Story: the key to unlock your community

By Alix de Noray

It has always been about stories.

They started with “once upon a time” when you were a child. They continued with “dear diary” during your teenage years. And now? You may have grown up, but you are still surrounded by stories, especially your community one. Moreover, you are totally part of it.

Alex Frankel is an expert in narrative, research and social change campaigns. We asked him to participate in a webinar on December 3rd about “tapping into the social story”, so we could figure out the advantages of understanding our social narrative.

“Everyone’s brains are wired for stories”, he said. “That’s how we think, feel and arrange info”. He distinguishes big stories and personal stories. Big stories are the ones we all share. But personal stories are essential too, and tiny data is “the key to understanding people’s emotions and engaging them”.

For Alex, “the key is to tap into these personal stories and help shape and build the story in your community”. This way, your community and your communication will always be linked.

But what are the main techniques to understand the social story? To begin with, you must definitely analyze the situation around you. “Ask yourself, where is my organization in our community’s story? Consider all characters, relationships and stuff happening in your community’s stories”, Alex said.

“To understand a social narrative, you need to ask the right questions and listen. The more people will ask you questions, the best you will figure out what matters more for them.”

The best data is collected in a conversation: it is a regular and familiar exercise, so people are open.

Of course, “we can’t always be collecting in-depth quality data”, Alex said, “but we can be regularly keeping in touch with simple questions and feedback making sure we are keeping in touch with the social story and learning where there is feeling in the community, where there is change in the community, and where we should focus our attention and energy in the community. The key is to ask questions to find out about what the flavour of the big story is, and to keep the conversation lively. Townhall app is great for that”.

Alex Frankel understands the usefulness and universality of stories in his professional life. His company is often asked how to “frame” a debate, which is a complex notion to define. But everybody wants to hear about it “because Obama won with framing”, he explains.

When they were invited to a big event to explain “framing” to a group of organizations from all over Asia Pacific, they all wondered how it would work in translation with so many communities and cultures.

Working with some of the event organizers, Alex and them soon realized “there was one communications tool we all had in common that was going to make our research and comms easy and fun. Every culture uses stories to bring people together and to motivate people. Stories bring together different parts of an organization, different cultures and different communities”.

So yes, it has always been about stories. Come and learn how to understand your community narrative by viewing or reviewing our webinar with Alex Frankel.