When you first begin your journey into becoming a storyteller, you start with a story. When I teach Intro to Photojournalism at the University of Georgia, the students find something that interests them.

I started my career professionally at East Carolina University, where the photo staff of the newspaper was paid to do stories. After college, I went on to the Hickory Daily Record, where I focused on finding stories.

I continued looking for stories as I went to work for The Commission Magazine and then to Georgia Tech, working in communications.

In 2008 Greg Thompson, Director of Corporate Communications, Chick-fil-A, proposed a crazy idea: I work with his team a couple of days a week where I sit in on meetings and listen. He and I would get together and discuss my thoughts, and if I thought the timing was good, I would speak in the discussions to give some of my opinions.

Greg said let’s evaluate this after six months. Well, now, ten years later, we are doing the same thing.  I have learned a lot in those years and helped them immensely with visual communication and storytelling. 

Greg taught me a great deal about the ins and outs of strategy. Over the years, I discovered that I had a gift for strategy, and Greg helped me understand how to navigate some of the politics of working with an organization.

Biggest TakeAway from Chick-fil-A

Greg led the team not to focus on the content but on the audience. The answers to better storytelling were in better questions.

Why is this content essential to the audience? In case you haven’t noticed, when I started working with Chick-fil-A in 2008, they celebrated 2-Billion in sales. This past December, they celebrated 10 Billion in sales. That is a 500% increase.

This commercial from a few years ago for UPS sums up it pretty well from my perspective.

Try communicating with an audience so busy they have no time for interruptions.

In this environment, you should be very aware of your audience. We worked with departments helping them understand why the audience doesn’t have time for their information and also helping the audience get information that would allow the business to run more efficiently.

I have many friends and organizations that want people to take notice of something important to them. I have learned these past ten years with the help of Greg Thompson and his team that understanding your audience helps you know how to tell a story so that it is relevant to the audience.

Servant First – A Servant of the Heart

Here is my tip for those who want to be successful. It would help if you were focused on making others successful, not yourself. 

I believe there are two types of stories – 1) Entertainment Only & 2) Call to Action Stories.

Most movies and TV shows are great stories that move us to laughter and tears. They carry our hearts and souls. They bring out emotions in our bodies.

The Call to Action Stories do the same thing, but they are told with the purpose of getting the audience to be involved in some way.

Advertising is a Call to Action. Non-profits use storytelling as a call to action to get their audience involved in their mission.

The best storyteller for nonprofits is the person who cares so much for the subject and the audience they see how using a story to connect the two is a way that serves them both. The audience sees a way that they can use their gifts to help an audience in need of them. The subject is uplifted and is also able to serve the audience. 

When storytelling is done at it’s very best the audience is understood and helps in the shaping of how the subject’s story is told so that a partnership is formed where they can serve one another.

Photo by Dennis Fahringer

If I were to ask you what you do or what does your company do what is your answer? Maybe you start to stumble around trying to find words and even say things like “Well …”

One of the greatest struggles to communicate what you do or what your company does is that words alone often do not do justice to what you do. No matter how well you craft your words it still can fall short. Too often using words alone takes too long and you lose your audience.

Visual content reaches an individual’s brain in a faster and more understandable way than textual information. Or, more accurately, a person’s brain is hardwired to recognize and make sense of visual information more efficiently, which is useful considering that 90 percent of all information that comes to the brain is visual.

Storytelling tactics focus on different functions of the brain related to understanding and perception. The brain processes images 60 times faster than text, and 92 percent of consumers want brands to create stories around ads. Because of this, marketers should be delivering linear content with clear narratives and using images to tell their stories.

I work with clients by listening to them and asking lots of questions to help pull out the most compelling storyline that will engage customers to pay attention to what they do. I teach my clients the seven elements they need in their story and then capture that in a visual storyline to build their brand.

A great example of how I did this was with a professor at Georgia Tech. We played basketball together during our lunch breaks. While standing on the sideline waiting for the next game I was just asking what he was working on.

He was creating a bomb detector for about $30. He had presented this a few times but no one was willing to give him a grant. I asked if he would like my help. The solution was simple. By changing his visuals with his story then presented at the next conference and got a $1 million dollar grant.

I really do believe that “Seeing is believing” for most of the population. It leads to a way of teaching that “seen evidence” can be easily and correctly interpreted, when in fact, interpretation may be difficult.

Give me a call and let me help capture your story in a visual way so that you too can make what you do understandable to your potential customers.

I also teach this to people in workshops. This summer I taught a workshop in Nicaragua and in Togo, West Africa. In Nicaragua James Dockery, ESPN Video Editor and Jeff Raymond, Director of Visual Communications for ABWE led 9 students through the process of visual storytelling. In Togo, West Africa professor Patrick Davison, UNC School of Media/Journalism worked with Jeff and I in leading 10 students through the same process.

