Call Girls in Tilak Nagar (DELHI-) 8377877756 Call Girls Service
Story tech
1. STORYTECH
A personalized guide
to the 21st century
Arthur M. Harkins
University of Minnesota
George H. Kubik
Anticipatory Futures Group, LLC
Second Edition
6. For all those who have the courage to tell their stories
...and to live them!
v
7. Contents
Prologue:
How to use this guidebook, p. 1
Chapter 1:
Introducing StoryTech, p. 7
Chapter 2:
Becoming intimate with StoryTech, p. 23
Chapter 3:
Practicing StoryTech in groups, p. 41
Chapter 4:
Further experience with StoryTech in communities, p. 65
Chapter 5:
Conducting education StoryTechs, p. 87
Chapter 6:
Facilitating health & aging StoryTechs, p. 129
Chapter 7:
Facilitating StoryTech with international groups, p. 153
Epilogue, p. “Epilogue” on page 171
References and recommended readings, p. 177
vi
8. 1
Prologue:
How to use this
guidebook
Welcome to StoryTech!
StoryTech offers a dynamic 21st century approach for integrating the power
of your personal stories with the collective wisdom of groups, organiza-
tions, and societies. This Guidebook will introduce you to a very old process
that enhances your strategic ability to deal with change and opportunity.
This Guidebook is written in a holographic, non-linear style. In order to sat-
isfy your curiosity and uniqueness, the chapters are not chained together
sequentially. You are encouraged to select chapters that have immediate
interest to you and read the remaining chapters as your curiosity evolves.
Key concepts repetitively appear across different chapters where they are
presented from different perspectives and with different objectives. You are
encouraged to apply your individual uniqueness in reading this Guidebook.
The Guidebook will then become unique to you!
The writing style is purposely kept lively and explorative. StoryTech is an
exciting and constantly evolving subject. Hence, you the reader and we, the
writers, must explore the topic together. This is accomplished, in part, by
inviting you to actively engage in a variety of challenging exercises. Each of
the exercises contained in this Guidebook explores the capabilities, prom-
ises, and rewards of the StoryTech process and is part of the process of
constructing individual knowledge.
We hope that you will enjoy reading this Guidebook to StoryTech as much
as we have enjoyed preparing it!
Let’s proceed to your first experience with the StoryTech process!
10. 3
The Virtual Cup:
A StoryTech practice exercise (part #1)
Welcome! It is an honor and a pleasure to meet with you to help chart
your personalized future! First, we’ll put you through a practice exercise in
story-telling. You will have an assistant in this process: a common house-
hold or office object.
1. Find a plain white coffee or tea cup (a plastic foam cup will do).
2. Hold the cup in front of you and look at it. Ask yourself to take a “men-
tal picture” of the cup.
3. Now, put the cup behind your back while you retain its image. Do you
have the white cup in mind? If so, you have “virtualized” the original,
everyday cup.
4. Do you still have the cup in your mind? If so, please change its color
to black.
5. Now, change its color to yellow.
6. If you’re still with us, please put a “happy face” on the yellow Virtual
Cup.
7. Now ask the Virtual Cup if it enjoys being a cup. What did it say? Was
it pleased to be a cup? Did it want to be a different cup? Did it want
another kind of existence?
11. 4
The Virtual Cup:
A StoryTech practice exercise (Part #2)
Debriefing: Your first StoryTech practice exercise
You have just created the Virtual Cup, a re-created representation of an ev-
eryday object you held before your eyes.
You have used what is arguably the greatest gift of nature to our species:
the capacity to talk to ourselves by inventing things-- including people--to
interact with.
Have you ever kicked your car and talked to it when it wouldn’t start? It’s
the same process as you just used in the Virtual Cup exercise!
The Virtual Cup demonstration sets the stage for helping you to invent your
own futures -- and that of your organization or community:
The creation of potential is the result of bringing together and connecting
two realities: everyday real worlds and “virtual” worlds. These worlds are
driven, respectively, by social information and personal knowledge.
StoryTech is a process designed to assist individuals and groups in the de-
sign of productive connections between social information and personal
knowledge.
StoryTech will show you how to help others write personally meaningful,
positive stories about their futures as residents of their communities. The
major task of StoryTech --one that is exciting and potentially very reward-
ing--is to bring together both concrete and “virtual“ paths to create and
actualize individual and community futures.
14. 7
Chapter 1:
Introducing StoryTech
The purpose of this guidebook
The purpose of this Guidebook is to introduce StoryTech as a modern ap-
plication of ancient and powerful cultural software. Early humans widely
employed stories for communicating new and old ideas and conveying les-
sons learned from past experiences. Stories provided the means by which
individuals interacted with each other for collective purposes.
StoryTech is a modern expression of that ancient technology. It updates the
technology by presenting modern-day options for powerful story telling. It
is about addressing the purpose, structure, and process of stories to pro-
vide new opportunities for change and to enhance new transformations.
What are stories?
Stories are complex expressions of the most complicated system in our
known universe… the human mind. Only humans are known to be en-
dowed with this unique capability to generate stories. Researchers in a
variety of disciplines are just beginning to discover the link between intel-
ligence, creativity, and capacity for change with our ability to create and
communicate stories.
Stories are truly software of the mind. They operate simultaneously at
many levels of intricacy and simplicity. Stories are also multifaceted and
holographic. They function at multiple levels across human consciousness
to collapse complexity into creative simplicities.
Stories defy simple definition. They entail structure and process, context
15. 8
and content, purpose, and flow.
This Guidebook explores and explains the historical evolution of story tell-
ing and narrative technology. It puts forth the modern evolution of applied
story telling in the framework of StoryTech. The Guidebook interacts with
its readers by exploring several applications of the StoryTech process.
StoryTech assumes that all humans have the capacity to consciously trans-
form theirpersonal and collective stories for strategic purposes. Renowned
psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote, “The individual does not simply exist, but
always decides what his or her existence will be, what he or she will be-
come in the next moment.”
Stories in a nutshell
•• Stories are dynamic simulations. They are software for the mind.
•• Stories are about personal theories of self and realities, and the nature
of relationships between self and contexts.
•• Personal stories are a form of self-talk in which non-verbal internal nar-
ratives (e.g., pre-conscious thoughts, sub-vocalizations or subconscious
statements) are internally created, rehearsed, and adopted or rejected.
•• Stories are a method for organizing, rehearsing, and communicating
information and knowledge at pre-conscious and conscious levels.
•• Stories are tools for the creation of contexts.
•• Stories are self-narratives: At the level of the individual, stories are nar-
rative representations of personal beliefs, imagination, intuition and
pre-conscious or conscious thoughts and/or organizing principles.
•• Collective narratives: At the collective level (e.g., society, culture, tribe),
stories are narrative representations of group beliefs, thoughts, and/or
organizing principles.
•• Stories are personal theories of self and reality(s), and the nature of
relationships between self and environment.
•• Personal stories are a form of self-talk in which non-verbal internal nar-
ratives (e.g., thematic pre-conscious thoughts, sub-vocalizations or sub-
conscious statements) are internally created, rehearsed, and adopted
or rejected.
•• Stories are a methodology for organizing, rehearsing, and/or communi-
cating information at the pre-conscious and conscious levels.
•• Stories are tools for context creation (i.e., innovation-driven knowledge
work).
Initiated in part by the spirit and intent of Frankl’s writings and self-innova-
tion concepts, and in part by Japanese Shinto story traditions, this Guide-
16. 9
book explores the ways in which individuals can consciously, creatively,
and purposively decide what their existence could be and what they might
become, both personally and professionally. Readers are provided with
guidance and opportunities to practice constructing their own customized
portraits of what they might become and how they might operate as lead-
ers in the worlds of work, community, and family.
Stories are power-laden
•• Stories are not value neutral.
•• Stories create, validate and express values.
•• Stories influence:
»» Power
»» Creativity
»» Meaning
StoryTech recognizes that a primary function of the human mind is to con-
struct and evaluate models of realities. It recognizes that stories are the
fundamental building blocks for this constructivist framework. The result-
ing model stories constitute a part of the framework that guides behavior
and defines anticipated future goals and alternatives. As such, model sto-
ries tend to be self-fulfilling by virtue of their power to create and apply
values and meanings.
The StoryTech process
Why is StoryTech especially important today? How can an ages-old technol-
ogy provide a vital resource for addressing today’s challenges? The answer
is both simple and complex.
A new economy based on ideas, knowledge, and innovation is underway.
This rapidly emerging idea-knowledge-innovation economy has largely
overtaken societies by surprise. Both its swiftness and the depth of its im-
pacts were largely unforeseen only a few brief years ago. This new econ-
omy is heavily premised on strategic ‘intentional processes’ rather than
‘pre-conditioned responses.’
Learning to tell powerful self-stories is the primary method this Guidebook
uses to help readers develop the capacity to improve self-management of
their futures. For this purpose, one of the authors developed and tested
a process named StoryTech. StoryTech has been a part of his teaching and
consulting toolkit since 1989.
17. 10
Like any technology, StoryTech is based on several fundamental assump-
tions. First, it presupposes that everyone is a natural story-teller. Every in-
dividual has valuable stories to tell and creative perspectives to impart. It
is this inexhaustible diversity and uniqueness inherent in each individual
that serves as the unmatched resource fueling the StoryTech process.
