Behind the scenes at Zahmoo: A week in the life of Shawn Callahan
This is the first in a series of posts about the people at Zahmoo.
Shawn Callahan is a founding Director of Anecdote, the company that created Zahmoo. Anecdote is a whole business devoted to the idea of storytelling and its power to help businesses understand themselves and the get their messages out into the world.
He has clients all over the world so when I asked him about his week, his answer involved a lot of travelling and phone conferencing. Read below and see for yourself!
Monday
At the moment I’m working with a global pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Germany to plan its strategy conference to be held in Sri Lanka. On Monday I had a phone meeting with the leader of the company’s Asia Pacific operations to do some planning for the conference.
People always have different reactions when you tell them you work in storytelling. Often they assume, as this client did at first, that you are going to tell them a fairy tale with a message, when really what we do is help other people to tell their stories. I’m a facilitator who understands storytelling rather than a professional storyteller myself; that said, I love to tell business stories.
Tuesday
Tuesday was a big day. I flew into Sydney first thing in the morning to meet with another client about helping its IT department communicate its strategy to the rest of the company. The strategy document they had was long and unappealing to a general reader. The Anecdote team and I worked with them to set them on the useful track to translating their vision into a narrative people will understand more readily.
While in Sydney I took the opportunity to catch up with another client, the Gartner Group, about a roadshow they are planning on doing in August to help Chief Information Officers (CIOs) tell stories better in order to communicate with staff.
In the afternoon, I met with our printer about another project Anecdote is working on: Storycards which is a new method of collecting and presenting storytelling techniques, pairing each idea with complementary artwork.
Wednesday
Back in Melbourne, I met with a client who has some pretty serious issues with public perception. Talking with their knowledge management group, they had gotten caught up in focusing on how to avoid failing. I asked them instead how they were going to win. At first they had trouble answering the question but I think we got there in the end.
I spent the afternoon working on an idea to run a workshop on insight and storytelling in Singapore next month. I’ll present the workshop along with two other people: Gary Klein, whose book Blink presents his research on human insight; and knowledge management professional Patrick Lambe.
Thursday
Thursday morning I spent collecting stories from a big five consulting firm, getting the perspectives and knowledge of everyone from junior consultants to senior managers. These sorts of activities are extremely powerful for improving corporate culture as they give staff at all levels a solid understanding of where they fit in the company and a big picture view of the context they work in.
I had some timeout on Thursday having lunch with a friend I’ve known since I was six months old. It was a nice reprieve from the pace of the week.
Friday
I was out talking to people and making sales calls all day.
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Upcoming behind the scenes posts will feature Mark Schenk and Kevin Bishop. Who else would you like to hear from?
Tips on getting started (and keeping going)
There’s an old saying “Every journey begins with a single step.”
Writers talk about the tyranny of the blank page. You know you have something to say but it’s intimidating to start from nothing. You have probably felt that tyranny, the fear of taking that first single step.
Here are some ideas that might help to start you off.
- Don’t overwhelm yourself—start small. Have big ideas for the future, sure. But to start with, just aim to write a paragraph or a sentence or even some bullet points. If things start to flow, go with it. If they don’t, start on a new paragraph, sentence or bullet list.
- Remember that there is only one you. No one will tell stories the same way you will. Embrace your unique perspective. It might seem ordinary to you, but that’s probably because you’re in it all the time.
- Think about what you would like to ask your departed ancestors. Write down some questions as if you are a journalist about to interview them. See if you can answer them or if anyone else in the family or community can.
- Turn your interview questions on yourself. What might people what to ask you about your present in the distant future?
- Draw a time line of your family or community history and capture whichever stories inspire you first. Once you get started, you will find a rhythm that motivates you to keep going.
There are as many ways of getting and staying inspired and motivated as there are people—these are just five. What have you found works for you?
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Image credit: Running Shoes by Josiah Mackenzie under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
August 15th, 2011 by Sarah Jansen Filed in: For Community, For Family
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Family history research—Australian resources
Zahmoo is just one of many resources you can use to make the most of your family stories. Using Zahmoo as the centre of your storytelling and collecting, there are countless other sources of information you can use to feed into your story bank.
Here is a cheat sheet of these resources to get your started researching your Australian family history.
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia holds indexes of Australia’s Births, Deaths and Marriages Registers which are published by each state or territory. You can use the NLA’s indexes to find official records of your ancestors—or even yourself! Dates of the records kept vary from state to state. You can find out more on the NLA’s website. The library also has a list of other genealogy resources here.
