Storytelling for Social Change: Simplifying a Complex Scenario into a 5-Minute Presentation

Creating powerful presentations for City Council

The conversation discusses storytelling for social change, using a case study of the MyCR app in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The chapters cover topics such as the role of government, media coverage, presentation strengths and weaknesses, emotional components of the story, procedural questions, civil liberties, and the importance of research and participation. The conversation also explores how to approach social justice messaging effectively.

Good evening everybody, I’m Alan Murdock and this is a Murdock Media Production livestream. I run a marketing firm that works in brand development and short-form storytelling. We focus on trying to make a big difference with stories. And tonight I want to talk about storytelling for social change.

I’m going to use a resource called Storyteller Tactics and I also use FabulaDeck and there’s one other one, Nerada, I use this deck also. These are storytelling tools that… I can use to work with clients to understand the framework for storytelling that we’re going to use and To build the story.

If you want to learn more about the tools if you go to Murdock media production where I’ve got deck reviews on most of the pip decks. I also have ariticles about Fabula and a kid’s deck – this one – Fabula for kids. It’s really fun. A great way to get young people into storytelling and get their imaginations going. There are other tools for brand building innovation and strategy on my website as well.

So, tonight I want to talk about a case. It’s actually the first time that I was motivated to present to the City Council in the city where I live Which is Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The city developed an app for residents to report on one another regarding city violations – if your lawn was to tall, if you had a broken down vehicle in your yard, if you were parking on the grass. The program also spans into criminal activity like gambling, illegal substances, and other kinds of things that were in that side of life.

So what they did though, is they failed to recognize that by putting this reporting on an app and then pumping people up to go report one another, these kinds of civil complaints have already been proven to have discriminatory outcomes. That could be based on race, it could be based on class, it could be based on parental status, marital status, LGBTQIA plus, property ownership, and several other categories.

I had never previously been motivated to go and speak at a city council. I’ve lived in New York City. I lived in Portland, Oregon, Salt Lake City, the Boulder Denver area, Ames, Iowa and Iowa City and in none of those cities was I motivated to go and speak to the City Council.

The outcome that I’d like to have from this video, my goal is to help other people tell impactful stories. If you’re in a situation where you see a social justice issue or a community issue that you’re trying to work on, my hope is that I can give you some tools to empower you to go and do that.

A lot of cities and states are focusing on consolidating resources, cutting costs. They want to create a governmental structure that operates more like a business than a government. And that approach really bypasses the fact that the role of governance is not activism. A city shouldn’t be trying to force things to happen, but instead, a government should serve the community and protect the rights of people that live there. Anybody that comes to visit, you know, just people in general. And obviously they have a focus on citizens first, but international travelers and immigrants have rights as well that must be protected. In many cases, this is even more important from a governmental perspective, because an immigrant that hasn’t been naturalized does not have the same power to speak for themselves as a citizen does.

So when a city government becomes focused on activism and tries to force objectives on the population, it’s important for us to remember that we can stand up, shine a light on those injustices, and as residents and citizens, we can do that through storytelling, and we need the best tools and skills available to us when we need to stand up to government and speak out against what they’re doing.
The stories that I’m going to share, they’re not perfect. I’m going to talk about strengths and weaknesses of the presentation that I gave. Like I said, it was the very first one that I presented to the city. And I welcome your thoughts and feedback. So if you have a comment posted below in the feed, this is going to be on YouTube. It should be on LinkedIn. It should also be on Facebook. And. there’ll be some assets on Instagram as well.

So let me know how I can change my approach and become a better presenter. And so, with that, I wanna show the first presentation. I’m gonna pause the video and I’m also gonna stop and write some things down, get some notes on where I’m at in the presentation and what the topics are and how all that is going. So let me go ahead and share my screen.

So the first I’m going to share this presentation.

“Mayor, Council, thank you for having me speak. I wanted to talk today about MyCR. And I write long, so I’m gonna go off my script and just kind of freewheel a little bit.