Through StoryTech, many people have been helped to teach themselves
how to rethink, re-purpose, and redirect their futures. StoryTech denotes
a process of self-de-velopment and self-instruction that is embedded
throughout this Guidebook.
We place ourselves in a consultative role to the readers of this Guidebook.
We want to help you make positive and productive changes in your life, but
within the framework of your values and under your control. A fundamen-
tal assumption of StoryTech is that humans can consciously and pragmati-
cally transform their personal and collective stories for strategic purposes.
It is our intent to impart the tenets of StoryTech to aid you in achieving this
goal.
Although segments of this Guidebook refer to theory, our fundamental pur-
pose for writing StoryTech remains highly practical. We hope that when
the reader is only a few pages into the Guidebook he or she will begin to
discover ways to put the StoryTech process to use in some corner of living,
learning, and working. We wish to establish contacts with those who take
this step, and will count them among our colleagues of practice.
StoryTech is a Guidebook for creative futuring. Those wishing to probe into
the underlying theories of story telling as a “personal technology” will find
more detailed guidance in the annotated resources contained in the Ap-
pendix. We encourage this.
Our fundamental purpose for writing StoryTech remains highly practical.
We hope that when the reader is only a few pages into the Guidebook he
or she will begin to discover ways to put the StoryTech process to use in
some corner of living, learning, and working.
We hope to establish contacts with those who take this step, and will count
them among our colleagues of practice.
Historically, stories have been used to:
•• Explain pasts
•• Interpret presents
•• Project and map futures
18. 11
As you read this Guidebook, you will benefit by asking yourself certain ba-
sic questions about who you are, and who you wish to become. For exam-
ple, what is your identity? How do you orient yourself to the future? How
do you continue to grow and improve while avoiding inflexibility, stasis, or
stagnation? Do you want to become a more innovative individual? How
much motivation do you have, and how much more would you prefer to
have? How should you apply your reservoir of motivation?
Our approach to these questions operates from a simple assumption: the
answers to these and similar questions depends upon how you see your-
self and in what contexts you place yourself. The personal technology em-
bodied in StoryTech is designed to help you selectively alter your self-de-
scriptions and contexts in order to “pre-experience” or rehearse altered or
new futures. These simulations help to evoke and shape self-knowledge
that can improve your future choices and the decision rules you employ to
reach them.
StoryTech values stories based on their contribution to individual or collec-
tive development:
•• StoryTech does not judge stories on the basis of ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’
•• Stories act as attractors for future behaviors.
•• Stories are manifestations of fundamental and unique organizing prin-
ciples at work within individuals and groups.
In a nutshell, StoryTech will help you create new roles and contexts to
expand your explorations of yourself and your futures. You will be in the
driver’s seat all the way.
Specifically, StoryTech will help you:
•• Support the development of your “innovative self” as an engine for
exploring future performance and innovation competencies.
•• Provide a “personal technology” for anticipatory role constructions and
rehearsals.
•• Provide the means to develop “internal contexts” for comfortable self-
development.
•• Provide the means to purposively add “strategic value” to self and oth-
ers.
To help make these outcomes a satisfying reality to you, we will:
•• Provide for continuously creative behavior throughout the StoryTech
process.
19. 12
•• Show how creativity enhances your innovation capital, thereby helping
you to create and manage desirable futures.
•• Show you how to creatively work with and lead others through the
StoryTech processes.
Hold on a moment! Are you doubting that you’re actually an innovative
person? Do you suspect that you may not be innovative enough to gain
much from this work? If so, relax! It is more than probable that you are very
innovative during every day of your life. It is also somewhat probable that
you don’t believe that supposition is true.
You may allow this: “I am somewhat creative, but not innovative.” If so,
this is a feather in your cap, because you recognize the difference between
creating novelty and putting it to work in your life. In other words, you
understand the difference between creativity and innovation. Creativity,
StoryTech, and StoryTech processes are all about creativity and its innova-
tive applications.
StoryTech and creativity
•• StoryTech is based on virtual realities created by the narrator.
•• StoryTech drives the production of personal knowledge.
•• StoryTech permits the testing and modification of personal knowledge
in virtual contexts.
We’ll make all the points above again, and provide you with opportunities
to experience expanding your future choices within your own value system
and comfort zone. The major internal resource you’ll draw upon for this
work is your deep, inner knowledge – your “tacit” knowledge.
One of the secrets of the creative individual is to self-teach how to extract
tacit knowledge and put it to work in stories that can help expand future
alternatives and choices. Using the StoryTech process promotes such cre-
ativity. You will be projecting practical ways to innovate what you have cre-
ated, and you will even have a better sense of what not to change – what
to preserve.
We are beginning the Twenty-First Century. We’re on the “ramp” into a new
and exciting frontier for those who can master the intricacies of change.
Many believe that more changes will occur in the next ten or twenty years
of the “ramp” than have occurred since the beginning of the Industrial Rev-
olution. Why do they believe this?
20. 13
The societies of today are undergoing extraordinary informational, social,
and technological transformations. The magnitude and accelerated pace
of these changes requires continuous personal and social renewal. This
places a premium on people’s sense of efficacy to shape their futures.
Stories are practical because the creation of futures
Chaos and turbulence are becoming the new personal and community re-
alities. Everything is changing, and, much of the time, change is occurring
unpredictably. New information and knowledge resources are forged out
of the challenges posed by such chaos and turbulence.
Effective management of change results from bringing information and
knowledge together, “interfacing” these two resources for the benefit of
the individual, the organization and the community. This Guidebook is
about the use of new stories to produce new and useful information and
knowledge.
•• Information is a social resource—ideas, skills and beliefs shared within
the community.
•• Knowledge is a personal resource—ideas, skills and beliefs yet to be
shared within the community.
What will be demanded of individuals and communities to survive, and to
develop suitable and rewarding lifestyles, skills, values, and ideals during
the ramp into the new century?
Who will be the individuals, organizations, corporations, and communities
whose examples will inspire us, and create within each of us the will and
the focus to ramp confidently into the future? Who will provide the leader-
ship and examples to guarantee that we will thrive, not merely survive?
What new stories can be told to help us navigate the new century?
Storytelling is an ancient technology. It is many thousands of years old.
Personalized stories are the engines of new knowledge production for in-
dividuals. The Buddhist concept of mindfulness plays a major part in new
knowledge production based on stories. Historically, storytelling has been
a primary means for transmitting beliefs and knowledge. Storytelling,
therefore, is a “personal technology” for learning and for social and cul-
tural communications. Oral tradition underlies storytelling. In use since
pre-history, it is pervasive among all peoples.
21. 14
Our Guidebook introduces StoryTech as a modern application of the an-
cient human capacity for storytelling. It will address the purpose, struc-
tures, and process of story constructions. It will provide concrete steps
for the construction of new personal knowledge to support intellectually
and emotionally improved decision making now and in the future. It will
explore and explain the evolution of storytelling as an individualized stra-
tegic process capable of bringing value to individuals, and through them,
to groups.
StoryTech speaks to people who want to create positive outcomes in their
emerging futures. StoryTech facilitators are individuals whose innovative
stories and scenarios make a positive difference in the totality of their lives,
including their interactions with others at work, in the community and in
the home.
Historically, storytelling based on oral tradition has been used to:
•• Strengthen and change cultural beliefs.
•• Transmit knowledge and ideas.
•• Communicate values and principles.
•• Coalesce and clarify “reality.”
StoryTech does not:
•• Replace analytical thinking.
•• Replace scientific experimentation or testing.
StoryTech is not a form of science, but rather a form of personal, social, and
cultural technology. The intent of StoryTech and its accompanying exercises
is to help individuals, communities and groups develop positive visions of
their futures, and to translate these visions into innovations that produce
desirable outcomes.
Stories:
•• Are based on ‘narrative’ models (creation or invention).
•• Are thematic and unique.
•• Emphasize metaphorical thought.
•• Generate unlimited variety (multiple platforms, perspectives, patterns,
connections, etc.).
•• Immerse subjects in phenomena as essential participants.
•• Are imprecise but directive, based on analogical reasoning.
•• Describe phenomena fluidly and changeably.
22. 15
Science:
•• Is based on ‘experimental’ models (discovery of one reality).
•• Uses repeatable processes.
•• Employs similes and isomorphs.
•• Limits/sharpens perspectives.
•• Separates observers from observed phenomena.
•• Prefers precise, defined, abstract reasoning.
•• Prefers phenomena are knowable and predictable in detail.
How can this “technological” approach produce real results for individuals?
For thousands of years, stories have been the major pedagogical tool of all
cultures. For example, “Jack and Jill” is a story about two people who intend
to seek and transport water, but who suffer an outcome probably fatal to
Jack. This story was intended to convey a warning that even the simplest
and most familiar of futures can be dangerous.
StoryTech combines:
•• Advantages of age-old story telling
»» Communication (dynamic events and ideas)
»» Immersion
»» Imagination
»» Participation & involvement
»» Self-validated understanding
•• Some advantages of science (specificity; rigor)
•• Communication (contextually constructed information)
•• Deep personal attachment
•• Subjective rationality (individualized)
•• Self-organizing evolution
•• Connecting internal and external realities
•• Virtual transcendence of time
But students as young as the fifth grade easily understand that the original
“Jack and Jill” story offers a frontier of limitless possible adventures involv-
ing these two characters. This is because “Jack and Jill” offers a sufficient
foundation for “virtualizing” the original story -- for making it a “ramp” into
successful futures. StoryTech authors can choose to make the outcomes of
these stories positive: Jack does not always have to endure a skull fracture!
