Field Report, La Crosse

Overview

I spent a half day in La Crosse on 12/8/11 with Caitlin, Shirley, and Julie. Caitlin and I co-trained on Story 101 material, then the four of us launched La Crosse’s WI Public TV videos* and offered a Storybooth.
*La Crosse Program Overview, Workplace Wellness, Strong Seniors, Safe Routes to School

We had 12 participants from La Crosse CPPW staff, Harvest Moon (La Crosse's local CPPW media contractor), and members of the La Crosse Healthy Living Collaborative, their CPPW leadership team.

La Crosse’s CPPW staff is already pretty communications savvy. Though the Clearinghouse has a long-standing relationship with this group and went through video production with them, the they hadn’t yet heard our story content. The training - launch combination worked, and staff came away not only enthusiastic to share these videos, but use story more often. (More about this in successes.)

We had an impromptu train the trainer opportunity for Jack Zabrowski, thanks to Shirley’s storybooth setup. He knew two Chicago planning engineers came to meet with the La Crosse Area Municipal Planning Committee that day, and convinced them to talk on camera about urban design and cycling. One, John LaPlante, was the former Acting Commissioner of Transportation for the City of Chicago under Mayor Daley. Jack interviewed them as PS staff taped and advised.

Time Cost Estimate: 98 hours
Calls with La Crosse Cty staff: 1 hour (x 1 staff)
Internal staff planning time for training: 2 hours (x 4 staff)
Session planning emails: 2 hours (x1 staff)
Material prep: 3 hours (x 3 staff)
Presentation development & practice for new trainers: 12 hours (x 2 staff)
Packing/Driving/debrief: 6 hours (x 4 staff)
Time on site, including setup/teardown: 6 hours (x 4 staff)
Follow up mailings, field report: 3 hours, est. (x 2 staff)

• not included - Story pre-production, production & editing; time spent on other training activities that built a relationship with La Crosse; storybooth post production, use analysis, website updates

Successes

1) Linda Lee, Nutrition Manager & CPPW Program Manager:

• “Well worth going! I thought we’ve done this before, [and wondered] should I go? I learned a lot! And I’ve been doing story stuff for 30 years.”
• I noticed Linda and others writing on their story tip checklist bookmarks, especially when we hit "pivot." I saw the same thing at Cook County's training.
  

2) Participant Takeaways, captured in Learning Layer

• A story doesn’t have to be long (read that to mean: intimidating to write, or hard to remember)
• When you hear stories that demonstrate your work or cause, write them down. You’ll use them to promote and convince, or report them as successes (queries for stories from White House, CDC)
• Stories pull people out of data, best practice, and strategic plan fatigue; motivate
• “I never realized this. There’s a degree of separateness between me and the workplace” [that stories can bridge].
• Loved the emphasis on photos and visuals in the presentation & want to emulate that (a couple people asked about Prezi)
• Noticed how stories that invoke emotion (like the interview with the widow in Strong Seniors) are remembered

3) La Crosse was strongly engaged during their story use brainstorming session (details at http://bit.ly/lacrosselaunch). Jack’s been a great model for story use, taking his storybooth video when talking to corporations, civic groups, and other cities about complete streets. Because of that, I have confidence La Crosse will take these new videos to many of the groups they suggested.

Use ideas for Strong Seniors took an interesting clinical prevention path: hospitals, health care systems, cardiac rehab programs and behavioral health programs were all suggested audiences.

We changed the “ways you’ll use story” postcard, asking people how they planned to use each of the four videos.

4) Sara and Caitlin got experience training Story 101 material, and can take that experience to more CPPW (+) communities.

5) Excellent storybooth sessions, including:

• Michelle Byom: A plug for farm to school from a centrist political angle
• Tiffany Adriens: Personal journey from understanding health as an individual issue to a community one
• John LaPlante: A deeply experienced urban planning veteran shares the effect complete streets & biking have on a city

Challenges

1) The video launch and postcard prompted people to brainstorm strategic ways to share the videos, but less about ways to use stories in other formats (written, oral, etc.).

2) Sara and Caitlin team-taught Story 101. Transitions were tricky - in hindsight, it would’ve been better if one had taken the first half, the other taken the second half. It was more natural to team-facilitate Story Use.

3) Julie: “Is it our LCD projector that makes the faces look ‘skin diseased’? If so lets put in an order for another! Or bring a screen with us! (tobacco money)”

4) We should track down Becky Lakowske’s storybooth story from April and share the link with her.

Next Steps

• Julie wants to stay in touch with Linda Lee, and suggested featuring La Crosse's use of their video stories at a Prevention Conference session.
  
• Storybooth edits, and links to the final versions returned to the storytellers.
  
• Sara will work with Shirley on a mailed touch-back for the story use cards.