Analyzed by Tom & Arttu
INTRO
Telling a story is easy! Telling a story that appeals to the imagination or even activates people to undertake action is something quite different. There is a big chance you already came across the term called Story telling while reading a book or chatting with friends for instance. But what does Story telling means? And why is it so important? Lets take a closer look to the definition of Story Telling.
‘’Story Telling is the interactive art of using words and actions to reveal the elements and images of a story while encouraging the listener’s imagination.’’
In our quest to define Story Telling and its components we came across the famous non Profit organization named TED. In this blog we will use the organization and one of forms of communication called TED Talks as an example in order to define the concept of Story Telling. Let’s start with a short introduction about the organization.
ORGANIZATION TED
TED is a non profit organization dedicated to spreading new ideas all around the globe. The global community is well known for its online and offline Ted Talks. The usual form of a Ted talk is a short powerfull presentation with inspirational content. The host speaker will try to reach te audience by adding components of storytelling.
The famous Ted talks started in 1984 as a conference. At this stage the main topics of the conference only contained Technology , Entertainment and Design. The concept of this conference has evolved over the years by adding short presentations called Ted Talks. The Ted Talks nowadays discuss almost any topic you can think of. From science to business to global issues in over more than 100 languages is Ted talks and its ideas represented.
The mission of TED is the concept of spreading ideas. Changing the world for the better starts with a powerfull idea and TED wants to provide a platform for people with this kind of idea’s. The platform is welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek deeper understanding of the world.
The organisation earns money trough conference attendance fees , sponsorship , book sales and licensing fees. All the generated money is infested immediatly in new project or video expenses (TED, 2019).
But why are we talking about Ted? What is the link between Story Telling and the Ted Talks? Lets take a closer look to one of famous Ted Talks hosted by Scott Geller.
TED TALK BY SCOTT GELLER about the psychollogy of self motivation.
Lets take a look at the Ted Talk about the psychology of self motivation by Scott Geller. Scott Teller talks in his speech about four components with the letter C:s. Competence, Consequince, Choice and Community. Each one of these supports another and the more people follow these, the more people will actually be involved. The first two are easily achieved. Choice - be mindful: be a success seeker ra-ther than failure avoider. Try to see things as opportunities rather than requirements. For example: Use the bike instead of the car. It is healthy, you get fresh air and you exercise instead of just sitting down and driving tired to your work where you get to sit again. Community - Support and have each other´s back. The more people do it, the easier it becomes. Again bike example: Go to work with your co-worker with bikes.
PRINCIPLE OF STORYTELLING
If we take a look at how Scott is using his excellent story-telling skills to the audience, he captures the audience to his speech in the very first minutes by telling the audience his own perspective of things and in this case, about boundaries. This immediately catches the ears of the listeners and makes the speech more personal rather than something straight out of a book. He also speaks directly to the audience and asks questions that he knows the audience will identify with pointing out to situations where each of us has probably been once or more in our lifetime and also makes the audience feel like they are being part of the speech. He is also adding humor every now and then in his speech, making the speech more entertaining and making a relaxed atmosphere around the room. He literally tells a story in his speech relative to the word: choice, where he wants the audience to step into the shoes of the person in the story. And it´s not just a regular story, it is told by the way of a poem which automatically makes it more interesting to follow and he does it all straight out of memory, having the eye-contact at all time, with the audience by the way he makes his speech almost intensive. The whole presentation proceeds in a very clear logical way telling about the four C:s and he wraps it up in a personal story of his when he was just 10-years old and had a drum teacher giving him lessons. The teacher was so inspiring to Scott, that the week later when he had the weekly lesson, he had already proceeded further than what was being taught. Why? Because Scott was self-motivated. He also includes a lesson at the very end of his speech where he says that we should always be ready to accept feedback from others and try to learn from them.
RELATION TO M4F CAMPAIGN
Since our cause is trying to reach out to everyone living in cities, we would like to find ways to make people care and take actions on theirselves. Since every little thing matters at the end of the day let it be recycling or taking the bicycle instead of a car. We would like to help people motivate themselves to do these little things since everything has to start from yourself, and what better way to start it then self-motivation.
Comentarios