ecomm-a-rama

Nothing like a political campaign to remind one that facts are fuzzy things regardless of how, well, factual they are. He said, she said (especially this year). This expert says one thing about health care policy. That expert says another.

But Google lets people find their own version of the facts in a matter of seconds. Our society is buried in facts and data. Be they conflicting, tangential, obvious, complicated, obscure, sweet or damning, the facts are there for everyone to see. That’s the problem - there is an awful lot for one to think about. The burden is not on the candidate to present facts - it is on the citizen to evaluate these facts. This is not a bad thing in a democracy - but is overwhelming.

The thing is that people don’t think in facts. We think in stories. We gather around the table and talk about our day in stories. We watch movies for the stories. Even journalists, who write facts, are trained to write stories.

A successful candidate weaves her version of the facts around a good story - a story in which the listener can replace the subject with themselves. “Wow, if Mary could wake up one day and get fired, lose her health insurance then get in an accident then so could I…but this guy talks about how we can do something about that.” Okay, that’s not much of a story. But it is the essence of the wheels that candidates want to get spinning in the audience. They seek connection, personification, to create a personal narrative with the listener.

Picked up a copy of Dan Pink’s book A Whole New Mind from the bookshelf the other day for something to read on a flight. The idea of story is a big theme…

We are our stories. We compress years of experience, though, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves. That has always been true. But personal narrative has become more prevalent, and perhaps more urgent in a time of abundance, when many of us are freer to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose.

We talk often of facts and data, policies and places. Too often people don’t connect with “issues.” How do we tell stories that weave a narrative around these places and people?