Friday, October 10, 2008

Storytelling

There's a blog post that I just have to tap into. It's from one of my favorite blogs, Community Indicators. So thanks for pulling together these thoughts. The post references other bloggers and writers who are discussing how statistics do not always evoke a response as strongly as emotions might and also that a good story is more memorable than data. When I followed the link and read about the finding that when statistics were part of an appeal for donations the amount given dropped, I wondered - is an audit report not as effective as it could be because we lay out the factual, statistical evidence? But the second reference to A Case for Web Storytelling reminded me of the work that we put into a report so that it has a cogent message. Yes, we rely on statistics and fact, but we also try to put it into a story that management and the public can relate to.

1 comment:

Ben Warner said...

Thanks for the mention! Yes, the problem of getting your message to resonate with people emotionally while they try to process it cognitively is a tough one -- but not, I think, insurmountable.