The reasoning structures used for building “Jack and Jill” stories are the
same as those underlying computerized simulations of families, societies
23. 16
or civilizations. Such exercises are projected years or centuries “forward”
into “virtual” futures. A very large market is building for such simulations.
StoryTech communicates:
•• Large amounts of relatively hidden knowledge (i.e., tacit knowledge)
through relatively simple stories.
•• Large amounts of explicit information, which is creatively combined
with tacit information.
StoryTech combines tacit (personal) and explicit (group) knowledge to:
•• Convey meaning.
•• Stimulate new perspectives and patterns of understanding.
This Guidebook describes a process that has been used in private and pub-
lic sector organizations since 1989. Used in the context of public communi-
ties, StoryTech is a method for allowing a fuller glimpse of what young and
old, professional and non-professional story-writers project or envision as
personal and community outcomes.
StoryTech:
•• Stimulates new perspectives, patterns of thought and strategic pur-
pose.
•• Generates new understanding(s) of how ideas might work in other con-
texts.
»» Develops individual input into creating group futures.
»» Promotes sense-making of complex phenomena.
•• Promotes new understanding(s) of change in terms of:
»» Desirability
»» Plausibility
The StoryTech process is transitional, focusing on paths from the present
toward preferred personal and community futures. The guided nature of
the process asks the writer to help create successful “virtual” (seeming or
apparent) selves in pre-described successful futures. The writer’s task is to
define and flesh out the “virtual” self who has helped to create futures with
their successful personal and community outcomes.
The effect of creating successful “virtual” selves and positive personal and
organizational outcomes is to motivate individuals and to offer enhanced
choices to groups and organizations, thereby benefiting larger communi-
ties.
24. 17
A “virtual” approach to your 21st Century futures means a “seeming” ap-
proach -- one that allows the use of your imagination to create meaningful,
positive choices concerning your future.
StoryTech will show you how to bring hidden, or tacit, personal knowledge
into the “information base” of the community. By using newly available in-
formation, the community will be able to reconsider its future alternatives.
Throughout this Guidebook you’ll notice that your story exercises begin
with questions about the context of the story. This is important because
the quality of the stories will be improved if such questions are asked and
answered.
The advantages of StoryTech include:
1. Developing skills for describing and evaluating plausible personal fu-
tures; and,
2. Demonstrating that plausible personal futures do not have to be de-
layed until tomorrow -- their development can begin today.
Your first task as an StoryTech facilitator is to help inform yourself about
plausible futures for the community.
Next, you will engage yourself in creating, describing and evaluating plau-
sible futures through the StoryTech process. The StoryTech process con-
sists of written exercises, group discussions, and written and oral feedback
of previous StoryTech exercises.
The outcomes of StoryTech exercises are two-fold:
1. A rich data base on your alternative futures is established, and these
futures are ranked in order of their plausibility.
2. At selected points in the process you will benefit from weaving togeth-
er the most appealing components of several stories. This results in
the production of cumulative StoryTech products which can be offered
as new information to organizations and communities.
StoryTech is a personal futuring tool
In any work or living setting, we tell stories about past events and key peo-
ple in order to solidify personal and community cultures, exemplify values,
and honor our leaders and heroes. We create stories to impart knowledge
25. 18
and give meaning to key events and decisions. Stories anticipate and solve
future problems and create future opportunities. Stories are told, retold,
interpreted, and embellished to describe how things are done somewhere,
how they were done, and how they will be done.
StoryTech is a self-guided method based on the ages-old storytelling skills
of our species. The StoryTech narrative method was specifically created to
seek out, mine, and “alchemize” the strategic priorities of individuals par-
ticipating in personal and community change.
StoryTech helps users generate new menus of options for the future with-
out slight- ing the dignity or importance of personal agendas. This course
will ask your group to develop and maintain an information base of stories
so that your individual commitments won’t be lost.
StoryTech is particularly focused on how we can do things in our future.
It is an inherently logical process, subject to change, amplification, and
enjoyable communication to others. It is based on the shared richness,
variety, and believability of stories developed by individuals alone or within
an organization. StoryTech captures, holds, and convincingly displays com-
pelling images of personal and community futures.
StoryTech is a process for the enhanced extraction, analysis, and synthesis
of information, knowledge, and ideas about personal and community fu-
tures. It uses the individual’s unique insight, common sense, wisdom, cre-
ativity, and intimate knowledge to expand menus of choices for the future.
StoryTech provides strong and renewable associations between individual
and community visions of the future, and links these directly to current
societal climates.
In summary, the purpose of using StoryTech is to help construct menus of
stories about futures, our roles in helping to create futures, and our efforts
to improve the quality of individual and community efficiency by sharing
stories.
How did StoryTech evolve?
Several years ago one of the authors became intrigued with the Japanese
capability in imaging and long-range futures planning. In 1985, Arthur Har-
kins began to study storytelling as a methodology for creating the future.
In 1989, he addressed a World Futures Study Federation conference in Ja-
pan, where he spoke with Japanese industrial and academic leaders.
26. 19
Shortly after returning from Japan, Harkins began offering StoryTech to
clients. One of the discoveries from that first use of StoryTech was the
uniformly positive attitudes of participants toward developing, telling, and
listening to strategic stories.
StoryTech has now been used with a very broad range of clients at all lev-
els: award winning managers, medical professionals, power company ex-
ecutives, and government employees, and in all Harkins’ University of Min-
nesota classes and graduate seminars.
The StoryTech theory
StoryTech is a method for individual and collective visioning and change
management. StoryTech is a means to tap into the subconscious brain
as well as the intellectual brain, allowing a fuller glimpse of what people
would like to see as their personal and community futures.
Building upon past experiences, StoryTech participants bring a history of
awareness to bear upon personal and community potentials. Participants
are moved into a process of imaging themselves in future situations (or
“virtual” futures).
In such imagined futures, participants navigate and manage the necessary
and reasonable changes that must occur to bring them to a desired state
of future accomplishment. In the process of creating virtual futures, partici-
pants form new images, solve problems, and form relationships.
Of course, as in the case of anything else associated with thinking and
learning, StoryTech works as well as the person carrying it out. After three
years of using StoryTech in hundreds of settings, I have stimulated serious
responses by the great majority of participants--around ninety-nine percent
of them.
Each StoryTech exercise in StoryTech has been very broadly customized to
a wide institutional range of community needs, situations, goals, and ob-
jectives. Through StoryTech, you will be looking into your group’s “virtual”
residency in the coming years of their community’s future.
Storytelling and Process Futuring
Most of us have heard of people called futurists. The process futurist helps
us to create and evaluate individual and group futures. Do we prefer a par-
ticular future? Despise or fear it? The process futurist helps us decide which
27. 20
futures are the best ones under specific conditions.
As a process futurist, I use guided storytelling as a methodology for help-
ing clients explore and manage their futures. We have learned a number
of things about the use for guided storytelling and its effects on individuals
and organizations. This Guidebook shares that knowledge with you!
Stories have a “virtual” relationship to everyday reality. They help us cre-
ate visions of where our change management and futures thinking should
lead us.
Why StoryTech works
1. Guided storytelling can quickly and easily generate simulations of
preferable tomorrows.
2. Storytelling comes easily to nearly everyone. Everyone’s childhood
involved experiences with storytelling. We were all listeners and
storytellers.
3. Storytelling seems to draw upon a very old way of thinking.
Storytelling creates and resolves tensions about important
situations. This is why storytelling is so compelling: it releases us
from the tensions created by dilemmas. (Just think of any good
murder mystery.)
4. Storytelling makes parts of the real world “go virtual.” This means
that stories can make up new ways for parts of the real world to
behave.
30. 23
Chapter 2:
Becoming intimate with
StoryTech
Some see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’
I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’
George Bernard Shaw
StoryTech is a process which combines story-telling and story-telling tech-
niques, enabling its participants to stimulate their imaginations and create
for themselves positive learning and teaching futures. StoryTech was de-
rived from Japanese culture, tradition, and belief.
Note on StoryTech and change
•• Humans (individually and collectively) address change through the
creation of stories that provide understanding and direction.
•• They address variety and novelty by creating appropriate new variety
and novelty.
The Guidebook is an attempt to assist you in understanding and manag-
ing changes that are impinging on your future of rewarding choices. It of-
fers a bottom line that speaks to each of us: Can our own positive futures
stories exert an influence over our intentions -- and commitments -- to
actually live an improved future?
There is a growing need for individuals to understand and manage per-
sonal changes which may lead to more rewarding futures. This Guidebook
aims to help you identify learning opportunities by telling yourself positive
stories about your futures.
Futures derived from the StoryTech process are personally tailored by each
31. 24
individual participant. StoryTech allows for such personalization through
individualized story-telling. The versatility of StoryTech encourages a vari-
ety of futures for each participant and every group.
The individual is critically important to StoryTech. You are the very best
source of positive stories about your own learning and teaching futures.
Your own desires and expectations are important factors in the stories you
choose to tell yourself about your future productivity and happiness.
The stories you tell yourself about what you want and what you are will-
ing to work for can significantly change your choices about yourself and
your organization or community. By telling yourself positive stories about
your own learning behavior in the futures of tomorrow and beyond, you
can gain valuable confidence in your ability to create desirable alternatives
within your life.
