Brandon_Q_6

“Yet as unique as we are, we are embarrassingly predictable. In a way, if you’ve seen one epic you’ve seen ‘em all. We humans cycle through the same stories generation after generation.”

After reading this paragraph, I immediately disagreed with the point that was made. I thought, “There is no way that we simply cycle through the same stories generations after generation.” Then Simmons qualified the idea by naming some of those types of stories.

“There are a few archetypal characters that sum up many of our life stories. The hero, magician, sage, king, queen, heretic, martyr, and traveler are but a few.”

Will the types of stories broaden as time passes? Or have we already discovered all the basic ways that all stories can be told? Will stories evolve as to where more types to emerge?

Ugh! Another Delay

Hello everyone,

Ball State has a new system in place for ordering supplies which unfortunately means there will be a delay in purchasing mini DV tapes. I am hoping to have them by Monday at the latest, and the Dr. Dailey should have them for your next class. If you need a tape earlier I've given Dr. Dailey three tapes from my personal stash. Email me if you more than that and I'll try to work something out.

Curt Sutterfield

MEETING with DEL Com

group two: Update.

Liz will be meeting with Cheryl Graves, Dan Edwards and Cory Edwards on Tuesday Oct 2 at 10:00 am. I will find out more about the schools needs/desires. They are checking into a fast turn around of taping Oct 6th. Oct 20th is there Fall Break and wouldn't be a good choice. I will check to see if Tonya, Sam, Hans group would have a better connection to this system or be a better fit.

Action Group #3 : Sarah J., Brandon, Iris

Motto: "keepin' it real" - real friends have real interaction

Step 1:
video interviews with kids
- what is "real" friendship, how to "keep" friendship "real"?
- what they do with their friends besides videogames, movies etc.?

Step 2:
video production of 3 videos with snippets of video interviews (above) inserted
a) for three different age groups
OR
b) one age group and three areas: indoors, outdoors, school

idea --> challenge: do social work in your community, OR quest over a certain period of time (week or month)....animate school kids to find their own challenges


Step 3: put it on youtube and call out for video responses of school kids filming what they do with their friends

Group 4 Wellness update

Our idea ties into either the recycling story or the wellness story.

Ed the whale is a cartoon figure, he is at home on the couch watching TV when the real life story of one of the above comes on. Ed watches TV and seems interested, the screen goes to a full picture of the real story. Throughout the video the screen cuts back to Ed on the couch and he starts to accept the idea beign presented. At the end of the video, Ed turns off the TV and dose the one thing that instanly makes his life better for himself and others.

Group 6 Update

We have designed a rough draft of the icon for FoodTube. Jeff has used clip art from clipart.com and PhotoShop to create the design.

We are planning on contacting the Wellness Center at Ball State this week in hopes of getting in contact with a nutritionalist that will serve as the expert on the FoodTube blog. This expert will make comments on the posts that the students make. Hopefully, we can also make contact with one of the schools we'd like to participate.

Group #1: Topic Proposal

Group #1: Chad, Tim, & Sarah

Topic: Crop Walk

Working Title: Walking with a Purpose

General Idea: Our project will be to build a website with videos & interviews related to the event. Our focus will be to follow Rachel & Caleb Scott. They are two students who attend the school at the Muncie United Church of Christ.

Event Details: Sept. 30^th, 2007

The website will open with a flash animation of child-sized footsteps walking across the screen. The video will be from the actual event. The interviews will be displayed as a photo-audio slideshow. We will have links to the organizations involved with the event.

Proposed Timeline: Video shooting will be on Sunday, Sept. 30^th Storyboarding has already started for the design process. An interview is planned to visit Second Harvest Food Pantry. The project will be totally finished before Thanksgiving Break, so that we have about 3 weeks to “tweak” the project based on comments from classmates.

Related Links:
Crop Walk

Christian Ministries of Delaware County

Group 1 The"A" team.

Josh, Brian,Liz

Project: Ok, Move
Logline: Students on their way to fitness club get swept away in exercises that anyone can do without special equipment.

Style: Music video
Promoting: Impact Club. "exercise in ordinary ways".

Status: Liz contacting the Impact Club thru Steve Hall. Has also contacted Sheryl Graves in case that would work better. Hope to converse this week.

Group 6 Brianstorming

Group 6 (Tonya, Han, Boyun)
Exercise to the Beat - Fitness can be fun. (musical, art, dance, health)

1.Interview
a. student
b. parents
c. teacher
d. community

2.Good points
health
performing art
Melody
positive effect/ mood

3.take heart rate

Who: DelCom Schools
Elementary Schools/ Fitness Clubs
Contact for
Delaware Community Schools is:
Steve Hall at shall@delcomschools.org

Storer Elementary
Contact:
Bethany Richards brichards@muncie.k12.in.us

Yorktown Elementary
Walking program with a 10,000 mile goal
Contact: Steve Back (765) 759-2736 or sback@yorktown.k12.in.us

When:
Deadline: Dec, 4.

