Storybook: Empowering Career Development (Part 2)
By Scott Carter, Kate Sieck, Everlyne Kimani, and Luiza Santos
In our last post, we introduced a new tool we created called Storybook that empowers people to easily create media-rich narratives to share personal experiences and engage viewers in discussion. For example, people can use Storybook to visualize and detail their struggles to readers, who then provide advice by drawing on their own life experiences.
Our motivation for creating Storybook is grounded in a growing body of research demonstrating the psychological and social benefits of storytelling. For instance, guiding individuals to view their experiences through the lens of a Hero’s Journey (Campbell 2004 [1949]) increases perceived life meaning and enhances resilience in the face of challenges (Rogers et al., 2023). Emerging technologies have further expanded the power of narrative. AI and immersive media, such as interactions with age-progressed avatars, enable people to vividly imagine who they might become. This enhanced sense of connection to the future self has been shown to promote more future-oriented behaviors, including improved saving habits and healthier lifestyle choices (Hershfield et al., 2011).
In addition to bringing benefits to the self, narratives and immersive technologies can help people better connect with others. Studies have shown that VR experiences — such as embodying someone from a different racial background, age group, or ability status — can reduce implicit biases and increase prosocial behavior (Peck et al., 2013; Banakou, Hanumanthu, & Slater, 2016; Herrera et al., 2018).
Building on these insights, we have deployed Storybook to help people narrativize, illustrate, and interact with others’ stories. The obvious next questions are:
How receptive are people to using Storybook?
Does the combination of text and images make for an engaging platform?
Does using Storybook empower people to realize their dreams and imagine ways forward?
To answer these questions, we tested different configurations of Storybook and asked participants to use the tool in a controlled setting. We also conducted field deployments to see if Storybook could help prepare undergraduate students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) for graduate school and to help women across two different countries at a large company better navigate their careers through the company hierarchy.
Testing the Usability of Storybook for Advice Giving
In November 2024, we recruited 290 people across the U.S. to use Storybook and share their impressions. Users engaged with the platform through a series of interactive steps. First, they read an example story, which featured a woman facing professional challenges, paired with AI-generated illustrations. Then, they created their own avatar using natural language descriptions and provided advice to the story’s main character. Their advice was then transformed into a new illustration using generative AI, visually reflecting their input. Finally, users rated their experience interacting with the platform.
We found that 8 in 10 people reported being likely to recommend Storybook to others. Across their open text feedback, users mentioned finding the platform easy to use, creative, and engaging. One user wrote, “My favorite part was the interactive nature of [Storybook], where I could not only read a story but also provide advice and create a character.” Another appreciated how the platform elevated everyday personal stories through vivid illustrations.
Empowering Student Mentorship and Career Exploration
In a summer deployment, we explored Storybook’s potential as an online platform to help undergraduate students at HBCUs and HSIs navigate the transition from academia to graduate school or industry by sharing the real-world career experiences of professionals. We asked six professionals to craft their stories using Storybook for students to read and react to. Professionals reported that they appreciated Storybook’s innovative storytelling tools.
As one user stated, “I had a very rough story idea, and being able to add on and tweak it made it really feel like collaborative storytelling with a ghostwriter vs. AI.”
On the other hand, students who used the platform to engage with the professional stories were interested in continuing to use the platform and, most particularly, valued the relatable content and found it empowering as they thought about their future careers.
“I liked the relatable stories expressed in the Storybook. I feel less alone in the concerns I have for my future.” — College Senior
This pilot highlighted how Storybook shows promise as a transformative tool for mentorship and career exploration.
Empowering Women in Navigating Career Paths
As a company of around 383,000 people, Toyota possesses tremendous opportunities for our workforce. However, navigating a career path forward can prove difficult in such a large and complex global enterprise. This is particularly so for some people who perceive themselves to be in uncharted terrain or facing a communication gap between leadership and team members. To help address these all-too-common organizational questions, we used Storybook to support women team members at our headquarters in Japan and at corporate offices in Australia. In both situations, we opted for the “full story” deployment (versus an advice-seeking version).
Japan
While we agree there are multiple ways to feel fulfilled that do not require professional advancement, a key request from the more junior ranks of Japanese team members has been: How do I get that next, more advanced role? To help address this challenge, we interviewed 50 high-achieving women managers and leaders in order to capture stories of their challenges and how they found paths forward into the next level of the company hierarchy. We then used Storybook to illustrate many of their narratives and subsequently presented the stories at a conference designed to help foster discussion and engagement around potential solutions to these problems. On the one hand, it helped to bring a visual and visceral element to the adjacent data story about career progression. However, some women attendees struggled to connect to the examples. We used this feedback to improve the usability of the platform to help people more easily express their points of view.
Australia
In a similar scenario, we deployed Storybook to support the Toyota Global Women’s Conference, an event launched in 2024 for team members around the world to learn from each other and build towards a more inclusive future. In this context, we asked the same question of team members in regards to sharing their journey within their organizations, highlighting a challenge they had overcome. From those who wrote the narratives, we received positive comments about how Storybook enabled them to see their own stories in a “more creative” way that inspired them to share “past experiences that may not have been told to others.” In a way, Storybook became a venue for de-personalizing narratives that can be difficult to articulate when you fear possible negative social consequences. During the conference itself, when we shared these narratives, others enjoyed the Superhero-esque comic style that made achievements feel larger-than-life in an almost fanciful way — and thereby easily achieved by anyone.
Wrapping up
Taken together, these different Storybook deployments reveal the power of shared experiences in navigating complex career landscapes. It can be used as a bridge for connecting aspirations with real-world strategies. While one could ask people to write their advice (e.g., memoirs), Storybook makes the experience of sharing one’s advice and stories and seeking advice engaging and empowering by combining illustrations and text. We plan on launching other deployments soon, so please check back for more updates!
References
Joseph Campbell (2004), “Hero with a Thousand Faces,” New Jersey: Princeton University Press; page 28
Banakou, D., Hanumanthu, P. D., & Slater, M. (2016). Virtual embodiment of white people in a black virtual body leads to a sustained reduction in their implicit racial bias. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 10, 601.
Herrera, F., Bailenson, J., Weisz, E., Ogle, E., & Zaki, J. (2018). Building long-term empathy: A large-scale comparison of traditional and virtual reality perspective-taking. PLOS One, 13(10), e0204494.
Hershfield, H. E., Goldstein, D. G., Sharpe, W. F., Fox, J., Yeykelis, L., Carstensen, L. L., & Bailenson, J. N. (2011). Increasing saving behavior through age-progressed renderings of the future self. Journal of Marketing Research, 48(SPL), S23-S37.
Peck, T. C., Seinfeld, S., Aglioti, S. M., & Slater, M. (2013). Putting yourself in the skin of a black avatar reduces implicit racial bias. Consciousness and cognition, 22(3), 779–787.
Rogers, B. A., Chicas, H., Kelly, J. M., Kubin, E., Christian, M. S., Kachanoff, F. J., … & Gray, K. (2023). Seeing your life story as a Hero’s Journey increases meaning in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
