sacha chua

Angelina Gan asked me if my storytelling approach is based on Peter Orton's (wonderful!) presentation on using storytelling in business, so I thought I'd share how I started telling stories and what my favorite resources are.

I don't know exactly why I started telling stories instead of listing bullet points. Maybe it was because of the never-ending march of bullet-ridden presentations. Maybe it was because I kept skimming through business books that were all numbers or pithy sayings without anecdotes to make those statements come alive. Maybe it was because I watched terrific presentations highlighted on the Presentation Zen blog. Maybe it was because of the books I read about telling success stories to deepen your relationships with people, influencing change through story-telling, and telling effective stories. Whatever it was, I started collecting stories and sharing my own.

I'd taken up writing flash fiction (really short stories, typically 55 words long) in 2005, and that turned out to be surprisingly useful. Reading other people's flash fiction stories taught me that you could tell a story with conflict and character development in a paragraph or two, and that it was fun keeping an eye out for story material. I had originally gotten interested in flash fiction because it felt like a code optimization challenge, and because the stories were short enough for me to write during lunch or a subway ride, on pieces of paper or even on my cellphone. I never felt particularly literary (and in fact had gotten Ds in my English classes in university for lack of effort), but finding and telling stories (or in this case, making them up!) turned out to be a lot of fun.

So when I came across the business applications of storytelling–from social networking to influencing technology adoption–and I saw how it dovetailed with my passions, I jumped right into it. I started collecting stories. For example, I started my master's research by collecting stories about how people used Dogear (an enterprise social bookmarking system by IBM) so that I could figure out how people were using it in their work and how they could use it even more effectively. I collected stories to help me not only convince people to try out new tools but also give them models to follow and people they could relate to. I also told stories about what I was doing and how I was doing it, and that helped me get to know a lot of people as well. Besides, I love "catching other people doing well"–telling other people's success stories, especially when they don't realize they're doing well.

The results? People act on what I share. They make my stories their own. Not only that, people also tell me that they enjoy my presentations and that my enthusiasm is contagious. Giving presentations - telling stories, having conversations - has become a lot more fun.

How do I find stories? I keep an eye out for things that happen in real life, like this conversation I had with J-. There's a seed of a story in there, and by telling part of the story, I make it easier to remember later on. I also enjoy reading people's blogs, because they tell stories from their experiences as well. I read a lot - it certainly helps to have a public library within walking distance. Whenever I come across a particularly good story in any of these sources, I write it down, I bookmark it, I add it to my notes. When I work on presentations, I've got a general idea of relevant stories that I've come across, and then I use my notes to look up the details.

For example, I was preparing a presentation about University Relations and the Net generation. I didn't want it to be a boring list of bullet points or advice. I could've rehashed the presentation I gave at the Technical Leadership Exchange, but I wanted to make the most of my opportunity to speak with a group that could really make the most of Web 2.0. I remembered that some months ago, I had come across a terrific internal blog post about how a demonstration of IBM's internal social tools got an audience of university students really interested. I had bookmarked it as a story about Web 2.0 and recruiting, knowing that it would be useful someday. Well, that someday had come! I checked my bookmarks, went back to the blog post, refreshed my memory, and added it to my presentation. I'm sure that the story will make my point more effectively than a list of bullet points.

How can you get started with storytelling? Keep an eye out for story material. Develop a system for filing those stories so that you can find them again when you need them. Tell stories. I've linked to some of my favorite books in this post - check them out for more tips. Storytelling is effective and fun. Enjoy!

Tags: communication, presentation, presentation-skills, speaking, story, storytelling by Sacha Chua
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When I attended a presentation called "The Leadership Journey" at the Technical Leadership Exchange, I greatly enjoyed the anecdotes the speaker used to illustrate each point, but I felt overwhelmed by the 21 laws of leadership he presented, one after the other. The speaker had faithfully reproduced the structure in John Maxwell's book, the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You. Although he had supplemented it with personal anecdotes, it came off–at least to me–as sounding rather like a book report. A detailed, lively book report, but a book report nonetheless - a laundry-list of concepts. I wondered if there was a better way to present the information. Here are the laws he presented:

1. The Law of the Lid
2. The Law of Influence
3. The Law of Process
4. The Law of Navigation
5. The Law of E.F. Hutton
6. The Law of Solid Ground
7. The Law of Respect
8. The Law of Intuition
9. The Law of Magnetism
10. The Law of Connection
11. The Law of the Inner Circle
12. The Law of Empowerment
13. The Law of Reproduction
14. The Law of Buy-In
15. The Law of Victory
16. The Law of Big Mo [Momentum]
17. The Law of Priorities
18. The Law of Sacrifice
19. The Law of Timing
20. The Law of Explosive Growth
21. The Law of Legacy

