Entries tagged as ‘Tips’
Happy Monday! I hope you’ll enjoy this week’s collection of tasty links. If you look no further than Great Storytelling challenge, you’re in for a remarkable piece of storytelling by Daniel Beaty. Don’t miss it! And for all of us who make presentations from time to time, don’t pass up Make Better Presentations. You’ll find a wealth of good information.
- Library helps memoirists capture their experiences. “In Candace Thompson’s Lincoln Park condo sit hundreds of yellowed pages filled with the loopy cursive writing no longer in favor… But filtering someone else’s experiences into a book is no easy task, so Thompson enrolled in a memoir-writing workshop at the Pritzker Military Library that is designed to help fledgling writers capture their experiences and those of others for a historical record.”
- ACT UP encore. “Created in 1987 by six gay activists, the Silence = Death Project soon came to symbolize a potent rising protest movement: The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP)…But to the dismay of Helen Molesworth, Harvard Art Museum’s Maisie K. and James R. Houghton Curator of Contemporary Art, many of today’s generation have forgotten the imagery, the movement, and its importance…She aims to change that with a new exhibition at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts titled “ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987–1993,” opening today (Oct. 15). The show examines the history of the movement through a series of powerful graphics created by various artist collectives that were part of the influential group.”
- Contemporary Approaches to Heritage Planning. “Although heritage often appears to be an issue of saving significant buildings, there is another, equally important conversation that I feel often gets short shrift: the preservation of intangible heritage. Intangible heritage is the associative heritage that characterizes a community; it is made up of the stories and symbolic values that attach themselves to and come to define the built environment.”
- 30 Old Books Worth Buying For the Cover Alone. “These are those books that catch our eyes, that demand to be picked up and opened, and that make us want to possess them. Enjoy these exquisite examples of beautiful books, and treat yourself to something lovely and collectible – most are surprisingly affordable. “
- What is The Moth? “The Moth, a not-for-profit storytelling organization, was founded in New York in 1997 by poet and novelist George Dawes Green, who wanted to recreate in New York the feeling of sultry summer evenings on his native St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, where he and a small circle of friends would gather to spin spellbinding tales on his friend Wanda’s porch.”
- Great Storytelling Challenge: Sometimes It’s All in the Delivery. “…rising to reader Raf Stevens’ challenge for me to present more examples of good storytelling in this space, I give you another one that is making the social-media rounds…, this one depends on spoken words. The spoken words give it a huge portion its power… The rest of its power comes from the delivery by actor, singer, writer, and composer Daniel Beaty, illustrating just how much a teller can bring to a story.”
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Categories: Monday's Link Roundup
Tagged: link roundup, Resources, stories, Tips
Among personal historians the topic of honesty in interviews is a recurring topic. We want to ensure that our interviews illuminate the depth of a person’s life and not simply skim across the surface. Questions arise about how far we should go to uncover the “truth” of a life lived.
I’ve done hundreds of interviews in my twenty-five years as a documentary filmmaker and personal historian. The interview subjects have included political leaders, prominent artists, historians, the dying, and the elderly.
This is what I’ve learned:
- People will tell me only what they are prepared to tell me. No amount of clever or challenging questioning will change that fact. And I respect my client’s wishes.
- The interview is not about me and my agenda. My focus is always on my client and his or her needs.
- I must have the courage to ask reflective and sometimes difficult questions. We owe it to our clients to raise questions that no one else may ask. “What have been the regrets in your life?” or “What are your fears around dying?” However, going back to my first point, I’m aware that asking the questions doesn’t always elicit a full response.
- I am not a therapist. My role is to help a person tell their story, not to make them better. I’m aware though that through the process of interviewing healing can occur for a client.
- Clients will sometimes reveal information to me that they have told no one. Having revealed this information they may not want it preserved in print or video for the whole world to know and may ask that it be deleted.
- The degree to which people confide in me is directly proportional to the trust I’m able to establish. This means that in my initial interviews I cover soft, easy topics like happy childhood memories or descriptions of a childhood home. Once the client and I have been together for a number of sessions, then I raise some of the more challenging questions.
- I’m not an investigative journalist. Getting at the truth is critical for an investigative journalist. Compassion can be an impediment to their work. I’m a personal historian and my need for honesty is tempered by compassion for my client.
