Story Week Tuesday: Little Triggers

So we looked at how people responded to a story told by Obama back in StoryWeek. What did people think about Tuesday's story? Here's a quick recap:

... we organised a workshop, it was really high pressure and done at very short notice. It ended up being a success, but the CEO was there, and I thought it was one of those things where the team had all sort of pulled together, and it could of fallen over, but it didn't. At the end of the workshop, it had all gone well, there was a perfect window there for the CEO to come up to the team and say "Good job". I don't know the CEO at all, but it was a perfect opportunity for him to go and get some easy PR, or even at least say good stuff, and pass it on. But he just left. I mean, he may have had a thousand other things to do, but it was one of those things.

So how did this score?



Well overall it wasn't as memorable as the Obama story - although people did find it more believable. However as with Obama, there was a definite split in terms of who found this story memorable. For Obama it was country of origin. For this story is was around gender.


The ratings given by men (n=27) & women (n = 24) are almost mirror images of each other. Which is interesting because we know that the CEO is a man but we don't know the gender of the storyteller or any of the other characters. For women this story is far more memorable. Why*? Is it because women have been in this situation more often? Is it because they empathize with the characters more? What do you think?

BTW the Wordle clouds are here and here if you are interested.

*More women gave the Obama story 6 out of 6 for memorability but the other pattern of responses wasn't as stark as this.

Story Week Monday: How did Obama do?

Some of you have been asking about Story Week. Well, our team of researchers have been combing the data and here are some initial results. You may remember Monday's story - as told by a little-known former junior senator from Illinois.

We got about 66 responses for to our questions for this story. Here are some early results. Here is a Wordle cloud made from the responses people gave to the question: "What was memorable about the story?" - note "little", "old" and "lady".

And here is the Wordle cloud of keywords that people added to the story (more words like "motivation" and "inspiration").

And here are the numerical results for each of the criteria.

Most people found it memorable and most seemed to like it - although a significant minority of people thought that it sounded manufactured or slow. How did Obama compare with the others? Well, you'll have to wait and see.

One noticeable difference in responses could be seen in the reactions of people by their country of origin.

Americans found it highly memorable - less so for the Brits and the Aussies. Some possible explanations (and bear in mind that this is a small sample size so it may just be chance):

• Americans are more familiar with Obama;
• Americans are more emotionally invested in Obama (and I suspect a bias towards liberals among Anecdote/Sparknow/EngineerswithoutFears blog readers);
• Obama's mode of storytelling is more appealing to Americans.
• Any other suggestions/speculations?

More to come soon.

Story Week: Friday

So its Friday and here we are at the end of Story Week. Many thanks to all of you who contributed and here is our final story - something serious...

Story Week: Thursday

Our fourth story for Story Week is from the UK - please tell us what you think.

No red signal when minister plays with train set by Adam Sherwin (From Times UK Online)

All aboard the Adonis Express. Frustrated commuters will get direct access to the Transport Minister next week when Lord Adonis embarks upon a railway voyage to criss-cross Britain in six days.

The Minister will board the Paddington to Truro sleeper service on Easter Monday, just one man, his laptop and a £375 standard class Rail Rover ticket. On Saturday he will arrive in York after a 1,500-mile Michael Palin-style trip, involving 45 trains and extensive knowledge of the timetable. He will speed (hopefully) through Cornwall, East Anglia, the West Midlands and up to Aberdeen, before arriving in North Yorkshire to a hero’s welcome. Any signs of cabin fever will be logged on a Times Online blog.

A spokesman said: “Andrew is travelling solo and is happy for commuters to chat to him.”

Lord Adonis tells us: “My plan is to get to railway lines I have rarely or never used. Nothing beats first-hand experience when you are responsible for a major public service.”

Network Rail is advised to clear the line of engineering works.

A prize for the best picture of Lord Adonis captured on the rattlers.

Story Week: Wednesday

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to Story Week so far. Continuing with our theme of "leadership", today we are featuring a story from Dr Fiona Wood, who was recognised as "Australian of the Year" for her work after the Bali Bombings. And we'd still like to hear your ideas for Friday's story.

When I saw the burns patients and I saw that we needed something radical to actually cover these large areas, that had to be more... They had to be smarter than traditional split-thickness skin grafting. We had to be able to do this better. And that was, I guess, the gauntlet that I threw down to myself. On the Sunday morning after the Bali bombing I got a call from the registrar, who is a very close friend of my senior registrar, who actually on Saturday had left for his holiday to Bali. Our first patients arrived in the early hours of the morning and they were the most severe patients, the most severely injured. And my overwhelming memory of that is the relief on their faces as they arrived at Royal Perth and spoke to us just before they were incubated for ventilation and for the treatment to commence, that relief on their faces. We were full at the time, so we started putting our disaster plan into action. And as the Sunday developed it became apparent that there was going to be a significant need, not just for the Perth Burns Unit but for the Australian Burns community as a whole. When the Bali bombing situation arose we did in fact deal with 15% of our annual workload in a day, but it's the sort of situation that we've been training for a long period of time and when you're involved in it and actually active in doing things it's a very motivating situation because you are able to influence those lives, not always to a positive outcome but we did our best.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/talkingheads/txt/s1711934.htm

Story Week: Tuesday

Day 2 of Story Week is here. Yesterday we had a video with a big Story. Today we have a snippet, a small story of a day-to-day interaction in a workplace. Our theme for the week is leadership, so look at the story in this light. Think how you would feel in the same circumstances. And of course, please pass this on to your networks and encourage them to join the fun. The more, the merrier. N.B. We have yet to finalise a story for Friday - is there a video of a story on the theme of leadership (preferably involving a woman) that you'd like to suggest?

... we organised a workshop, it was really high pressure and done at very short notice. It ended up being a success, but the CEO was there, and I thought it was one of those things where the team had all sort of pulled together, and it could of fallen over, but it didn't. At the end of the workshop, it had all gone well, there was a perfect window there for the CEO to come up to the team and say "Good job". I don't know the CEO at all, but it was a perfect opportunity for him to go and get some easy PR, or even at least say good stuff, and pass it on. But he just left. I mean, he may have had a thousand other things to do, but it was one of those things