tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54686313521022946952024-03-13T20:28:02.609-07:00Story colored glassesOn organizational and community narrativeCynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.comBlogger201125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-48381724840517692342024-02-23T15:24:00.000-08:002024-02-23T15:26:38.379-08:00New paper, new network name<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNreId26XbeZ6FYC0_8XAIjLoOCrvp2aJpE5W1yfaEi74ALQa7DO9qrD9D22Fr_SpwDd51LbT18rdlUYudEM0ZTrjPlXHMH4SatfUkn2rENwiW_KczyKK0yCSH1pwhJUFLqyo9PUnr01ga3hRQuFvSCGTG_9_70vuh6xkusy3T9HgFfJ-wT3ByALZOGpg/s3351/branchesoverhead.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2738" data-original-width="3351" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNreId26XbeZ6FYC0_8XAIjLoOCrvp2aJpE5W1yfaEi74ALQa7DO9qrD9D22Fr_SpwDd51LbT18rdlUYudEM0ZTrjPlXHMH4SatfUkn2rENwiW_KczyKK0yCSH1pwhJUFLqyo9PUnr01ga3hRQuFvSCGTG_9_70vuh6xkusy3T9HgFfJ-wT3ByALZOGpg/s320/branchesoverhead.png" width="320" /></a></div>Hey everybody. I wanted to tell you about a <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s41042-024-00147-4.pdf">new paper</a> on Participatory Narrative Inquiry that has just come out. Written mostly by my colleague <a href="https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/774389-rachel-colla">Rachel Colla</a> (though I helped a little), the paper makes a strong case for the use of PNI in Wellbeing Research. I was so impressed by how Rachel pulled together the growing body of research literature connected to PNI. It's worth a read!<br /><p></p><p>Over at the Participatory Narrative Practitioner Network, we have decided to drop the last part of our name. Now we are just the <a href="http://pnpnet.org"><b>Participatory Narrative Practitioners</b></a>. We have also switched from Zulip to Discord for our ongoing chats. For the time being we are using Discord for our monthly meetings as well. The best thing about Discord is that the voice-chat line is always open, so we can meet up anytime anyone wants to. To join us, visit <a href="http://pnpnet.org">pnpnet.org</a> and click the Discord link.</p><p>My job search is going pretty well so far. I sure hope people are reading my cover letters, because I am putting a lot of thought into them! If I have not already asked you for advice or to be a reference, and you'd be interested in either thing, please do drop me a line.<br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-57998218310192543252023-11-29T14:00:00.000-08:002023-11-30T10:57:49.821-08:00The open source PNI Practicum courses are ready to go<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHLk0A2lT9iumVo3_EJk5WLDgn5C7QsBsBsCx0ZNIAP1fF60fo1aS0zbKsVxoLXrjWzUz9PHbl9gJmzsrjOxIjpdU3dVefHa2PQCtKV5xRCEV-TX5obR5cyvEUXlXOIlrNehWWHWTZU1wWn0LTTd3jZ3N0ANivkU1is7693jJhWXDY2uDEY_GWOUh4cU/s3408/turkey%20tracks%20curvy.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="The path is clear" border="0" data-original-height="3408" data-original-width="3104" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHLk0A2lT9iumVo3_EJk5WLDgn5C7QsBsBsCx0ZNIAP1fF60fo1aS0zbKsVxoLXrjWzUz9PHbl9gJmzsrjOxIjpdU3dVefHa2PQCtKV5xRCEV-TX5obR5cyvEUXlXOIlrNehWWHWTZU1wWn0LTTd3jZ3N0ANivkU1is7693jJhWXDY2uDEY_GWOUh4cU/w291-h320/turkey%20tracks%20curvy.png" title="The path is clear" width="291" /></a></div>Hello everybody. My free and open-source <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/" target="_blank">PNI Practicum courses</a> are finally <b>ready for you to use</b>. As of today, any interested group can download the materials, form a cohort, schedule some meetings, and get started. <br /></div><p></p><p>The courses now require a minimum cohort of <b>at least seven people</b>, at least one of whom is comfortable facilitating group exercises.
That person (or persons) will run the sandbox sessions, meetings in
which students experience PNI techniques and exercises from a
participant's point of view (before facilitating similar sessions themselves). If <i>everyone</i> in your group has had
facilitation experience, you can take turns running the sandbox
sessions. </p><p>I have also created a new<b> "Prelude" course</b> that (at 4 weeks) is much shorter than the I-level (17 weeks) and II-level (21 weeks) courses. This brief course does require students to carry out some outside-of-class activities, so it still - barely - counts as a practicum course. But it saves a lot of time by having the entire course cohort collaborate on one shared project, one with a fixed plan on a fixed topic. If the longer courses are out of the question for you, the prelude may be just what you need.<br /></p><p>In transitioning these course materials, I have taken care to leave the door open (just a bit) to the possibility of generating some more return on my two-year investment in building the courses. Anyone can take any of the PNI Practicum courses for free. However, groups who want some <b>guidance and support</b> while they take a PNI Practicum course can contact me to see if I am available for bespoke consulting. If you are interested in this option, send me a note at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com. <br /></p><p>Over the past few months, I have spent some time looking for a full-time job, as I said I was planning to do in my previous blog post. I was recently asked to do some consulting work that will keep me busy for the next few months. As I work on that project, I will continue my job search. So far I have noticed that I am most drawn to work that has something to do with <b>ecology and the environment</b>. The idea of coming full circle and applying my decades of experience with story work to my original passion for ecology is an appealing prospect. If you have any suggestions along those lines, I would appreciate hearing from you.<br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-56126650811561305342023-08-30T11:36:00.022-07:002023-08-30T13:46:34.943-07:00The PNI Practicum is free, and I'm looking for a job<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTuFnBlKanFJXgp8DBdj-Xcpkj_z5ebjU6xGUPKDIgHf2TPWVFjjKaIfOiLArGSZI20rI_uoby23p7BGR0HJyhzyAKXCsvQPmHkfjaoVJOOe8quGO4NppyeSihGlgGVtIc0X58Fnx4jwUDyLRtVhq4IvalHsk_SOqUA6_XRgTa0GACjeaGB3jXNEPJcFw/s799/46925822685_35325853f0_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="799" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTuFnBlKanFJXgp8DBdj-Xcpkj_z5ebjU6xGUPKDIgHf2TPWVFjjKaIfOiLArGSZI20rI_uoby23p7BGR0HJyhzyAKXCsvQPmHkfjaoVJOOe8quGO4NppyeSihGlgGVtIc0X58Fnx4jwUDyLRtVhq4IvalHsk_SOqUA6_XRgTa0GACjeaGB3jXNEPJcFw/s320/46925822685_35325853f0_c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Okay, folks, it's time for my biennial "well, that didn't work" blog post. <br /><p></p><p>I have been attempting to make a living as an independent consultant and author for about 22 years. Sometimes my work has brought in an income, and sometimes it hasn't. Granted, for a large portion of that time I was working various amounts of part-time while raising a child. But I got pretty good at using my work time well. (Having two precious hours to get things done before it's time for your toddler to pound on your office door again is wonderfully focusing.)<br /></p><p>Another reason for the sometimes-it-hasn't portions is the fact that I'm an open-source zealot. Between books and software, I've given away somewhere between 6 and 8 of those 22 years of work. I chose to do that, and I don't regret any of it. But the rest of the work I have gotten has had to compensate for it. And that hasn't happened, at least not enough. <br /></p><p><b style="color: #38761d;">What happened with the PNI Practicum</b><br /></p><p>The project I have been working on since January of 2022 - designing, building, offering, and running two online practicum courses in participatory narrative inquiry - is now at an end. My third set of PNI Practicum courses has failed to fill up, though I have been advertising them since January of 2023. </p><p>Seven people did sign up (the tentative total got as high as 11, but dropped back down later). That's not enough. I've invested a year and a half into this venture, and for it to be financially sustainable going forward, I need to find at least 24 paying students twice a year. Technically there is one more week left before the courses were scheduled to start, and I could wait one more week, but at this point I think it's disrespectful to those who have signed up to keep them waiting. So I'm pulling the plug.</p><p>Why didn't the PNI Practicum courses fill up? I've talked to a lot of people about the courses over the past several years, from when I first had the idea in 2015, through designing and developing the courses in early 2022, and through two run-throughs in 2022 and 2023. And I have a much better understanding of the market now than I had before. (That is, now that I'm finished, I'm ready to start.) </p><p>Here's what I've learned. There are people who have the money to pay for a $2000 course; and there are people who have the time to take a five-month time-intensive project-based course. They just aren't the same people. The region of overlap in the Venn diagram is minuscule. </p><p>This fact alone might not have doomed the venture. After all, I only needed to find 48 paying students a year to make the PNI Practicum a success. I thought that might be possible. But there was another factor: I don't like doing advertising and promotion. Sure, I've been doing it for decades, and not particularly badly. But I have no enthusiasm for it, and it shows, I think. I'd rather spend my time making new stuff than telling people over and over about the stuff I've already made. Anyway, those two factors came together to make it difficult for the courses to scale even such a low bar.</p><p><b style="color: #38761d;">The point of decision </b><br /></p><p>At this point I have two choices. I've been mulling over this decision since the spring, when it became clear that the course was not likely to fill up again.<br /></p><p>I could choose to help the people who have the money but not the time to take the course. I could trim down the hours required until busy people could manage to find the time to do it. </p><p>I actually spent some time working on this idea. I started to create a "Level 0" course in which students would contribute only a few stories to a single group project, which I would manage and facilitate. For the most part, students would only have to show up to the meetings and watch things happen. </p><p>It took me about a week to abandon the effort. It left a sour taste in my mouth. Yes, I probably could make an income helping people <i>pretend</i> they know how to do PNI because they listened to a few lectures and participated in a few interactive workshops. But it would be a lie. You can't learn how to do PNI without doing PNI. Such a course would be like teaching someone to ride a bicycle by having them ride behind you on one. I would basically have a job as a Dunning-Kruger machine operator. <br /></p><p>I loved helping people do real projects in the PNI Practicum courses I ran, just as I loved coaching people through their first real projects before that. It was so exciting and motivating to hear people tell me that they went out into their communities and organizations and gathered real stories and ran real sensemaking workshops. I cherished the chance to help people learn from their mistakes and epiphanies. I loved seeing them get excited about what they could do next with PNI, now that they knew how to use it. I don't think I could stand to run a course where that didn't happen. <br /></p><p>My second option is to help the people who have the time but not the money to take the course. This is the option I have chosen. I will no longer be offering the PNI Practicum as a paid service. <br /></p><p><b style="color: #38761d;">A silver lining<br /></b></p><p>Even though this business venture didn't work out, I'm still glad I did it, because it produced two useful outcomes for the world.</p><p>First, the PNI Practicum can still be useful to people even if I'm not running it. Over the next few to several weeks, I plan to convert the
course materials and instructions into self-running versions of the
two courses. Groups of people will be able to take each course together.
They will follow the course schedule, read and discuss the
readings, carry out the project activities, report in on their projects, get feedback on their ideas, and
work their way through the interactive sessions using the instructions I
originally wrote for myself (which I will rewrite; that's why it is going to take a little while). </p><p>The second good thing is that working on the PNI Practicum courses jump-started the fourth edition of <i>Working with Stories.</i> I spent most of 2022 writing the first draft of a picture-book version of <i>WWS</i> (<i>Working with Stories Simplified</i>), plus a set of starter story forms (which will be the<i> WWS Sourcebook</i>). I plan to finish all four books when I can, even if it takes a long time. It took me six years to finish the third edition of <i>WWS</i>. If that happens again, I can live with it. As before, I will release interim versions as I go.<br /></p><p><b style="color: #38761d;">Thank you</b></p><p>I would like to express my deep gratitude to everyone who helped me to create the PNI Practicum courses, from way back when I first started to think about what they might be like, to when I was developing the course structure and materials and web site, to when I was running the courses for the first and second times. You know who you are, my friends. Thank you for your help.<br /></p><p><b style="color: #38761d;">What happens next</b></p><p>My next big project is to look for a real job, with real paychecks and real benefits. <br /></p><p>Since I left graduate school 32 years ago, I have worked for exactly one year as a salaried employee. All of the rest of my work has been temporary, most often as an independent contractor. I didn't do that on purpose; it just happened that way. Now I would like to come in from the cold and see if I can find a job with more stability. If I can do that while still working on PNI, that would be wonderful. If not, PNI will slide down into a hobby. That's okay too. I've been doing this work for 24 years now, and it's time to let a new generation pick it up and run with it. </p><p>And people are picking up PNI. From what I am hearing, the number of people using it has continued to grow and grow. For a long time I felt that I could not stop working on PNI because it would die without my support. I don't feel like that anymore. </p><p>Sure, PNI will change as I let it slip away from me. But I always wanted that to happen. I never wanted to own it. I wanted to be part of a community. And it's happening. A community is forming. In fact, fading into the background might be the best thing I can do for PNI right now. Still, it can't hurt to at least find out whether I can continue to support PNI while making a stable living.<br /></p><p><b style="color: #38761d;">My dream job</b></p><p>The way I have always looked for jobs is to start by looking for my dream job. When that fails, I look for a job that is acceptable. When that fails, I look for a job I can tolerate. I always hope to stop at the first level, but I know I have to be ready to drop down to the third level, and sometimes beyond it. That is the way the world works. <br /></p><p>So, what does my dream job look like?</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>In my dream job I work on PNI projects, one after another, small and large, short-term and long-term, for some entity. The participants in the projects are citizens or community members or customers or employees or patients or teachers or students (or similar groups), either of my employer or of clients or beneficiaries (or employees or citizens or students) of my employer.<br /></li><li>My dream job sponsors my open-source work by allowing me (and paying me) to spend 4 hours a week finishing my rewrite of the <i>Working with Stories</i>
book series and 4 hours a week maintaining and improving NarraFirma.
