Making the Connection

I attended the the Master Speaker session with David Hutchins.  Mr. Hutchins is what can be called a professional marketing storyteller.  He is also much more but for the purposes of this particular speech he focused on explaining how stories can dramatically effect the public perception of who we are, what we do and our values. 

With the buzz of the exhibit hall in the background we took our seats and David introduced himself as being from Nashville, Tennessee.  A place with a rich heritage of storytelling.  Then he began giving examples of the power of stories.  He gave examples of how one image can impart many several meanings based on a person's personal assumptions, experiences, beliefs, and emotions.

He spoke of the founder of Walmart and his old F150 that he drove until the day he died (even though he was incredibly wealthy). Anyone who knows this story can immediately understand the message.  Walmart stands for value.  Walmart had humble beginnings, Walmart and specifically the truck are a symbol of Americana.  The F150 is merely a symbol and the beginning of the story however, the story continues everytime you see a Walmart employee working hard to help provide you with household items at a low cost.  Evertime you shop there you are the recipient of those values.  The execs at Walmart are master storytellers. 

Another example David gave was of a social experiment which can be seen on significantobjects.com.  On this site researchers have purchased junk and had professional writers create stories about the objects.  Authors include Meg Favor and  Jonathan Luther.  The objects are then posted to ebay with the stories (which are fictitious).  The astonishing part is that the items that were purchased for less than $5 can fetch up to $80 with a good story.  The stories gave life and meaning to the objects which would otherwise be viewed as junk. 

I immediately started thinking about what the Rancho story is and how our community views us.  The first thought that came to mind was a memory from this past Saturday.  While working at the ref desk a lady told me she was giving her friends from Germany a tour of the library and that she was excited to show them the room with a view of the mountains.  I escorted her party to the quiet reading room and we chatted for a moment and it struck me that our patrons see the library as a destination. 

I also thought about the symbols we display on a regular basis.  The ADA wall and most recently the Hello Kitty display.  These are symbols that we make available to the public on a regular basis and although I think our displays look great that thought is constantly reinforced by the little girl whose eyes light up when stairs at the bottom row of Hello Kitty stuff and then slowly tilts her head back in amazement of all the glowing pink illuminating her her face or the 40 year old guy who presses his face to the glass when he sees a star wars figure he used to own. 

I think the details of our work speaks volumes to our patrons.  They are symbols of our values.  They make a statement that we care, that this means more to us than anything at that moment in time. 

David also gave practical advice on how to create a dialogue among staff. Dialogue helps people to cope with bad times and celebrate good ones.  It also helps with creating staff buy-in.  There were many ways to foster dialogue but the easiest was to have staff draw on a piece of paper what the library is now and what they wanted to see library look like in he future (current reality/desired future state).  Practices like this help create strategies and goals and can be effective in looking at the big picture and things in context. 

Many of the techniques were simple thought provoking exercises.  In fact they are so simple I now have the next theme for Discovery Club-The Future is Ours: A creative writing workshop in pictures. 

David Hutchins has worked organizations such as Coca-Cola, IBM, and the US military.