This guidebook will help you work with others
The contents of this Guidebook will help individuals and groups to expand
their awareness of the future choices available to them and to their com-
munities.
Later the Guidebook will ask you, acting as a StoryTech facilitator, to direct
a number of story-telling exercises designed to help group members de-
velop clearer and more desirable personal, organizational, and community
futures. The self-education method used for this purpose is positive story-
telling about your personal, organizational, and community futures.
All stories are “simulations” -- they “represent” a message about something,
such as a community life free of excessive pessimism and self-criticism.
Telling stories is a habit we can choose to acquire. We can also choose to:
•• Immediately educate ourselves about our futures.
•• Immediately develop skills in creating futures worth living in.
•• Immediately look forward to transitioning problems into desirable,
positive futures.
This Guidebook is founded on the premise that people are personally able
to create, modify, and tell others important stories about their personal
and community futures. This means that StoryTech facilitators can choose
to create many positive stories to use in shaping these futures.
32. 25
Guidebook principles
This Guidebook is established on the principle that people who learn to
tell positive stories about their futures should be more likely to want – and
expect – to live as effective members of their communities.
The Guidebook encourages two kinds of interactivity: First, within our own
persons; and second, between us and others members of the community.
The process involves 8 steps…
First, identify the need for change. What is it that needs changing?
What do you want to change? Study the situation. Learn as much
about it as you can.
Second, find the alternatives. What will happen if you do nothing?
What is possible for you to accomplish? What changes can you create?
Third, make a decision to change and help others to decide to change.
Fourth, set your objectives. Decide how much to change and how fast.
Fifth, build confidence and commitment to change. What are the
potential benefits? What are the barriers to change? How can you
minimize them? What frightens you or others about change? How can
you deal with these fears?
Sixth, make your action plans. Determine your strategy. Calculate the
step-by-step activities needed to reach your goal. Devise a timetable.
Evaluate your plan. Is it realistic? Discuss it with others.
Seventh, apply the resources: people, time, money, materials, energy,
technology. Go after your goal one small step at a time.
Eighth, keep your change progressing. Once the activities have begun,
keep them rolling. Reward yourself and others for making progress.
These are the steps. They are easy to list and sometimes difficult to
execute, but they are worth the effort.
We can benefit from the story-telling exercises by applying selected results
of this work to developing new plans for the community. We can choose to
33. 26
increase the number, variety, and quality of choices available for inventing
personal and community futures.
Personal stories are useful for the reception, storage, transmission and
transformation of information useful to organizations during their commu-
nity pre-planning processes.
Stories usually have “inputs” from “outside” themselves, and they can gen-
erate new information on the “inside.” Stories are very useful as platforms
for community pre-planning and many other information-driven purposes.
Stories give rich potential to the community pre-planning environment
from the standpoint of creating visions, or vectors, of where professional
planning should actually take us. Shared stories act as a “vision envelope”
that promotes more efficient, coordinated, and synergistic group pre-plan-
ning work.
Any of us may have many unique stories at his/her disposal, and each of
these is capable of presenting new information to the group. Even if we
have few professional skills, we are easily able to learn, modify, create, and
tell personally important stories -- with no trouble at all!
Storytelling permits positive and effective participation in organizational
and community pre-planning activities. The person who is sharing per-
sonal stories with the group is engaged is communicating as a valuable,
socially empowered human being. She or he is a leader.
Stories are dynamic:
•• A primary function of the human mind is to construct models of differ-
ent realities.
•• Generic or foundational stories are building blocks for models.
•• Guiding stories tend to direct individual behavior.
•• Desirable stories tend to be self-fulfilling.
StoryTech creates new or modified futures:
•• StoryTech cannot transmit socially factual stories about the future.
•• StoryTech can develop and transmit socially heuristic stories about the
future.
•• StoryTech can transmit robust personal stories about alternative fu-
tures.
34. 27
•• Personal stories can be aggregated to produce synthesized stories
about alternative organizational or social futures and how to achieve
them.
Story telling and StoryTech
•• StoryTech assumes everyone is already a natural story teller.
•• Story telling is an intuitive process.
•• Story telling is a low-cost technology.
•• We already are natural story tellers.
•• Story telling is an applied soft technology, or human software.
•• Story telling technology uses natural language.
35. 28
Narrating new or modified futures
We live on the edge of an emerging reality. The world changes constantly.
It is a river that is wide and varied. The more the river changes, the more
you must adjust your course. But also the more it changes, the more op-
portunities you have to create the life you want. Don’t drift into the future
without guidance. Steer yourself. But don’t stop there – design your boat.
Imagine where you can go and plan how to travel there. There is much you
can do to influence your future. There is much you can do to create change
and make your life, and those around yours, what they can become.
StoryTech resources:
•• StoryTech recognizes people as the most valuable sources of variety,
invention, and innovation.
•• StoryTech credits individuals with possessing unique and value-adding
knowledge, ideas, imagination and intuition (i.e., ‘condensed experi-
ence’).
•• StoryTech employs these resources to create, explore, and develop al-
ternate futures.
Evolving more desirable futures
Today we have a greater storehouse of knowledge and a greater ability for
achieving a more desirable future than at any other period in history. Our
responsibility for the future, for ourselves, for our businesses and for those
that follow us is to use our new abilities and new knowledge to bring
about more desirable futures.
StoryTech supports change:
•• When an organization’s (or an individual’s) stories become too rigid to
adapt to new information, new stories must be developed to provide
alternate ways of organizing experience.
•• Stories allow the safe rehearsal of how ideas might unfold or be en-
acted in reality. Deep within the individual they function as knowledge
engines.
•• Stories express options, rehearse alternatives, convey information and
knowledge, and direct efforts.
•• Stories are experiments that produce useful new information.
You have the ability to create change in order to make your future what you
want. You can be a catalyst of change. Just as you are changed, so you can
36. 29
be a changer. You can decide what change is needed and work to make it
happen. You can change yourself and you can help other people change.
You can introduce change in your life, at your work and in your organization
or community. You can implement change instead of waiting for change
to occur.
Innovating new opportunities
Innovations appear in three settings:
First, someone consciously applies an innovation in areas where it can ex-
pand personal and group choices about how to view optional futures and
the decisions that are associated with them. An example of this is an excit-
ing new way of seeing the world.
Second, someone consciously applies an innovation in areas where it can
cause creative disruption. An example of this is a specific new world that
is both exciting and involving.
Third, innovation appears in uses beyond the innovator’s dreams. Integrat-
ed circuits, for example, were first constructed for use in large computers.
Then they began being used in sewing machines and other equipment.
After that someone conceived the idea to use them in digital watches and
video games. The inventors of integrated circuits had never even imagined
video games.
Warning: all innovations, regardless of what type, tend to create new prob-
lems even as they cope with existing ones.
You generate opportunities for yourself by innovating. You see a new job
created by new technology and you apply for it. You see a need in your
company and figure out a way to supply the solution. You see what people
need that is not now available or look into the future and forecast what
will be needed. You take someone else’s innovation and apply it in a new
way. You see something someone else is doing and realize it would be
useful somewhere else. You take Teflon out of the space program and put
it on frying pans.
StoryTech delivers preferred outcomes
Stories are “soft” technologies, but they can produce powerful results,
much like effective social, cultural, and personal policies.
37. 30
•• Stories have historically transferred cultural knowledge from the past
to the present.
•• Today, stories are also used to define and rehearse alternative futures
and preferred outcomes, which then influence the present.
•• Stories are tools to reinterpret the past as well as to strategize and
rehearse new futures.
•• Stories serve as prototypes for the construction of more detailed reali-
ties, strategies, and visions.
•• Stories expand self-concepts, world views, and the missions and goals
of persons, organizations, and communities.
To generate opportunities like this requires creativity. You have to be able
to look at the world and see it in new ways. If you are not accustomed to
looking at life this way, your creative energies need to be rekindled. If your
creativity lies dormant, it can re reawakened. We all have some creative
ability and there are many ways to reinvigorate our creative spirit. But
remember:
•• StoryTech cannot transmit factual stories about the future.
•• StoryTech can transmit robust stories about alternative futures.
The best way to rekindle creativity is to begin exercising your brain. When
you are confronted with a problem, don’t figure out just one way to solve
it, come up with 100 different solutions. Emphasize quantity, not quality.
Look for the unusual. Challenge your assumptions. Just because you have
found one good way of doing something, doesn’t mean you always have
to do it that way. Try other approaches. Find a new way to do your work.
Think of new activities you can do. Think of new ways of living.
Blueprints for new futures
Visualizing in your mind what you want gives you the capacity to accom-
plish it. What we conceive and dream, what goals we set, these are the
things that we strive to create. When you can visualize your goal and pic-
ture in your mind every step along the way, you can work to make it hap-
pen. When you can design plans for your future, you can make that future
reality. A plan helps you set the forces in motion ahead of time. A plan lets
you influence the future before it arrives.
Stories and change:
•• Stories become a personal necessity as cultural assumptions, projec-
tions, myths and legends fail to keep pace with social and other chang-
38. 31
es.
•• Cultural resources have generally developed slowly and continued for
long periods.
•• Today, the half-life of cultural myths is much shorter in many contexts.
•• Stories must keep pace with, and ideally outpace, the rates of social,
technological, and other forms of change.