I mentioned this to another colleague who got in touch with me about an internal conference. I had put this presentation down as one of the sessions I could volunteer to present if no one else stepped up, although I admitted I had my misgivings about how to deliver the presentation well. I told him how I felt the long list of concepts made the presentation less effective than it could have been, and that a mnemonic device or a navigational aid would make this presentation better. He was amused by the idea of a mnemonic–a 21-letter acronym, perhaps?–and said he'd pass on my feedback for some presentation coaching. Hearing that, I volunteered to give the speaker feedback myself. That would be better than second-hand feedback, I thought, and I might as well stand behind my words and learn even more in the process. =)

This challenged me to think about the presentation more. If I were presenting this, what would I do? How could it be organized to present all that rich content in some more easily digested and applied form?

I reviewed every slide in the original presentation, writing down keywords on a piece of scratch paper. I thought about questions the speaker could ask people to help them think about the topic before the explanation of the law. After the fourth or fifth law, I found myself categorizing things based on questions, using Who-What-When-Where-How-Why as my original framework. My first pass through the list gave me these categories: "who is a leader", "where you go", "how you get there", and "what you do". I created a spreadsheet organizing the topics into those categories. As I moved things around, I ended up refining the categories to these five:

Who can be a leader?
2. Influence
5. E.F. Hutton

How do you become a leader?
10. Connection
3. Process
7. Respect
6. Solid ground
14. Buy-in

What can hold you back or move you forward?
1. The lid
17. Priorities
19. Timing
11. Inner Circle
18. Sacrifice

What do you do as a leader?
8. Intuition
4. Navigation
9. Magnetism
16. Big Mo [Momentum]
15. Victory
20. Explosive growth

Where do you go next?
12. Empowerment
13. Reproduction
21. Legacy

Some of the topics can be moved around. "12. Empowerment" belongs in both "What do you do as a leader" and "Where do you go next", and it could also go into the earlier entries. I don't have a good feel for whether "1. The lid" should be in "What can hold you back or move you forward?", or "How do you get there?". If I spent more time revising this, I'm sure things would settle down.

What I like about this structure is that it has a certain cohesion about it. Similar laws are together, allowing the speaker to illustrate them with a single well-chosen story or use several stories to build upon a point. There are guide questions that prompt people to reflect as they're listening to the presentation, and these guide questions are followed by advice and examples from leaders who have taken on those challenges. There's a chronological flow that matches the leadership journey as well. Each category flows smoothly into the next, and within each category, each law leads into the next. You tell a story.

Structure is good for speakers and listeners, too. This arrangement gives you a structure that scales: you can cover the entire thing in less than ten minutes, or you can talk for hours. And because it's broken down into chunks, it's easier for you remember, whether you're presenting it or listening to it. You could probably give a speech on this from memory, and people can leave the session with a feeling of understanding the whole thing, not just the first and last chunk.

Now I'm tempted to look for John C. Maxwell's e-mail address and send a link to this blog post. It feels weird giving feedback to an author who's written leadership bestsellers, and maybe there's a higher reason why he organized those topics that way. But maybe the author hadn't taken a step back and seen things click into place… If so, then maybe he'll like this suggestion and use it to help others in a second edition of the book!

—

What would you call what I did? I really enjoyed poking inside that presentation and bringing everything together into a structure, a story. I would love to do more of that in the future. It's quite far from my official IBM role (although the presentation and communication practice will help me as an evangelist), but maybe I can bring aspects of that into my life sometime. Maybe one of my careers will be as a presentation coach… =) I'd love to learn and share more about effective communication!

Tags: communication, kaizen, presentation by Sacha Chua
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Got this from Presentation Zen, one of my favorite resources on presentation skills:

When I grow up, I'm going to present like Steve Jobs.

Tags: communication, presentation, presentation-skills, someday by Sacha Chua
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I went to David W. Gray's workshop last Friday to learn more about visualizations because of my research interest in tracking, visualizing, and supporting technology adoption in large companies. I expected a Tufte-esque critique of the ways data are presented in graphical form, with practical advice on presenting complex information easily. Instead, the workshop turned out to be one on visual thinking and brainstorming. Not quite what I expected, but still good.