“On August 9th and August 12th, several news outlets wrote stories about the MyCR app. There were some different approaches to those stories. A couple of the outlets focused on how the MyCR app allows citizens to identify potholes repair city items, but News Channel 9 took a different approach.

“They focused a little bit more on how citizens could report one another to the city and leverage city resources to address problems on those properties.”

So I’m gonna pause real quick and I just want to write some things down on my notepad here.

The first topic that, I’ve got a little helper here, my kitty cat needs to get out of the way.

Can I write on my new piece of paper, honey? Can you come sit in my lap? Yes, you can sit in my lap. Look at that, look at that, how about that?

Okay, I’m gonna take some notes. So the first point has to do with the way that this is covered in the media.

So number one, We’ve got media coverage. and the approach the coverage in the media.

I’ll show a couple examples of that. So I’m going to change my screen share real quick.

And the one that I want to share I don’t think is open right now. So let me go ahead and… Here we go. All right, I’ve got this article.

The one that I wanna share is from the Gazette, which is a local newspaper. It was written by Marissa Payne. Marissa reports on all the city council events. Every time they have a city council meeting, Marissa is there reporting on it. And it’s focuses on, it says, you know, “People can use the app to report, request services, ask questions. report non-emergency issues to the city.”

A similar article was published on CBS channel 2.

So this is very broad. It’s not targeted to city complaints. It’s not targeted to problems with your neighbors, things like that.

It clarifies that there was a news release that came out from the city and it focuses on making the application intuitive so that people can engage and submit their request to the city. By using the account, citizens can receive status updates, monitor submissions to the account, and send notes to the division handling the concern and so forth. So providing the best possible services is the top priority in the Gazette article. So this is the kind of quote that we’re getting through the gazette. And they want to focus on quality customer service and things like that. So residents have the opportunity to submit a concern anytime during the night on our website by using the app rather than using a phone call, basically.

The focus is on easy access and so forth. So I see this as a pretty broad report talking about this information, but we also have some other stories.

Let me share a different one. This one is from News Channel 9, and this is the video that I mentioned in the report.

This is the video that was presented by news channel 9.

“The city of Cedar Rapids is sharing a platform people can use to report problems in their neighborhoods. It’s called MyCR, and the city says it’s the most efficient way to report a concern and prompt action when it comes to property.

Video:
“KCRG TV Kristin Rogers got a look at how the platform works, and talked with the city about how they’re using it to address nuisance complaints.
(deputy city manager) “We’re getting about 1600 requests per month. We want that number to go up. We think that there’s a lot of issues out there that people want to report.”

“People in Cedar Rapids who are concerned about a property can report it directly to the city online using the MyCR platform. And the MyCR application then has algorithms in there that knows how to route it to the appropriate department. The city receives the complaints via email as soon as they’re submitted. Staff check into new reports daily so they can respond. And they want those submitting the complaints to leave contact information so they can be updated on their concerns.

“There’s nothing more frustrating than submitting a complaint or having an issue and feeling like no one’s listening, no one’s caring, and nothing’s being done. A lot of times neighbors think, ‘I don’t know, I reported it and heard nothing back.’ Well, if they actually put their email address in there, we’ll get back. We will actually communicate with you.”

“They say sometimes those violating city code don’t even realize they’re doing it. For example, the city receives roughly 750 reports a year of vehicles being parked in yards or sitting inoperable with no license plate, something that is against city code. The city will issue a notice of violation to properties and give homeowners the chance to make it right before taking an issue to court.

“We want the property owner to fix the problem themselves before we have to intervene or send a notice of violation.”

“And MyCR also features a map of the city where people can check to see if there has already been a complaint at a given address. The city hopes by spreading awareness about MyCR, they’ll be able to address more concerns in the community and that community members will become more knowledgeable about violations.

“In Cedar Rapids, Kristen Rogers, KCRG TV9 News.”
(end news report)

Okay, so when we’re talking about that, so this is the approach that News Channel 9 took. It was a very aggressive approach. It’s really focused on the ability to complain against a neighbor. It focuses on the fact that they were receiving 1,600… complaints per month and the focus of the city wants to increase that.

