This document outlines the activities and lessons for Week 2 of a course on amplification and storytelling. Participants will learn about authenticity and reflection through various activities including story mapping, curating an example of a story that spread widely, and analyzing what made that story successful and who it may have excluded. The goals are to understand how stories amplify and travel through social systems.

1. Week 2: Amplification

2. Week 2: Amplification
• Session 1: Amplification and sharing
• Session 2: Authenticity and reflection

4. How Communities
Work

20. Activity 1:
Story Mapping Technique
Activity 2:
’The Story of my Stories’

25. Activity 3:
The Story that Flew

27. Curate a story
OVERVIEW
Curate an example of an authentic story that flew through a system, either your own
Organisation, or in the wider world. (60 minutes)
CONTEXT
Some stories fly, others fizzle out. Some are amended, adapted, evolved. In this
activity, you will curate an example of an authentic story, that flew, and consider
how this happened.
A story may be pushed (promoted, advertised, driven), or pulled (magnetic content,
authentic), and each route to amplification may achieve success, depending upon
context. Within social systems though, we need to understand the mechanisms of
amplification

28. Find the right story
TECHNIQUE
Look around you: curate a story that has travelled widely. Consider the mechanism by which
it has done so.
Examples of the story that you could chose may include:
• A dominant narrative from inside your own Organisation, for example, a story about the
person who founded the Organisation itself
• A story of scandal: for example, someone who left in disgrace
• A story of triumph against the odds: a story that succeeded despite everything standing
against it. For example, a big sale, a successful product launch, a personal triumph
against adversity

29. Activity 4:
The Lessons of Flight

30. The Lessons of Flight
OVERVIEW
Look at the ‘story that flew’ that you curated.
Now answer these three questions:
1. What made it fly?
2. What could have stopped it from flying?
3. Who is excluded from this story?
CONTEXT
Stories that fly are picked up by the community: these are not stories that are pushed, but
rather ones that are pulled forwards.
But it’s often easier to see or hear these stories, than it is to actually understand ‘what’ made
them fly.
And even if we know ‘what’ made them fly, think back to our lessons of Week 1: where do
these stories sit within the landscape, and which part of that ecosystem do they represent?

31. Capturing your learning
CAPTURING YOUR LEARNING
There are two things to do to capture your learning:
1. Share your answers on Slack
2. If you wish, write a narrative of your thought process as you do so: what
was that process you went through in order to curate this story, rather
than a different one. What were you thinking as you answered those
questions?

32. Here to help
The Faculty:
Susie: susie.boyle@seasaltlearning.com
Vanessa: vanessa.short@seasaltlearning.com
Programme Manager:
Helen: helen.burness@seasaltlearning.com
@julianstodd
www.julianstodd.wordpress.com
www.SeaSaltLearning.com

33. STAY IN TOUCH
@julianstodd
julian@seasaltlearning.com
www.julianstodd.wordpress.com
www.SeaSaltLearning.com