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Categories: Life stories · Questions · Tips · interviewing
Tagged: Life stories, Personal historian, Tips, truthful interviews
Another Monday and another roundup of interesting, story-related links. Enjoy!
- DigiTales. “… takes the ancient art of oral storytelling and engages a palette of technical tools to weave personal tales using images, graphics, music and sound mixed together with the author’s own story voice. Digital storytelling is an emerging art form of personal, heartful expression that enables individuals and communities to reclaim their personal cultures while exploring their artistic creativity.” [Thanks to Kathy Hansen at A Storied Career for alerting me to this site.]
- Houston Public Library Launches Oral History Site. “Houston Public Library (HPL) is a pivotal partner in an ambitious oral history project, a multiyear, collaborative effort to that will help preserve important parts of the city’s history through the voices of its inhabitants.”
- unpaper – Post-Processing Scanned and Photocopied Book Pages. “Have you scanned bound books, only to find that the pages are curled near the center binding? You also may have noticed that some of the pages are skewed. A program called “unpaper” may solve those problems. Please note that the software only runs on Linux systems.”
- Storybird. “A service that makes it simple for families and friends to create short, visual stories together that they can share and print. For artists and writers, Storybird is next-generation publishing: global, viral, and instantaneous.”
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Categories: Monday's Link Roundup
Tagged: link roundup, oral history, personal histories, stories, Tips
I had a great response to an earlier post, 100 Free Resources for Personal Historians. Some of you sent me your favorite sites. I’ve collected more myself. Here they are!
- Doodle. “…takes the pain out of finding the right date and time for a group of people to meet and makes scheduling virtually effortless. The basis service is a free online coordination tool which requires neither registration nor software installation.”
- Referral Key. “…an on-line referral management system – no software to install – that supports all your referral marketing activities in one place, with minimal effort and maximum results.”
- Wordnik. “Traditional dictionaries make you wait until they’ve found what they consider to be “enough” information about a word before they will show it to you. Wordnik knows you don’t want to wait—if you’re interested in a word, we’re interested too!”
- TinEye. “…a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.”
- EasyContact. “Send a monthly company newsletter, or tip of the week; promote a seasonal sale or new product – give your customers a reason to keep your company, products and services top-of-mind.”
- Best Free CD / DVD Burning Software. “After considering many comments from the readers and investigating various programs, I have chosen four applications to receive spots for the category of Best Free CD / DVD Burning Software.”
- Tell a Friend. “With TAF4Free you make it easy for customers that love your product to recommend it to as many friends as possible. TAF4Free can be easily embedded in various blog and CMS platforms or on your website. Plus, it has a the power to publish your site to so many channels.”
- Small Business, Big Marketing. “Download your FREE copy and learn:
- How your small business can compete with larger competitors through effective market positioning
- How to to use the most powerful tool in the small business marketing arsenal, free publicity, and how it helps you earn credibility and exposure for your business at little to no cost.
- Tips for reducing the costs associated with your marketing campaigns.
- How to develop powerful marketing messages for your advertising that actually help you to sell things, not just enhance your image.
- Guidelines for avoiding common small business marketing mistakes.
- And Much More!”
- Creately. “…manages to harness the abilities and tools that traditional design and graphics software offer, but packages this functionality in an easy to use application that allows for collaboration between users.” ~ Lifehacker
- Dropbox. “Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they’ll be instantly available on any of your other computers that you’ve installed Dropbox on (Windows, Mac, and Linux too!) Because a copy of your files are stored on Dropbox’s secure servers, you can also access them from any computer or mobile device using the Dropbox website.”
- BibMe! “The fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It’s the easiest way to build a works cited page. And it’s free.”
- Zotero. “… a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.”
- Pixoria. “…a groundbreaking online video service where home movies and people interconnect. Customers can collaborate with others by adding and sharing full resolution home movies in the secure Pixorial service. Customers can edit and remix this online content to create unique, customized video products. The final products retain the full quality and resolution of the master movies regardless of origin.”
- JFreeChart. “a free 100% Java chart library that makes it easy for developers to display professional quality charts in their applications.”
- 26 Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog. “Nothing makes a blog post more eye-catching than a great header image, but not all publishers have artistic talent. And even accomplished digital creatives often crave some found material to start from or work with in a project. Luckily for all of the above, sources abound for finding a compelling photo to grab your readers’ eyes and draw them in, or to locate fresh multimedia to remix.”