Since my employer benefits from this work (along with everyone else) they see this as a mutually beneficial arrangement. They are proud
to sponsor the work, and they are happy to be known as its sponsor.<br /></li><li>My
dream job does not require me to stop speaking in my own voice. I am
allowed to write and build useful things for the world in my spare time.
What I do and say during my work hours (except for the open-source sponsorship
hours) belongs to my employer. What I do and say during my spare time
belongs to me. <br /></li><li>In my dream job I am granted the unchallenged right to opt out of
working on any project I find to be ethically objectionable.
(For example, I will not work on projects that lie to or disrespect participants.) I am always willing to listen and to
negotiate, but I have the last word on whether I will do each project. I am also always willing to help my employer find someone else who can do
any project I cannot do.</li><li>In my dream job I train people in how to do PNI - by doing PNI - as needed. I am also willing to give talks and create bespoke instructional materials, but I am never asked to tell people that they know how to do PNI without ever having done it.<br /></li><li>In my dream job I work with or in some kind of team. In our team we work out how best to support each other as we merge our various strengths and compensate for our various weaknesses. </li><li>In my dream job I work at home. (I've been working at home for about 25 of the past 30 years, and I do my best work there. Also, I live in the middle of nowhere and would like to stay there.) My work hours are flexible. (I get up late.) I travel at most a few times a year. (Allergies.)<br /></li></ul><p>What's an acceptable job? One that uses my skills well, treats me with respect, and gives me useful things to do. I'm good at explanatory and technical writing, teaching, coaching, facilitation, project management, qualitative and/or quantitative research, prototyping, software design, user interface design, testing, technical support, and just plain programming. I have BS and MA degrees in biology. I have no degree in the field I've been working in for the past 24 years, but I have wide and deep experience in it. I'm a responsible worker, I know what I'm doing, and I know how to admit it when I don't. I am self-propelled and excel at independent work, but I am also a good collaborator. <br /></p><p>If your organization would like to offer me a job, whether it's at my dream or acceptable level, drop me a note. <br /></p><div><br /></div>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-79905086247474786842023-08-22T10:39:00.000-07:002023-08-22T10:39:00.787-07:00Two weeks until the PNI Practicum<p>There are still <strong>two weeks left</strong> to sign up for a <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/">PNI Practicum</a> course! The next round of courses will begin (if enough people sign up) on 5 and 7 September 2023.
</p>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
Here I am answering another question people often have about participatory narrative inquiry. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uu8kGYY0MhE" width="320" youtube-src-id="uu8kGYY0MhE"></iframe></div><br /><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
Join us in a PNI Practicum course and learn how to use <a href="https://workingwithstories.org/aboutpni.html">participatory narrative inquiry</a> in your work with groups, communities, or organizations.
</p>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
In the course, you will carry out a real PNI project of your own
design in a group, community, or organization of your choice. In our
weekly meetings, you'll get peer and expert feedback and advice on every
phase and aspect of your project. In addition, you'll experience PNI
from a participant's point of view as you exchange and work with stories
in our interactive workshop sessions.
</p>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
By the end of the course, you will have finished your first real
PNI project. Even more importantly, you will know enough about PNI to
carry out many more projects like it in the future, and you'll be able
to mix the ideas and methods you have practiced into your future work.
</p>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
<a href="https://www.reparation.works">Rob Peagler</a>, who was part of the cohort in my first PNI Practicum course last year, had this to say about it:
</p>
<blockquote class="reader-text-block__quote">
<i>The opportunity to do a practicum with Cynthia, in a cohort of
deeply experienced and committed story-workers, was truly an invaluable
experience. The practicum allowed me to coalesce two decades of
experience in the story trenches. With the feedback and support of
Cynthia and my practicum cohort I was able to move through the full arc
of PNI story work — from project design, through crafting story prompts,
gathering stories, leading sense making workshops, and working with our
target community to leverage insights to shape and motivate action. I
didn't just gain technical knowledge; I explored the moral and ethical
responsibilities of PNI project leaders to clients, communities, and
anyone who shares or reads a story in the course of a project.
</i></blockquote>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
All of the videos and quotes I am posting here can also be found on the PNI Practicum web site at <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/">cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum</a>. Special thanks to Augusto Cuginotti, who helped me put the video series together.
</p>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
If you have any questions about participatory narrative inquiry or
about the PNI Practicum courses, drop me a note on LinkedIn or at
cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com.
</p><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph"></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-70496724531951748332023-08-16T08:15:00.000-07:002023-08-16T08:15:08.577-07:00Three weeks until the PNI Practicum<p>Hello again good people of the internet. My next PNI Practicum courses start
on 5 and 7 September 2023. Here I am answering a common question about
the PNI Practicum: who is it for?</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5VP_4kmCFtE" width="320" youtube-src-id="5VP_4kmCFtE"></iframe></div> <p></p><p>No new signups this week, but there are still three weeks to go!
</p>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
If I get enough signups to run these courses, I will run them with
enthusiasm. If I don't, I plan to convert them both to free
self-running courses, with instructions and materials (but without me).
Then I'll move on and look for another way to make money. The ball is in
your court, life/universe/everything.
</p>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
Here's another recommendation video. </p><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2YAi6eubY3Y" width="320" youtube-src-id="2YAi6eubY3Y"></iframe></div> <p></p><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">Some things people have told me they have valued about the PNI Practicum: </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li class="reader-text-block__paragraph">the ability to tack back and forth between theory and practice,
practicing the application of concepts with real people telling real
stories</li><li class="reader-text-block__paragraph">the ability to compare notes and brainstorm solutions with other students</li><li>the solid base of support and advice from a leader with decades of experience</li></ul><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">Some things people have not liked:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li class="reader-text-block__paragraph">the high time investment (6-8 hours per week)</li><li>the difficulty of finding people willing to share stories (a challenge in any type of participatory work)</li></ul><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">As
I always say, working with stories is a magical thing - and magic has
never been easy. Learning together makes it easier, though.<br /><br />If
you want to take a PNI Practicum course but cannot meet at either of the
times listed in the course descriptions (<a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/PNI_Practicum_I_Description.pdf" target="_blank">Practicum I</a>, <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/PNI_Practicum_II_Description.pdf" target="_blank">Practicum II</a>), be
aware that those meeting times are tentative. At our first meeting we
will talk about how we can time our weekly calls to accommodate
everyone.</p><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">All of the videos I am posting here can also be found on the PNI
Practicum web site at <a href="http://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum">cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum</a>. Special thanks to
Augusto Cuginotti, who helped me put the video series together.<br /><br />If
you have any questions about participatory narrative inquiry or about
the PNI Practicum courses, drop me a note at
cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com. </p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-20193986945930274382023-08-08T09:59:00.000-07:002023-08-08T09:59:16.927-07:00Four weeks until the PNI Practicum<p>Good news! As of this moment, ten people have indicated a strong interest in taking one of my September PNI Practicum courses (which start on 5 and 7 September 2023). I cannot yet <em>promise</em> that the courses will happen, but I can definitely say that it is looking increasingly likely. </p><p>Here I am explaining what the courses are about.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b82D8uEo__U" width="320" youtube-src-id="b82D8uEo__U"></iframe></div> <p></p><p>To be clear, you do not need to take my course to learn from me. My book (<a href="https://workingwithstories.org" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">workingwithstories.org</a>) and software (<a href="https://narrafirma.com" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">narrafirma.com</a>) have always been free to everyone. My business model is an open-source one: I ask those who have budgets help me support those who do not. My online courses are for people who have budgets.</p><p>So if you have a budget, why should you take a course from me? Because my courses provide a solid base of support and advice from a leader in the field of story work. They give you a chance to compare notes and brainstorm solutions with other people who are learning the same thing at the same time. And they lead you through an experience designed to help you combine theory with practice. Practicum courses do take longer and require more effort than lectures
or just-show-up courses. But after a practicum course is over, you have a
much better chance of actually being capable of doing the work you want
to do. That's worth a lot, I think.</p><p>Here's another recommendation video.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bxp-cie6GEE" width="320" youtube-src-id="bxp-cie6GEE"></iframe></div> <p></p><p>All of the videos I am posting here can also be found on the PNI Practicum web site at cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum. Special thanks to Augusto Cuginotti, who helped me put this video series together.</p><p>If you have any questions participatory narrative inquiry or about the PNI Practicum courses, drop me a note on LinkedIn or at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com.</p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-29499977087702323292023-08-08T09:51:00.002-07:002023-08-08T09:51:59.416-07:00Five weeks until the PNI Practicum<p>(The title of this blog post is not correct. I started posting these videos only on LinkedIn, but decided on the third week to post in both places at once.)</p><p>Hello good people of the internet. My next PNI Practicum courses start on 5
and 7 September 2023. In preparation, here I am answering another common
question about participatory narrative inquiry.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JqU0IWBbLDo" width="320" youtube-src-id="JqU0IWBbLDo"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
If you are thinking that you might want to take one of my courses
next year (when you have more time), be aware that if these fall courses
don't fill up (enough), I will have to stop giving them. Having poured
my time into so many open-source projects over the years, I'm out of
funds, and I can't run my courses half full.
</p>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
If you don't have time to take a course right now, but want to
help me keep offering them, please consider making a donation in support
of my free books and software. You can find donation buttons on <a href="https://workingwithstories.org/">workingwithstories.org</a> (on the download-it page) and on <a href="https://narrafirma.com/">narrafirma.com</a> (at the bottom of the main page). I also offer bespoke coaching and training (see <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/">cfkurtz.com</a>).