National Archives of Australia
The National Archives of Australia, while they are mainly devoted to government records, also have a nice guide for family historians on their website here and some specific resources for those researching their indigenous heritage. Immigration records are organised by state: The site also has a suite of excellent fact sheets.
State and Territory Libraries
Australia has five State Libraries plus the Northern Territory Library and the ACT Heritage Library, and they all have dedicated family history and/or genealogy collections: Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia. Those links will take you straight to the family history sections of their websites. They all have other useful online resources as well as skilled librarians who are only too happy to help you with your research and enquiries.
AIATSIS
There’s also the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies which has a whole section on researching your family here.
Image credit: Magazine on a table by John Martinez Pavliga under an Attribution licence
August 11th, 2011 by Sarah Jansen Filed in: For Family, Research
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Getting started with video
Film or video is a powerful way of telling a story. If you would like to add video entries to your story bank, but have been put off by a lack of experience, never fear. As the examples we’ve linked to below show, a video doesn’t have to be complicated to tell a great story and engage its audience.
You also don’t need to do expensive courses or buy fancy software. There are plenty of how-to guides available online, even video tutorials, plus you can download free software for video editing. If you have Windows XP on your home computer, you will have Microsoft Movie Maker already installed. If you have an Apple computer, it probably came with Apple iMovie. Both of these software packages should have instructions that pop up when you open the program for the first time or accessible from their Help menus.
If neither of these options appeal to you, you can find lots of other options to download from the net, such as Avid Studio and Wax, but always ALWAYS do a quick Google search to find out if they are legitimate. There are many places online where people post warnings and discussions of software and other tools.
To give you an idea of what is possible, here are a few examples of storytelling videos people have made.
This is a simple video of a woman talking about what she knows of her family history.
Family history from African American Registry on Vimeo.
A great example of how a simple video can be really effective in telling a story.
Family History from Custom Home Video on Vimeo.
A man made this video for his parents’ sixtieth birthdays.
Goulfine/Katcher Family History (Trailer) from The Discerning Brute on Vimeo.
Here is a lovely example of telling a personal story via a simple video.
Claire Believes from Rick Koconis Photography on Vimeo.
Here’s a cute animated take aimed at younger family members about why family history might be interesting and relatively easy to research.
July 12th, 2011 by Sarah Jansen Filed in: For Community, For Family, How to, Recording
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There are always more stories
When you think you have run out of things to put in your story bank, there are lots different angles to look at the stories of your family or community to stay inspired. Here are some ideas for you.
Recipes
Write down all the recipes you learned as a child and post them along with photos of the finished product – or even each step if you’re feeling ambitious! Then talk to your family and get their favourite recipes and add them. Encourage people to comment on their memories of the dishes and experiences of following your recipes.
Draw a family tree
Sketch out a family tree, scan it and upload it as a post.
Pick a theme
Choosing a theme can spark your memory and make you remember stories you forgot you knew. Theme suggestions: first words, in-laws, hobbies, weddings, brothers and sisters, awkward moments, family holidays, school days, family firsts.
Historical research
Research the time periods that your grandparents lived in. Everyday facts like how long it took to get somewhere in a horse and cart rather than by car are illuminating. See if you can find out things like did people have to sew all their own clothes? Did they get shoes made? What was housework like? What was an office like? What was work like? Things have changed so much in the last two or three generations that even living memories are gold mines of different worlds.
Composite posts
Collect those anecdotes you thought were too short and put them altogether in a “collected vignettes” post.
Good luck!
Image credit: Thinking by Jacob Bøtter under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
July 4th, 2011 by Sarah Jansen Filed in: For Community
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Tags, categories and the importance of organising early
Early is the key word in that headline.
Once you hit your stride and are building up a good stock of stories in your story bank, it’s important that you organise them in a way that allows you to find them again. Your bank is only going to get bigger and more diverse, so the next step is to make sure you and your family or community will be able to access the entries you want when you want them.
Think of your categories as folders that you file your entries into. You don’t need millions of them, just a few, like “tax” or “health” in your home filing system. Tags on the other hand can be like sticky notes you put on a piece of paper within a folder to remind you what’s in each of those categories, like whose tax return it is, or whether the receipt is from a GP or an osteopath.
To apply this to your story bank, the first step is to decide what your categories are going to be. They can be anything that works for you, but keep them broad: children, weddings, travel, houses. You don’t have to decide on a set list of tags; it’s best if you just tag each entry as you bank it.