•• Strategic stories can provide needed personal and collective re-direc-
tion in rapid changing, highly diverse contexts.
Where Have You Been?
The first thing you need to know to plan your future is where you have
been and where you are now. The best way to do this is to picture your
past and present by drawing time lines. We suggest you read through the
process below, then go back and try it. You will be surprised by what you
learn about yourself.
•• Take out several sheets of paper and on the left hand side of the first
sheet write down various categories of your lifestyle, such as age,
health, love life, children, school, work, income, net worth, hobbies,
recreational activities, where you live, type of housing, transportation.
•• Make the list as complete as you can to allow you to describe your
life in full. Across the top of the page, draw a time line beginning
with the year you were born and ending with the current year. Write
down each year and just below it your age that year.
•• For every year of your life and for every lifestyle category, write down
major events and draw a line parallel to the time line to show how
long they lasted.
•• You might want to show your job history, when you were in school,
when you got married, when you bought your first car and your
second car, when you moved away from home into an apartment and
when you bought your first house.
•• You may want to write down your earnings each year and your net
worth so you can see how they changed. When you finish, your time
lines should look somewhat like the example shown.
•• When you have this done, go back and beside each event or change
in the status of a category, write down how the event changed you
and what impact it had on you.
•• Following that, for each event, write down whether you were in con-
trol or whether the event just happened to you.
Now analyze your time line. What are the trends? How frequently do you
change jobs? How often do you buy new cars or new houses? What is the
39. 32
average increase in your salary per year? Were you in control of most of the
major events in your life or was someone else?
Exercise: Where Are You Going?
The next step in planning your future is to project forward what would hap-
pen if you kept doing what you are doing now. Get out another sheet of
paper and at the bottom draw another time line with future dates marked
on it.
My Future If I Continue On the Same Course:
Where I Life Housing Transportation Love Life
Parents Children School Work
Salary Net Worth Illnesses Vacations
Recreation Hobbies Religion Leisure
Innovating changes in your life
Now put your projections aside for a minute and pull out another piece of
paper. On this one, make a list of changes that could happen the next few
years. For example: enrolling in school to further your education, the birth
of a child, a promotion, going on strike or getting laid off, being called back
to work, buying a computer, or going on vacation.
Make sure you look at your time line to see what changes have happened
in the past and that might happen again. Make your list extensive. The
more changes you consider the better prepared you will be for coping with
the future. Go through the list and estimate the probability of the changes
actually occurring.
The next step is to figure out how the high probability changes would af-
fect you. For example, if the promotion comes through it would mean more
money, or if you bought a computer you might drop some other hobby to
spend time learning how to compute.
Ask yourself if each change is welcomed or unwelcome. If it is unwelcome,
is there something you can do to stop it? Can you slow it down? Is it worth
the effort? What do you have to do to prepare for it?
If it is a welcomed change, can you accelerate it? What do you need to do
to make sure it happens? Do you need to prepare for it?
40. 33
Using your imagination
You can estimate what new opportunities and threats could occur in the
future. These would be things that are not available today. For example,
what kinds of jobs will be available in the future that aren’t available now,
or where you will be able to vacation in future that you couldn’t possibly
visit today, such as a space-based Holiday Inn orbiting Earth.
To help with this, you may need to read Web sites, newspapers and maga-
zines that focus on the future and what can become possible in the years
to come. In fact, this should become an ongoing process with you. As you
read the newspaper, go to bookstores and libraries and peruse magazine
racks, you should always be on the look out for new opportunities, threats
and alternatives.
Exercise: Make a list of these opportunities and threats for use
in the next step of the planning process. Use your imagination.
Don’t just list opportunities other people have written or talked
about. Write down what you think will happen. If you don’t con-
sider possible future options, you will be planning your life based
only on yesterday’s choices. That is like driving your car by follow-
ing an obsolete map.
Your ideal future
The future is not out there in front of us, but inside of us.
Macy in Feinstein & Krippner
What would you like your future to be? Picture it just the way you want it.
Let your imagination loose. Create a future that is the most desirable for
you. Paint a picture.
Ask yourself what changes you want to happen. What changes can you
create? What opportunities can you generate for yourself? If you could
change your job, how would you change it? If you could change your re-
lationship to your boss how would you? If you could be more creative at
work, how would you do it?
Who are the people you really like best? Why do you like them? Do you
spend enough time with them? Who are the people you don’t like and
spend a lot of time with because you have to? Why do you have to? When
do you take yourself seriously enough to follow your own impulses? When
41. 34
don’t you? Why don’t you? When was the last time you wanted to make
a major change in your life and didn’t? Why didn’t you? Was your reason
worth the sacrifice you had to make?
Pick a time, such as five years from now, and figure out what you would like
to be doing then. How old will you be? Where do you want to be living?
Who do you want to be living with? How old will your friends, parents,
spouse and children be? What work do you want to do? What kind of
people will you want to work with. How much
do you want to earn? What recreational activities will you want to par-
ticipate in? What hobbies will you have? Where will you go on vacation?
What will be the driving forces in your life? Will you be healthy? How much
longer will you live? What will medical care be like then? What will be the
condition of the world? Of the economy?
42. 35
Exercise: My ideal future five, ten, or twenty years from
now...
Where will I be living? What will my income be?
What kind of housing will I have? What will be my net worth?
What type of personal transporta-
tion?
What illnesses may I have?
Who will I love and who will love
me?
Where will I vacation?
Will I have children? If so, how old? What hobbies will I have?
Where will my parents be? What will be my religion?
What work will I be doing? What will I believe?
What type of education and train-
ing will I be taking?
What will I do for recreation and
entertainment?
A plan for your future is important to achieving what you want in life, but
there are risks in having a plan. An unexpected event could make the plan
impossible to accomplish. In a period of rapid change, the unforeseen
event must be expected. You need to be ready for the time when your plan
is dealt a fatal blow. To keep from becoming locked into one plan, you need
contingency plans. We suggest that you base these plans on StoryTech-
produced mental maps.
Not one plan, but many stories!
StoryTechs outline various ways of achieving your goal. You can have a
dozen StoryTechs all targeted at reaching the same goal but which go
there in different ways. This way when the unforeseen event blocks one
route, you can quickly shift to another.
The unforeseen event can destroy a goal as well as the means of getting
there. For example, if you set your goal to run in a marathon and begin
your training, but find that your knees are not strong enough to take the
pounding that comes with running miles on hard paved roads, you could
feel like a failure. However, if you had started out with several StoryTechs
with different but comparable goals--such as entering a 55-kilometer (34
miles) cross country ski race or a 100-mile iron man bicycle race, you would
have acceptable alternatives.
Creating StoryTechs uses a process suffused throughout this Guidebook.
StoryTechs are ephemeral, like meteors. Keeping them updated, adding
43. 36
new ones and making them work for you is important. StoryTechs can be
junked, replaced and combined. If one doesn’t work, you are not a failure.
Rather, that approach didn’t work. With StoryTechs you can keep your bat-
ting average high. You have some hits, walks and strikeouts, but you may
still win 80 percent of your games.
You still visualize what you want to accomplish, you identify the obstacles
and you figure out your step-by-step actions, but you do it in parallel.
For example, if you are overweight and in poor physical condition and want
to get in shape, you can create several weight loss StoryTechs to help you
become physically fit. Your StoryTechs could take different approaches.
One would consist of ways of becoming physically active, such as playing
racquetball, lifting weights, jogging or riding a bicycle. Another would be
dieting variations. Under both sets of StoryTechs you would be working
toward your image of what you want to become.
With one plan your eggs are all in one basket. With StoryTech alternatives,
you are flexible and adaptable. You are prepared for change. What’s more,
you are increasingly in a position to initiate your own changes rather than
wait for them to be offered or forced by others.
The impatience problem
You may find when you’re going through this process of forecasting, visual-
izing and planning your future that you become impatient with the pres-
ent. Your hopes and ambitions for the future create a discontent with the
way things are now. In fact, that’s good. This discontinuity will encourage
you to work harder to achieve the future you have visualized.
At least in theory, no StoryTech can be created without altering the future.
In theory, all StoryTechs can influence the future that actually occurs. By
using StoryTech you change your alternative futures and thereby your pres-
ent. In conceiving your most desirable future, you have changed your de-
sirable present.
The more awareness you have of future possibilities, the greater your ex-
pectations, the harder you strive to achieve them and the faster you pull
your future into reality. Change becomes a way of life for you, not as a
victim, but as a StoryTech leader.
44. 37
The anticipatory storyteller
When you become attuned to change, you are like a dancer who can invent
the next dance step. As the music changes, the audience changes and the
dancers change. You are like a quarterback who can scramble, call a new
play at the line of scrimmage, and adapt when your pass receiver trips and
falls.
When you create an anticipatory lifestyle, your antennae are out. You pick
up the contextual signs and clues that signal what is happening around
you. You are awake to the universe you live in and to the contexts around
you and inside you. You are open to the future, letting it create itself for
you day by day even as you are creating it. You are flexible, adaptable,
open-minded, and creative. You become a trend maker, a risk taker, an
experimenter, an early adopter, a change creator, an opportunity generator.
You plan, yet you are flexible enough to change your plans quickly.
When you live successfully in a world of rapid change, you become a plu-
ralistic person with many alternative ways of living. You become multi-
faceted, not one-sided. You realize you are not stuck in one life pattern or
one job. You develop many skills and many abilities.
