By Martina Welke & Aurea Astro
Re-Vision Labs Fellows

Part Three:  The Rest of the Story

(Check out Part One and Two if you missed them)

The Finkels are not only successful business people, talented artists, and environmental stewards, but also masterful storytellers.  Aurea and I delighted in hearing about their adventures around the world and learning how their stories have influenced the Pike Brewing Company.

According to the thorough, rich history provided on the company website, Charles and Rose Ann met at a wine tasting in 1968: “Over shared Shiners they discover[ed] they both love beer and each other.”  During our interview, the 40 plus years the Finkels have spent together became increasingly apparent in our dialogue: Charles or Rose Ann often seamlessly completed the other’s sentences or added details to a story without ever interrupting the flow of their narrative.

Customers have taken notice of the stories and personalities behind the brewery and pub.  The Finkels get a lot of compliments on their website and the fact that they are a family-owned business.

“In an environment where increasingly people are relying on the Walmarts and chain businesses to satisfy their need to eat and to shop, I think people find it refreshing to go to a genuine place, that’s authentic, that real people own it, real people care about it.  Real people know their employees and care about their employees.  People who care about the quality of the food that they serve,” Charles told us.

The care Charles referred to is evident in the attention to detail the Finkels pay in every step of their business process.  Food purchasing, menu design, brewing recipes, bottle labels, and community outreach are all meticulously handled by the Finkels, and it’s this personal touch that gives their restaurant and their beer unique appeal.

“In our previous life as a beer importer, we introduced the first organic beer ever in America.   I designed the label, and I put organic on there, but I understated it.  I wanted people to buy the beer because it was really a delicious beer, not because it was organic.  And the same thing with our restaurant.  We want people to come here because the food is delicious, because the place is fun to be in, because the beer is so good, not because it’s necessarily organic.  It is, but that’s an added bonus.  The real most important thing is the food.”

Watch for Charles and Rose Ann at the pub enjoying a pint of Pike XXXXX Stout or Kilt Lifter Ruby Ale, walking their mascot—a one-eyed Boston Terrier named Dirby, or riding around town on their bicycle-built-for-two, complete with “tandem talker” headsets and matching jerseys.

Let’s back up a bit and answer the basic question of what is a story?  And what do we mean when we talk about “storytelling” for businesses and organizations?*

As I wrote those lines, I panicked.  I don’t know – it can mean so many things!  But let’s break it down…

The Purpose of Telling Stories

I believe that if you tell authentic stories effectively, you can change the world.  Stories can be very powerful!  And with that in mind, the purpose of telling stories is to affect change by increasing awareness and ultimately provoking action.

Marketing, Sales, Branding, Public Relations, Communications, and Human Resources are just a few of the many departments that tell stories within mission-driven organizations.  And within each of these departments, the tactics, tools, and target audiences will be different.  But no matter what department is telling the story, before you set out to create a story, you must first have a goal:  Why are you telling a story?  What do you hope to accomplish with the story?

Story Construction

We’ve known since we were small that stories have a beginning, middle, and end – yet we often forget this when it comes to telling them in our adult business lives.  But alas, it is still true!  Every good story in Western society, no matter what medium, has a beginning, middle, and end.  For example:

1. An organizational story has Mission, Values, and Vision.  The Mission tells what you’re doing now, the Values tell why/how you’re doing it and will continue to do it, and the vision tells what you want the future to look like once it’s done.
2. An executive’s bio tells where she went to school, what she did after school, and what she’s doing now.
3. An advertisement shows where the target demographic is now, how the product or idea will change that target demographic, and what that will look like.
4. A documentary film shows the world before something happened, how the world was changed, and where the world is headed after that change.
5. A business plan shows where you are, where you want to be, what plans you have to get to where you want to be.

Or some variation thereof – every good story has a beginning, middle and end.  Occasionally story construction is played with – for instance in the movie Memento, the end comes at the beginning, and the beginning comes at the end – but the three parts nearly always go together to form a story.

What does it really mean to have a beginning, middle and end?  Change.  In every good story there is change:  I went, I saw, I changed.  Without going too deep into story construction here, each character and each chain of events has an arc of change:  life is going on normally, something happens, the person has to deal with that, and as a result they change.  When you feel a story is going on and on without focus and you just want it to end, generally it is because there is no significant or interesting change happening.

If it helps, think of the most timeless of our children’s stories: Jack and The Beanstalk (Jack changes), Little Red Riding Hood (the wolf changes), or Pinocchio (Pinocchio changes).  Any good story that you remember well will work.

Connective Storytelling

Stories Create Awareness; Communities Create Action

Stories themselves can create awareness and provoke action, but in order for action to take place, stories must be accompanied by the means to create action.  In other words, getting people jazzed up about an idea is only half the battle – once they’re jazzed, you have to give them the tools they need to actually go do it!  Additionally, if your desire is continued action, you must continuously support and motivate people.  You can do this with online or offline community organizing, though in today’s world it is almost a necessity to combine the two.

Storytelling Continuum of Engagement:

Level 1. Targeted Broadcast (creates an Informed Audience)
Level 2. Conversational Engagement (creates an Informed Community)
Level 3. Collaborative Engagement (creates an Engaged Community)

We are entering an era where brands, products, operations, and ideas will never be the same.  Customers, investors, partners, and constituents are no longer satisfied with passively receiving information – they expect to participate and engage as creators, collaborators, and vital members of active communities.  And this changes the rules of storytelling a bit.

