By Jane Carroll Andrade
“It was a dark and stormy night.” Remember Snoopy sitting on his doghouse with his typewriter? Well, that precocious pup was on to something.
With today’s endless variety of communications platforms and tools—and communications professionals struggling to cut through the noise to get their messages out—it helps to remember that we are communicating with human beings. And people love stories.
Storytelling emerged as a major theme at the Legislative Information and Communications Staff (LINCS) association’s annual professional development seminar in Washington, D.C., in October.
At a session titled “Cortisol, Connections and Constituents,” we learned that human brains are wired for stories—a narration of a character’s struggles to overcome obstacles and reach an important goal. Well-told stories with positive outcomes release different chemicals in our brains (oxytocin, endorphins) than stories with negative outcomes (cortisol, adrenaline).
The good news is that you don’t have to be a scientist to tell a compelling story.
A good story conveys values, emotion, action and creativity. Kit Beyer, communications director for Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos, illustrated how it can work. When the Legislature was discussing transportation infrastructure, Vos’ cousin, an emergency medical technician, mentioned how riding in ambulances over rough roads was not only uncomfortable for patients and medical personnel, it was potentially dangerous. That sparked an idea. Beyer and videographer Kate Pabich produced a video of Vos taking a bumpy ambulance ride with his cousin. The video humanized the issue in a way that facts and figures could not.
Piper Hendricks, who facilitated the storytelling session, summarized the communicator’s job: “It’s not your audience’s job to care. It’s your job to make them care.” For more information about storytelling, crisis communications, graphics and other topics covered at the LINCS PDS, visit this webpage. Then, grab your Smith Corona, head to the nearest doghouse, and get to work.
Jane Carroll Andrade is a communications program director and NCSL’s liaison to LINCS.
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