</p>
<p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">
Here's another recommendation video from a course that ended recently. </p><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzsrgCWmUIyUlSt6cN5cQzraatCnEDPZNXxmREH77-zxCTqAKxHIIHSlq05Zfqz0tqH4toLeDQn44lkqInfpA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div> <p></p><p class="reader-text-block__paragraph">All of the videos I am posting here can also be found on the PNI Practicum web site at <a href="https://www.cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/">cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum</a>. Special thanks to Augusto Cuginotti, who helped me put this video series together.</p><p> </p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-51318841641646820362023-08-08T09:44:00.002-07:002023-08-08T09:44:21.966-07:00Getting ready for the next PNI Practicum Courses<p>Hello good people of the internet. My next PNI Practicum courses start on 5 and 7 September 2023. I rarely promote my work, but if I want to <em>give</em> these courses, I had better find people who want to <em>take</em> them. So I am posting new FAQ and testimonial videos once a week until September, here and on LinkedIn. </p><p>Here I am explaining what PNI is in the first place. <br /></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pc4Hl-qBOI4" width="320" youtube-src-id="Pc4Hl-qBOI4"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>And here is the first of several recommendations from satisfied students.<br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6uzkL3crD4A" width="320" youtube-src-id="6uzkL3crD4A"></iframe></div><br /><p>All of the videos I am posting here can also be found on the PNI Practicum web site at <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/">cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum</a>. Special thanks to Augusto Cuginotti, who helped me put the video series together.</p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-24001658293518502262023-05-31T09:52:00.002-07:002023-05-31T10:37:19.514-07:00My next courses will begin in September, not July<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-YJa55gj2dKy_g6s46dldXtwxGfH1l2GgWwut8vYwMT9r5Hbed_6s5hZFrBZ4zkDQaqcDsYXShcprxjU1-W7CkedB7YndoADUIx50rO6k_jjvu3oWwHJBDJuP4iqwtJHtr4i6jOE4IuZd2JVNr3XAeGKrxKtLnqXpWTlDxbHm6m-u8f_NbBLFxFH/s800/33964966188_ca01e2361b_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="800" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-YJa55gj2dKy_g6s46dldXtwxGfH1l2GgWwut8vYwMT9r5Hbed_6s5hZFrBZ4zkDQaqcDsYXShcprxjU1-W7CkedB7YndoADUIx50rO6k_jjvu3oWwHJBDJuP4iqwtJHtr4i6jOE4IuZd2JVNr3XAeGKrxKtLnqXpWTlDxbHm6m-u8f_NbBLFxFH/s320/33964966188_ca01e2361b_c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Please excuse me while I learn how to run international online courses.<p></p><p>After much feedback, I have decided to move my next set of PNI Practicum courses to begin in <b>September instead of July</b>. This is mainly to accommodate the many people who don't work (or work much) during some or most of July and August. <br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The next PNI Practicum I course will now run from 5 September to 19 December 2023.</li><li>The next PNI Practicum II course will now run from 7 September 2023 to 1 February 2024. </li></ul><p>To make the courses fit into these time frames, given the various holidays, I have had to remove the one-week mid-course break. <br /></p><p>The only other change I have made is to simplify the multi-ticket bundles from three to one. Now there is only a ten percent discount if you buy two tickets at once. </p>If you have any questions or suggestions about the PNI Practicum courses, write to me at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com.<br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-61863145532800386442023-05-01T11:55:00.004-07:002023-05-01T11:56:41.915-07:00New course and book developments<p>I have updates for you. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b><i>Working with Stories</i> is changing</b></span></h3><div><p>I spent most of 2022 writing materials for my new PNI Practicum courses (about which more below). </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I wrote a "<b>picture book</b>" version of <i>Working with Stories</i>, one that says the same thing but with far fewer words and a lot more diagrams and photographs. </li><li>I wrote a "<b>story form library</b>" of 36 question sets to suit a variety of PNI project goals. <br /></li></ul><p>Both of these resources have been appreciated by my students. However, I don't want to keep them behind a paywall. It's not how I do things. So this year, while running the courses, I have been working on getting the new materials out into the world. </p><p>I've been thinking about what people need when they are learning how to do PNI. And I've been thinking about what people have said to me about <i>Working with Stories</i> over the past eight years. Based on what I have learned, I think <i>WWS</i> wants to be four books: </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>the original book (trimmed and updated)<br /></li><li>a shorter, simpler version (the picture book)<br /></li><li>a resource library (story forms and case studies)<br /></li><li>a book with abundant details (for the nerds who want everything)<br /></li></ul><p>So that's what I'm working on - when I'm not working on the courses that are going on right now, that is.<br /></p><p>I think it's going to take me at least several months to get all of
these books ready to publish. So I decided to put them up in draft form now while I work on
finishing them. You can find the new books on <a href="https://workingwithstories.org/morewws.html" target="_blank">the More page</a> of the <i>WWS</i> web site. </p><p>These are the new book cover designs (so far). Coincidentally, the original book has four pictures on the cover. It's almost like <i>WWS</i> knew it wanted to be four books before I did.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg59QtMCkXvvoDIHDkxtAyGZX_dt9Nx2F9Be7c2MntjYa6gzrdW7x05aAdYhmMUXYWB7zappO-Vrbpqx2Ji8MFhnBPO44IMtcZrc35hesWzppjM8bHoSmZY6hSfAeAuRmfbR0z1JyJbUOq1zH2yf_EzIlnJLJ9bDNru5mrcGDqMabUurYHcjqIAg5BF" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Four new WWS books" data-original-height="1439" data-original-width="4134" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg59QtMCkXvvoDIHDkxtAyGZX_dt9Nx2F9Be7c2MntjYa6gzrdW7x05aAdYhmMUXYWB7zappO-Vrbpqx2Ji8MFhnBPO44IMtcZrc35hesWzppjM8bHoSmZY6hSfAeAuRmfbR0z1JyJbUOq1zH2yf_EzIlnJLJ9bDNru5mrcGDqMabUurYHcjqIAg5BF=w640-h222" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>So: <a href="https://workingwithstories.org/morewws.html" target="_blank">have at the new stuff</a>, and please send feedback. <br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b style="color: #b45f06;">The PNI Practicum courses are changing</b><br /></h3><p>The <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/" target="_blank">PNI Practicum courses</a>
are going very well. People are doing lots of wonderful projects, and
we are all learning and making useful mistakes together. For myself, I
have learned a lot about how to give online courses (well, how <i>not</i> to give online courses; but that works too). So my next set of courses (starting in July) will incorporate many changes. <br /></p><p>Some changes have to do with <b>what will happen</b> in the course.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Calls will be recorded</b>. I wasn't sure if people would want to
be recorded in our course meetings. Turns out they do. So, all Zoom calls are now
being recorded and are available to all students for review as long as
the course goes on. So if you miss a call, you can see and hear what
happened in your absence. <br /></li><li><b>We will use Miro</b>. I had
wanted to show people that you can use a variety of online tools to
facilitate interactive sessions. But Miro is so much better than every
other option that I'm switching to it entirely. </li><li><b>Students will make presentations</b>.
To give people better opportunities to practice selling PNI to
their participants and funders, in the next set of courses, each student will be
asked to make two brief presentations to the class. </li><ul><li>Early on, each student will pitch their chosen project as if they were soliciting approval for it and participation in it.<br /></li><li>At
the end of the course, each student will make a brief presentation on
what happened in their project: its goals, plans, challenges, surprises,
and outcomes. <br /></li></ul></ul> Some changes will be <b>structural</b>.<b><br /></b><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>There will be a mid-course break</b>.
From now on, there will be a one-week break between parts 4 and 5
(weeks 8 and 9) of each course. This will help people catch up if they
have fallen behind, and it will give us all a spring or fall break. </li><li><b>One meeting time will be different</b>. In the next courses, our Zoom calls will happen at 1700 and 2100 (was 2300) <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/timezone/utc" target="_blank">UTC</a>. This should help when people in farther-apart time zones want to be on the same calls. </li></ul><p>Some changes will be to the course <b>requirements</b>. <br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="https://www.narrafirma.com" target="_blank">NarraFirma</a> will be required in the II-level course</b>. I had been making a special effort <i>not</i>
to require the use of NarraFirma, in case people wanted to use other
things. However, all of my students thought I should require everyone to use NF, so everyone can learn how to use it together. So now, if you want to take the PNI
Practicum II course, you will need to <a href="https://narrafirma.com/home/setting-up-narrafirma/" target="_blank">use NarraFirma</a>. (The I-level course still requires no particular software.)<b><br /></b></li><li><b>Course fees will need to be paid two weeks ahead</b>. To avoid
last-minute scheduling difficulties, anyone who wants to take either
course must pay the full course fee two weeks before the course starts. <br /></li></ul><p>And finally, I have made some changes to how I will <b>promote</b> <b>and manage</b> the courses. <br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>The course syllabi will be available to review</b> <b>before you sign up</b>. I
have posted
the syllabi for the two courses on the <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/" target="_blank">PNI Practicum web site</a>, so you
can see what is going to happen in each part of each course. <br /></li><li><b>Refunds will be pro-rated</b>. If you need to drop out of a course for any reason, I will refund your course
fee on a pro-rated basis, counting how many weeks you have attended (and not
counting the first week, which is covered by the nonrefundable
deposit). However, I ask people not to take the course (or dropping out) lightly, since dropping out will affect the peer learning experiences of everyone else in the course.<br /></li><li><b>There will be a new 6-student minimum</b>.
If either course does not have at least six people signed up (and paid in full) by the
time the course fee is due, the course will not run, and I will send out
refunds (including of deposits) to those who have signed up.<br /></li><li><b>There might be an extra course</b>. If either course fills up completely and people still want to take it (if that happens to you, tell me), I
will open up one more course of that type. If at least 6 people want to
take <i>that</i> course, I will give it. </li></ul>If you have any questions about the PNI Practicum courses, or if you have any suggestions about <i>Working with Stories</i>, reach out via email (cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com).<br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p></div>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-69504804210791886802023-04-10T08:30:00.007-07:002023-04-10T08:36:34.901-07:00Here I am talking to Madelyn Blair about stories<p>Hey everybody. Recently I had a wonderful conversation with <a href="https://www.madelynblair.com/" target="_blank">Madelyn Blair</a>, one of my role models in getting out there and doing things in the world. It was about stories and working with them, and it was part of an episode of her <a href="https://www.madelynblair.com/unlockedtv " target="_blank">Unlocked</a> TV show. </p><p>(Watch out, the music starts suddenly. Made me jump.)<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="350" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TYCEnyibBL0" width="422" youtube-src-id="TYCEnyibBL0"></iframe></div><p>For those who are new to story work, you might find our conversation informative. For those who know me and my spiel well, the conversation will probably be pretty familiar - it's the same stories I always tell. Though of course I keep polishing them, don't I, and that can be interesting in and of itself. </p><p style="text-align: left;">That's one of the things I find most interesting about stories: they have stories. I try to remember this when somebody starts telling me a story I've already heard ten times. When I catch myself thinking, "Ugh, there they go again," I (try to) challenge myself to think, "Ah, it's <i>that</i> story. I remember it well. I wonder what it's been up to since I last heard it." I don't always succeed in meeting this challenge, but when I do, I always find out something new.</p><p style="text-align: left;">It's like being in the woods. Even though I have spent time in my particular bit of forest a thousand times, I find that if I can be quiet and pay attention to it for at least fifteen minutes, something new always happens. Sometimes it is something as dramatic as an owl teaching its baby how to fly, a squirrel rushing up and reading me the riot act, or a woodpecker poking its way up and down a tree. Sometimes it's something as simple as a conversation between birds, an operatically creaking tree, or a busy insect going about its workday next to my boot. And sometimes the thing that happens is in my own mind. I hear or see something, and it brings up something new and different. That's an event too. </p><p style="text-align: left;">Things are always happening, fascinating things, even in the things I know very well. The trick, I find, is to stop not noticing them. I don't know if that's helpful to you - maybe it's just more sighing of my branches - but here I am writing it anyway, <a href="https://nerdfighteria.info/v/jSrqC_angdc/" target="_blank">because I'm here</a>, because you're here.<br /></p><p>Thank you, Madelyn, for inviting me onto your program. I enjoyed the experience very much.<br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-25439995726501723542023-02-01T12:05:00.004-08:002023-02-01T14:54:47.302-08:00I Made a Story Journal<p><br />I like to watch YouTube videos in which people do things I like to do - woodworking, photography, crochet - so I can learn. Lately I've noticed an interesting trend. People keep giving their videos titles that are condensed stories, like "I Built a Cabin" or "That Rescue Turned Out Differently than I Expected" or "I Created a Wildlife Pond." Interesting, huh? Says something about society and stories.</p><p>So anyway, one morning several months ago I was starting on my usual morning yoga, and one part of me said to another part of me, "I don't <i>wanna</i> do yoga." The second part said, "You know we always do yoga. It's self-care." And the first part said, "Self-care means not doing things I don't wanna do." "No it doesn't," said the second part, "it means doing things we need to do to take care of ourselves." <br /></p><p>That got me thinking. What is self-care? Is it self-discipline? Is it self-indulgence? These thoughts continued (usually during yoga) until I had created a 24-part fill-in-the-blank daily journal that could help a person (like myself) explore aspects of self-care in their everyday life. I tried using it for a while, and it was fun - a sort of game to play at the end of the day - and then other end-of-day things crowded it out, as they do.