Storytelling

Convener

Kin Lane (@kinlane)

Attendees

Kin Lane (@kinlane)

RV Mendoza (@RVxMendoza)

Vince Speelman (@VinSpee)

Mehdi Medjaoui (@medjawii)

Kris Kleva (@klevland)

Carl Zetie (carl dot zetie at gmail dot com)

Notes

• Characteristics of a good story

  • Relevant
  • Transparent
  • Entertaining
  • Has a hook - creates a relations between different things
  • Sometimes the takeaway from a story isn't what you expected it to be, creating an opportunity to spin off a new story

• Don't fear failure

  • People are afraid of taking risks. (job security, shame, etc). Get over it, keep failing hard, and tell people about it
  • Tell your failures and your success
  • A good failure is one that you learned from. Share what you learned.

• Creation myth - Even though it's made up, it binds people to a certain way of thinking and to a shared purpose.

  • Ex: A made up story about how Ebay started.
  • There is a lot of value in the concept, but we also talked about how it's even more honorable and authentic to use true stories. Even a myth must have a kernel of truth.

• There's also an analogy to API design

  • A well-designed API encourages you to "tell a story" in a sense; it promotes a certain workflow as an artifact makes its journey from state to state
  • A poorly-designed API is an inert pile of resources with CRUD methods that doesn't promote any particular narrative

Additional Considerations (added later)

Just wanted to say that this was my favorite session of the conf. @klevland