A short presentation on promoting a location through a narrative style.

1. @topgold #LITmw
Location in The Narrative

2. I’M BERNIE GOLDBACH.
TEACHING CUSTOMER CARE AT
THE LIMERICK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
@topgold #LITCRM

3. I LIKE STORYTELLERS.
THEY KNOW THE ART OF NARRATIVE.
@topgold #LITcrm

4. This #LITcrm presentation outlines where “narrative” fits into promotion of
locations.
The basics:
-- Effective compositions employ a narrative structure.
-- We can learn from storytellers.
-- Quality narrative writing can be defined by specification.
-- The smart economy needs high quality content and storytelling is a desired
attribute in that context.
@topgold #LITcrm

5. BASIC
FRAMEWORK
-- Focus on a specific time.
-- Observe and reflect about
incidents in the first person.
-- Open, then build momentum.
-- Use verb tense cleverly.
-- Remember: Intro + body +
conclusion.
-- Be aware of transitions and
segues.
-- Review grammar and
punctuation.
-- Finish with a message, image
or idea worth sharing.
These skills also
contribute to effective
activity streams.
@topgold #LITcrm

6. STORYTELLING LIMERICK.
AN ESSAY BY DERVALA HANLEY.
@topgold #LITcrm

7. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[AUDIENCE ANALYSIS]
“In a world without consequences,” my mother’s
friend Marian had said over their weekly coffee in
the Shopping Centre, “wouldn’t it be great to go to
bed with Bill Clinton?” When she reported this, she
added, with a 15-year-old’s giggle, “And do you
know, I have to say, I agreed with her.”
Dad said, “Well, I don’t know what to make of that
at all.”
@topgold #LITcrm

8. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[SENSE OF STRUCTURE]
Ten days before, I’d got an email request from a friend.
“Give me a few facts about Limerick,” she wrote. I told
her about the pogrom of 1904; Richard Harris; the spit-
flecked Redemptorist Fathers; and the arrival of Latvian,
Chinese, and Polish immigrants, who brought durian
crisps and rye bread, and queued up for internet access
in the public library. I mentioned how unfair the Stab
City nickname seemed to the citizens, and the
resentment at poor-mouthing Frank McCourt. Sure, the
McCourts were starving because the father was a
roaring alcoholic—and that was hardly Limerick’s fault.
@topgold #LITcrm

9. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[SENSE OF STRUCTURE]
These ramblings weren’t what she’d had in mind. She
was pals with President Clinton’s head foreign-policy
speechwriter, and he needed notes for his boss’s trip to
Ireland. In those slinking days after the Starr Report,
Clinton could still count on a Kennedy welcome in
Ireland, which had never fallen out of love with him (and
misses him still). He was a great man on the North, it
was felt. Irish people took pride in believing, unlike the
English with their scourging tabloids, that a politician’s
sex life was none of the electorate’s business. They
wouldn’t hear a word said against him.
@topgold #LITcrm

10. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[ATTENTION TO VERB TENSE]
I supplied replacement facts: new bridges, new
industries, a new stop on the national arts’ circuit, and
an abiding love of rugby that crossed class.
@topgold #LITcrm

11. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[STRUCTURE]
Munster is the bottom-left of Ireland’s four provinces,
and it covers Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Kerry, and Clare.
Maybe Waterford too; my geography was always poor. It
has a lasting rugby rivalry with Leinster, where the Dubs
are. I don’t hear of the other provinces getting in on it,
but perhaps that’s because rugby is such a city game.
@topgold #LITcrm

12. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[STRUCTURE]
In most of Ireland it’s a posh sport that grows
from the private schools. The kids in The
Commitments would have played soccer. In
Dublin, rugby is for South County Dublin boys
whose strong necks are bred to support
barristers’ horsehair wigs as well as scrums. Long
before the rest of the country could afford to
fake Viking genes, their girls were swinging
sheets of blonde hair over pints of Heineken.
@topgold #LITcrm

13. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[TRANSITIONS]
In Limerick, tough, scrappy Limerick, the whole city is
mad for the game. On the field, solicitors tackle janitors
and bouncers take down mortgage brokers (or they used
to, before the game went professional). In the concrete
stands of Thomond Park, the doctors from St. Camillus’
freeze their backsides off next to cabbage growers. We
don’t have people from all walks of life in Limerick—
there are no rag-pickers, no Google billionaires, no pet
psychics—but if we did, they’d probably follow rugby.
On Saturday nights, girls dress up for the Sin Bin, a club
owned by a former Munster star and named for the
place to which he was regularly sent off.
@topgold #LITcrm

14. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[WORD CHOICE]
Mum reports that Cork is jealous, because everyone is
saying that they’ve never seen anything like the way the
Limerick fans came out for the team. At her school, the
kids all wore Munster red on Friday, except for a couple
of the little Pakistani kids—which is a pity, she says,
because red is lovely with their dark hair. All the
teachers wore red head to toe. Dad bought a Munster
jersey; Uncle Tommy and Derek went over to Cardiff to
see the match, and the fans there, oh, the whole
stadium was pure red.
@topgold #LITcrm

15. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[OWNERSHIP]
I can hear the shine in her eyes when she talks
about O’Connell Street, where the whole town
gathered to watch the match on screens strung
above the traffic lights. When the homecoming bus
drove into Limerick in the rain, it was magic. “You
turn on the news and it’s all Munster, Munster,
Munster, and they’re talking about the Limerick fans
and how committed they were. And the team says
that’s why they won, they couldn’t let the people
down.” (The Limerick people, she insists.)
@topgold #LITcrm

16. DECONSTRUCTING
“ALL THE WAY BACK”
[CONCLUDING]
For my home town, Shtab City, known for hoodies and
piebalds and wormy Stanley Knife scars, this Munster
win, a mucky oval ball delivered over a white line, might
signal the same shift in confidence. Fifteen years from
now we might look back and see just how ready Limerick
was to stand proud and passionate, after decades of
being done down. “It’s great,” says my mother, firmly,
“to see positive images of Limerick in the media for
once, when they’re never nice about us.”
Do you know, it is.
@topgold #LITcrm

17. YOUR WORK
CREATES AN
ACTIVITY
STREAM.
A quick flick through
Dervala Hanley, the diarist
and writer, offers telling
social footprints.
@topgold #LITcrm

18. ACTIVITY
STREAMS
REVEAL SIX
DEGREES.
We are only six degrees
separated from many
others.
@topgold #LITcrm

19. LISTEN AND LEARN FROM STORYTELLERS
@topgold #LITcrm

20. HAVE A HIP
POCKET STORY.
And be ready to share
during meet-ups like
Limerick OpenCoffee.
@topgold #LITcrm

21. HASHTAGGED
TWEETS
#LIMERICK
Hashtags represent a
clever implementation of
web technology.
@topgold #LITcrm

22. FLICKR
ACTIVITY
STREAMS
@topgold #LITcrm
You will capture and
share your works in
progress.

23. YOU ALSO NEED TO BE ON GOOGLE PLUS.
[MEDIA WRITING COMMUNITY]
@topgold #LITcrm

24. HELPFUL
OASES
-- LinkedIn Group “Marketing
Over Coffee”.
-- Moodle.
-- The private Media Writing
Community on Google Plus.
-- Read Dervala.net
-- Listen to @documentally.
-- Subscribe to This American
Life.
It’s easy to find
inspiration.
@topgold #LITcrm

25. START YOUR OUTLINES.
SHARE WITH @TOPGOLD.
@topgold #LITcrm
• Outline
• Draft
• Compose
• Review

26. PRIMARY WORKFLOW
Google Docs
Moodle.lit.ie
Flickr with hashtags
Direct Tweet to @topgold
Direct Audioboo message
bgoldbach@gmail.com
@topgold #LITcrm

27. LET’S CONNECT AND SHARE.
@topgold #LITcrm
Bernie.Goldbach AT LIT.ie
bit.ly/mw-document02
InsideView.ie
Dervala.net