<br /></p><p>At some point I showed part of this journal to a work colleague, and they said, um, that looks like a personal thing. And I thought, well, yes, yes it is, but with a few tweaks it could be a community thing or an organization thing. In fact, in fact! it could be a ritualistic device that helps a group of people keep their fingers on the pulse of their collective social health by sharing stories on a regular basis. <br /></p><p>So the idea rattled around in my brain for a few more months, and then I thought, how about I do what I always do with little ideas: release it into the world and let it swim away. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_tHxy13Zmv9J1UFu5Zav3IAafVwyTbcCA7fSIvn4W2rfP4RO0a-kXALJjIQKPUjRSN2IVzUij5A75gVlzgHm0r683dDHiO9t3fy8XNajPDpIU8UTaHJzjXhzBajPeFD5_qF06MjBe5qkznHrKQle5LzhhFJ7Ebr3_aRVJqtlbTXl5WbygpY0kPA0R/s5600/story_journal.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="journal clip art" border="0" data-original-height="3736" data-original-width="5600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_tHxy13Zmv9J1UFu5Zav3IAafVwyTbcCA7fSIvn4W2rfP4RO0a-kXALJjIQKPUjRSN2IVzUij5A75gVlzgHm0r683dDHiO9t3fy8XNajPDpIU8UTaHJzjXhzBajPeFD5_qF06MjBe5qkznHrKQle5LzhhFJ7Ebr3_aRVJqtlbTXl5WbygpY0kPA0R/w320-h213/story_journal.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah, it's clip art, and it's trite, but it's true.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>So here it is. This could be a self-help journal for individuals, groups, families, communities, or organizations. You could use it as a check-in game during a weekly or monthly meeting (pick a question and answer it). You could use it as a something-just-happened story collection device that powers a years-long community-wide sensemaking effort. Or you could just have it around as an aid to discussion in a place where people meet.<p></p><p>Here's the group version. To get to the individual version, change the plural pronouns to singular ones. The questions are in three sets of four, each with a less-intense pair surrounded by a more-intense pair. Each of the 12 questions has an optional embedded counter-question that expands its exploration.</p><p><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Joy</b> - What happened lately that was <b>happy</b> for us? What lifted us up? (And what small sadnesses were hidden inside our times of joy?)</li><ul><li><b>Satisfaction</b> - What did we do lately that was <b>easy</b> for us? What was effortless? (And what small difficulties were hidden inside our ease?)</li><li><b>Frustration</b> - What did we do lately that was <b>hard</b> for us? What was a struggle? (And what small moments of ease were hidden inside our struggles?)</li></ul><li><b>Sorrow</b> - What happened lately that was <b>sad</b> for us? What brought us down? (And what small happinesses were hidden inside our sorrows?)</li></ul> <br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> <b>Control</b> - What happened that was <b>in our hands</b> lately? What were we able to do, make happen, or make stop? (And in what small ways was our control incomplete?)</li><ul><li><b>Certainty</b> - In what moments lately were we <b>sure</b> of what was going on? What was rock solid for us? (And in what small ways was our certainty incomplete?)</li><li><b>Uncertainty</b> - In what moments lately were we <b>unsure</b> of what was going on? What was unknown or unclear to us? (And within our uncertainty, in what small ways did we have some certainty?)</li></ul><li><b>Powerlessness</b> - What happened to us lately that was <b>out of our hands</b>? What were we unable to do, make happen, or make stop? (And within our powerlessness, in what small ways did we have some power?)</li></ul><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Self-discipline</b> - In what moments lately did we set out <b>goals</b> we hoped to achieve? What plans did we attempt to carry out? (And in what small ways did we give ourselves the permission to partially achieve our goals and the freedom to partially depart from our plans?)</li><ul><li><b>Self-care</b> - What did we do lately to <b>take care</b> of our future selves? When and how did we attempt to support the people we will become? (And within our support, in what small ways did we leave some things for our future selves to handle?)</li><li><b>Self-indulgence</b> - In what moments lately did we give ourselves <b>gifts</b>? When and how did we indulge ourselves? (And in what small ways did we deny ourselves gifts in order to support our future selves?)<br /></li></ul><li> <b>Self-compassion</b> - In what moments lately did we <b>forgive</b> ourselves for our limitations, failures, or mistakes? When and how did we let ourselves off the hook? (And in what small ways did we place limits on our forgiveness?)<br /></li></ul><p> </p><p>So that's the little idea. I tried drawing these questions in a variety of graphical shapes, but I didn't arrive at anything that seemed more useful than just the words themselves. <br /></p><p>If anybody wants to pick up this little idea and use it or improve it, go ahead. Also, if anybody would like to talk about the idea, send me a note. <br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-86325296482842423062022-11-18T11:15:00.009-08:002022-12-07T11:52:45.598-08:00Getting ready for the first PNI Practicum courses<p>Hello people of the world. <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3eHLdU27CvIPu1MO4WwKYBUpa9B67JJvB3FVmG3QOO6RWGCOOAQC0zLL2CntrIX8zg4K1Lro7NDIm7w6PtxQQJUS43kSn7-cKt3HSXc7wWh-C_8Nsz6T47Ya83BjdbvDWauczfZymWiRcmOFlML3x263uW_yTzhBvhgYnWrJ2K1QpWKT1SW7hndy/s487/pnipracticum_logo_small.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="PNI Practicum logo" border="0" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="485" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3eHLdU27CvIPu1MO4WwKYBUpa9B67JJvB3FVmG3QOO6RWGCOOAQC0zLL2CntrIX8zg4K1Lro7NDIm7w6PtxQQJUS43kSn7-cKt3HSXc7wWh-C_8Nsz6T47Ya83BjdbvDWauczfZymWiRcmOFlML3x263uW_yTzhBvhgYnWrJ2K1QpWKT1SW7hndy/w199-h200/pnipracticum_logo_small.png" width="199" /></a></div>So I have these two online courses coming up in January, project-based courses in participatory narrative inquiry. I'm pretty excited about them. If you don't know about them already, you can read about them <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/">here</a>. <br /><p></p><p>To my surprise, seven people have signed up (or just about) for the PNI Practicum II course, the one that covers larger-scale PNI. Only one person has (so far) indicated an interest in the smaller-scale course. (I'm surprised because I thought it would be the other way around.)<br /></p><p>That one person is willing to take the larger-scale course, but I would be happier if I could find at least two other people to take the smaller-scale course with them. If I can get at least three people in that course, I am willing to run it. <br /></p><p>As many know, I am not fond of self-promotion. I prefer to do my work quietly and hope that people will find me, evaluate what I have created, and make their own decisions about it. But this time I have a deadline to meet, so I am forcing myself to be a little proactive for once. </p><p>So: Rah! Rah! Join us! It'll be amazing! (It actually will.)</p><p><span style="color: #073763;">EDIT: Guess what, one more person has signed up for the PNI Practicum I course! So I'm definitely going to run it. It would be great to get at least one more person in the cohort, though.</span></p><p><span style="color: #073763;">SECOND EDIT: A third person has signed up! Hooray! </span><br /></p><p>If you have any questions about the PNI Practicum courses, you can send them to me at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com.<br /></p><p><span style="color: #38761d;"><b>A little history </b></span><br /></p><p>My <a href="http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/2022/10/announcing-pni-practicum.html">previous post</a> about the PNI Practicum courses was short and to the point. It was so much <i>not</i> my usual long rambling thing that it might have surprised some of my long-time readers. I <i>did</i> write a long rambling thing, of course. But I deleted it in the service of, well, you know, the rah-rah stuff.<br /></p><p>However, I never <i>really</i> delete anything. In the same way that every book has its unbook, every blog post has its unpost. So, when I went to write this "there are seats still left!" post, I thought: </p><p>Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there <i>are</i> people who would like to read my long rambling explanation of where the PNI Practicum courses came from. Maybe it couldn't hurt to say "read this or don't, as you like." So, for those who are interested, here is a bit of the history behind the PNI Practicum courses. Read this or don't, as you like.<br />
<br />I started thinking about an online course soon after finishing <i>Working
with Stories</i> in 2014. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do or what sort of
course people would want to take. But I did know one thing: it would
have to be a practical, project-based course. I spent six years of my life figuring out how to explain PNI in <i>WWS</i>, and I didn't want to follow it up with a lecture
course. I wanted to help people <i>do</i> PNI. <br />
<br />I first tested the waters in 2015 with a <a href="http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/2015/12/what-if-i-gave-pni-course.html">blog post</a> about a potential
project-based course. I got some positive response to it,
but not a lot. So I kept the idea in the back of my mind and moved on.
<br />
<br />Not long after that, I was contacted by Jen Mason, a PhD student who wanted
to do a "practicum" academic course with me as an outside advisor. (I hadn't thought of using the word "practicum" before that.) I was
happy to coach Jen through her first PNI project, on which she did a great job. Her university paid me
the grand sum of $250 for it. But Jen herself gave me lots of helpful feedback. After that course was over, I
thought a lot more about what a real PNI course might look like.
<br />
<br />I wrote about that experience in a second <a href="http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/2016/02/course-developments.html">blog post</a>. Again there was
mild interest, but I was not sure if it was
worth putting more time into. I have a tendency to fall into projects
that take a huge amount of time and pay next to nothing. So I continued
to coach people one-on-one as they did their first PNI projects. As I
did this, an online course was never far from my mind; but I was wary of
plunging into yet another losing business venture.
<br />
<br />Speaking of projects
that take a huge amount of time and pay next to nothing, I spent about two years (from 2019 to 2021) writing <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/confluence/"><i>Confluence</i></a>. I am so glad I got that book out of my brain. It had been banging on the doors for ages. Now it's out in the world walking in the sunshine and making new friends. I couldn't be prouder of it. I hope it has a wonderful life.<br /></p><p>After <i>Confluence</i> was done, though, I needed to get back to doing things that made money. So I started coaching and
consulting again. And ... it wasn't long before I had to admit to myself that it
wasn't working, never really had worked. Not well.<br />
<br />I <i>love</i> doing consulting work. I <i>hate</i> getting consulting work to do. It seems like about ten percent of the potential
projects I talk to people about actually happen, and it seems like I spend several times more time getting work to do than doing work. That's par for the course in consulting. Also, I know lots of successful consultants who manage to improve on these ratios. I'm just not one of them. </p><p>After twenty years of
wildly fluctuating income, I had to confront the fact that I am not very good at consulting, and I don't like it either. The truth is, I need
to find more stable work in my field, or I need to leave my field - my
23-year investment in PNI - and get a "real job." There are no real jobs
doing PNI, not yet. So if I stop consulting, I'll have to get a job doing
some unrelated thing, research or programming or writing.
Which is fine work, and I'd be happy to get it, but...<br />
<br />I don't want to abandon PNI. Not while it still needs me. I want to keep helping it grow, both as
a field and as a community of practitioners. I want to keep helping people help people get along with each other and find better
solutions together. <br />
<br />So, about a year ago, I decided that it was finally time to build that online course. </p><p>I
started full-time work on two courses in January. I had already thought a lot
about what I wanted to do. But I didn't feel ready to just <i>give</i> a
course. Not just like that. I wanted to <i>practice</i> giving a course before I was ready to offer it to
the public. Yes, I needed a practicum course in doing a practicum
course.
<br />
<br />So I cast around among my friends and colleagues for people who might be
willing to take a pilot PNI course in exchange for feedback. My old
friend Rob Peagler, who I've known since IBM days, was interested. He
found two friends who were also interested: Lucy Duncan and Susannah
Laramee Kidd. All three of these people are experienced facilitators,
and Lucy has given online courses. So after some discussion, we started the
first pilot PNI Practicum course in March.
<br />
<br />I thought I would be able to write the course materials in the several
weeks that remained after we agreed to work together and before we
started the course. Ha! It took much longer than I thought it would. In fact, I
could barely keep ahead of my students as the weeks went by. </p><p>Most of my
time was spent building the course's "Short readings," which turned into
a 200-page version of <i>Working with Stories</i> in condensed slide-set format, with
many images and diagrams, ready to be quickly skimmed before each course
meeting. Of course, many of my newer-than-<i>WWS</i> ideas worked their way
into the slide sets. I have a feeling that they are going to turn into a book. I keep calling them "The Nutshell," as in, PNI in a
nutshell. I don't think they are ready to be a book <i>yet</i> - they need more time
to mature - but I think they may turn into a book next year. </p><p>It is important to me that any courses I give not involve access to exclusive information or materials. I am a strong believer in the maxim that <i>information wants to be free</i>. I am happy to charge people for my time, attention, and expertise, the last of which I have worked hard to develop and improve. But I do not want to be in the business of selling secrets. I believe that at least one book will come out of these courses. Possibly two. When they are ready, I will let them go out and make their own way in the world.<br />
<br />Anyway, back to the pilot course. We four had a wonderful time going through the first PNI Practicum
course together. I started out dreading our weekly calls - afraid I had
not prepared well enough - but I soon came to look forward to them as
the projects started ramping up. Rob and Lucy did a project together
about living and thriving in their local community. Susannah did a paid
evaluation project for a community arts organization. Both of their
projects succeeded, and we all learned a lot from the experience.
Feedback and advice flowed back and forth through all of our meetings.
My "students" helped me to shape the course into something much better than
I could have come up with on my own. For that I will always be grateful.
<br />
<br />The PNI Practicum II course has not technically been piloted yet. However, after doing
the pilot course I described here, I am confident that I will be ready to give both courses
in January. I say this for two reasons. First, the course structure (calls,
materials, activities) will be the same in both courses. Second, I have coached plenty
of people through the graphs-and-patterns style of larger-scale PNI projects in the past.
So I'm ready. <br />
<br /><span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Looking toward the future</b></span><br />
<br />My dream is to give two courses of each type per year. If I can get 12
people signed up for each course, I will be helping 48 people get their
start in PNI per year, and I will finally have a stable income. This
could be my "real job" for the next several years - until it's time to retire, or
at least slow down a little.