So, let’s go back to my presentation and I can show how, you know, so we have these diverging approaches to what this app is about. And so then I raise questions about, you know, what intent the city really has.

Do they really want to turn citizens against one another reporting on these apps or is this about public access – a real engagement with local government?

(Alan’s presentation to City Council)

“The deputy city manager said “There are 1600 requests per month coming in and they want the number to go up.’ And that’s a bit of a challenge.”

(pause presentation)

You can tell that I’m pretty nervous as I’m speaking. Like I said, it was the first time I had gotten up and spoken to the city government and these are really complicated issues and I’m trying to present it in a dynamic way. Also, I wasn’t aware when I first went in about the five minute limit when you’re speaking. And so I had written something that would have been about 15 minutes to present.

I didn’t really have the time to present everything. So I was skimming and trying to get through my presentation in a very quick kind of way.

So one of the things that I encourage people, one of the downsides to my first presentation was I didn’t have topical notes. So what I usually do now, if I’m gonna speak to the city council, is I write out a script, but then I break it down into talking points, and I usually take the talking points, or I highlight the talking points in the script, so I can jump around quickly and I don’t get lost. So that is a piece of information in terms of structuring your presentation.

(Alan’s presentation to city council continued)

“There are a couple of incidents that I think are significant in terms of this. On, 30th I have a report from the city police department a driver a neighbor of ours drove a car onto another neighbor’s property while construction workers were there putting in a new driveway. When he called and reported the assault, he said that he believed that the driver was using meth.

“What the officer didn’t identify was that three reports were filed through the my CR app against that property the week prior.”

(pause presentation)

So here I’m saying, ‘okay, well, let’s look at this data. Let’s look at what happened.’

Here’s a real scenario on my street, one neighbor (seemingly) reported another neighbor. And then the neighbor that was reported perceived that the reporter was another person on the street. They actually drove one of their vehicles into the yard of the perceived reporter.

One of the complaints was inoperable vehicles, one of the types of complaint that was featured in the news channel 9 report the week prior.

So, in terms of the timeline, we’ve got a news report where city officials are saying, you can report all these different kinds of problems. We get this three stacked reports against one of our neighbors. That neighbor then uses a vehicle to assault another neighbor while there are people in the yard working on putting in a new driveway. And we have this kind of conflict that’s going on.

From a story perspective, presenting at city council on this interpersonal conflict is called starting in medias res – in the middle of the conflict.

So in terms of order, I presented a prelude. The first part was an introduction – ‘here’s this topic that people have in the city. Here’s different ways that people have taken, you know, to reporting on this new app that’s being presented.’

‘Now we have this app in application and what is happening right in the middle of this situation right now? In medias res, we have the conflict and potential violence. So the city wants more than 1600 reports per month, but how many incidences is the city pumping up in terms of actual violence that is being created from neighbor to neighbor?’

So those are some of the key questions that come into this. And if I look at this from a Storyteller Tactics perspective… this deck is basically structured to help people tell more powerful stories.

So where are we? We’re in Cedar Rapids on 26th Street, Southeast where I live. You’re required to tell your… your location right when you start your presentation to the Council.

Who is involved? Two different neighbors. What’s happening? One is driven into the other’s yard, and the police show up, but they miss the crucial fact that THREE MyCR complaints were filed against that person.

So what’s at stake is not just the broken down vehicles and the conflict between two people. The justice scenario of how the city is using this reporting app, whether the city is actually driving conflict or actually supporting people.

The city of Cedar Rapids prides itself on being a welcoming place that is a calm, easy place to live. They say it’s the “City of Five Seasons.” You’ve got spring, summer, winter, fall. Plus, the fifth season is supposed to be “The time to enjoy the rest.”

This goes way back to an industrialist who moved here and started a company. He felt that moving from a big city to Cedar Rapids gave him the time and the freedom to enjoy life. And so, is the city really the city of five seasons, or is the city the city of more complaints? That’s really what’s at stake here.