My key take-aways from that were:

• When communicating with people, think of attention, retention, and transfer. I particularly like how he emphasized that this spells "art."
• Always carry a pocket-sized digital camera. Always. You never know when you're going to see something you can use for your presentation. Hmm, my current camera is just a little too large for this, although if I always carry a zipcase with my essentials (wallet, cellphone, Moleskine, camera, business cards) then I can take it no matter which bag I bring.
• Tom Wujec demoed a *totally* awesome sketching / electronic-index-card tool that makes me wish I had a tablet PC. I might not even mind going on Microsoft Windows for it. It totally rocks.

A number of other participants thought that one of the most powerful points was the idea of writing thoughts on Post-it notes or other easily-rearrangeable media, one thought per note. I was familiar with the idea because of my interest in tools for thinking (mind-mapping, brainstorming, etc.), productivity, and communications, and that kind of thinking comes naturally to me now. I do my speeches, thoughts, and even my school papers on, well, paper form before I get them into the computer, although sometimes I'll start with a blog rant.

Hmmm. I think what I really wanted from the workshop were more examples of how to support communication by presenting complex information beautifully, like the way his company presents business processes. There were a few examples very quickly glossed over as part of his corporate bio, and I really wish there were more. Another powerful addition could be an exercise where we'd take data and figure out how to present it, perhaps working in groups and presenting it to the class. That would have been tons of fun, and it would have made the most of Dave's presentation consulting experience with Xplane.

Oh, and it would've been nice to see more of Dave's sketches. =) He's a fun visual artist, and the sketches would've really punched things up. Granted, it's a lot of work to do that with the Lessig method of one gazillion little slides, but an occasional gapingvoid-style thing would be terrific.

I gave him some feedback on the workshop and on his presentation style. He's trying to get the hang of the Lessig method—fast-paced, lots of slides. This takes a fair bit of work to pull off, but it's great when you can speak ahead of the slides instead of reading off them - there's such a difference between using slides as cues and as punchlines! I haven't given a mind-blowing Lessig-style presentation myself, although I remember my operating systems students' feedback that my lectures felt a lot like ads (in a good way!) when I was teaching them about OS history. I remember listening to a Lessig presentation and noting how his speech was slightly ahead of the slides, and I also remember being impressed with Michael Geist's presentation. They are teh c00l.

Dave seems more interested in doing instructional design and packaging this as a workshop that other people can give, so he didn't want to bring too much of himself into it - which is a pity, really, as he's an interesting character and infusing more of the workshop with his personality would liven it up. =) I think he'll do well in instructional design. He's particularly interested in video. Might be cool.

The main value of the event came from the conversations that it sparked, I think. I met a lot of people there whom I'd like to keep in touch with, including Dave Gray.

On Technorati: communication, visual, thinking, workshop

Tags: communication, thinking, visual, workshop by Sacha Chua
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I've been in Canada for a year, and from time to time I still feel very alien. Last night, I mispronounced "adolescence". In moments of inattention, I often forget how to pronounce words I already know, because I just "read" them in my mind. Sometimes I try to use a word I've never even heard someone else say. When this is brought to my attention, I accept and remember the correction—but it's difficult for me to squelch that sudden feeling of insecurity, of feeling different.

My accent grows thicker the longer I stay here—or is it just that I notice it more? I pause more, gesture more, stumble over words more than I remember doing. And yes, from time to time, I say things that people don't understand until I repeat myself or spell things out. It distracts them from what I'm trying to say. (Although it does show that they're paying attention! =) )

One way to deal with this is to learn the phonetic alphabet and read the dictionary. Computer-based dictionaries tend to not have pronunciation guides. Web-based ones don't let me flip through them for random words, although I think I should scale back on that a bit and focus more on great combinations of words. I sound too bookish already.

The best thing to do, I suppose, is to listen. I need to listen to more things. I need to listen to people with wide vocabularies and well-expressed thoughts. I really should format that iPod or do some other magic so that I can connect it to my laptop and make the most of it.

I need to be exposed to the sound of other people's voices. My media diet is almost entirely print and web. I don't watch television, and I hardly listen to the radio. I should fix that at least with audiobooks and podcasts.

And maybe I can pay more attention to the experience created by sound... It takes a certain skill to form sentences that sound good. I should learn that. It'll be fun. =) Right, there's something I need to work on.

On Technorati: communication, speech, speaking

Tags: communication, speaking, speech by Sacha Chua
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