August 08, 2008

While I'm Away: Open Thread

I'm away on vacation. While I'm gone, post in the comments any questions, observations from the National Storytelling Conference, or discussions you'd like to start.

New posts after August 18.

2 comments:

About Sean Buvala said...

<.giggle>
Apparently none of the 10 readers we share went to the conference.
<./giggle>

Professional Storyteller Rachel Hedman said...

Not so fast--I am still adjusting to normal life after the mind-opening and thought-provoking 2008 National Storytelling Conference.

This was the first year that the conference had Brain Trust Sessions and I went to every single one. I still went to a couple workshops, though at this stage I am more interested in ideas and transforming those ideas into action.

Although I enjoyed all the Brain Trust Sessions, it was the last one with David Novak as facilitator that opened up all minds in attendance.

He took techniques from Imagineering and had everyone pretend that there was no such thing as the National Storytelling Network. How would we proceed as individual tellers?

Novak reminded us that in this mythical world, there could be "yes" to any ideas followed by "if" no matter how fantastic the ideas seemed. "No" did not exist.

With the boundaries erased, the ideas flowed.

What were those ideas?

I guess I'll have to share them in more detail for my August 15th blog post at http://storytellingadventures.blogspot.com.

By the way, by the end of the Brain Trust Session, we did create the Mythical Storytelling Network (MSN) that had the bells and whistles that professional storytellers and advocates have relished for years.

Until we tell again,

Rachel Hedman