So what happens next? We’re going to get into that.

How does it feel to get one of these complaints? What’s at the heart of what this kind of complaint does to people when they get the complaint? Once we have recognized those experiences, then we can start talking about what the meaning is behind the scenario.

So let’s go ahead and take a look at where we go with this. I’m gonna share my screen again to get back to the video.

(Alan’s presentation to the City Council continued)

“… for illegal dumping for multiple vehicles on the property and for the third one was tall grass in the yard. And another report was filed against my house during the same time period.

“About a week after the news reports we got a letter from the city. My wife was in the process of… she had been diagnosed with a genetic condition and needed surgeries to preempt cancer. So we were quite preoccupied. We had a neighbor who had helped us out by mowing her lawn three times, but they moved away.

“So, you know, we were a little bit raggedy in terms of our yard, but the report – the letter – came to us a few days after my wife’s surgery when I was at home trying to care for her. So all of a sudden I had to take on responding to the city and working to get my lawn in compliance.

“That was a very difficult time.”

(City Council presentation paused)

So here I’m really talking about that emotional component of this story. What is it like to experience this? What is it like when the city comes in and has this kind of impact? The city has a lot of power, it has a lot of moving parts, and this app allows the city to streamline its conduct and actually increase its biased conduct.

So in the video they said the city gives people time to solve the situation before they send out any kind of violation. Actually, you receive a letter of violation in the mail and the complaint goes on the map immediately. So everything there is public. It’s immediately public, before the city comes out to inspect, you’re publicly reported.

So that is actually publishing somebody’s property as having a violation BEFORE the city has even investigated that.

In my presentation I point out that the order of operations is mixed up. The emotion, the experience of it is terrible. The structure and the process is strange, and the way that the city actually structured its complaint process is pretty weird.

So let’s continue and I’ll get back to that video…

(Alan’s City Council presentation continued.)

“…from my wife’s recovery and it put a lot of stress on our family.

“These two incidents have damaged the sense of community on our street. I think that is a significant component of the change that came from the use of the My CR app. There’s also an odd structure in the process once a report comes in. So somebody goes to the app, they fill out their complaint, they tell what address it is, and immediately within a day, it goes up on a public app as a violation.

“The city hasn’t inspected, nobody’s looked at the property to identify if the report is a true or false claim, but it’s made public on the app. Then the city sends out a letter notifying the individuals of what the violation was and enjoins them to get their property in order.

“Only then does the city send somebody out, following the letter, to investigate whether the report is legitimate or not.

“When that happens then the issue is either you know the subject of the investigation either receives a fine and the city deals with it or they close it out. But it’s unclear as to what the process is to get those reports off of the app. So, the city is compiling that they have received these claims, but it doesn’t clarify on the app which ones are legitimate and which ones are not.

“There are some civil liberties issues in terms of people being able to redress those that are making a claim against their property and also in terms of their ability to, you know, there’s no clarity as to who can pull up these records. If somebody goes to purchase a property, can they… get these records of how many times a property was in violation?

“So I think that there are some issues that need to be addressed. I’d like to request an opportunity. I’ve done some research on this and there is significant information I’d like to present further to the city council.”

Mayor O’Donnel, “Thank you. Thank you. And that closes out our second public input period….”

(End City Council presentation)

So that was my presentation.

I have five topics that I have identified. I’m going to open up another camera and see if I can get a view of my notebook for you.

I’ve got my list of items here. The first one is media coverage and the approach to coverage in the media.
The second, component is in medias res or movie time. And that was the card from Storyteller Tactics. And the question there is what is the conflict? How am I progressing with this conflict? And how does the conflict inform the information that I’ve given about the topic.
Topic 1, the media coverage, is my prelude.

Then, topic 2 is my in medias res or my movie time conflict.

Then the third topic is, where is the emotion? And that was when I switched from the neighbor’s scenario, because I don’t actually know their emotion. I do, however, know my emotion, and I do know the situation that happened in my house.