Here are two examples of storytelling done by those students in just one week.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/180096388

https://player.vimeo.com/video/178934277
Give me a call if you want me to help you in telling your story or to help teach your team how to do visual storytelling to build your brand.

Storytellers Abroad participant Cy Hayden is working with Jeremie, his subject, by recording a voice-over. Jeremie did his own voice-over. Jeremie was more comfortable answering the questions in French and then having us translate them into English.  Jeremie, who is a Chaplin at the Hopital Baptiste Biblique and a local pastor in Togo. Jeremie almost lost his pregnant wife due to a coma because of a sickle cell crisis. His son then developed hydrocephalus a month after his birth. Through multiple miracles, God healed both of them.

We still have openings for the Honduras Multimedia Workshop from October 29 to November 5. The deadline to apply is August 30, 2016.

Click here to learn more. Then, get your money in now to hold your spot.

A week ago today, I was stuck in the Accra, Ghana airport, waiting for the Delta Airlines computer system to get back online so that we could return home after a week in Tsiko, Togo, West Africa.

It was a good week of capturing stories with the help of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism missionaries. We were staying at the Hospital Baptiste Biblique guest housing while working on stories that have all resulted from the hospital.

Jeff Raymond organized the Storytellers Abroad Missions Multimedia Workshop with Pat Division’s and myself’s help.

Over the next few weeks, I will share some of the stories done by the students. Today I want to share what Hannah Strayer captured.

Hannah Strayer captures her story. [Nikon D5, Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.8G, ISO 100, ƒ/1.8, 1/640]

Hannah’s story is just below here. Look at what she captured in just a week while in Togo.

Under the teaching of ABWE missionary Rebekah Poteat, Abra Sakpa has been learning Bible study methods and is using them to teach between 20-25 women about the Bible. Her vision in learning and teaching the Bible is that she might teach other women to teach women so that the farthest corners of Togo might be reached with the Gospel.

We still have openings for the Honduras Multimedia Workshop from October 29 to November 5. The deadline to apply is August 30, 2016. Click here to learn more.

What a week this has been. I am now flying back to Atlanta through JFK airport in New York. By the way, we had around a four-hour delay. Not sure right now which flight I will take to get back to Atlanta. It appears I will miss the scheduled flight. It was delayed, but not as much as my flight.

During this week with Storytellers Abroad Missions Multimedia Workshop, I have worked with Pat Davison and Jeff Raymond as we led ten students through their stories.

Cy Hayden, another one of the students, interviewed his subject with the help of Mrs. Gail on translating from French to English. [Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/125]

Each student would do a pre-interview with their subject and then a sit-down interview. Then, after we reviewed it most, everyone would do a follow-up interview to help fill in the holes in the storyline.

Pat Davison works here with Liz Ortiz on the left and Keziah Khoo. Each student spent much time with Pat going over their stories. I also met with each student. We would help by helping them through the storyline process and helping them understand how to use b-roll more effectively to tell their stories. [Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 7200, ƒ/5.6, 1/125]

Each of the students then spent a lot of time massaging their stories in Adobe Premier.

Stacey Schuett [left] and Hannah Saxe [right] work hard in the classroom on their projects. [Nikon D5, Sigma 35mm ƒ/1.4 DG Art,  ISO 1000, ƒ/1.4, 1/125]

One of the students was Stacey Schuett, who had been in the Atlanta Ballet and even lived near me during that time in Roswell, GA. We believe that my family saw her dancing in the Atlanta Ballet’s Nutcracker when she was in Atlanta.

That was a cool thing to discover and made the world seem that much smaller.

Another surprise was Wilson, on the left, and his friend came to listen to us several times. They are local and part of the YWAM base there. Wilson had been to Kona, Hawaii, and we had a lot of friends in common. Keziah, another student, had taken the same film classes in Kona but at different times. [Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 8000, ƒ/5.6, 1/125]

The students stopped on Saturday night, and we showed our stories in whatever stage they were in the missionaries and to the subjects before we left the next day.

Everyone gathered who was in the stories or part of the Baptist Hospital in Tsiko, Togo, West Africa, to see our progress. [Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 7200, ƒ/4, 1/100]

Since we started doing this workshop in 2014 with our first workshop in Lisbon, Portugal, two students have decided to do this as a full-time career in missions. We have had a few others who have made more trips to tell missions stories using multimedia. Some of them are exploring this as a full-time career as well.

Here is our team. [Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/200]

Check out Storytellers Abroad for our trip next year. We are going to Lisbon, Portugal, and will have the date posted soon.

If you want to do this sooner, you can still join me in Honduras for a similar workshop. Here is that link.

Our Storytellers Abroad workshop was feeling worn out and stressed yesterday. Everyone, including the instructors, was learning new things and dealing with the difficulties of living in the 3rd World Country of Togo, West Africa.

