Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Injecting Power into Corporate Communication

I've just been completing a web page update www.storytell.com.au/corpicte2006.html to add the details of the corporate storytelling workshop being hosted by the Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education (ICTE - UQ). I must admit that the title of the workshop embarasses me a little. It sounds almost like a military workshop. I couldn't help thinking about the power of storytelling.

Over Easter I heard many stories as my father-in-law, John Tunny, revisited the scenes of his upbringing and early married life in a number of small country towns in north west New South Wales. These were healing stories - good to hear - pleasing to the ear. They had such a positive energy.

As I was thinking about this the ABC news was playing on the radio. It came to me that the 'news' is impossible without stories. They speak of characters in settings of place and time. They detail problems and solutions. Mind you they are pretty brief and matter of fact stories, stripped of niceties and personal details. Still they have power. It's a power to communicate seriously and effeciently.

It's a different type of power to those of community stories mind you. When I think about the Charleville Generational Learning digital stories. These stories build social capital and personal power.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

What's So Special About Digital Storytelling

I remember hearing about Digital Storytelling some years back at a storytelling festival, probably in Sydney. I remember thinking at the time that I would get into it some time.

Well now I have and now I'm sold on it. It wasn't just going to the First Person Conference and meeting a swag of Digital Storytellers from around the world. It hasn't just been the wonderfully challenging and rewarding process of running some Digital Storytelling projects for a range of different people.

I think that there is something quite wonderfully empowering about Digital Storytelling. I'd like to identify all of the elements and get them down.

If anyone has any thoughts let me know please.

Regards
Daryll

Friday, April 07, 2006

Enchanted Forest Stories

Wow. Just spent the better part of a day in a recording studio. No, I tell a lie, it was the music room at Ashgrove State Primary school with students from year 3H recording them telling the Enchanted Forest Stories for the new BCC playground in Dorrington Park.

It's brilliant project really. The brain child of CAO Mark Crocker, I got to work with the students to create a set of Enchanted Forest Stories - the ones we recorded today. Gavin Fenlon worked with them on playground design ideas and now the Brisbane City Council is hard at work building the playground but I won't tell how the recordings are going to be installed in the playground. You'll have to wait. Sorry.

I'm looking forward to sitting down in that playground and listening to them when it's all comppleted though.