So the first big picture is contextual, it’s social. So this point 1 is social context.
The second one is local conflicts, so I’m going to write “local” here by point 2, but it’s not yet emotional, it’s just visualizing the conflict.

And then the third point is personal and emotional. So I have to start getting my story into this conflict.

And then the question emerges, “what’s at stake?” That’s one of the questions that was in this movie time card.

So, um, movie time is actually continuing. So I’m still driving the story through a “movie time” framework, because emotion is an important part of the movie time card.

And then fourth, what is the process? So this is, we’re looking at something procedural. The question of the procedural isn’t just :What are the steps?” because a lot of times people will get up and they’ll say, ‘Well, step one is this, step two is that, and step three is the other… and this thing’s bad ,and that thing’s bad, the next thing’s bad…”

But the question is, “Okay, let’s look at the procedure, and then let’s look at how that creates a problem.”

What kind of legal problem is created? We have to look at bigger language than just interpersonal conflict and personal preference. What is the language that’s going to matter to the city?

Well, civil liberties is going to matter to the city because that’s a liability to them if they’re not actually being just.

So when we get into point five, we’re getting into the civil liberties question, ‘Does the procedure cause a civil liberties problem because it’s disclosing somebody as an offender prior to having a city investigation?’

In that case, the city is pumping people up, claiming they are a problem, and then later investigating… and then later coming to some kind of disposition, but the information is public the whole time.

That is a civil liberties problem.

And then, the question of who has access to the information, and then is the process discriminatory?

And then… I open the door. So this is the sixth item. Participation. I let the city know that I’ve done a lot of research on all of these kinds of issues. So it’s not just a personal story. It’s not just me being frustrated. It’s actually a larger issue of justice in relation to the city. And then from there I can say, okay, well, “You know, let’s participate with this.”

So I actually said to the city, I have done this research. I’m willing to come in. I’m willing to participate. I’m willing to… give a full presentation on the kinds of things that I’ve discovered.

The city actually did have me come in and talk to them, but they just fed me justifications. They didn’t actually spend a lot of time listening. So I ultimately had to continue taking this report to the city in city council meetings week after week and month after month.

And it actually became a rather large kind of scenario and caused quite a ruckus.

Discriminatory Chronic Nuisance Ordinance Resources

I’m going to share my screen again and I’ll show you some of the research that I pulled together. Because this gets into a storyteller tactics card called “Data Detectives” that I’ll talk about in a later presentation.

If you are facing discriminatory chronic nuisance ordinances, download these resources.

When Disability Is a “Nuisance”: How Chronic Nuisance Ordinances Push Residents with Disabilities Out of Their Homes

A Tenant’s Procedural Due Process Right in Chronic Nuisance Ordinance Jurisdictions

Crime-Free Housing Ordinances: One Call Away from Eviction

BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, EMPIRE JUSTICE CENTER, NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, NATIONAL HOUSING LAW PROJECT, NATIONAL LAW CENTER ON HOMELESSNESS & POVERTY, NEW YORK CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, NEW YORK STATE COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, AND SARGENT SHRIVER NATIONAL CENTER ON POVERTY LAW

LEWD STINGS: EXTENDING LAWRENCE V. TEXAS TO DISCRIMINATORY ENFORCEMENT

A Paired-Testing Pilot Study of Housing Discrimination against Same-Sex Couples and Transgender Individuals

An Empirical Analysis of Sexual Orientation Discrimination

The State of Fair Housing in Northeast Ohio

Overview of Nuisance Ordinance Discrimination Cases

I’m just gonna go ahead and share my whole screen.

These are all the presentation notes that I’ve put into my computer. All of these are articles and papers that are about the way that nuisance complaints can become discriminatory.

So people with disabilities, it’s very common. You know, my spouse had a surgery that was ongoing and that’s actually one of the most common kinds of scenarios. Somebody has a life-changing event or they are a person that is already outside of the norm, and people are already looking at them differently. So in our case, we had grass that was a little bit tall, but not out of line, but others on the street had grass that had gone to seed.