<br />
<br />I have waffled back and forth (for years) over what might be a reasonable lower limit of enrolled students to run each course. There is a <i>structural</i> lower limit of three people per course. Below that, the peer learning experience will be so weak that it might just as well be individual coaching. </p><p>Twelve students a year (instead of 48) would be a much smaller income, that's for sure. But if I could fit in some bespoke consulting on the side, it could still work. So - at the moment - I am tentatively planning to take the structural lower limit (of 3 students per course) as my functional lower limit (as in, I will give the courses), with the hope that the question will become moot in time. I intend to set up ticket sales venues so that people can begin to sign up for the July courses ... soon. <br /></p><p>If you have any questions or advice, I am eager to hear from you. <br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-19252011494909695662022-10-04T12:00:00.001-07:002022-10-04T12:00:30.108-07:00Announcing the PNI Practicum<p>Hello everyone. People have been asking me to give a course in <a href="https://workingwithstories.org/aboutpni.html">P</a><a href="https://workingwithstories.org/aboutpni.html" target="_blank">articipatory Narrative Inquiry</a> for ages. Well: I'm finally doing it. </p><p>Some may remember that I started playing with the idea of giving PNI courses <a href="http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/2015/12/what-if-i-gave-pni-course.html">way</a> <a href="http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/2016/02/course-developments.html">back</a> in 2015. I've been encouraged by many of the people I've talked to about it, so I decided to take the plunge.<br /></p><p>Since January 2022 I have been spending most of my time developing plans and materials for two online project-based <b>PNI Practicum</b> <b>courses</b>. In August I finished the first iteration of the first course, with plenty of feedback from three friends and colleagues (who took the course in exchange for said feedback). Today, after much discussion and reflection, I am finally ready to start taking reservations. </p><p></p><p>The first full-cohort set of PNI Practicum courses will begin in January 2023. <b>You can reserve your spot now</b>.
There is plenty of information available on the new <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum/">PNI Practicum web site</a>. If you have any questions I haven't answered there, you can send them to me at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com.</p><p>Here's an introductory video. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="256" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w5f4K3LCeLw" width="409" youtube-src-id="w5f4K3LCeLw"></iframe></div><p></p><span style="color: #134f5c;"><b></b></span><p>I am excited about the prospect of helping lots of people get their start in PNI in a supportive learning community. My dream is to give four PNI Practicum courses per year. Wish me luck!<br /></p><p>If you have any questions or suggestions about the PNI Practicum courses, send them to me.<br /></p><p> </p><p> </p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-23632218469036117172022-03-10T12:41:00.003-08:002022-06-06T10:06:06.832-07:00Cleaning the office again<p>So I'm working on another crazy new business venture (you'll find out soon enough), and when I start a new venture I always feel the need to clean my office. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">What are stories for? <br /></h3><p>Here's a thing I came across in my cleaning that I thought you might like to see. Years ago, I wrote about an experience that helped me understand the allure of stories. I was eating breakfast one day while leafing through a magazine, and I saw an advertisement that went like this:</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">something in small print</p><p style="text-align: left;">BECAUSE</p><p style="text-align: left;">something else in small print</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p>In a split second, my hand jerked the magazine up to my face. I had to know what was because of what. </p><p>I used this little story to talk about why stories are so engaging. To survive, we need to know what happens because of what. Stories help us figure that out, because in every story, something happens because of something.<br /></p><p>Well. When I was cleaning my office this time, I found that advertisement. Apparently I had ripped it out of the magazine and kept it. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqfFly8V2gPkA9BiTtmMhYbKU2CsC3ScgnXqYSHRSqp2YjwqC4JwLolT7TJRViDtXOtplZYVfsc7Hpv0Fu3q9SuaAC1Ci4qNzocBYQXf5w6u43f0_1HwmngeZ4L-ubY93m_j9lQ7JZuxAio2vVKHttt9df3GMJQvRuAp56w1SkNWe0xr6fX8rZ7b_w=s1839" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1197" data-original-width="1839" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqfFly8V2gPkA9BiTtmMhYbKU2CsC3ScgnXqYSHRSqp2YjwqC4JwLolT7TJRViDtXOtplZYVfsc7Hpv0Fu3q9SuaAC1Ci4qNzocBYQXf5w6u43f0_1HwmngeZ4L-ubY93m_j9lQ7JZuxAio2vVKHttt9df3GMJQvRuAp56w1SkNWe0xr6fX8rZ7b_w=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>It <i>doesn't </i>say "because." It says "more importantly." Huh. I remembered it wrong all these years. </p><p>That's even better! Now it shows <i>two</i> things:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Stories are <b>engaging</b> because we need to know what is more important than what. In every story, something is more important than something else. (It just so happens that this is also true.) Stories are importance filters. They help us to distinguish signals from noise.<br /></li><li>Stories are <b>unreliable</b> because we often remember them wrong, change them in memory, and use them to deceive ourselves and others. Stories <i>can</i> help us to distinguish signals from noise. But they can also distort signals, and they can create illusions of signals that do not exist. <br /></li></ol><p>When it comes to making sense of the world, stories are necessary and insufficient. This is why narrative thinking works best in synergy with other modes of thinking. We are the storytelling animal, yes, <i>and</i> we are the list-making animal, the data-gathering animal, the hypothesis-testing animal, and the fact-checking animal. </p><p>This is also why every folk tale tradition, going back thousands of years, includes stories whose purpose is to ridicule the simplistic belief that storytelling can ever be sufficient in and of itself. <br /></p><div><p>Anyway, I thought you folks might enjoy that little story-of-a-story.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Anybody want a book? <br /></h3><p>If you have spoken to me over Zoom in the past decade, you may have experienced this snippet of conversation.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>You: <i>Some interesting thing. </i><br /></p><p>Me: Oh, I have this great book about that! It's by . . . I don't remember, but it's here somewhere. Let me look.<br /></p><p>You: <i>More interesting things. </i></p><p>Me: What? Oh, sorry, I was looking for that book.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>This will no longer happen. I have finally rearranged all of my books into nice neat categories. </p><p>What are the categories? What sorts of books does an ecologist-turned-social-researcher have on her shelves? </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>folk tales,</li><li>narrative (separated, of course, into form, function, and phenomenon), </li><li>story work, group work, community work, organizational work (including knowledge management), </li><li>anthropology, sociology, research (narrative, action, qualitative, mixed-methods),</li><li>ecology, science, history and philosophy of science, <br /></li><li>complexity, complexity in human life (groups, societies,
organizations), </li><li>decision making, decision support, policy, conflict, political science,</li><li>knowledge, psychology, cognitive science, philosophy, </li><li>history, culture, cultural change, <br /></li><li>art, writing, design (visual, educational, software, games), programming, statistics. <br /></li></ul><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>MORE IMPORTANTLY</b>. . .</h3><p>While sorting, I found multiple copies of several books. If anyone wants any of these books, send me an email with your physical address, and I will send it to you. The books are:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Narrative-Impact-Social-Cognitive-Foundations/dp/080583124X" target="_blank">Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations</a> by <span class="author notFaded" data-width="165">
Melanie C. Green et al</span><span class="author notFaded" data-width="158">
</span></li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-New-Science-Discovering-Chaotic/dp/1576753441/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1R3D1VPABFKAR&keywords=leadership+and+the+new+science&qid=1646936088&s=books&sprefix=leadership+and+the%2Cstripbooks%2C102&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Leadership and the New Science</a> by Margaret Wheatley (edit: taken)</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA" target="_blank">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a> by Daniel Kahneman</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Tree-Reflections-American-Spirituality/dp/0941524582" target="_blank">The Sacred Tree: Reflections on Native American Spirituality</a> by Judie Bopp et al</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Story-Bridge-Alienation-Community-Action-ebook/dp/B00A9J24MO" target="_blank">Story Bridge: From Alienation to Community Action</a> by Richard Geer et al</li></ul><p>One of the books I "bought" multiple copies of was my own. Apparently, when I have needed to look up something in WWS, I have been taking copies out of the box of books I bought to sell or give away at conferences, forgetting that I had already done so. I found three of these extra copies of WWS, sticky-noted but otherwise pristine. <br /></p><p>But on looking at my box of books, I think I should just give the whole thing away. I have about a dozen copies of WWS that would have gone into other hands over the past few years if I had been attending in-person conferences. But as it is, they are just sitting here taking up space. So if you want one, let me know, and I'll send it to you.<br /></p><p>Of course, it will <i>cost</i> me something to mail books to you, especially if you are not in the United States. However, I am willing to set up a sliding scale so I can declutter my office. If you want to send me something to defray the shipping cost, go ahead and do that. (You can use the donate button on either the <a href="https://workingwithstories.org/download.html" target="_blank">WWS</a> or <a href="https://narrafirma.com/" target="_blank">NarraFirma</a> web site. On the NF site, the blue donate button is near the bottom of the page.) If you can't send me anything for the postage, I'll send you the book(s) you want anyway.</p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span>[Update: Due to this thing called inflation and shipping prices being higher than I remember, I have had to restrict this free-books offer to <b>only those with a US address</b>. Sorry!] </span></span><br /></p><p>At this time I would like to extend a sincere apology to a person (they know who they are) to whom I promised to send one of my duplicate books several years ago. I forgot to do it, then lost the book. </p><p>If you ask me to send you one of these books, and I don't send it, please, keep reminding me. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-38526575827300169882022-02-25T15:23:00.004-08:002022-03-16T08:24:27.633-07:00Mail bag: How many stories?<p>Last week somebody asked me a question via email that I've already answered lots of times: How many stories should a <a href="http://www.workingwithstories.org" target="_blank">PNI</a> project collect? </p><p>I was about to say "it's on page whatever in my book," like I usually do, but then I thought -- why don't I write something new this time, just to see what happens? I'm glad I did, because I think my answer is getting better as I keep doing more projects. Anyway, here's what I wrote. Maybe it will be helpful to you as well.<br /></p><p>The "how many stories" question comes up often when people are planning
story projects. The answer is a bit complicated, but it depends on six
things: issues, ambitions, abstractions, experiences, engagement, and people.
<br /></p><b>Issues: One or many?</b><br /><p>If you want to talk about one big, simple issue, you need one set of
stories. However, if you want to talk about multiple issues, or one <i>very </i>
complex issue with a lot of other issues embedded within it, you need
more stories. </p><p>One way I like to use to figure out if an issue is complex
is to keep asking "And what issues lie within that?" and then stop when
the answer is "there aren't any issues within it."
<br />
<br />For whatever number of stories you plan to
collect, you must multiply it
by the number of discrete issues you want to talk about. For example, if I wanted
to help people talk about jobs and homelessness, I would gather two sets
of stories (with some common questions to tie them together), so people
can explore each issue with the depth it requires.
<br />
<br /><b>Ambitions: Exploratory or in-depth?</b><br />
<br />If you want to:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>prove without a doubt that something is happening (in a
way that cannot be dismissed),</li><li>represent the voices of
people who have not been heard (in a way that cannot be ignored),</li><li>help people think through an issue deeply enough to arrive
at useful conclusions and plans (in a way that will not fall apart later
on), then<br /></li><li>you need more stories than if you just want to explore a topic and
see what happens.<br /></li></ul><p>Ambitious projects need 2-4 times as many stories as exploratory
projects. In an ambitious project, the patterns in the stories must be
obvious, plentiful, and complex enough to be explored in depth. In an
exploratory project, it's okay if the patterns are just interesting
hints at things people might want to explore more fully in the future. </p><p><b>Abstractions: Concrete or vague?</b></p><p>If you want to explore abstract issues that are difficult to explain in ordinary words, you will need more stories than if you want to explore simple, concrete issues. </p><p>For example, say you want to know how people feel about the new traffic lights in your neighborhood. You can just ask people how they feel about the new traffic lights in your neighborhood. But if you want to explore how your community is building resilience for a 21st century future, or some other string of jargon that means a lot to some people and nothing to others, you might have trouble gathering relevant stories. Most likely, you'll get a lot of "scattershot" stories based on people's <i>guesses</i> as to what you might be asking them to talk about.<br /></p><p>A good test is to write down a question you would like to ask people, then translate it into simple, everyday language. Search for the "1000 most common words" in whatever language the question will be in, then remove all the words in the question that are not in that list. Then ask yourself: if you frame your question in common words, will the stories told in response adequately address the issue you want to address? If yes, just ask the question that way, and you're fine. You won't need extra stories.<br /></p><p>But if rephrasing your question with common words will push it far away from the issue you want to address, then you will need to collect more stories, so that some of the scattershot stories you collect will fall onto your target. <b></b></p><p><b>Experiences: With stories, or with stories and patterns?</b><br />
<br />If you want people to meet in rooms, share stories, and do some
sensemaking exercises together, you can gather as few as twenty stories
per session. You might do that a few times within a project, but as long
as it's people talking, you can see and work with patterns in a few dozen to
several dozen stories.
