If there are a thousand stories in the naked city – there must be a million on the Internet. Slowly but surely I feel as if I’ve just come to really understand what that means and how powerful those stories can be.
Once upon a time in 2005, Jane Leonard with Minnesota Rural Partners hosted a storytelling contest as part of the annual Minnesota Rural Summit. I was part of the Summit and worked closely with Jane attending preliminary rounds and posting information online. The stated focus on the storytelling was to build connections…
The contest’s goal is to celebrate, through storytelling, the connections between rural and urban people and communities. Many urban residents have strong ties to rural places. Some of those ties remain strong while others have been neglected or forgotten. If we are going to have healthy, vibrant rural communities, then we must find meaningful ways to connect urban and rural resources. Celebrating our rural roots through story is a great way to begin to reconnect and make new connections, too.
It was fun – but I forgot what a visionary Jane is – so I kind of cataloged the experience and moved on. Fast forward to last year and I find myself doing a webinar on Telling a Story with Social Media for the Blandin Foundation as a forerunner to the 2009 Broadband Conference. I’ve worked with businesses and have found that those who can tell their story online – and better yet engage their customers/communities to help tell the story – are most successful online. The Internet can be an amazing advertising tool, but that’s underselling it.
Flash forward again to this year and story is all I’m hearing about. At this year’s Blandin Broadband conference keynote Robert Stephens started out by talking about the importance of stories for communities. He focused on the growing accessibility to any story made available online with the prevalence of smart phones. He pointed out that with a smartphone he has information about any community at his fingertips. The smart (or to draw from a MIRC term, intelligent) communities will have a story and will promote it online if they want to promote themselves to potential visitors and transplants.
His advice was echoed when we heard from the students who spoke about what they look for in a community in which to reside after graduation. The students were clear that they needed jobs – but that money wasn’t the primary focus. They also wanted to live someplace that was interesting – and they research those places online. They are visiting city, county and local government sites for more information – but they are looking for more than stats – they are looking for the story that makes each given communities unique.
I’m sure I will hear many of the same stories this weekend at the Twin Cities Daily Planet Fall Forum: Story Telling and Beyond, New Tools for Participation. Speakers include people who use technology to tell their stories – and the event will be followed by a story slam (contest).
So what does all of this story stuff have to do with broadband? I have been collecting stories of broadband success, which I plan to start posting here this week. I have found that a lot of success has stemmed from the ability to tell your story online. The ability come in two parts – first you must be a skilled storyteller but many folks who are passionate about what they do can tell their story. The second part is having access to post the information – in video, audio, image and text. You can be the best storyteller in the world – but without broadband you’re silenced. You can’t sell your business, you can’t promote your community and you can’t tell your story to legislators.