Social Media Tools for Work & Learning

Social Media & the Power of Story Telling

December 19th, 2008

3 comments

Barack Obama is a powerful speaker. He has captivated a nation and the world with his passion and oratory. I’ve been following his path to the White House for some time and am thrilled as is millions of others around the world with his message of hope and inspiration.

Social media tools when combined with transformative stories can be a potent force for bringing about change. Story telling is a tool that can be used to bring about significant changes in organizations and in the behaviors of individuals. Barack has a knack for telling stories that are simple, yet highly charged with meaning and purpose. This is one of many video’s of Barack’s speeches however his story telling at the end of the speech is what captivated me and obviously many others as well.

My favourite resource for learning about story telling for organizational change is Anecdote. They do workshops with groups around the world and story telling is one of their main themes. This story, originating from Anecdote’s web site exemplifies the power of story telling to motivate and inspire people. Have a look at Barack’s story of “Fired Up – Ready to Go”.

Brent Uncategorized obama, speech, storytelling

The Social Non Profit – My Lens

A social non profit is attuned, responsive and adaptive to the complex factors affecting its constituents and communities. In a social non profit there is an alignment between staff, services, governance systems and online communications. Social non profits value learning and innovation and believe in working smarter by using social tech tools to enhance communication, collaboration and learning amongst staff, volunteers, partners and service users. These organizations believe that strategic use of social media empowers staff, improves services and strengthens governance practices.

Social Web Partners

I'm very pleased to have a number of very capable and talented consultants as friends and partners that work with me from time to time.

Alain Hurtubise (iAutomate.ca) designs and developments web 2. 0 platforms. Alain has over 20 years experience in web design and enterprise systems programming with large corporations. Alain's passion is paying it forward through his work with me in the non profit sector.

Peter Levesque's company, Knowledge Mobilization Works (based in Ottawa) is dedicated to building the capacity of people to create value through knowledge mobilization.

Mark Holmgren (Mark Holmgren Consulting - Edmonton AB) contributes his extensive organizational change expertise along with an array of social media integration expertise.