<br />
<br />On the other hand, if you want to do what I call catalysis (which is
just analysis without the definitive conclusions), you need at least 100
stories to start finding statistical patterns in your data (answers to
questions about stories). At 100 stories most such patterns tend to be
weak. At 150 or 200 stories patterns are stronger (and less likely to be
considered fake or irrelevant). I get pretty nervous when I have do catalysis with
only 100 stories to work with. At around 200 stories I start to feel
more comfortable, because the patterns I find are easy to see and talk
about (without worrying that people will say "there's nothing there"). </p><p>This more-is-better trend continues until
about 600 stories, when you start running into diminishing returns. At
that point you are better off using your time to collect stories on a
different issue (unless, of course, some other aspect of this list means you need to push the number up for other reasons).<br />
<br />Catalysis is not important to, or even advisable for, every PNI project. Sometimes you do need to
generate a lot of graphs and statistics. But sometimes you can get the
same result with fewer stories by having people work with the stories
directly, in sensemaking exercises. It all depends on what sorts of
experiences you want people to have.
<br />
<br />I always advise people to imagine the people they want to help or reach
(whoever they are) responding to patterns in the stories and other data
they plan to collect. If you can picture those people looking at
graphs and statistical patterns and saying, "Oh, wow, now I get it," then
you want those things to show those
people, so you need catalysis.<br /></p><p>But if you can picture the same people saying the same things
because they are <i>working with the stories directly</i> (i.e., without any
graphs and statistics), you don't need catalysis. In fact, it might be a bad idea. It might waste time you can use for
other, more important things, like talking to more people, holding more
sessions, covering more issues, getting more stories to more people,
helping more people learn how to gather and work with stories, or
iterating over the project more times.
<br />
<br />On my web site I have an <a href="https://www.cfkurtz.com/KurtzExampleCatalysisReport.pdf" target="_blank">excerpt</a> from a catalysis report which a client
allowed me to share. If you look at it, you can see what the patterns that come out of
catalysis tend to look like. If that seems like it would not be useful
to your project, you don't need catalysis, and you don't need hundreds
of stories. On the other hand, if that sort of report seems like just the
kind of thing you need, then you can look at the numbers listed on the
second page of the report. Those are typical numbers for projects that
support catalysis well. <br />
<b><br />Engagement: Deep conversations, or messages in bottles?</b><br />
<br />A lot of "what works" in story work has to do with facilitation and
engagement. I once saw a project with 80 stories work far better (in the
sense of generating more useful insights) than a project with 1600
stories. </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The stories in the first project came from a group session with
20 people that was carried out by an expert facilitator who helped the
people in the room feel welcome, safe, and heard. As a result, the
people really spoke to the issues, and their stories and answers to
questions contained many striking insights. </li><li>The second project used a
web form that had embedded in it some constraining expectations about
what respondents ought to say. Those 1600 people said more
surface-level things, so even with 20 times more stories, less useful
insight came out of the project. It was still a good project, but it did not explore its issues as deeply as the project with 80 stories.
</li></ul><p>
So there is a quality-quantity balance. The more quality you can get in
your stories (in terms of how deeply and authentically people can
explore the issues at hand), the fewer stories will provide the same
result. Conversely, if for some reason you cannot gather quality
stories (maybe people are reluctant, or you can't talk to them in
person), a greater quantity of stories can make up for it, to some extent. </p><p>On some projects, quality is the primary constraint (so you need more stories), and on other projects, quantity is the primary constraint (so you need deeper engagement in the stories you can collect).<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>People: Small or large community? Small or large need?</b><br /></p><p>The more people you want to listen to, and the more the people in that
group need to feel heard, the more stories you need to collect.
Participatory story work never results in statistical sampling (because
it's self-selecting), but you do need more stories to talk about issues
in a community of 10,000 than in a community of 100. And you need more
stories in a community with a strong need to be heard than in a
community where people have already had plenty of chances to speak up.
<br />
<br />My general rule is that if at least 20% of the people in any community
have shared stories in a project, people tend to feel that the collected
stories are representative of the community. In cases where people in a
community feel especially unheard, that percent has to go up, maybe to
30% or 40%. The story collection also has to be balanced to represent
all relevant viewpoints, but that is the <i>shape</i> of the collection, not
its size. </p>Having said that, a rule of thumb based on percentage doesn't work as well if
the population is huge. If, say, there are 50,000 people in a community,
hearing from 20,000 of them might pose logistical problems. I have
seen story projects collect 10,000 stories, but it's not the norm. Most
projects have fewer than 1000 stories, just because the people doing the
projects have limited time to gather and work with the stories.
<br />
<br />In the case of a larger community, it's reasonable to say that 20-40% of the community should be <i><span class="moz-txt-star">invited</span></i> to share stories. After all, it's more about who is <i><span class="moz-txt-star">allowed</span> </i>
to speak than who actually speaks.
<br />
<br />Web-based surveys tend to get a 5-10% response rate, so if 20,000 people
are invited to speak, you would get something like 1000-2000 stories, which is
doable logistically.
<br />
<br />If stories are collected in person, in interviews or groups, it's hard to get 1000 stories, even if you invite 20,000 people. It takes more
time and energy to come to a session or interview than to fill out a web
form, so instead of a 5-10% response rate you will tend to get more like 1%.
On the other hand, stories gathered in interviews and sessions are so
much deeper and richer than web-collected stories that smaller numbers
of stories may not be a problem (see above).<br />
<br />Another thing is that, if a project contains multiple sub-projects that explore different issues (also see above), they
can together add up to hearing from 20-40% of the population, even when
the population is large. You can link sub-projects together
by using some common questions. If you do that, you can get to huge numbers of stories, spread across sub-projects within a larger, overarching project. <br /><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-21796913379716259432022-01-06T12:54:00.004-08:002022-01-06T13:05:57.354-08:00Narratopia is an open source game<p>Two blog posts back, I said I was going to work on <a href="https://narratopia.com/" target="_blank">Narratopia</a> again. I said I planned to work on two tasks: (1) trim the print-on-demand version of the game to make it cheaper, and (2) make the game easier to translate. </p><p>I <i>did</i> try. For weeks. But both of the tasks turned out to be much harder than I anticipated. I could not find a way to trim down the print-on-demand cost very much. And I could not find a way to make the translation process easy for you without creating an ongoing burden for myself. <br /></p><p>Eventually I found a solution. It happened through a chain of events that I would like to tell you about. </p><p>When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a visual artist, so I took every art class I could find. At first I had trouble getting started on new drawings. Every time I faced a blank sheet of paper I would freeze. So I developed a mantra: <i>There's always more paper</i>. I would look through my drawing pad, of perhaps 200 pages, and say to myself, "If I try to draw this thing" -- whatever I was drawing -- "this many times, probably at least <i>one</i> of them will be all right." And then I could start drawing. </p><p>I've used that mantra for everything I've done since then: for every drawing, but also for every blog post, article, book, software package, game, and so on. That's why every project I've ever worked on has gone through so many versions. And that's why I intended to go back and work on Narratopia for a fourth time. I <i>did</i> work on it. I got stuck. I was trying to get unstuck.<br /></p><p>Then, over the holidays, I decided to take a rare week off and play video games. I was playing a nice little puzzle game called <i>The Last Campfire </i>when I realized something about my mantra.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6723qzjRkz_FQDrebAv7me-vBdrkSTSh_V5mQL2ukyDrnSaEEV4gRmIyI8AE1XkYHG9deKi9IqYI6A27sSvejBwKoM4BJOgzoFBDg_IhQVA3woXPETb7kQUI-llGPlM8mGYTBoZV3-5pEjDh_CBzun_WOlFdnjSEw2lZvU1_mAGbKM0cr4XE3tVzW=s410" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="410" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6723qzjRkz_FQDrebAv7me-vBdrkSTSh_V5mQL2ukyDrnSaEEV4gRmIyI8AE1XkYHG9deKi9IqYI6A27sSvejBwKoM4BJOgzoFBDg_IhQVA3woXPETb7kQUI-llGPlM8mGYTBoZV3-5pEjDh_CBzun_WOlFdnjSEw2lZvU1_mAGbKM0cr4XE3tVzW=w200-h126" width="200" /></a></div>In <i>The Last Campfire</i>, you are a little pillowcase being, and you walk around a fantastic landscape helping other little pillowcase beings find the energy or hope or something to move on in their journey to . . . I don't know, I haven't finished the game yet. Anyway, so far all of these little pillowcase beings have been super grateful for my help, and I've been getting a nice warm feeling every time I help one.<p></p><p>But it's a lie. I'm not playing the game to help the pillowcase beings. I'm playing the game because the <i>way</i> you help the pillowcase beings is to solve puzzles. Solving the puzzles is interesting and fun. <i>That's</i> why I'm playing the game. The pillowcase beings are basically just animated buttons I click to get to the puzzles. </p><p>So anyway, I was playing this game, and I thought: this game reminds me of my life. </p><p>I have spent a good portion of my professional life as a speculative entrepreneur. Over the years I've worked on project after project that nobody asked me to do. I've written blog posts, articles, and books. I've developed concepts, frameworks, exercises, and methods. I've built software and games. I've started professional networks. I did all of these projects because I wanted to help people. But I also did all of these projects because they were interesting and fun. To some extent, the people I helped were just the buttons I clicked to get to the puzzles.</p><p>My next thought was: ah, but there is a critical difference between <i>The Last Campfire</i> and my life. In <i>The Last Campfire</i>, after you solve each puzzle and free its little pillowcase being, <i>you get to walk away</i>. In my life, it has never been easy to walk away from projects. Every project I have started has taken on a life of its own, and it has lingered, clinging, demanding my time and energy. For years, sometimes for decades. The downside of "there's always more paper" is that, well, there's always more paper, and more, and more. <br /></p><p>Thus arose a new mantra: <i>There's always more fire</i>. An infinite capacity to create requires an infinite capacity to destroy. You can't have one without the other.<br /></p><p>I can't believe it took me forty years to figure that out. This year, I resolve to get better at walking away from projects I no longer find interesting or fun -- even if I think people still need them. If people need them, people will step up. <br /></p><p>So, when I got back to work, I decided to release Narratopia as an open source game. <i>You</i> figure it out. You can now download all of the files I used to make the game and mess with them yourself. If you want to print the game more cheaply, go ahead. If you want to translate the game, go ahead. I'm moving on to the next puzzle.<br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-33569305457020059982021-12-09T14:22:00.001-08:002022-06-06T10:09:12.252-07:00The Confluence Workbook, among other things<div><p>Readers, I have several things to tell you about: a workbook, a podcast, a FAQ, sales, plans, and reviews. </p><p><i><b><span style="color: #274e13;">The Confluence Workbook </span></b></i><br /></p><p></p><p>As I worked on <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/confluence" target="_blank"><i>Confluence</i></a> over the past two years, thinking my way through the examples you see in the book (and many other examples that didn't make it into the book), I drew hundreds of thinking-space diagrams, on paper and using the computer.<br /></p><p>While I was doing this, I kept thinking that at least some of the people who <i>read </i>the book would want to draw their own diagrams. That is the point of the book, after all: to help people think about situations by filling up thinking spaces and noticing patterns. So when I created the downloadable <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/confluence/#printables" target="_blank">exercise materials</a> for the <i>Confluence </i>web site, I included some "coloring book" pages people could print and write on. </p><p>But as I talked to people who were reading and using <i>Confluence</i>, I realized that some people might like to have a place to keep their diagrams together, in a sort of <i>Confluence</i> book they wrote themselves. So about a month ago, I started working on a write-it-yourself workbook companion. It looks like this.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBRaVHz9vRmrFlvf9BLbjQ9W1MkohjpRwJ1X2SewytdBskxlasvV33WEMCB16NnKTDMcJ-Wz5jirYwgIN04EQ1EfwPfMrSm-tpuB096htU0YeV53hXU93ufuRhxOLcODuvVmwH9ZOH4Tc/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1957" data-original-width="1500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBRaVHz9vRmrFlvf9BLbjQ9W1MkohjpRwJ1X2SewytdBskxlasvV33WEMCB16NnKTDMcJ-Wz5jirYwgIN04EQ1EfwPfMrSm-tpuB096htU0YeV53hXU93ufuRhxOLcODuvVmwH9ZOH4Tc/" width="184" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You can use <i>The Confluence Workbook</i> to think about organization and self-organization and how they flow together in situations that arise in your life, work, family, community, and organization. You can also use the workbook to record what happens when you do the group exercise described in <i>Confluence</i>. </p><p>The workbook contains 120 two-page spreads like this one.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9l8bgLG49d6zyiESZ-v4505UPtLgDn_i81Pgpes0MI9ZDC1KC6btZyT0BNPpnVLuJgfD7ddxF4cRmR1a46kkmT78TrvSPeH8VukIqJP0X6MH0PhJP4kHvPSBed4KVFDFP9TWfxbrZkYc/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="1665" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9l8bgLG49d6zyiESZ-v4505UPtLgDn_i81Pgpes0MI9ZDC1KC6btZyT0BNPpnVLuJgfD7ddxF4cRmR1a46kkmT78TrvSPeH8VukIqJP0X6MH0PhJP4kHvPSBed4KVFDFP9TWfxbrZkYc/w400-h258/workbook-two-page-spread.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>A thinking space on the left is followed by three prompts on the right:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