StoryTech automatically promotes and facilitates these dynamics. You can
use your abilities to adapt, harness and create change. You can see your-
self becoming an astronaut, even at age 70 or more.
Your life is nascent, always coming into being, always emerging. Life is an
adventure. Be stressed by life. Be challenged by life. Have fun with life.
Follow your impulses. Maximize yourself. Have the courage to face your-
self and to launch your future from there.
StoryTech is postmodern in its assumptions:
•• There are no privileged observation platforms.
•• There is no single truth.
Similarly, StoryTech assumes:
•• No single story is complete.
•• Every story represents a particular and distinctive point of view (per-
spective).
•• Understanding the perspective employed is important to understand-
ing its value in the creation of particular futures and specific new
45. 38
decision choices.
Keep reading, keep thinking, keep talking, keep listening, and keep grow-
ing. Position yourself with other people who are willing to change and
work at a company that strives to change and grow. Accept change as
natural. Above all, be excited about the future. The wind is blowing. Open
the door. Run outside and feel the wind in your face. Above all, tell positive
stories to yourself and to anyone who will listen!
Audience-participants create parallel stories and fill in
missing story parts with personal context (experiences).
Results:
•• Personal ownership
•• Retention of control
•• User-friendly vocabulary (natural language)
48. 41
Chapter 3:
Practicing StoryTech In
Groups
StoryTech offers you, acting as a StoryTech facilitator, a process for rede-
signing and renewing your group’s or group’s approach to their futures.
Using the StoryTech method will also enable you to use your imagination
to create detailed, positive stories about your own preferred, personalized
futures.
StoryTech helps create strategic groups
•• StoryTech instigates individuals to respond publicly with their stories.
•• Sharing individual stories creates a strategic community.
•• The story telling audience becomes part of the StoryTech performance.
You can request participants to write StoryTech exercises as two people:
the “real” self, and a “virtual” self who acts as a “scout” into an group or
group future. Comfortable connections between “real” and the “virtual”
selves are very important to the outcome of StoryTech exercises.
StoryTech creates collaboration spaces
StoryTech creates new personal and social contexts that can become fer-
tile contexts for collaboration. This process is one of inventing, adjusting,
adapting and sharing stories:
The process is one of inventing, adjusting, adapting and sharing stories:
1. The narrator invents purposive stories and publicly shares these purpo-
sive stories.
2. The audience or participants reinterpret the narrator’s stories as their
49. 42
own personal stories, and share their personal stories as part of a gen-
erative process.
3. Context changes collapse these stories into proto-typical themes, and
are fed into the development of new stories for use by the narrator to
re-start the cycle.
Several key principles in the creation of new stories are:
1. Narrators provide guiding stories.
2. Participants create new stories based on personal contexts.
3. When direct knowledge or experience is not available, participants fill
in the gaps with applied imagination ….thus, new stories are created.
StoryTech will help you develop “How do we get from here to there?” sce-
narios, containing detailed descriptions of pathways to improved person-
al and collective futures. The StoryTech process encourages them to ask,
“What impact will an improved ‘menu’ of futures have on my personal life?
On my group or community?” The StoryTech process can also be used to
reexamine the past and reassess the present.
Setting the stage
In your work as facilitator of a StoryTech group, it is important to “set the
stage” for the discussion of meaningful personal and group changes. This
chapter is intended to assist you in getting started with this process.
Here are ten major changes now playing out on the American and world
stages.
Copy these pages and hand them out. Engage them in a warm-up discus-
sion session before you engage in a practice StoryTech session.
•• Changing global relationships:
What are the implications when our Earth is seen more and more as
an isolated, politically fragile planetary home? What are the changing
implications of Russia’s unpredictability, Asia’s growing importance
(and, perhaps, eventual dominance), of Europe’s fitfully more united
economic and political group? What are the implications of terrorism,
rebellions, and wars in the context of the Internet and of readily avail-
able weapons?
•• A changing American society:
The USA is becoming less Caucasian. How will the society react as
people of color increase in number and influence? How will the rise
of Americans with ties, not to Europe, but to Asia, the Middle East,
Africa and South America affect the American view of the world? Will
50. 43
the American social future resemble a melting pot? A salad? A stew?
Will it be stable or unstable? How “targetable” will America become?
•• Changing natural environments:
What could new efforts to understand the planet as a system of inter-
related weather, oceanic and other processes bring? What are the
societal results of rain forest depletion, the greenhouse effect, plank-
ton die-offs, storm pattern changes, gas emissions and temperature
changes? Will we have to learn how to cool off the planet? Will some
societies gird against environmental changes and ignore the plights
of others?
•• Changing spiritual expressions:
In the West and elsewhere, traditional forms of religion and morality
are under siege by newer forms of “situational” and “personalized”
moralities. Concepts of deities and their relationship to men and
women are being “modernized” to reflect concerns about the environ-
ment, the destruction of wealth, women’s rights, and the plight of
children. In the midst of all this change, traditionalist churches flour-
ish in North America and Europe. What will all this pot-boiling bring
about? Is there a backlash coming, perhaps on a global scale?
•• Changing health issues:
The life expectancy of humankind is increasing as a function of
changes in food, hygiene, public health and medical services. Soci-
eties are grappling with issues of how to deliver the fruits of these
changes – less developed societies with the delivery of food and
public health, and developed societies with the allocation of costly
medical technologies. Paradoxically, both rich and poor alike suffer
from the expectations of increased standards of living, a phenomenon
often associated with stress diseases.
•• Changing recreation and leisure:
For those with the means, our planet is becoming a tourist play-
ground. Electronics offer magical leisure for the well-off. Some
homes contain machines that are the equivalent of commercial gyms.
Some leisure activities damage the natural environment. How will
recreation look in the future? How can we balance recreation with
environmental protection? How do we protect weaker societies from
massive tourism impacts? Are video games replacing disciplined
learning?
•• Changing built environments:
The sheer number of houses, coupled with their sewer, water, heat-
ing, cooling and transportation requirements, have begun to develop
“whole system” impacts. Factories, offices, shopping malls, roads,
cars, planes, and even space vehicles and platforms have added to
the complexity of the built environment. Only now are we beginning
to understand the importance of proper management of the built
51. 44
environment. Is the built environment a form of eco-cancer? How can
we control urban sprawl? What is happening to farms, greenbelts,
and “protected” lands?
•• Changing communications:
The speed of communications has jumped to the speed of light.
Telecommunications hardware moves information around the planet
faster than many individuals, groups and cultures are able to cope
with. How do we manage this change? One response has been
machine intelligence and “neural networks” designed to manage the
chaos caused by clashes between light-speed information and “slow”
cultures. But what are the effects of becoming dependent on hard-
ware to keep up with other hardware?
•• Changing education:
Some critics are questioning whether mass education is still possible
when we struggle to raise the performances of the bottom 50 percent
of the American society so that they can cope with change. Others
seek to redefine the goals of education in a technologically advanced
society with its portable learning devices and information bases. Still
others discuss education reform in the context of life-long learning.
What are the possible futures of an education system that seems to
be giving up, redefining its mission, and expanding its client base --
all at the same time?
•• Changing home lives:
Declining nuclear and extended families in America have stimulated
numerous choices in intimate lifestyle structures. Yet a growing num-
ber of these new structures are associated with poverty and the loss
of choices. Is there a need for new legislation or economic incentives
for certain structures? Abortion rights, crack babies, fetal alcoholism
syndrome, smoking during pregnancy, and child support have raised
anew issues of children’s rights and parental responsibilities. Should
these concerns justify greater intervention into the privacy of the fam-
ily? What restraints should there be on these interventions?
How should you portray these or other changes to your
group?
Remember that you are helping the group --and yourself-- to relax and
learn about trends and opportunities that could impact the future of the
group. Encourage yourself --and the group-- to reach out for information
rather than be surprised or even assaulted by its “surprise arrival.” With
StoryTech, you will be helping the group and yourself to:
1. Understand the present culture of the group.
52. 45
2. Place the group as accurately as possible within the context of the
present, changing world.
3. Envision alternative positive futures for the group.
4. Suggest ways of inventing and implementing these futures.
The following questions can serve as models...
1. What kinds of information and knowledge does your group need but
cannot get access to right now? Why are they not available? How will
you gain access?
2. What types of human interaction are currently possible within the
group?
3. What values does the group currently espouse?
4. What underlying myths currently lend support to the activities of the
group?
5. What is the present structure of the group?
6. What is the role of autonomy in the group? Individualism? Creativity?
7. What is your group’s most basic need for the immediate future (1-5
years)? How can an opportunity-oriented approach to the future help
the group meet that need?
8. What personality types are best suited for the work of your group?
9. Inventory the dominant paradigms which make up the culture of your
group.
10. What are the social, economic, technological, political, and environ-
mental attitudes of your group?
11. Do the intellectual, emotional, moving, and instinctive operations of
your group serve to facilitate proaction through group interactions?
12. Identify the boundaries and horizons of your group.
13. Identify your group’s desirable functions and undesirable dysfunctions.
14. Ask a successful minority person how various institutions in the group
helped or hindered his or her rise to prominence.
Another step is to gain a broad understanding of the group. This is crucial
for developing a sense of the group’s options for the future and possible
ways of implementing these options and continuing on-going improve-
ment. Here are the steps to getting started:
1. Choose a group agency or agencies to study. It could be one with
which you are already associated--school, job, social group. Or you
could start from scratch and choose one that especially interests you.