Where:
School shots = interview student, random in to a class, Take heart rate.
Family shots = one/two students and his family.

Erik_6_I

In the thought of business 'being personal,' I would like to say that (to me anyway) the most likeable businesses are the personal ones. I think the businesses that seem to have a more personal image and message are the most endearing. For instance, the founder of Chick-Fil-A insisted that his restaurants always close on Sundays to give his workers a chance to rest. Now that it's a major restaurant, this policy still stands. Despite the fact that they're probably losing millions of dollars a week, they still do it. And the STORY behind this policy is related to the customers... on signs or napkins or something like that. It charms the customers. So this is an example of how personal stories relate to business.

More Wellness News

Hey everyone! To help you tell your stories the Wellness Institute has purchased 21 mini DV tapes for you to use. The only request I have is that you label each tape with your group number and that you return the three used tapes at the end of the project. I'm trying to create a video archive. Dr. Dailey should be in possession of the tapes by the time he has his office hours tomorrow (Wednesday).

Thank you!!!!!!

Sarah_Ch6_I

I agree with many others about this chapter.... Nothing really grabbed my attention.... However, when reading about "your character in the epic sense," my mind started wandering... It's true that we all judge each other by the stories we tell. However; I believe we judged them long before we even started this class... In Dr. Joe's class we have all done the Myers Briggs test.. My letters are INTJ... And not only does "J" stand for judging (for those who haven't done the test) I scored 100% on the judging... (and my friends haven't let me forget it, either!) But anyway, I started thinking about how some of these stories actually change my opinions about some people in this class.... I think these stories bring out sides that we've never seen before in each other.... One story in particular really touched me because the same thing has happened to me... I never had a connection with this person before, but I do, now...

John B_Chapter 6_I

Just a little side note, I really liked the idea of resistance always having a story. My blog on the other hand is focusing in on the importance of developing connections with people before you need to influence them. I think all of us can agree that we live in a "who you know not what you can do" society. Knowing this, it is kind of dissapointing to think that we doing things to only benifit ourselves. Not wanting to sound like a jerk because I am guity of it too, but Brian's blog is a perfect example of what i'm talking about. He keeps on jumping in on people's projects so he can benefit from the project itself (in whatever way it will benefit him) and from the people that he's associating with. Brian has some great skills, but would he put them to use if he knew there would be zero benefit? now that I'm thinking about it more I can't remember the last time I did something without thinking about how I would gain from it.

Luke_6_I

Chapter 6 didn't do much for me until I got to the Epic-Sized Drama heading. Simmons basically says that in order to sell your story you have to believe it yourself. Who would listen to you if you don't think your worth listening to? You've got to have confidence in yourself to influence others. The End.

Sam_6_I

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Street and Elm Street issue really recalls me to some disputations about landmark-naming in Taiwan. Like recently, renaming the Chiang kai-shec Memorial Hall(CKS), became a big issue in the political arena in Taiwan. By now the memorial hall renamed as National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. However, what I can see is the name changing process cost so much for the society, the attention of the media. The gap between Blue & Green party was deepen by another political manipulation.

Sarah_6_I

I know this whole book is supposed to be about making us better storytellers. That's great. We could all use some help. When I was reading the opening to this chapter, though, I couldn't help but think that maybe we don't need a huge map guiding us toward "good storytelling techniques." Maybe we just need some really good examples to help give us an idea. The story of the shaman and the woman at the start of this chapter was a perfect example. It was simple, yet it held my interest throughout and made me want to keep reading to find out if and how this woman was going to accomplish her task. Maybe storytelling is best learned through example rather than being told the ways to tell better stories. Just a thought.

JohnJ_6_i

Business is personal: Yes I agree with Simmons, all business is personal and I believe some of the best businesses extend that feeling to their clients or customers, but I am reminded of a story that cautions how much personal involvement you should have. One of our architecture professors originally got the grant to do a public-housing project. Living in public housing growing up, this was a sector of architecture he felt very strongly about and made an effort to do the right thing. After spending lots of time on the project, the construction cost were coming in too high and parts of the project started to be value engineered out. Solid doors were replaced with hollow cores, stainless steel kitchen counter tops were replaces with cheap lament, etc, etc. The problem that many of the public housing projects done in this country are just this, cheap materials don't last and turn to slums within 15 years. He finally drew the line when the locks on the front doors were going to be down-grated to the cheapest lock possible. Knowing the future tenants would need locks that can stand up to thieves, and hold up to protect victims of domestic violence, he donated 2/3 of his payment for the project to keep the best locks. he spent a year on the project and only made a merer $15,000 on a 6-city-block development. To make matters worse, he was taken to court by the client after the project was done and lost the full payment of the work and ended out -$45,000.