Storytelling Rules of  Engagement:

1. Authenticity
2. Transparency
3. Emotional Investment
4. Personally-Aligned Values
5. Community Ownership

Emotional investment between community members is paramount:  You must connect people to people.  We remember good stories, and happily tell them to our friends and families.  A good story appeals to emotions.  Emotions are what make people passionate about ideas, it makes them move from watching, looking, and seeing to doing.

Thoughts?

I hope I haven’t talked “at” you too much here – I would love to know your thoughts!  Since technology is changing so rapidly, to a certain degree we are all making this up as we go along.  Input along the way is certainly welcome!

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*Note that when I talk about “story” and “storytelling” I’m talking about good ones, ones that work, ones that do the job they set out to do.  There are bad stories out there that don’t follow these rules, but those are not the ones we’re looking to emulate.

My Storytelling Background

I haven’t formally introduced myself. I’m Melinda one of the Founding Partners at Re-Vision Labs. I spend the majority of my time working on Communications and Storytelling, both internally and for our clients.  I have an extremely – and some may say overly – diverse background.

My Languages of Storytelling

I majored in Cultural Anthropology (at the UW in Seattle), and during my last quarter I took an art class. Turned out I was good at art, so I went to art school in Manhattan (at SVA), where I lived as an artist for a while.  But I wanted a larger audience than art could give, so I traversed the country again to work in the film industry as an Art Director.  While in LA, I eventually also got a master’s degree in Documentary film (at USC) – with additional classes in cause marketing.

After 10 years in the grind of the LA film industry, I needed to rethink my life plan. So I moved with my new husband to rural Northern California and lived on a vineyard, where we tried to live self-sufficiently – and I blogged about it. Turned out I was pretty good at blogging, but not so good at self-sufficiency (mostly, we found out that it was unsustainable). So I moved back to my hometown of Seattle (after 15 years gone), and hoped to find the life and work I was looking for:

Throughout this entire quest of 20 years, I sought a way to substantially make the world a better place, while leading a life of personal satisfaction and sustainablity.

Have I found this here in Seattle? Resoundingly, YES!! A few months after moving back here, I met the amazing partners I now work with every day – a few months after meeting, we formed Re-Vision Labs. Living in Seattle, I’m able to live more sustainably (which, it turns out, is not the same as self-sufficiently), and I truly enjoy my urban lifestyle here. Better yet, I work on worldchanging projects, and I use every one of those skills I picked up over the last several years:

• Cultural Anthropology (the study of how communities work – very useful)
• Fine Art (graphic design and photography are some of the many things I do here)
• Art Direction/Production Design (all about creating spaces and places where people live and work – and how they evoke a personality in themselves)
• Documentary Filmmaking (we’re working on our own RVL video series, and have already done several documentary shorts for clients)
• Cause Marketing (clearly something we spend a lot of time doing here)
• Blogging (who knew how much I’d need that experience!)
• Oh, and of course the Desire to Change the World, which runs through everything I do and every decision I’ve made.

Well, hopefully my over-education and 20-year exploration into how storytelling can change the world will give me a bit of credibility when writing this series. Storytelling mediums are much like languages: if you know several different languages, it becomes easier and easier to learn new ones. Once one learns photography, painting, filmmaking, and cause marketing, one can easily pick up graphic and web design, social media, blogging, advertising, and so on. The languages get easier and easier to learn.

Onward, then….

BEST PRACTICES IN STORYTELLING #1:

Know Yourself and Cultivate Your Own Personality

Ah, you thought your job was about your business, didn’t you? Well that’s true to a certain extent, but a business is still made up of people. Often Marketers spend way too much time and effort and money trying to create a brand that transcends people. The result? It feels cold, impersonal, and like the product does not apply to “me” on a personal level. That is death for a brand!

Storytelling has changed over the years. Because of social media in particular, the line between personal lives and professional lives is becoming more and more blurred. I have a home life, a blog life, and a business life. And there is no way I can separate them anymore – they are totally intertwined. The way I have found to navigate them is… gasp!… TO BE MYSELF. Yes, that’s the secret!

Marketing is becoming personal.

Marketing is becoming transparent.

Marketing is becoming much more truthful.

Particularly during the current recession, the brands who are surviving best are those who are honest and open and personable with their stakeholders: meaning customers, constituents, donors, and investors.

I am a Storyteller. I have spent years looking for the best, most impactful way to tell a story – that makes me, through and through, a Storyteller. Not just any Storyteller, though, I’m a Storyteller who lives Sustainably and who is working hard to Make the World A Better Place.

I used to hide that, I used to think people didn’t want to hear my motivations, and that I needed to live within the business system where personal goals were separate from work. But alas, with the advent of social media and the internet, where everyone can see all the many things you do whether you want them to or not, I realized it was silly to try to hide who I was.

And you know what?  Once I wore my personality on my sleeve, my blog readership grew from 1,000 a month, to 1,000 a day in a matter of a couple of months! My Twitter readership has grown to 500 in a few months, without my even trying. My work has become much more enriching, and my business has become much more enriched, because I am able to utilize all of my skills and all of my ideas to solve business problems.  And because, lo and behold, my experience in storytelling and my motivation to save the world has become a selling point for our business!

This Is Counter-Intuitive (To Some Of Us)

Becoming a transparent person and cultivating your own personality doesn’t happen overnight, unfortunately. It takes a while to break down your own barriers, and let yourself hang out there. This is especially so if you are over 30, and weren’t born with the internet exposing your life to the world from the beginning. Those of us over 30 have a tougher time letting go, and it’s scary.

Start by letting yourself seep through what you do, what you write, and how you market your business.  It will become easier over time.

I guarantee that once you know yourself and let your true self be a part of your business, your business will be better for it.