Then go through all your entries and decide which categories they should be filed under. Each entry can go under more than one; just do whatever is most useful for you. Remember you can always go back and change them anytime!
When that’s all done, you will be able to find all your entries on, say, weddings, with a single click of your mouse.
Image credit: Filing cabinets by mcfarlandmo under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
June 27th, 2011 by Sarah Jansen Filed in: For Community, For Family, How to
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Getting kids into history
History is one long story, or really, a lot of stories of competing narratives, about the people who shaped the world we live in.
Family history can give people a sense of history that is much more personal than hearing about far‑off events about strangers. Telling your family history is a great way for the younger members of your family to learn some history and really understand and connect with it.
For example, it’s much more meaningful to discover that the Great Depression meant that your grandparents didn’t taste butter until they were in their teens than to hear an abstract fact that the Great Depression meant rationing. You feel much more connected to a story about your uncle’s experience of living in France than a book about it.
Telling stories of people that you knew or ancestors whose stories you know is a powerful way to help young people feel a connection to those who came before them, family and otherwise, linking the stories of the past to their own experience of the present and imaginings of the future.
June 8th, 2011 by Sarah Jansen Filed in: For Family
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Why me?
Do you ever find yourself wondering why anyone would be interested in your stories? Do you find yourself more drawn to recording stories from other people rather than your own?
I’m sure you remember your parents and grandparents telling you stories. I’m sure you loved them and asked for more. Your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends will probably feel the same.
The people in your life will be interested in your story. Your stories might not seem that interesting to you—after all you were there when they happened! But they give others an insight into you and the world as you have experienced it. That’s why we like reading biographies, even if they aren’t of famous people.
Children don’t always realise what a gift it is to have people around who are willing to tell stories and share their experiences. By recording your stories and keeping them safely in your Zahmoo story bank, they will have access to them once they do realise what a boon it is to have someone in their life willing to share their experiences.
You are a link to the more distant future too. The day will come when you are the only one who can remember certain events. It’s best to record things now.
Another benefit of you banking your stories is that once people in your family or community see you doing it and get in the habit of enjoying your stories and photos and so on, they will want to get in on the action as well. Go on—be a trendsetter!
Why storytelling anyway?
Since the first humans gathered around a fire, we have been telling stories. Since we first figured out how to make markings, we have been recording them for future generations. Telling stories is fundamental to how we make sense of this often confusing world, how construct our identities, and how we tell each other who we are.
It doesn’t matter what medium we use. We’ve gone from fireside tales and cave paintings to making music; to painting then photography; publishing books and magazines; theatre; then onto recording music and making films; and now we have all the many and varied forms of transmedia—video, sound art, internet art,
Now we have Zahmoo to harness the powerful potential of the internet to help us make sense of all the options we have and organise our stories for the future.
All this means that you can choose whatever medium or mediums you feel the most comfortable in to tell your stories, or the mediums that suit each story, for example, using a video or sound recording might be better to capture a toddler telling a story but written words might be better to record vignettes of your teenage years. The beauty of it is that you and your family can choose from so many options.
Image credit: Film roll 1 by Travis Hornung under a Creative Commons Attribution only licence
May 11th, 2011 by Sarah Jansen Filed in: For Family, Recording
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Getting your family banking
People love to talk about themselves. The best way to get your family in on the act of storytelling is to bank some stories about them. Once you have uploaded a story about someone in your family to your story bank, email them a link to it so they can log in and comment on it. Once they’re familiar with Zahmoo, suggest that maybe they have a story from their childhood or about you to share.
Contributing photos might be an easy way for people to get started as well. All it needs is the photos to be scanned or copied and uploaded to your story bank.
If you run into resistance from people who are uncomfortable with technology or too busy to sit down and record or write something, you can organise it yourself. Have a coffee with whoever isn’t into the idea and bring a notebook. Ask them what their earliest memory is, or the first party they remember going to. Take some notes and retell the story later to be uploaded. Send them a link and show them how to comment. They might have some clarifications or things to add that they left out or you forgot.
Keep talking to people and they will want to tell you their stories. Once they’re used to it, they will start to seek you out and you will have your hands full.
Image credit: Mrs. Jack Wright reads her two sons Ralph and David a bed-time story / À l’heure du coucher Mme Jack Wright lit une histoire à ses deux fils, Ralph et David by LAC/BAC under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.
May 4th, 2011 by Sarah Jansen Filed in: For Family, How to
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