The moral of the story is while business is personal, be careful not to let your emotions make bad business decisions.

Emoticons

Liz 11: Q

My preferred Personality Model: Hey, I thought these few pages were intriguing. It’s like trying to boil the human persona down into four pages. Take Mood for instance, we can have a ton of variables for that quality but Mood covers the category fairly well. I love little emoticons. This chapter made me think of them quite often. Of course the little yellow guy would look pretty perplexed in the "automatic relationship adjustment" section. After this chapter I have determined to camp with the artists and chuck the math/techie world…what about you?

Look below.

Liz 6: I My comments are way below in the fives, sorry got ahead of myself. Will post next week on Chapter 7.

Martin-6-I

I'm trying to get an internship with the NAACP in order to finish off my Masters in Public Administration. This chapter kind of made me think about that.

Remember when the movie Crash came out? Everybody was going crazy about it. People were like, "Oh My God! There's still racism in this country! I never!"

Well, duh! Of course there's still racism! I couldn't believe how surprised people were. Did it really take a melodramatic movie to get people to look outside themselves for a second and recognize the obvious?

I guess the reason Crash was so successful was that it told a story. People can just ignore the protesters and minority leaders as being a bunch of whiners who don't know how to work hard and follow that American dream. All the Jesse Jackson sound bites in the world don't mean a thing. But when people watch a movie with sympathetic characters who are affected by racism, all of a sudden it becomes real for them.

The recent Jena 6 protests were great and all, but if you watched the news, there weren't many white people out in those crowds. If somebody was to frame the situation in an effective story, then maybe that would change. Otherwise, they're just hearing Nancy Grace yell at them about it.

Iris_chapter 6

Shasky always said in his class:

"People don't remember what they've been told - they remember what they feel!!!"

It goes back to emotions that influence and make a story stick to your head.....(like Head-On....hehe)


Three quotes of this chapter that stuck out to me:

"Understanding your own story prepares you to understand the story of others and the biases (yours and theirs) that unnecessarily impede your ability to influence." (p135)

In my opinion, being able to switch perspectives in your head is very important. By "simulating" the other person's set of mind you have a better idea what that person would "jump on", where hooks and angles are and what reasoning is behind the choices the person makes. It also enables you to see the weak aspects or flaws of your own story and how to improve (or cover) them.


"Touching others without a willingness to be touched leaves you isolated and alone. The joy of life blends giving and receiving. Any healthy model of influence must incorporate that blend."
(p140)
I think to convince people you have to be "authentic" which you can only be if you "share" from yourself with others. Another aspect is that by revealing something from your life your to ambition to convince and influence receives a neat pretty veil. People will feel that you have given something in first place before expecting them to change . It makes you look more "generous" and have good intentions.


And last but not least:

"The stories you tell can bring out the best in people." (p148)

I think this is a good motto for our project. We will bring out the best in these kids!!! yeah!

Digital Wellness Project

Hey gang! We have five school districts in Delaware County wanting to participate in the project, which is a big turnout for the wellness program, congratulations digital storytellers people want access to your skills!!!!! Please make sure that we have a group in each of the school districts (that will leave two groups teaming up in a district). If I can make one suggestion, talk to your contact about your idea to spotlight their program, hopefully we can come to agreements on what you want and what they want from the project. Again if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me Curt Sutterfield @ ctsutterfiel@bsu.edu

Here are the schools, programs, and contacts:

Cowan Schools

Cowan Elementary

New Recycling program started by a fifth grade student

Contact:
Jeri McCorkle (765) 289-7129

Daleville Schools

Programs include Cafeteria menu changes and a fitness area. A high school student there would like to help out in anyway possible his name is Dan Edwards and can be reached at: dedwards@daleville.k12.in.us

Contact:
Cheryl L. Graves
Director of Special Programs
Daleville Community Schools
765-378-3371


DelCom Schools

Middle School

Impact Club (basically a fitness club)

Elementary Schools

Fitness Clubs

Contact for Delaware Community Schools is:
Steve Hall at shall@delcomschools.org

Muncie Schools

Storer Elementary

A student who would make a good wellness story.