When they actually came and looked at our yard, they said, “This is not something we would send anybody out to clean up.”

They said, actually, the ordinance was created because there are owned but abandoned lots where somebody has purchased the property but they just let it go to seed. It’s got weeds and trees and all kinds of stuff growing in it, and it’s just not environmentally healthy. The city wanted to be able to go in and clean those things up.

The person said it’s not really four yards where somebody is living in a home, but it’s been kind of rolled into that under the myCR app.

So, you know, disability is a major area.

So there’s research on tenants and what their due process rights really are. I spoke about that. What is the procedure? What is the order of operations? When is an announcement being made before somebody has, before the city is actually engaged with that? And I looked at other cities. Many other cities are handling it in a different kind of way – sending someone out to a property prior to making a public announcement and sending a letter of violation.

This document, there are actually government organizations that are trying to increase the number of opportunities for citizens to file complaints. They’ve developed what’s called a ‘chronic nuisance ordinance’ in order to be able to claim properties are chronic nuisances.

In a lot of instances, the chronic nuisance ordinance is used in districts where the city wants to redevelop. They want to tear a building down. They just need to add up all of these reasons and justifications for tearing down a low-rent old building. putting in new condos or something like that. So there’s a lot of these kinds of issues that come up again and again in terms of nuisance complaints and the designation of “chronic nuisance” properties.

So “crime-free housing ordinances” and how these result in unequal evictions, increasing the likelihood that somebody’s going to be in crisis. Because every time somebody gets pushed out of a property, they’ve got to find new housing. They’ve got to apply for a new apartment. If they have deficient history in terms of their last rental, it becomes harder for them to get a new property. And so you end up with people living in their cars or in shelters while they’re waiting to get approved and a lot of things like that.

This one is a kind of the flow chart of how a complaint moves through the system in Cedar Rapids.
And this was a Supreme Court complaint that was made in the state of New York against these same types of ordinances.

The city of Cedar Rapids had actually previously modified their ordinance. So they had actually implemented a worse version of the law and they retracted the law when this lawsuit came through.

So we know that the city is actually acting on the largest application of this kind of ordinance that they can. They’ve already been modifying it because they saw that another state’s litigation was successful and people had to reel back what it is that they were doing.

So, as I said, there’s a lot of information on here that, you know, lewd stings, you know, things about, you know, being a single mother resulting in a greater likelihood of receiving a report. Because you have to be working and your kids are home and you’ve got an older sibling to hear younger siblings and things just don’t get done, and then it turns into noise complaints and all kinds of other kinds of additional reports.

So, you know, there’s a full history here and I ultimately had to spell this out one presentation at a time to the city. I had to go through all of these you know, documents and it took actually a year to go through everything that was presented, you know, and I think I only scratched the surface of what’s available in the research. That I think is kind of a challenge.

You know, when we’re looking at how do we do social commentary well, a lot of the time people presenting at a city council will just go and they’ll tackle a single issue at a time and they’ll just treat it from an anger or personal, emotional perspective. They don’t treat it from a data perspective or an analytical perspective.

So one of the questions that I always have is, “How can we step that back? How can we slow it down and start to say, ‘Okay, well, I’m angry about this thing, but how does it relate to other issues?’ And then ‘Who’s listening? Who’s the audience that I’m speaking to?’ In the case of the city, ‘What matters to them?’

What really matters to the city manager and the city attorney are the issues around civil liberties and whether they’re able to get away with what they’re doing. And then the larger question of, ‘Does it look good to the public? Will the public turn against us if the public is aware of how we’re structuring our reporting process?’

So that’s an open question. The way that I go about presenting focuses on that. I was nervous, um, and I didn’t speak, you know… a lot of the time I, I shuffled around and didn’t make my point as quickly as I could have, partially because I didn’t have my long-form script broken down into key points.

So today I have better key points by listening to and watching my own presentation. And these notes might be the kind of thing that I would take in there.

