This talk was part of the ICLCity2013 event at City University London on the 13th May 2013. For more details see: http://www.city.ac.uk/centre-for-creativity-in-professional-practice/services/icl-city-2013
Secure your environment with UiPath and CyberArk technologies - Session 1
Tell Me a Story – How the Use of Narrative Impacts Our Professional and Personal Lives - Joanna Grigg
1. Tell Me a
Story
The use of
narrative
Joanna Grigg
ICL City 2013
joannagrigg@hotmail.co.uk
www.joannagrigg.com
2. This presentation looks at
• What is narrative?
• How it is used in areas such as commerce, or
design – areas that are not creative writing
• Examples
• How you might use it
3. Joanna Grigg:
professional
story
• Freelance writer and lecturer
• Previously in publishing, sales, community
entrepreneur, many other fields
• Currently tutoring ICL and RCA double design masters
• Writing has covered fiction and non-fiction – 13
books, journalism
• Writing therapist – storytelling our lives
4. Using narrative
All around us stories are
• just starting
• mid way
• ending
When these stories involve *us* in some
way, and we don‟t yet know the ending, we
are in a hugely creative space – we can
write the endings
5. What is narrative?
A narrative
describes
a structure of events.
It is the architecture
of a story
You can liken
narrative to the
design of a building
6. The difference between narrative
and story
A story is the
sequence of
events, i.e. the
order in which the
narrative occurs.
This can be
likened to a tour
through the
narrative building
9. Where in fiction
‘character’ has a
specified meaning, in
other domains this
may be substituted
with symbol,
environment,
temperature, elements
of a project brief, and
others as required
10. For instance
if we‟re developing a story to investigate how
temperature impacts on emotion we might
have a number of „characters‟:
• Character a) = freezing point
• Character b) = 20 degrees C
• Character c) = -273 and-a-bit degrees C
• Character d) = happiness
• Character e) = sorrow
Our story would describe the interactions of
these elements
11. Intrinsic to these definitions is
the temporal nature of
narrative – a sequence of
events involving character
(symbol, environment, or
temperature, etc) needs to
happen over time
It is never a snapshot, time is
never stilled
(though it need not be linear)
12. How often, when we
design, or plan, do we
think in terms of a
snapshot, rather than
ongoing process? By
either:
• using a fixed mind-frame
while we design/plan, or
• thinking of our output as
a fixed item or system and
our users as fixed in time
13. Exercise
• Look at this image and write
a story about it in 5 bullet
points – what happens to
these olives?
• Be
fantastical, silly, tragic, explo
sive
• You won’t have to share this
story with anyone
• We’ll come back to this later
15. If I asked
you to write
(draw, code)
your life
story on this
piece of
parchment,
what would
you write?
16. If I asked
you to write
your work
story on
this piece
of
parchment,
what
would you
17. If I asked
you to write
your
business‟s
story on this
piece of
parchment,
what would
you write?
18. If I asked you
to write the
story of the
future of your
business on
this piece of
parchment,
what would
you write?
19. Looking at different possibilities for
narrative
Here are some thoughts from people who use
narrative in their work – from a number of
different domains
20. The „Narrative Designer‟
„I consider my role as a narrative
designer to be two-fold:
„a) as a game designer specialising in
how to integrate storytelling with
gameplay; and
„b) as a writer who carries out that
integration.‟
Christy Marx
• http://narrativedesign.org/2012/02/masters-of-narrative-design-10-
christy-marx/
• Mag: The Narrative Design Explorer Accessed 6 Feb 13
21. Design for Social Interaction
„.. When people interact in social spaces, they
are engaged in the communication of
“narratives”. Social software needs to be
designed with narratives in mind, rather than
features…a design methodology that
allows the analysis of any piece of social
software from a narrative perspective..‟
Xianhang Zhang, Bumblebee Labs
Bumblebee Labs, Hang (Xianhang Zhang)
http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/mozilla-presentation-on-
space-narrative-designing-for-social-interaction/
22. Gover
nance
„The corporate governance paradigm relies on agency
theories of control. This describes interactions between
individuals or firms, but does not shed light on ingrained
social phenomena such as culture and identity.
„Acknowledging that these also govern behaviour
suggests a re-presentation of corporate
governance, with a focus on understanding power rather
than on control.