The following is a broad list of possibilities: for-profit, non-profit, vol-
unteer, professional, big business, small business, church, school, club,
social service, and government department or agency.
2. Contact appropriate members of the agency or agencies for interviews.
53. 46
If possible, arrange with them to put the interviews on a continuing
basis, for it will take more than one to complete your task.
3. Prepare for the interviews. Gather basic, public information about the
agency (ies) yourself. Prepare to get at the information you want. Ask
general questions first, more detailed ones later.
Help experts, specialists and group citizens to cope with such questions
routinely. Coping with change on a daily basis will make change seem less
strange and invasive, and will put the average citizen of your group in an
empowered relationship to both personal and collective futures. The Story-
Tech process is designed specifically with the empowerment goal in mind.
Getting your feet wet: Becoming a StoryTech facilitator:
Now it is time to try some practice StoryTech activities within the group.
Relax, and encourage your group to do the same. While it is productive,
StoryTech is also fun!
Working with others in StoryTech facilitators to attain proficiency in the
twelve dynamics of successful story-based communities:
•• We are a powerful group -- our future has become positive.
•• We believe that we have improved our pride.
•• We have made an inventory of our group’s good points and begun to
use them creatively in planning and building our future.
•• We have identified our personal and group strengths and we are im-
proving upon them.
•• We are making a list of our customers and clients, how we have served
them, and how we can better serve them in the future.
•• We are carrying out improved services to our customers and clients by
willingly partnering and collaborating with them whenever possible.
•• We are evaluating our attitudes and behaviors and identifying what’s
positive and how we can improve on these so that they work for the
group.
•• We are improving on our trend-identifying skills as individuals and as
a group.
•• We are improving on our planning skills as individuals and as a group.
•• We are improving on our decision-making skills as individuals and as
a group.
•• We’re making right choices for the group’s future and for our personal
futures.
54. 47
•• We’ve rebuilt our group’s future and we’re eager to help other commu-
nities do the same.
Diving into group process as a StoryTech facilitator...
As futuring is both a social and personal process, you will create a group
climate in which individuals and groups will develop, exchange and extend
their information and knowledge about desirable futures.
This means that the fun and chores of futuring will rest on everyone. But
you, the facilitator, will have to take ownership of the meeting. You will
play the three roles of facilitator, consultant and co-participant. You will be
continuously accessible for feedback, advice and —if requested— leader-
ship.
Because communication, critical thinking, and creativity are essential for
group success, you should evaluate the productivity and progress of Story-
Tech several times throughout your sequence of meetings.
StoryTech integrates modes of being
1. Affective, subconscious feelings (affective, intuitive).
2. Virtual visions and mental dramas.
3. Conscious thoughts (logos, rationality).
Here are several relatively detailed exercises that will demonstrate some
of the ways to involve group members in writing StoryTech exercises. Mod-
ify these exercises as necessary for your group!
55. 48
Group Process StoryTech
Number 1
Community 2013: What’s Our Story?
__________
Here’s a realistic practice StoryTech exercise. You’ll notice that the Story-
Tech exercise starts off with questions about the ambiance and setting of
your story. This is important because the quality of your story will be great-
ly improved if such questions are answered.
It is the afternoon of November ____ (year). You are talking with a new
friend who established residency in your community late in the year 2013.
Please describe exactly where you and your friend are carrying out your
conversation.
•• Are you indoors or out?
___________________________________________
•• What is the weather like on November ______?
___________________________________________
•• What kind of clothing are you wearing?
___________________________________________
•• The other person?
___________________________________________
•• Why is your conversation relaxed and friendly
___________________________________________
•• Why is the newcomer so approving of the stability and quality of so-
cial life in your community?
___________________________________________
56. 49
In the year 2013, you and your friend agree, your community’s quality of
social life is as good or better than in any other place on the world. After
listening to your friend, what do you say have been the major contributions
of education and health care toward you community’s high quality of social
life?
•• Education:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
•• Health:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
Why are the other communities starting to adopt these approaches to edu-
cation and health? Why are those communities also experiencing success?
___________________________________________
Tell your group “Thank You!” for completing this StoryTech exercise about
your group’s future. Tell them that results will be shared on a voluntary basis
during this meeting, and that a summary of everyone’s stories will be pro-
vided by your facilitator at the next meeting.
57. 50
Group Process StoryTech
Number 2
Community 2013: What’s Our Story?
__________
•• What is the date two weeks from today?
___________________________________________
•• What is the location where are you talking with your friend two weeks
from today -- is it indoors or out? Please describe the location.
___________________________________________
•• Please describe your friend. What does she or he look like, and how
is she or he dressed?
___________________________________________
•• What are you wearing?
___________________________________________
•• Why is your conversation with your close friend relaxed, friendly, and
happy?
___________________________________________
•• Your close friend comments that you seem strong and confident. He
or she asks, “How did you completely overcome your feelings of
worry about doing StoryTechs?” You smile at your friend and say:
___________________________________________
•• Your friend listens, smiles back, and says:
___________________________________________
58. 51
•• You are delighted by your friend’s comment. You think for a moment,
and then change the subject to your general future. You say, “When I
think about my future now, and any chance that fearing change will
ever threaten me again, I laugh, and think…”
___________________________________________
•• Your friend grins, pats you on the back, and says:
___________________________________________
59. 52
Group Process StoryTech
Number 3
Community 2013: What’s Our Story?
__________
It is four weeks from today. Your StoryTech program is going very well. You
have stopped worrying and you feel stronger than ever before.
You have completed four weeks of successful StoryTech visioning. Due to
your belief in yourself, you have volunteered to assist newcomers in their
StoryTech process. A new group member approaches you and comments
on your positive energy and enthusiasm.
•• What is the date four weeks from today?
___________________________________________
•• Where is this meeting taking place? How is the room set up? Are you
sitting or standing as you converse with others? Describe the atmo-
sphere that surrounds you.
___________________________________________
•• Please describe the new member who approaches you. What does he
or she look like?
___________________________________________
•• How are you dressed?
___________________________________________
•• Why do you feel comfortable and safe in conversing and sharing your
ideas with this new member?
___________________________________________
•• The new member is impressed by your positive attitude and asks,
“What are three changes you are making to take charge of your fu-
ture?”
___________________________________________
60. 53
•• The new member listens closely, nods and says:
___________________________________________
•• You are filled with excitement by the new member’s responses to your
comments. You tell him or her so, and with enthusiasm in your voice,
you say:
___________________________________________
•• The new member concludes the conversation by commenting that
he/she is delighted to have met you and that from your obvious
success and positive attitude, he or she has now set the following
personal futuring goals
___________________________________________
61. 54
Group Process StoryTech
Number 4
Community 2013: What’s Our Story?
__________
It is six weeks from today. Your StoryTech program is going very well. You
have stopped worrying and you feel more capable than ever before.
You are at a restaurant discussing your StoryTech progress with someone
who began his or her story-based futuring when you did. You are exchang-
ing comments concerning the various resources you have utilized in your
successful futuring, the benefits you have received from using these re-
sources, and the power of choice you have been able to incorporate in the
management of the group’s futures.
•• What is the date six weeks from today?
___________________________________________
•• What does the restaurant look like? Are you drinking coffee? Eating?
What time of day is it?
___________________________________________
•• Please describe your companion. What does she or he look like, and
how is she or he dressed?
___________________________________________
•• What are you wearing?
___________________________________________
•• Why is your conversation open, honest, relaxed and friendly?
___________________________________________
62. 55
Six weeks of StoryTech experience has opened your eyes to several
resources available to assist you in your futuring efforts. In discussing
them with your companion, you identify three resources which have been
significant in your personal futuring successes:
1. ___________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________
In turn, your futuring companion identifies three different resources which
he or she feels have significantly contributed to his or her successes:
1. ___________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________
You are inspired and moved by your companion’s uplifting and hopeful
comments and begin to think anew about your own future. You express
excitement and enthusiasm for what might lie ahead, and tell your com-
panion that in your future you can now see the following positive oppor-
tunities:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
As you get ready to leave the restaurant, your companion confirms that he
or she believes that you will no doubt reach your goals because you have
the power to achieve them. You respond to this supportive statement by
saying:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
63. 56
Group Process StoryTech
Number 5
__________
It is eight weeks from today. Your StoryTech program is going very well. You
have completely stopped worrying about change and the future. Strategi-
cally, you feel stronger than ever before.
You are at work, relaxing on break with a co-worker. Your co-worker is
aware that you have involved in a StoryTech futuring process.
•• What is the date eight weeks from today?
___________________________________________
•• Where is your place of employment located?
___________________________________________
•• Describe the room in which you are sharing a break with your co-
worker.
___________________________________________
•• Are you enjoying a snack or a beverage?
___________________________________________
•• Please describe your co-worker.
___________________________________________
•• What does she or he look like, and how is she or he dressed?
___________________________________________
•• What kind of work does he or she do?
___________________________________________
64. 57
•• What are you wearing?
___________________________________________
•• Why is your conversation with your co-worker relaxed, friendly, and
happy?
___________________________________________
Your co-worker tells you that he or she has noticed a change in you that
you seem happier, healthier, and more confident. You respond to these
observations by saying:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
You go on to explain that after four months of writing futuring stories, you
can feel yourself moving toward personal empowerment. You can feel
--growing both inside and outside you-- the hope and encouragement
needed to shape the group’s future.
