this mean to us?

Beware of overediting. Some editors take away all the flesh and blood of a story in order to make it fit. But if you want something to stick in someone's memory, try your best to paint the picture for them. Maybe someday you'll overhear me telling your story.

I'm no Chris Brogan

If you are not already an avid reader of Chris Brogan's blog, or don't know who he is, I highly recommend a daily dose of Chris (you can sign up for e-mail alerts that send his most recent post to your inbox). I nearly always walk away with a new idea or confirmation of something I have an opinion of. Sometime he helps me to articulate an argument I've had trouble finding the right words for when talking about social media. For instance I love this wonderful "apple tree" analogy:

Focus on the Relationship – to me, the new unit of business should be relationships. You get more fruit from an apple tree if you nurture it and pick apples when it’s ripe, instead of uprooting the tree and forcefully shaking the apples into your barrel.

I plan on ripping this off the next time I get called in to explain why it is taking so long to grow our list and why I don't just want to rent an e-mail list.

Great stuff, no?

But the reason I'm no Chris Brogan or Seth Godin or Beth Kanter is that my poor blog is not the central mouthpiece of my work. Sadly, my blog is like the plants in my house...if only they would whine or at least meow, they would have a much better chance of surviving.

This past two weeks has been a blur of natural disasters and sick kids and even giving them the attention that was due was an exhausting feat.

But it hammers home the point...you can't have it all (and to quote Steven Wright, "where would you put it?") Time is an ethereal luxury. You can neither stop it, nor control it.

Embrace it. Enjoy it. Focus on the most important thing in your life at that moment. For me, sometimes it's the knowledge that millions of people were suddenly left homeless due to the unrelenting series of disasters in the Asia-Pacific region and sometimes it's the feverish cry of a small child who needs you to drop everything and just sit with him.

And that's okay. In the grand scheme of things, the blog can wait.

Stay tuned...