We could not just jump in a car and type in the address we wanted to go to in our GPS as we would back in the USA.

Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 2800, ƒ/4, 1/100

Pat Davison was added to our team when James Dockery could not come on this trip. Pat has shown us a few tricks that have made my life easier and helped to improve my workflow with Adobe Premier. Pat also taught us many other ways to help tell a story using visuals than I have been using.

We knew from the students’ projects that we wanted to raise the bar a little higher. So, during this trip, we all worked harder to use new techniques in teaching the content to get the students to get better quality b-roll better.

We taught the many different ways they could use their tripods to steady their cameras. As a result, the b-roll got much better.

Since more students were shooting more videos than in the past, the time to do this versus still photos takes more time. More time when you are already in a 3rd World Country and dealing with the frustrations of everything taking longer put all of us into a stress overload.

Michael Cheatham, chief surgeon at Orlando health and who coordinated the Orlando shooting medical response, is here with us in Togo working at the Hospital Bible Baptist. He led our devotional yesterday, and his words for us were just what we needed.

He shared how his pastor friend sent him the morning of the shooting this bible verse:

Hearing how his team needed encouragement and God was with you was so comforting. So today, we will share the storied with the community we have been working on since Sunday. We are still feeling the stress and hope by our time tonight that, most of the students will feel a sense of peace with their projects.

Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 800, ƒ/9, 1/200

We are looking forward to sharing the stories today. Now wherever the project is tonight, we will show it, so it is a work in progress. Next week the students will add a few finishing touches, and then we will share them with the world. Stay tuned.

All artwork from “Design for Teaching and Training” by LeRoy Ford

My education courses were the best classes I took for my master’s degree.

While journalists need to know their subject well, they must also understand how persons learn to make the storytelling worthwhile.

While it is essential to help people with the knowledge, it is very limiting. Knowledge is at the base of learning. The starting point is where you memorize and recall information.

When you can take the pieces and create something new, this is when you are demonstrating you understand the content. You are demonstrating comprehension, expressing ideas in new forms, and even interpreting them.

You want to get to the highest level of understanding which is an application, which is the transfer of the learning to a new situation.

Now you may think this is all common sense, but I am finding that it isn’t for many in the communications industry.

One of the most significant issues I see with professional communicators is their lack of understanding that the content of the subject matter lacks exploration. While in this drawing, you know how the audience has different ideas in the presentation, I am finding out that many communicators, when they ask questions in the storytelling process with the subject, take what the issue says at face value.

They are unaware that what the subject is talking about isn’t how they understand their words.

When I was in Nicaragua, we had to have most students go back and clarify what the subject was talking about and not assume the content. They learned how to explore the topic and, in the process, learned how important this was to help the audience understand the problem across the cultural differences.

Watch this package that Naomi Harward produced this story on Alvaro Ramirez and his wife, Erica, who are helping children with the issues of alcoholism and how it is affecting their country of Nicaragua.

What is essential is that Naomi helped you through visuals and audio to understand how alcoholism affects the entire family and community.

Another student covered the medical volunteers and what they were doing. Saying that people have medical needs isn’t enough. By clarifying what type of services they provided, the audience will now understand we are talking about households with no medicine cabinet like we would in our homes here. When they buy aspirin, they don’t have the money for a bottle and buy it one tablet at a time.

Most of the students in the class were anticipating storytelling’s technical aspects as the biggest hurdle. They expected that learning how to use Adobe Premier was to be the most difficult to do.

Most realized pretty quickly that understanding a story and capturing all the elements needed for a good storyline was quite tricky. Before they could sit at their computers and start sequencing their video clips and photos, they had to have the content. The storyteller needed to be able to tell the story to the subject and ask if this was what they were saying.

There were Five Steps they had to understand about the problem to communicate to the audience.

When working for a nonprofit, the storyteller focuses on the call to action to the audience.

While teaching students storytelling, I am moving the students through all these stages of learning.

We show them all the microphones they can use for an interview. [Knowledge] We offer them how to record an interview. [Comprehension] Then, we send them to practice with each other, so they get clean audio and well-exposed video. [Application]

Once they go out into the field and do the actual interview, we review it with them. Together we talk about the issues that might exist. One that was pretty common was the wind noise. [Analysis]

After reviewing their interviews often, they go back to fix the problems. [Synthesis]

Near the end of the editing process, we ask them questions, and they evaluate their content and decide what they need to include or exclude to tell a compelling story. [Evaluation]

Now while this is what we are doing with the students to help them learn about storytelling, they are doing the same process of applying this to getting the audience engaged and understanding how they too can get involved in solving the problem of the story’s subject.

It is one thing to help people know about something and quite different to get them to understand how they need to be involved.

You need to know whether the audience knows more about the subject due to your story, or do they understand your topic and are taking action to do something about it?