Storytelling: Embracing a powerful method to share knowledge

The words of my PhD advisor (whom I respect quite a lot, and with whom I am very much in touch even after having completed my PhD) have been resonating in my head for the past few days… “Remember, Raul – research is about telling a story with the data you have, the insights you have gained from your research, and communicating it in a clear way to your audience”. This past week and also this weekend, I’ve been contemplating the idea of storytelling as a method and embracing my inner storyteller.

Yesterday, on our way to the WaterDrop event where I spoke at, I shared a few stories about how I came about doing a PhD in environmental studies, where I studied my MBA courses, which countries I’ve lived in, etc. I also shared the story of how I started blogging and where it has taken me. As I was sharing my stories, I thought of the advice given to my by my advisor, the words of my dear friend Erica Hargreave (with whom I shared this morning a lovely breakfast and a walk along the seawall), the musings of my dear friend and neighbour DMcN (who is able to bend the English language to her very whim at will), as well as the powerful insights I’ve gained from my brother HZ (who, like me, is a scholar who is very engaged with the community at large): we are all telling stories.

My PhD advisor always told me that one key element to my success in academia, and to write excellent academic papers, books, thesis, journal articles, was to be able to find one key insight, and tell the story around it. Despite this fact, I never thought of myself as a storyteller. I always thought that I was an academic, a scholar, someone who was supposed to report back on facts, findings and issues. In the past week, however, I’ve come full circle. I’ve come to embrace my inner storyteller. I realize that with my blog, I am sharing not only the pathway of my evolutionary development as a human being, an academic, a scholar, a consultant, but also my very own personal journey through life.

Further reflecting on this issue I thought of the powerful results of a project like Fearless City, and the poster children of this project and its leader April Smith, who launched her own mobile media company (AHAMedia) and who has been developing her and her team’s portfolio by virtue of deploying an ensemble of multimedia platforms to document recent events. April and her team learned a lot through their involvement in Fearless City and by sharing and documenting their life stories in the Downtown East Side.

Furthermore, and while we are on the topic of storytelling, I was particularly amazed by the fantastic work that April, Peter, Tris, Marina, Dan, Rebecca and all of my peers did at Women in Film 2009 Bridging Media Day. I think that the wonderful and major effort that Erica put to bring a team of social media specialists of the caliber that were in the room and the panels really paid out well, because we (the social media panel and the social media team) were able to tell a new story: the story of how traditional and mainstream media can create bridges and embrace new media. I think we were very, very successful in doing exactly that.

I am quite disappointed that I missed James Chutter’s talks both at Orality 2.0 and at Northern Voice ‘09 on storytelling, because I think that I would have learned a lot from James. Lucky for me, my dear friend Rebecca captured his NV’09 talk here. I’ll have to say that I’ve learned a lot from everyone who has been sharing their stories with me through their blogs, Twitter, and other platforms, through our continued interactions. I am also hopeful that Mental Health Camp will help people afflicted with mental illness tell their stories in a manner that makes them feel safe, comfortable and protected.

I have also come to embrace the power of telling stories through a variety of media and platforms, and through both my research eyes (see my research blog) and my personal lenses. I do hope that in sharing these stories, the people who read both my blogs can find some insights into their own personal learning journeys. If that is my contribution to the development and growth of our community, I will feel extremely successful.

My name is Raul, and this is my story.

Related posts:

1. Happy belated birthday, Dr. N.E.!
2. On good friends’ weddings
3. On writing, storytelling and my academic work
4. Sharing your knowledge in open source: SlideShare and Scribd
5. Immersing myself back in the academic sphere