- Highrise. [A free plan is available but you have to search for it!] “… does nearly everything a personal secretary might do except go out for coffee and pick up our dry cleaning.” ~ washingtonpost.com
- The Free Library. “…an invaluable research tool and the fastest, easiest way to locate useful information on virtually any topic. Explore the site through a keyword search, or simply browse the enormous collection of literary classics and up-to-date periodicals to find exactly what you need.”
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Categories: How to · Marketing · Personal historian · Resources · Tips
Tagged: free resources, help, personal historians, Tips
September 29, 2009 · 2 Comments
I was looking at an earlier article I wrote, Six Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Personal Historian, and realized that I’d missed three important questions.
- What is your specialty? Be leery of anyone who answers, “Oh, I like to work on everything – books, video, audio – you name it!” It’s true that there are personal historians who are multi-talented and produce more than one type of product. But even if that is the case, I’d ask what the personal historian enjoys working on the most. Chances are that she will have a preference and if her preference doesn’t match yours, then I’d want to see some concrete examples of her work. Bottom line – if you want a book produced, it makes sense to hire someone who has a track record making books. Similarly, if you want a DVD, hire a personal historian whose specialty is video.
- How long have you been a personal historian? There isn’t a magical number of years of experience that turns someone into a seasoned personal historian. But I’d prefer to hire someone who had been working professionally for at least a couple of years. The longer a personal historian has been working, the more experience he will have and the more samples of his work he will also have for your perusal. On the other hand if a personal historian is just starting out, you might be able to work out a discount depending on what he’s charging.
- What attracted you to this work? There isn’t any right answer to this question. What you want to be wary of is a reply that sounds too pat, contrived, or rehearsed. Listen for an answer that suggests that this work resonates deeply with this person. For instance, she may have a compelling story to tell about the path that led her to become a personal historian.
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Categories: Marketing · Personal historian · Questions · Tips
Tagged: hiring a personal historian, life story, questions to ask, Tips
September 23, 2009 · 2 Comments
When I was a young lad, an old friend of the family would sometimes take me fishing. He was a good fisherman and he would always say, “Dan, if you want to catch fish, you’ve got to go where the fish are.” This got me thinking that you could apply this piece of folk wisdom to marketing. If you want to get personal history clients, you’ve got to go where the personal history clients are.
Marketing experts stress the importance of knowing your target audience. Over the years I realize that my clients tend to have somewhat the same profile. And this profile rings true for many other personal historians. For the most part my clients are:
- female
- professional
- 50 t0 60 years old
- at least one parent living
- wanting to record and preserve a parent’s life story
- too busy or lacking the skill to produce a personal history
Like fishing, knowing who your clients are helps determine how and where you might reach them. If you want to find some personal history clients who meet the profile above, I’d suggest the following:
- Join a professional networking group like BNI (Business Network International), Chamber of Commerce, or eWomenNetwork.
- Write an article or get interviewed for the Lifestyle section of your local newspaper.
- Participate in community groups like fitness and yoga classes, choirs, and adult education classes.
- Join or offer presentations to women’s professional associations and groups.
- Become involved with your Alumni association.
- Join and participate in Facebook and Twitter groups that have an interest in family stories.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. What are some of the ways you reach out to the kind of clients I’ve mentioned? Please share your tips in the comment box below. I always welcome your comments.
Photo by Lindsey Scalera
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Categories: How to · Marketing · Personal historian
Tagged: clients, How to, Marketing, Personal historian, personal histories, Tips
In this Monday’s Link Roundup don’t miss The truth has a price by Lauren B. Davis. About memoirs she writes, “The question becomes which is more important, the book or the person (other than the author) written about?” And if you feel that all of your digital connectedness is wearing you down, check out Be Still.
- The truth has a price: “It’s not that writers shouldn’t mine their lives, and those of others, for their work. But they should be prepared to live with the consequences.”
- Memoirs and Memory: “Do I — do we — remember only those scenes that fit neatly into the central narrative in which we’re most invested, the one that dovetails most cleanly and neatly with the sense of self that we’ve chosen or that’s been imposed on us by the people around us?”
- Oral history project to target Latinos: “StoryCorps, the national oral history initiative that documents the stories of everyday Americans, wants Hispanics to tell their historias, and it is turning to an Austin-based firm to help.”
