Virtual Storycoachery

Back in December, I sat in the Creative Suite and told a computer screen with the head and voice of Chris Doster and Jen Hawbaker about my dad.  Kyle was with Chris and Jen in Ringgold County guiding them to be storycoaches, and I was a guinea pig connecting over Google VideoChat.  My job was to let them practice giving constructive story feedback to someone safe.  Every once in a while, a tiny Kyle wandered into my screen behind Chris and Jen, and snapped a photo with the 5D.

Alan and I tried a different configuration for distance storycoach training last week, when we used Adobe Connect to train three of Birmingham's story champions.  Alicia Hubbard, Pegah Kannar, and Brad Kachelhofer want to draw stories from bartenders, restaurant workers, and decisionmakers about the importance of smokefree workplaces.  They'll put key stories into the second volume of their beautiful booklet series (second to Our Food System at Work), and use it as a leave-behind for education visits at the county and state level.  The third volume will cover land use for livable, healthy communities.

Though not the same as being in the same room, this came fairly close.  It worked because Julie, Caitlin, and I had been in Birmingham (relationship & trust established), and I'd had several conversations after the trip with Pegah about strategic storytelling (repeat touches).  This group was also very comfortable experimenting with tech.  We had two unexpected videocam disconnections over two hours (one on each end), but no one sweated and we were able to troubleshoot and reconnect with little hassle.  The only other fix needed was my asking folks sitting six feet away to come closer to the computer mic.  

As someone who got four people in South Carolina to Hangout with her last month, I found it much simpler to get users onto Adobe Connect than Google Hangouts.  In Connect, the host just has to send a link to the participants, rather than facing the (temporary, I hope) complication of guiding new users through Hangouts' accounts, video permissions, and individual invites.    

Alan and I showed a storycoaching Prezi (modified from Kyle's) by sharing my screen with Prezi desktop.  Then our trainees started practicing by giving coaching feedback to storybooth videos - we gave them the vimeo links in a chat pod. 

Matt & Brad

The coolest part came when Brad, Pegah, and Alicia got to try out their storycoach skills for real.  Brad knew that Matt, the owner of the scooter shop next door, had struggled to quit smoking for several years, and invited him to pop in near the end of our session to be coached on a story.


But after offering some prompts, Matt took us someplace unexpected.  An ex-New Yorker, Matt appreciates downtown Birmingham, and wants to debunk the local myth of its dangers.  For Matt, nothing beats sailing his scooter down Birmingham's streets through air tinged with honeysuckle and buildings that were the beauties of city's steel era.  Matt's young son sometimes helps out at the shop, and Matt's grateful that he's learning to give everyone a fair shake, across class, race, orientation, whatever.  Brad immediately realized Matt can tell this story to educate in support of livable cities, support rehabing buildings, and get all people to appreciate the vibrance of downtown.  It's a story that's good for Matt's business, good for the city's economy, and good for civic pride.

In the debrief after Matt left, we talked about how Matt was an example of a storyteller who could be called on for multiple goals (smoke free air and livable cities), and pull out different stories depending who his audience is (business owners, decisionmakers).

While I'll always see ways to tweak my training content and delivery, everyone - trainees, trainers - went offline feeling this was a success.  I'm confident we can include this as part of Prevention Speaks training packages, and use it as one inspiration for a story champion network curriculum.