Tim_6_I

In chapter 6, Simmons talks about using feelings and emotions to influence. But once again after pushing an idea, she says nothing is a sure thing. “No guaranteed strategies to influence,” is how she puts it.
There were two things that stood out in this chapter. One is the example of a street naming decision. It brought back the issue that was big in Muncie. It started in 2003 and only finished a year ago. The decision to rename Broadway to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was controversial. In the end, one business chose to close it’s doors rather than accept the new street name. The rest of the town either learned to accept the name or embraced it. I still hear the Delaware County dispatch on the scanner sending crews to addresses on Broadway. Some things are slow to change.
The other thing that stood out for me was that Simmons finally brought up multimedia as an example of storytelling. This should be the connection for the folks in our program. Yes, personal storytelling is important, but now we get the author’s approval to add sound and images. I am guessing that’s why many of us are here, digital storytelling.
Finally Simmons gets to what might be the mantra of storytellers, “In the end, the best story wins. Not the right story, not even the most frequently told story, but the story that means the most to the greatest number of people-the one that is remembered.” Sometimes however I think the most frequently told story gets remembered whether it is good or not. I think of those stupid “Head-On” commercials. The incessant “Apply directly to forehead” is ingrained in the minds of television viewers to the point they won’t forget, no matter how hard they try