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
•• Your co-worker asks: “How does personal futuring assist you in your
efforts toward helping the group achieve better futures?
___________________________________________
•• Your co-worker listens, and with much admiration, says:
___________________________________________
65. 58
•• You are pleased and flattered by your co-worker’s comment. You think
for a moment, and then direct the conversation toward the future.
You know that you will never doubt your group again, and that the
reason you can make that statement with the utmost confidence is:
___________________________________________
•• Your friend offers her or his support, and encourages your continued
success by saying:
___________________________________________
66. 59
Group Process StoryTech
Number 6
__________
It is twelve weeks from today. Your StoryTech futuring program has be-
come a solid part of the group. You are out for a quiet evening and dinner
with your spouse or significant other. You begin discussing your decision
to take control of your future and to help your group do the same.
•• What is the date twelve weeks from today?
___________________________________________
•• Where are you having dinner?
___________________________________________
•• Please describe the restaurant.
___________________________________________
•• Why have you selected this particular restaurant?
___________________________________________
•• What kind of food are you eating?
___________________________________________
•• Please describe how your spouse or significant other is dressed.
___________________________________________
•• What are you wearing?
___________________________________________
•• Why is your conversation with your spouse or significant other re-
laxed, friendly, and happy?
___________________________________________
67. 60
You are proud of your decision to become adept at futuring and to help
your group to do the same. You express that pride to your partner. You
acknowledge that positive changes have begun to occur in your life. You
share with your spouse or significant other three of the positive changes
you already have begun to experience. They are:
1. ___________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________
Your spouse or significant other comments on the positive changes he or
she can already see taking place. You ask him or her to identify three group
changes that they have noticed during twelve weeks of StoryTech futuring.
He or she smilingly identifies the following three positive group changes:
1. ___________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________
You smile with recognition and respond:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
You express confident hope for the group’s future and your spouse/signifi-
cant other expresses a shared belief in that hope. You say to him or her,
“What I hope the group can accomplish is”:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
68. 61
Your spouse or significant gives you a hug you as you get ready to leave
the restaurant. “I believe in our group,” he or she says, “and the reason that
we’ll absolutely succeed together is…”
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
69. 62
Congratulations!
You have just reviewed and selectively altered and completed somewhat
detailed exercises. These StoryTechs demonstrated some of the ways to in-
volve group members in writing StoryTech exercises. In future, you may use
these exercises as prototypes for your group, spinning off new exercises as
they are needed!
Stories are interactive!
•• Social stories require interaction between story teller and
audience.
•• Story tellers must listen for the audience, and purposively modify
their stories as needed.
•• Stories may be descriptive, motivational, and/or exploratory.
•• Stories share vision, purpose, and motivation
•• Stories create deep understanding.
•• Stories enhance creativity.
•• Stories provide implicit & explicit directions.
72. 65
Chapter 4:
Further Experience
with StoryTech in
Communities
The previous chapter of this Guidebook offered you assistance in conduct-
ing StoryTech within communities. This chapter offers more experience
in developing your role as a StoryTech facilitator. As before, feel free to
modify the exercises for the benefit of your interest group.
Stories and intelligence
•• Functional social intelligence – a collection of stories?
•• Intelligence may be defined as one’s repertoire of stories, and the
ability to tell the right story at the right time.
•• Stories are the primitives (building blocks) of intelligence and
competence.
73. 66
Community Development Collaborative (CDC) Futures
Join us for a StoryTech approach to creating a Community Development
Collaborative (CDC). “CDC Futures” is an interactive experience involving the
entire audience.
You will have an opportunity to create anticipatory future outcomes for
successful value-added learning services driven by collaboration between
government and other agencies and interests in your community. You’ll
hear many of these virtual CDC Futures during (today’s) workshop.
Your CDC Futures presenter and guide will be:
___________________________________________
They will involve you in developing virtual CDC Futures through a process
called StoryTech. StoryTech is based on positive future imaging developed
at the level of the individual, then shared with the group. An information
base of successful CDC Futures will be established during today’s work.
Based on this information, an analytical report will be developed and pro-
vided to you within ten working days.
StoryTech assumes that stories have power. They can amplify and enhance:
•• Human ability to change (personally and collectively).
•• The ability of story tellers to influence others.
•• The ability to efficiently and effectively effect change or reinforce un-
derstanding.
•• Beliefs, understandings, worldviews and/or behaviors.
Stories are the bases for social and personal construction of reality(s), and
stories permit new knowledge production:
•• New stories must be continuously generated to test and incorporate
fluctuating knowledge and worldviews.
•• Humans continuously reconstruct themselves by creating and testing
new stories via deep structure/ deep process (using raw resources of
dreams, intuition and internal dialogue).
Personal stories and collective stories co-exist in reflexive relationships.
74. 67
Storytelling is a technology that:
•• Structures human awareness and perception.
•• Provides for evolving construction of internal and external realities.
•• Amplifies the ability to construct understanding (personal and
social) in complex and rapidly changing contexts.
•• Aids in establishing personal and collective identity and direction.
[The StoryTech facilitator] will first discuss virtual CDC Futures in terms of
added value, mission, vision and governance outcome goals. These same
criteria will be at the core of today’s future case history exercises, which ac-
tively involve the audience in creating successful anticipatory CDC Futures
based on StoryTech.
For the following reasons, we believe that story-telling about CDC Futures
is both practical and responsible:
•• Practical anticipatory CDC Futures can positively alter basic beliefs
concerning what can be done, by whom, when and how.
•• Responsible anticipatory CDC Futures can complete the “loop” be-
tween today and a desirable future, thereby reducing or eliminating
the unreality of “pie in the sky” images that are isolated from the
present.
How will we create CDC Futures through the “toolbox” use of three interac-
tive Reality Paradigms?
This morning’s presentation introduces three Reality Paradigms that can be
used comfortably by education professionals. All three realities are in cur-
rent use, but two are not well understood and are producing only a fraction
of their potential value.
•• Reality 1 is Everyday Reality. Everyday Reality is built up by sharing
social declarations about what is “real” and “down to earth.” School
grades are a good indicator of Everyday Reality, as are the unadorned
senses of sight and touch. The skill base of persons operating in Re-
ality 1 lies in enhancing concreteness and predictability, and reducing
ambiguity and uncertainty.
•• Reality 2 is Virtual Reality. Virtual Reality exists mostly in the minds
of individuals. It is based on imagination and intuition, and exists
as a kind of “candidate” for crossover into Everyday Reality. The skill
75. 68
base of persons operating in Reality 2 lies in visions, metaphors, and
enticement.
•• Reality 3 is Blended Reality. Blended Reality is built up from the
choices that can connect Everyday and Virtual Realities. The more
blends, the more shared comfort in both Realities. The closer Virtual
Reality is to Everyday Reality and its measures, the greater the likeli-
hood of beneficial and enlightening blends.
The skill base of persons operating in Reality 3 is transformational, existing
to build new Blended Realities out of combinations of Realities 1 and 2.
These people may be called “tomorrow makers”.
Gaining recruits for your CDC
Two StoryTech exercises follow. They are designed to help you ease into
the process of developing a Community Development Collaborative (CDC).
It would be useful to begin with the Magic Cup exercise, and then lead into
the exercises. These exercises should help break the ice and lead a number
of people to become interested in moving toward participation in a CDC.
76. 69
Group Process StoryTech
Number 1
__________
Obtaining Community Development Volunteers
(Greenshakes Community Development Volunteer StoryTech)
It is the afternoon of [date], about one year from now. You are talking with
another person who is a volunteer in the Greatshakes Community. You are
seriously considering becoming a volunteer yourself.
Please describe exactly where you and the volunteer are carrying out your
conversation.
•• Are you indoors or out?
___________________________________________
•• What is the weather like today?
___________________________________________
•• What kind of clothing are you wearing? The other person?
___________________________________________
•• Why is the conversation between the two of you relaxed and friendly?
___________________________________________
•• Why is the volunteer so approving of Greatshakes Community?
___________________________________________
•• What impresses you, as a potential volunteer, about the other per-
son’s positive view of Greatshakes Community?
___________________________________________
77. 70
You decide to become a volunteer. Your decision is based on how the other
volunteer regards Greatshakes Community and on something about your
own personal nature that you think Greatshakes Community will respond
to and respect.
What exactly is the personal characteristic that you feel Greatshakes Com-
munity will honor, and why does this help you make a positive decision
about becoming a community volunteer?
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
78. 71
Group Process StoryTech
Number 2
__________
Obtaining Community Development Volunteers
It is the evening of [date], two years from now. You have been a volunteer
for the Greatshakes Community for one year. You are relaxing at home
thinking about the relationship between Greatshakes Community and the
rest of your State.
Please describe exactly where you are relaxing and thinking on this eve-
ning.
•• Are you indoors or out?
___________________________________________
•• What kind of clothing are you wearing?
___________________________________________
•• Why is the relationship between Greatshakes Community and your
State working so well?
___________________________________________
•• What is it about Greatshakes’ relationship to your State that is very
important to you as an individual?
___________________________________________
•• What is important idea now being considered within the community
to improve the future relationship of Greatshakes to your State?
___________________________________________
•• Why are you personally championing this idea?
___________________________________________
••