I would walk through these notes and then, I would be able to say, ‘Okay, the media coverage,’ and then I might have some notes on the media coverage on a separate piece of paper and then I could go through those. Then I could put that paper down down and then I could go back to my outline and talk about, you know, ‘What does this scenario really look like? What does the conflict really look like? I’ve got neighbors where this happened, I’ve got the police report. And then, you know, how does that relate to my scenario and how it felt to actually get this report, especially in a time that was already turned on end,’ right?

So those are some things that I think are important.

I’m going to do another video where I’m going to talk about Amazon Watch. That’ll probably be my next video.

Amazon Watch, is a social justice organization that’s focused on protecting the rights of the environment and indigenous people in the Amazon. And one of the things that we see when we watch their videos is very focused on, it’s urgent, things are burning, things are in a really bad situation… donate now because we have to be doing our work to get to the result, you know.

That kind of approach can speak to an audience that already believes and is committed, but it can seem ‘shock and awe’ to an audience that isn’t committed or doesn’t understand, and it can burn people out because people get exhausted by crisis. So one of the questions that I have is, how can we take a message like that, which is vital – You know? We’re in an environmental crisis with global warming and climate change.

So how do we take something that has that kind of urgency and turn it into something that can address a new audience. You’ve got people that are already believers, do that kind of messaging through your direct mail because they’ve signed up. You’ve got a core group that is really committed to, you know, they’re responding. And in your direct mail, you can direct them to videos, you can direct them to, to other kinds of things.

But in your social media, where you have to have, you’re addressing a mass audience through your social media. You’re going to have loyal followers, but then how are we going to go about tailoring that message to draw in people that aren’t so committed? So people that have never heard the message before and don’t know what’s going on with oil drilling and crime in the Amazon and indigenous rights and water quality and deforestation, all the different kinds of things that Amazon Watch tackles.… How are we going to go about changing that?

So that’s going to be in another video. We’ll take a look at some footage and we’ll talk through their social media and I’ll give some suggestions on how a campaign like that could shift and change.

So for those of you who’ve watched, thank you very much. We’re at about 48 minutes. I don’t want to go over an hour on these videos, but I do want to give good information.

If you’re interested in learning more about Storyteller Tactics or any of the other resources, go to murdockmediaproduction.com.

I’ll bring it up right now on my browser. And then I will share my screen. And let’s take a look at that. So on my website, you can see some short form story videos that I’ve done with artists and Cedar Rapids Pride and other things. And here you can click to a review of the Story Tactics deck. That was the deck that we used, the movie time card that talked about. you know, jumping to the chase, getting to in medias res, getting to the conflict. This is the deck that came from.

I’ve got other articles. So if you go here to PIP decks, you can look at other decks that, team tactics and workshop tactics and so forth.

If you go to my blog, you’ll be able to see a host of articles and some videos where I talk through. how to use this. So for example with this one, the article is about using brand story to create a brand multiverse.

When you’re speaking to different audiences, like we were talking about a high loyalty audience that already believes in our message, that’s one universe. That’s one story that we’re telling. People that have never heard the message, that’s a different universe. We have to start from a different place and the story has to flow a different way. So we have to actually think about all the different people that could be approaching what we’re talking about from many levels of awareness, many levels of commitment, many levels of interest, and we need to find ways to connect with those individuals and bring them into the story.

The multiverse was initially created through comic books. Publishers were looking for ways to take their characters and say, ‘Well, what would happen if the character were seen in a different light, or what if the universe was different?’ And so this article talks about that.

So there’s lots of articles on the blog that go through story components and some of the other decks as well. So check that out.

And then if you’re really interested in doing a consult to really tackle your scenario. What is your story situation? We can go ahead and do that. And I have a page that is under services for brand story coaching and development, and also for brand strategy, if you’re trying to figure out how you’re gonna go ahead and build your communication platform and tell all those different stories.

There’s a brand strategy dropdown. link and a brand story coaching and development link in there. So those kinds of things can be really helpful and I want to say thank you for sticking it out with me and listening to what I had to say about building these types of stories.

I look forward to connecting next time.

Want to learn more about brand storytelling?

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