<b>Context</b>: Why you explored the topic, when, where, and how you explored it, and so on. </li><li><b>Patterns</b>: What you saw when you placed your items into the thinking space - clusters, gaps, boundaries, links, and contrasts. </li><li><b>Thoughts</b>: What you learned, what surprised you, what you are curious about, and what you would like to do next. </li></ul><p>There are 24 of these two-page spreads for the first (main) thinking space, and 16 for each of the other six spaces<i>. </i>For convenience, the workbook also includes a brief description of each thinking space (with examples), a summary of the group exercise, and copy-and-cut exercise materials.<br /></p><p>To be perfectly clear, every word in <i>The Confluence Workbook</i> can also be found in <i>Confluence</i> or on the book's web site. In fact, you can assemble your own workbook by printing pages from the exercise materials PDF on the web site. The printed workbook just gives you a nice bound volume in which to store your diagrams. There's a blank space on the workbook's spine, so you can write in a topic or theme. <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHr2jH5BhGjtYC1yaeb0v5zfHwg_H5hdAYxlg1Tp9SikcLb0TtSLRszs_kirGcd8nuoYSKrcPZrNtzWSJjH5oqoWOAnH8PcwWhFaexjZUFATFZvWi9bISOJaCa2t0-XClgrP1eadOndPc/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="ComPlexus Podcast" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHr2jH5BhGjtYC1yaeb0v5zfHwg_H5hdAYxlg1Tp9SikcLb0TtSLRszs_kirGcd8nuoYSKrcPZrNtzWSJjH5oqoWOAnH8PcwWhFaexjZUFATFZvWi9bISOJaCa2t0-XClgrP1eadOndPc/w200-h200/complexus_podcast.jpg" title="ComPlexus Podcast" width="200" /></a></div>My hope is that <i>The Confluence Workbook</i> will help all of us: you as you think
through situations that matter to you, and me as I try to keep doing
this work (I will get 1-3 dollars for each workbook sold). If you have any feedback or suggestions about the workbook, let me know. <br /><p></p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><b>Here I am talking about <i>Confluence</i></b></span></p><p></p>Soon after I published <i>Confluence</i>, I had a lovely conversation with Bruce Waltuck for the <a href="https://plexusinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Plexus Institute</a> ComPlexus Podcast. That conversation is now available as <a href="https://plexusinstitute.org/2021/11/11/exploring-participatory-narrative-inquiry-with-cynthis-kurtz/" target="_blank">Episode 4</a> of the podcast. <p></p><p>In the interview, I talk about where <i>Confluence</i> came from, how I hope people will use it, and what I plan to do next.</p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><b>A <i>Confluence</i> FAQ</b></span></p><p>People have been sending questions about <i>Confluence</i>, and I've been answering their questions and compiling the answers. As a result, there is now a <i>Confluence</i> <a href="https://cfkurtz.com/confluence/#faq" target="_blank">FAQ</a> on the web site, which I will continue to improve over time. </p><p>Thank you to those who have written! If you have a question about the book, feel free to drop me a note (cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com).<br /></p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><b>Sales and plans<br /></b></span></p><p>Sales of <i>Confluence</i> are coming in at almost exactly the same rate as <i>Working with Stories</i> in its first year. As I recall, WWS sold 250 copies in its first year. <i>Confluence</i> has sold roughly half that many copies in its first six months. It's déja vu all over again! Perhaps I have encountered some sort of universal word-of-mouth constant. <br /></p><p>I am very glad the book is selling. At the same time, however, I am not going to be able to keep writing books at this rate. After seven years, WWS has paid me about one dollar per hour for the 2.5 person-years I spent writing it. I need to make more than that on <i>Confluence</i> if I am going to be able to write any more books. </p><p>Here's what I would like to accomplish over the next few years. I submit it to you (all of you, collectively) as a sort of proposal.<br /></p>First, I would like to finish <i>At Home with Stories</i>, my long-gestating book on the interactions between commercial and conversational storytelling over the past few centuries. As many know, I have written about fifteen blog posts (some the length of book chapters) on this topic. This book will draw all of those thoughts together, along with some yet-to-be-completed due-diligence work on the history of these two forms of storytelling, from ancient times to the present moment. I think this book project will take at least a year to finish, but I'm hoping it can be done by the end of 2022. </div><div><br />Secondly, I've been thinking that 2024 might be a good year to publish a tenth-anniversary fourth edition of <a href="http://www.workingwithstories.org" target="_blank"><i>Working with Stories</i></a>. Based on many reader comments, I think it would be best to split WWS into three books, thus:<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>A short (say 100 page) easy-reading book on participatory narrative inquiry for absolute beginners. It will introduce the basic concepts of PNI, but it will leave out most of the details that make the current edition of WWS too long and too complicated for many beginners.</li><li>A slightly trimmed-down (say 400 page) main version of WWS. This book will keep most of what is in WWS now, but it will remove some less-than-essential elements that I now think could have been placed elsewhere. I will also update the new edition with several new exercises, insights, and ideas that have bubbled up over the past seven years of work in this area.<br /></li><li>A PNI-for-professional-story-workers book. This will have everything that is now included in <i>More Work with Stories</i> (a book I never got around to finishing), plus some of the bits to be trimmed out of the main WWS version. I will also update MWWS to reflect more experience-based insights, drawing from dozens of new projects I've consulted on over the past several years.<br /></li></ol></div><div><p>I believe that splitting up WWS in this way will make the whole body of work more useful to more people. Probably the mid-size version of the book will keep its original title. The professional version will probably be called <i>More Work with Stories</i> (as it has been called all along). And the simple version will be called . . . something simple.<br /></p><p>I don't know how much of this plan I will be able to carry out. It depends on book sales, and it depends on consulting. I love helping people do PNI projects. I learn something new on every project, and it's wonderful to see people using PNI in the world. At the same time, however, it's hard to concentrate on large, complex writing projects while dealing with frequent meetings and emails. So I guess I'll see how things work out. <br /></p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><b>Reviews</b></span></p><p>This brings me to my final point, and to a request. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991369416" target="_blank"><i>Confluence</i></a> needs more book reviews. If you have read the book, please consider writing a review: on Amazon, on your blog, on LinkedIn or Twitter or wherever you post things. Simply put, if you want me to keep writing books, a good way to help me do that is to post reviews of the books I have written. The more books I sell, the more books I can write. </p><p>And of course, <b>many thanks to everyone</b> who has helped with this work, whether through collaboration, consulting, word of mouth, or encouragement. Every little thing makes a difference.<br /></p><p><br /></p></div>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-34456617523987124132021-10-26T14:16:00.004-07:002022-03-16T08:28:59.883-07:00We Are Now Leaving NarraFirma (for a while)<p>As you may know, my husband and I started working together on <a href="https://narrafirma.com" target="_blank">NarraFirma</a>, our open-source software for participatory narrative inquiry, in 2014. We put out our first release in October of 2015. Since then I have tried to work on the software for at least a month every year. All in all, I would estimate that we have put between four and five person-years into the project.<br /></p><p>Over the past few weeks, as I drew my latest pulse of work on NarraFirma to a close, I found myself running out of low-hanging fruit. The last three things I tried to do were too hard and/or too system-breaking to finish. So I decided to put all of them off for a while, at least until I (or we) have enough time and/or funding to work on NF again next year. </p><p>(Of course, if you find a bug in NarraFirma, please <a href="https://github.com/pdfernhout/narrafirma/issues" target="_blank">let me know</a> right away.) <br /></p><p>These are the three fruits I could not reach.</p><p><b>Not doing: ODF export </b><br /></p><p>I wanted to give NarraFirma users the option to write catalysis reports directly to <b>Open Document Format</b> (ODT) files, because most word processors cannot process HTML files very well. </p><p>I looked into this, and I even got a little way into implementing an ODT export function. However, when I converted one of NF's reports to ODT using <a href="https://pandoc.org/" target="_blank">pandoc</a>, I realized that it was a waste of my time to reinvent the wheel. Pandoc is free and easy to use, and it converts NarraFirma's HTML reports to ODT or DOCX formats quite nicely. As long as pandoc exists, NF has no need to generate anything other than HTML.<br /></p><p>I should have tried pandoc a long time ago. I can't imagine why I didn't. (Three-years-ago-me was so stupid.) Anyway, I recommended pandoc on the help page and moved on.</p><p><b><b>Not doing: </b>Survey piping</b></p><p>I wanted to support <b>conditional question asking</b> (sometimes called "piping") in NarraFirma surveys. I spent quite a bit of time trying to get this to work. But in the end I decided to back out and abandon the effort because it was a bad fit with NF's surveying architecture. To implement it, I would have to make much larger and deeper changes than I am comfortable making right now. </p><p>Also, I'm not sure that conditional questions are all that important to NF users. Or at least they are not important enough to risk destabilizing a part of the software that needs to be rock-solid. Maybe I'll revisit that decision someday, but right now it doesn't seem worth doing.<br /></p><p><b><b>Not doing: </b>Multiple sets of answers per story</b></p><p>If, back in 2014, we had thought of having <b>multiple sets of answers per story</b>, and we had worked that through the entire data structure, it would have been so easy to implement a survey that showed people stories (told by other people) and asked them to add their own interpretations. Sadly, we did not think of that possibility at the time. Or maybe we triaged it out, I don't remember. But in any case, NF expects there to be exactly one set of answers for each story.</p><p>I spent some time trying to find a workaround for this, because I really would like to support multiple interpretations of each story. However, I decided, again, to put it aside for now. Not only would I have to write a converter to transition legacy data into a new structure - that's doable - but I would have to change a lot of things about how graphs and statistics work. So that idea will have to stay on the back burner for a while longer. <br /></p><p><b>Did: Better clustering</b></p><p>After failing to accomplish these three tasks, I wanted to do <i>something</i> to round out this pulse of work. So I looked around in NarraFirma for some ugly, unpleasant thing I could improve. </p><p>I remembered that people have often had trouble with the clustering interface, where you group your interpretations or observations to create sections of your catalysis report. (The same interface is used in the planning part of the software as well.) </p><p>I had drawn cluster names with very large bubbles. Reasonably, people tried to place their items <i>into</i> the bubbles, as if they were containers. But in fact, it was not necessary to do that, because NarraFirma determines clustering based on <i>distances</i> between center points, not boundaries. </p><p>So I shrank the cluster names (now they no longer look like containers) and drew lines that connect items to clusters. This should make the process more clear.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUu87-1e1BC4tDJqsz8vFyoGkGrYPzfHtIgrHrPjvAccXHjUR1BqdMshjD2O-1duFVelFXE9TorOe6aEHZY_0uZHq085Si0f6vQEoOoBiKMBnqciiVV69elUk7btae3m37BDtA4K16z0/s411/clusterlines.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="303" data-original-width="411" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUu87-1e1BC4tDJqsz8vFyoGkGrYPzfHtIgrHrPjvAccXHjUR1BqdMshjD2O-1duFVelFXE9TorOe6aEHZY_0uZHq085Si0f6vQEoOoBiKMBnqciiVV69elUk7btae3m37BDtA4K16z0/s320/clusterlines.png" width="320" /></a></div>I also replaced the line of buttons below the clustering space with one of my "things you can do" lists, which (I think) are clearer and more compact. And I replaced the brute-force method of setting print orders by hand with a simpler method. Ugliness reduced; usability improved. You can read more about NF 1.5.2 on the NarraFirma <a href="https://narrafirma.com/2021/10/26/release-1-5-2/">blog</a>.<br /><p></p><p>If you have any wish-list items for NarraFirma, drop me a note to let me know. But as of now, NarraFirma will go back onto the back burner until next year.