Contact:
Bethany Richards brichards@muncie.k12.in.us

Yorktown Schools

Yorktown High School

Mentor Program

Contact: Mary Watkins at mwatkins@yorktown.k12.in.us

Yorktown Middle School

Contact: Mary Watkins at mwatkins@yorktown.k12.in.us

Yorktown Elementary

Walking program with a 10,000 mile goal

Contact: Steve Back (765) 759-2736 or sback@yorktown.k12.in.us

Han_6

People usually judge things by their instincts. While some people are telling stories, whether we believe or not usually depends on our feelings. Some stories might influence people no matter it is good or not. I do believe that a storyteller might not force the listeners to believe his/her stories but he/her can use some different ways to make them beleieve.

I usually think whether a story is interesting is not really depends on the story. It is quite much depends on the storytellers. How does he /she tell the story? What kind of materils he/she use? Moreover, what listeners we are telling to is critial.

First af all, I am going to tell about ths storyteller. If a storyteller can make the stories sounds very touching and moving, people msut believe this even though the stories is not really quite good. Futhermore, we also should consider our listeners. What are our listeners for this story? What are their ages? What kind of things they are interesting in? If the listeners jusct can't believe the stories you say in the begining, it is useless.

Like what the author says, people usually believe what they want ti believe. However, it doesn;t mean that we can't affect our listeners totally. I think we need to select the right listeners and use the some different ways to tell stories.

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

Brainstorming for Wellness Group 7

Group 7 (Kyle, Matian, Matt)

Make One Change - Drink more Water Campaign.

Video PSA
-Will it blend video (shoeing difference between water vs negatives of Sugar drinks and pop)
-Munice Water Public Works demo
-Quiz about water that will activate videos on web page
-Show where water comes from vs where coke comes from



-Game with sugar drinks and water, like fish game, showing what happens to you if you drink pop in metaphoric ways
-Poll questions with results coming out as pictures of what you could look like.
-Jim Needem good source for a book.

Kyle_6_I

I feel that she is really streaching in this chapter. I am not sure if she is running out of ideas or just running out of different ways to emphasize what was in Chapter 1. She had some good things to say in this chapter, but really no new information. The influence topic was very good but story is just one way to gain influence. Influence is important but it almost felt like a better topic in another book. Regadless this chapter is great for managers or supervisors.

Brian_6_I

Apparently I help people too much and apparently that's a bad thing. Dr. Joe is on a mission to get me to say 'no' to things and I don't much care for it. Ok, sure I do things so much that I don't do as good as a job on other things had I been focused on them. So what, I'm 23 and I feel the most important thing I can do is network and have people find me useful. I'm pretty afraid that I'll end up not getting the job I want because people won't think I'm useful.

I still get everything done, it just takes longer. I get burnt out by one thing and then it takes tremendous inspiration to get me moving along to the next job. This is where Doc Joe's 'just say no' campaign comes into play. Let me list some of the crap (i mean that nicely...not like evil johnny) I've been doing these last two 1/2 semesters.

National Road dp/producer (ongoing...forever), DS website redesign manager (gently screwed), biotown production assistant (done), subcommittee on dept diversity (done, i guess), LEED touchscreen project preproduction...lots (no $/time, passed on), usability survey on CICS blog system (done, may direct thesis), instructor of record of #5 television school's only f'in lighting course (grade finals, done), Letterman Building - aka moving everyone's shit twice (done, ha), Bullpen setup (done until Martin's survey makes it to Dr Joe / Chesebro), apparent cohort drinking organizer (never gonna stop me now, baby), and Dr. Al's personal PDA fixer (done forever!)

Ok, long list...and I'm quite sure I'm missing something...oh that's right...classes (among other things, I'm sure)

Of all this all I had to do was classes/national road/biotown/cics ... but I said yes to the rest or forced myself upon the project. WHY? Why would someone who complains and bitches about everything do this...because it makes me better at what I do and networks me appropriately. Am I calling out for some credit on this stuff? No! If you must give what i'm doing right now, perhaps refer to it as 'signaling value'. Actually I'm rather humble; the aww shucks Midwest mentality is deep rooted.

(the point)

In chapter 6 Simmons tells the story of one of her participant's father. I guess he made eggnog and would deliver it to the sherrif and mayor's office first as a signifier of respect. Much later when this person's father needed help from these guys to lay the smack down on some scabs, they were much obliged.

It was the little things this man did to help in the long run. I have no damn clue how folks here at BSU will help me in the future but I bet they do. I'm sure they'll help all of us in some way. I just want to leave a mark that says I have a go get 'em attitude, a wide skill set, and a sensitive personality.

Wellness Thingamajig

Has anyone else seen this Good Food Fight game (http://thegoodfoodfight.com/)? This is awesome. A great model for what we are hoping to achieve. And I should admit that I totally lost the game. The aiming is a little questionable.