- New Online Database – 19th-Century British Newspapers: “Gale (a Michigan-based company that creates educational databases), along with The British Library and the UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee, has introduced a new online database of 19th-century British newspapers.”
- Free Genealogy How-to Videos: “The How To Channel on Roots Television features free genealogy and family history videos, including how-to demonstrations, software reviews, expert tips, databases, and websites. Learn from professional genealogists including Cyndi Howells, Dick Eastman, Megan Smolenyak, Tom Kemp, and Curt Witcher.”
- Be Still: “We are always on, always connected, always thinking, always talking. There is no time for stillness … This comes at a cost: we lose that time for contemplation, for observing and listening. We lose peace.”
- The First African Diplomat: “Born of a warrior queen on a Liberian battlefield, Momolu Massaquoi was heir to two African royal families and served as the youngest-ever King of the Vai people. In the 1920s Massaquoi became Africa’s first indigenous diplomat serving for a decade in Hamburg, Germany.”
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Categories: Monday's Link Roundup
Tagged: How to, link roundup, oral history, Personal historian, Tips, wisdom
September 17, 2009 · 3 Comments
In my previous article I covered six ways you can “Get Control of Your Pre-Presentation Jitters”. In this post I’ve assembled seven great sites that provide a range of practical ways you can improve your personal history presentation skills.
- Presentation skills training: Practical tips covering: preparation, style, dealing with nerves, working your audience, structuring a presentation, and developing as a presenter.
- 10 Ways to Reclaim Your Power as a Speaker: “Lee Glickstein, creator of Speaking Circles (worldwide) thinks speaking is relationship not showmanship. Glickstein believes that good speakers communicate for connection. He says that the best technique is no technique.”
- Oral Presentation Skills: “Next time you have to make a presentation to a group …, check out these tips to help you prepare, organize, and deliver your speech as well as create visual aids to accompany it and answer questions when it’s over.”
- Six Minutes: This is a great blog that brings you public speaking and presentation skills tips, analysis, insights, and strategies.
- Public Speaking & Presentation Skills Articles: “Patricia Fripp offers you her articles on public speaking and presentation skills to reprint or repost – FREE – provided that her name and contact information (supplied at the end of each article) are included.”
Photo by Daniel Greene
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Categories: How to · Personal historian · Presentations · Resources · Tips
Tagged: How to, Personal historian, presentation skills, Tips
September 16, 2009 · 6 Comments
I’m a “ham” at heart so I love to get in front of an audience, big or small. But when it comes to an important presentation where I know I’ve got to 
make a good impression, I can feel the pre-presentation jitters creeping in. Over the years I’ve learned some practical steps to calm myself. Try these the next time you’ve got to make a “big” presentation.
- Know your stuff. The best way to keep the jitters at bay is to be well prepared. Practice your presentation in front of a friend and get some constructive feedback.
- Arrive early. Nothing adds more to your anxiety than rushing madly to get to your presentation on time. Check Google Maps for the best route from your place to the venue where you’ll be speaking.
- Do a room check. If possible, check out the room prior to your presentation. Make sure that the equipment you requested is in place and works. Is the seating arranged in a suitable manner for your talk? Is the room at a comfortable temperature?
- Mingle. I find this a real tension buster. If you have a chance, move about the room and introduce yourself to people who’ve come to hear you. When you get up to talk, you’ll feel that you’re talking to individuals, not a big, amorphous group.
- Don’t forget to breathe. Before starting your presentation, check your breathing. Chances are it’ll be somewhat shallow. Take several deliberate, deep, slow breaths and you’ll find it helps to relax you.
- Go slow. Nothing broadcasts nervousness more than a speaker who breathlessly rushes into his presentation and never stops. Be focused, deliberate, and slow at the outset.
I hope you’ll find these tips helpful. Let me know what you do to calm those pre-presentation jitters.
Photo by K. Nicoll
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Categories: How to · Life stories · Personal historian · Presentations · Tips
Tagged: control nervousness, How to, Personal historian, Presentations, Tips
This article was inspired by a personal history colleague of mine in Victoria. She wondered if I knew anyone who could fix an audio cassette that no longer seemed to work in her recorder. I confessed that I didn’t have any recommendations. So I got to thinking, “How difficult is it to repair an audio cassette?” I did some research. Then I took apart a cassette and amazingly put it back together again! It requires patience and a steady hand but it’s not an impossible job. 
