12d • General discussion
Story collection
Over the past few weeks, we’ve collected around 200 stories across different projects. Pretty remarkable, because I keep noticing: getting people to share their stories is harder than you’d think.
You send an email, set up a session, ask “tell me about your experience” - and then… . Or you mostly get policy-type responses. Or everyone talks about the exact same incident.
What I’ve learned from Cynthia Kurtz (Working with Stories) is that the question is everything. “Tell me about a time when…” works much better than “What do you think about…”. And people need to feel they can share less pleasant things too, otherwise you only get the success stories.
But yeah, asking the question is only step one.
What I find important in practice:
- Timing. Too early in a process and people don’t know what you mean, too late and the energy is gone.
- Clear communication about what you’ll do with the stories. Otherwise it stays abstract.
- Not everyone likes typing a story into a form. Some people prefer telling you in person.
- When the first stories come in and you share something from them, you see others getting enthusiastic too.
Ultimately it’s about stories making visible things you can’t capture otherwise. What does something really feel like in practice? What are people running into? What works surprisingly well? You don’t get those insights from numbers or from an evaluation form.
Those 200 stories now give us insight into patterns we would never have found otherwise.
Are you working with story collection too, or thinking about starting? I’m curious about your experiences.
0
0 comments
Story collection
powered by
skool.com/the-story-commons-community-9565
Learn in 4 weeks how to work with stories to better understand people, uncover patterns, and design meaningful change.
Suggested communities
Powered by