‘Narrative theory offers an alternative
methodology, opening up new possibilities for research
that enhance our ability to develop representations of
corporate governance.‟
Kevin Morrell, University of Birmingham
Re-presenting Governance In Organizations: How Narrative Theory Can
Enhance Agency Perspectives.
http://www.kevinmorrell.org.uk/Narrative%20and%20Organization%20
at%20Aston.pdf
23. Organisation research
„Organisational story and storytelling research has
produced a rich body of knowledge unavailable
through other methods of analysis.‟ (Stutts and Barker)
The adoption of a narrative approach „may increase
the relevance of organisational knowledge produced
by academics‟. (Ng and de Cock)
The use of narrative approaches might encourage
organisation theory „to reinvigorate itself‟. (Czarniawska, cf.
Brown & Jones)
(From Rhodes, C., & Brown, A. D. 2005. Narrative, organizations and
research)
International Journal of Management Reviews, 7(3): 167-188. At
http://www.organizational-storytelling.org.uk/research-resources/narrative-in-
social-and-organizational-Research/index.html Accessed 8 October 2012
24. Narrative in practice 1
Working with Masters design students at
Beihang University, Beijing
28. 4. Bring the
scope back to
earth –
modify for
practical
constraints
(materials,
reasonable
use, cultural,
safety, etc)
29. Case study on using narrative in product
design (Beijing 2012)
Narrative in Design
Development
Peter R N CHILDS1, ZHOU Ying2
and Joanna GRIGG3
1Imperial College London 2Beihang University,
Beijing 3Royal College of Art, London
International Conference on
Engineering and Product Design
Education
5 & 6 September 2013
Dublin Institute of Technology
36. 6. Result
A selection of ideas and
storylines, some zany, some
insane, but many with potential
as they stand or after
development
37. Playing with narrative
• Take your bullet point story about olives
• Think of various settings for your story:
- your career
- your family
- your workplace
- your enterprise
• Write a number of these in a list
38. On the way home / over the coming week:
• Replace the olives with characters –
people, or things
• Find a relaxed and quiet space, think
about how your story develops
• Look at your story – what are the new
ideas and possibilities?
• Try rewriting your story in one sentence –
a requirement for the digital age – what is
it, what happens?
39. Become a storyteller
„A storyteller is one who
creates an atmosphere where
wisdom can reveal herself.‟
Attributed to the Inuit people
From: Storytelling (2010), Quote from online promotion for:
Workshop Promotion, October
6 - 10, 2010, Learn the Proven Storytelling Secrets of Master
Communicators,
Marylhurst University, Portland, Oregon. Retrieved on April
15, 2010, from
http://www.nlporegon.com/storytelling.html
Jahn, Manfred. 2005. Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative. English Department, University of Cologne. N1.2. At http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm accessed 1 October 2012 IS available in full online. I have saved some of this on PC )
I made this bit up
(Though time need not be linear in the design process (Porter & S))
Next slide is the first exercise – the olives
State that have chosen creative a digital industries to fit with the scope for this year’s conference at ICLCity
http://narrativedesign.org/2012/02/masters-of-narrative-design-10-christy-marx/Mag: The Narrative Design Explorer Accessed 6 Feb 13She is aware of dual role here, .. – need to say what they are…Ie the games designer labels themselves a ‘narrative designer
Bumblebee Labs, Hang (Xianhang Zhang) http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/mozilla-presentation-on-space-narrative-designing-for-social-interaction/
Morrell Re-presenting Governance In Organizations: How Narrative Theory Can Enhance Agency Perspectives. http://www.kevinmorrell.org.uk/Narrative%20and%20Organization%20at%20Aston.pdf(is on a slide entitle ‘abstract’)[in the folder on the Narrative EPDE paper, Morrell]
Rhodes, C., & Brown, A. D. 2005. Narrative, organizations and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 7(3): 167-188. At http://www.organizational-storytelling.org.uk/research-resources/narrative-in-social-and-organizational-Research/index.html Accessed 8 October 2012 (full text on PC)
(This slide takes it back from academic to cultural) From: Storytelling (2010), Quote from online promotion for: Workshop Promotion, October6 - 10, 2010, Learn the Proven Storytelling Secrets of Master Communicators,Marylhurst University, Portland, Oregon. Retrieved on April 15, 2010, fromhttp://www.nlporegon.com/storytelling.htmlI found this In Tully paper