Turn Your Stories into Gold

Our SXSWedu Panel Needs Your Vote Today!

Pete Janhunen, Principal, The Fratelli Group

Last spring I attended SXSWedu in Austin and was blown away by the commitment and energy of the event’s attendees. [Vote for The Fratelli Group presentation at SXSWedu today.]

A smaller cousin to the much larger and well-known SXSW event (known for its music and street parties), SXSWedu gathers earnest people focused on improving education in thousands of different ways. It was clear to me that these men and women are “all in” to make the kinds of changes our schools need to serve students, taxpayers and the nation as a whole. I was very impressed.

While in Austin, I was struck by how often moderators and panelists expressed frustration in trying to explain their work and ideas to politicians, the media and regular Americans. They kept talking about how hard it was to avoid “edu-speak” — getting lost in reams of data or feeling compelled to explain more than their audience could possibly digest.

That’s when the germ of an idea was planted in my mind…

Why not come back to Austin and tackle that challenge head on? Why not come back and host a session that would begin to unpack the simple tools of storytelling, putting the audience first and turning every speaking opportunity into an organic conversation?

That’s the point of The Fratelli Group’s proposed session, “Make a Long Story Short,” that we hope to present at SXSWedu next March. We want to share our insights on how to break down the communications process in an education context — and give attendees some practical advice they can put to work right away.

We will rely on the decades of experience we have working to shape advocacy campaigns. And we will leverage lessons we have learned over the last couple of years traveling the country to train teams of teachers and education leaders to communicate to audiences unfamiliar with the work they do.

Building a new approach to communications from the ground up, we give these education pros simple tools they can use immediately to lead strangers to understand what matters in education. We help them focus on what the audience cares about, push them to trim their pitch down to its essence and persuade them to tell stories ’til the cows come home. That is the formula for success.

We think the earnest folks in Austin will appreciate hearing from us, but we need your help to make it happen — because public voting has a major influence over which sessions are on the agenda and which are left out.

Please check out our session description and give us a “thumbs up” today. Help give this story a happy ending.