<br /></p><p><b>Next stop: Narratopia<br /></b></p><p>Now I plan to turn my attention to another long-neglected project: <a href="http://www.narratopia.com" target="_blank">Narratopia</a>. As you may remember, the last time I worked on "the conversational story game," I expanded it into a larger and better version. However, its price doubled, and, well, people have pretty much stopped buying it. </p><p>To be clear, I have never made any money on Narratopia sales. My "profit" has always been less than a dollar per game. However, I do want people to be able to afford to buy the game, even if I make nothing (or very little) on it. So I plan to go back and redesign the game to fit into a smaller box and cost less. TheGameCrafter.com, the print-on-demand service I use to publish Narratopia, has some new options, and I have some new ideas for slimming down the materials while keeping the gameplay intact. <br /></p><p>The second thing that has happened with Narratopia over the past few years is that several people have written to me about creating translations of it. As I recall, the proposed languages have included Russian, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Italian. However, nobody has yet <i>finished</i> any of these translations. That is mostly because in Narratopia's current state, it takes a very long time for both contributors (the translator and myself) to change the relevant files. Sometimes people have not had time to do the translations, and sometimes I have not had time to deal with translations. <br /></p><p>So I intend to transition the files that make up Narratopia to a different format in which I can easily put together a new translation, based on something like a spreadsheet of alternate texts, in an hour or two. I might use <a href="https://github.com/andymeneely/squib" target="_blank">squib</a>, or I might write my own scripts. I'll see how it goes.</p><p><b>If you have played Narratopia, ever, and you have not told me about your experience, please tell me what the game was like for you</b>. </p><p>I played Narratopia just a few weeks ago with some visiting relatives, and I was pleased to see that I did not feel the need to make any major changes to it. (Maybe a few tweaks to the instructions.) However, having said that, I would love to hear <i>your</i> recommendations for improving it as I begin to work on it again.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /><br /></p><div><p><br /></p></div>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-73315245694141567292021-09-24T12:40:00.001-07:002021-09-24T12:44:29.860-07:00NarraFirma 1.5.0 is out<div><p>All righty then. I've been working on the latest pulse of NarraFirma development for about two months, and I've got some things to show you. I'll just show you a few of my favorite changes here. For more detail (than you could ever want), visit the NarraFirma <a href="https://narrafirma.com/2021/09/24/release-1-5-0/">blog</a>. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>Better surveys</b></h3><p>The surveying part of NarraFirma has always been its weakest part. It's a little stronger now. Here are a few of the biggest changes.</p><p>You can now create surveys that accept <b>write-in answers</b> for every type of survey question. You can use these for "other" answers below a fixed list, or you can use them for follow-up questions (which are especially useful in pilot projects). Write-in answers are treated in the same way as answers to free-text questions (they have a special "graph type" in catalysis, and you can write observations based on them).<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygAP0bVYbjdTqYtpLVQrana-7IlbI2cFHMhrh_wWuJfYXhcrxh893cRlwUTXIBGsV8DZ6XumyKVJYm23-nDWAob9qSxl_eAqt16F9Fe27Du5_35F4w-0Sfh6vvswTbhnTHed9Z_BP930/s554/otherWriteInField.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="New write-in field example" border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="554" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygAP0bVYbjdTqYtpLVQrana-7IlbI2cFHMhrh_wWuJfYXhcrxh893cRlwUTXIBGsV8DZ6XumyKVJYm23-nDWAob9qSxl_eAqt16F9Fe27Du5_35F4w-0Sfh6vvswTbhnTHed9Z_BP930/w400-h141/otherWriteInField.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>You can now create <b>multi-lingual surveys</b>. Participants can choose a language at the start of the survey, and their choice is saved for graphing. You can enter and edit translations within NarraFirma or using CSV import.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAwwYBlmQSYL1efzIGCg60nDsU8yta5ea7V_fJf0_Eeufw_FpfRdJ7UNXNpl_h5oYxvEjlotCgoudUd8solrdaQjKNCd2euzTU1G3rVEWnERrJXaUlh8K-iDLx1H02nczhfhTBpZi2xQ/s697/multilingualSurvey.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="New multi-language surveys" border="0" data-original-height="176" data-original-width="697" height="101" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAwwYBlmQSYL1efzIGCg60nDsU8yta5ea7V_fJf0_Eeufw_FpfRdJ7UNXNpl_h5oYxvEjlotCgoudUd8solrdaQjKNCd2euzTU1G3rVEWnERrJXaUlh8K-iDLx1H02nczhfhTBpZi2xQ/w400-h101/multilingualSurvey.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />There are also several smaller surveying improvements, which you can read about in the <a href="https://narrafirma.com/2021/09/24/release-1-5-0/">blog post</a>.</div><div> </div><div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Better qualitative analysis</h3><p style="text-align: left;">Another weak spot in NarraFirma has been its annotation system. I meant it to support qualitative analysis, but I didn't have time to finish it properly. So this time I went back and improved it. You can now create <b>annotation questions whose</b> <b>answers emerge </b>as you read through your stories. </p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYvXfDnKgi_v48GNEyo2SMTZ98m4xoMAi1M_qHmtYxZTBI4TT7HEvKc3XVTlx1U9Dv_zLtGO3URe_DMUAgS_NUki12qI950FKix-RjqysXIb5N-2EQWBcJ8iHgEYBDndwyaCeeHSFPMag/s1009/annotatingStory.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Improved annotation" border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="1009" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYvXfDnKgi_v48GNEyo2SMTZ98m4xoMAi1M_qHmtYxZTBI4TT7HEvKc3XVTlx1U9Dv_zLtGO3URe_DMUAgS_NUki12qI950FKix-RjqysXIb5N-2EQWBcJ8iHgEYBDndwyaCeeHSFPMag/w400-h166/annotatingStory.png" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p style="text-align: left;">This should improve the qualitative half of NarraFirma's mixed-methods support tremendously.<br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Better data lumping</h3><p style="text-align: left;">This version of NarraFirma adds <b>display lumping</b>: treating similar answers to choice questions as if they were the same. Like story filtering, display lumping massages your data on its way to being graphed and tested.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZzgyTxp5qVDiH1Qsf2-qc3rDtXKUlakt6JRjynR7Stm_xQU27FbQRxiOOsCeE3dgYT_YirtEXwVLITCm55z0ybnKtidy4INSN2rogXizj9b5ZAdM18aQHFeMlyBblUKflPTWKbl0R1s/s1061/displayLumping_field.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="New display lumping feature" border="0" data-original-height="154" data-original-width="1061" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZzgyTxp5qVDiH1Qsf2-qc3rDtXKUlakt6JRjynR7Stm_xQU27FbQRxiOOsCeE3dgYT_YirtEXwVLITCm55z0ybnKtidy4INSN2rogXizj9b5ZAdM18aQHFeMlyBblUKflPTWKbl0R1s/w400-h58/displayLumping_field.png" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">You could always do data lumping in NarraFirma by exporting and re-importing your
data, but that took time, and doing it over and over while you worked out your lumping schemes could be annoying. Now you can try out a lumping scheme in seconds by filling in a field. This improvement means that the
integrity-checking and data-massaging step of the catalysis process should be over and done with much more quickly. <br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Usability</h3><p style="text-align: left;">I also made many little usability improvements to parts of the application that were ugly or difficult to use. For example, here's a better way to choose and arrange questions on a story form:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjufudFJ4-c1GNTiCo-jf3lCDel36GmP7MTYCX8VTny3QLHBLGo0HpSnm9UFGh0n73dmHotU7Tp5_UmmDYPVnPzGc8ThninOw1WJmm4scM8U1jI4JXejvBPVkMwZ6P0xjkJO_YTiGEXEms/s1085/questionsChooser.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="New questions chooser" border="0" data-original-height="313" data-original-width="1085" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjufudFJ4-c1GNTiCo-jf3lCDel36GmP7MTYCX8VTny3QLHBLGo0HpSnm9UFGh0n73dmHotU7Tp5_UmmDYPVnPzGc8ThninOw1WJmm4scM8U1jI4JXejvBPVkMwZ6P0xjkJO_YTiGEXEms/w400-h115/questionsChooser.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Please send bug reports!</h3><p style="text-align: left;">If you are using NarraFirma and you find a bug, <i>please</i> visit the <a href="https://github.com/pdfernhout/narrafirma/issues">GitHub issues list</a> and tell me what happened. You can also send me an email at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">What's next</h3><p style="text-align: left;">I have one more to-do item on my list for this pulse of work. It is to export catalysis reports in ODT (<a href="https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office">Open Document Text</a>) format, which can be read by most word processors. This is another longstanding limitation of NarraFirma that I think I can remove. I hope to have that done within the next month or so.<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">If you would like to suggest any new features you think would make NarraFirma work better for you, please send me a note. I would love to hear what you would like to see.<br /></p></div><br />Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-75327332642830919682021-07-28T14:09:00.005-07:002021-07-28T14:11:22.552-07:00A New Journey to NarraFirma<div><div><p>Hello everybody. After nearly two years, it's finally time to go back to work on NarraFirma. I am now beginning a new development pulse. Hooray!</p><p>In fact, I have already released a new minor version. You can read about the changes in version 1.4.2 in the narrafirma.com <a href="https://narrafirma.com/2021/07/28/release-1-4-2/" target="_blank">blog post announcing the release</a>. <br /></p><p>Now here's my wish list for this next pulse of work, which will take place over the next 3-6 months (how long it lasts depends on what else happens during that time). The big-ticket items are as follows.</p><p><b>Display-only lumping </b><br /></p><p>When you ask people a question and give them several answers they can choose from, some of the answers might not be chosen very often. For example, if I say, "<b>How do you feel about this story?</b>" People might respond with a distribution of answers like this:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>satisfied (12)</li><li>frustrated (18)</li><li>relieved (13)</li><li>angry (14)</li></ul></div><p>Most statistical tests can't compare counts less than twenty. Also, the more ways you slice and dice your data (by province, by age, etc), the smaller your counts get. So, catalysis almost always involves a time-consuming step where you <b>lump</b><b> similar answers</b> <b>together</b> to get larger counts. </p><p>You <i>can</i> lump answers in NarraFirma right now using the import system. In the above example, you can tell NarraFirma that it should read the answers in your data file thus:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>satisfied (12) or relieved (13) -> positive (25)<br /></li><li>frustrated (18) or angry (14) -> negative (32)<br /></li></ul><p>Lumping via import works now. But it's a pain to keep re-importing your data over and over as you make lumping decisions. This is an aspect of the NF catalysis process that I have always found to be particularly annoying.<br /></p><p>I am fairly certain that <i>if I tread very carefully</i>, I can add <b>display-only lumping</b> to NarraFirma. That is, you will be able to enter a series of commands into a field on the "Configure catalysis report" page, and NarraFirma will <b>draw lumped graphs without changing your data</b>. That means you'll be able to change your lumping scheme without re-importing anything. This could speed up the catalysis process considerably.<br /></p><p>The system will probably work like the filter system does. The commands will look something like this:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Feel about == satisfied || relieved == positive</li></ul><p>Meaning, when NF gets to the question "Feel about," it will <i>pretend</i> that the answer "satisfied" is the answer "positive." And it will do the same thing for the answer "relieved." <br /></p><p><b>Survey improvements</b></p><p>Originally we wanted to build a strong story-gathering capacity into NarraFirma. However, we ran out of money before we could get to it. As a result, gathering stories using NF is very simple and plain. </p><p>As far as I know, most of the people who are using NF today are not using it to gather stories. They are using SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, Open Data Toolkit, LimeSurvey, and many other options. That's why I improved the import functionality of NF in the last pulse of work on it. </p><p>However, in <i>this</i> pulse of work, I would like to improve how NF collects stories.</p><p>I have done a few things already. I added a "maximum number of answers" field to keep people from ticking off every possible answer to multi-choice questions. And I spent a little time improving the accessibility of NF surveys. </p><p>But there's much more I would like to do, if I can. Specifically:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>I would like to make it possible to <b>display images and videos</b> (via web links) as introductory, question-asking, and answer-representing elements in a survey. </li><li>I would like to make it possible to specify <b>multiple language versions </b>for all text elements of story forms, to be selected via a language-choice question at the start of the form.</li><li>I would like to see if NF can support <b>uploading of images and recording of audio stories</b> during the survey. <br /></li><li>I would like to support an <b>"other" write-in text box</b> on single or multi-choice questions.</li></ol></div><p>I cannot <i>promise</i> any of these things, because a lot of them have to do with legacy infrastructure decisions we made several years ago. But I do at least want to see what is possible.<br /></p><p><b>Theming</b></p><p>Another feature I had wanted to have in NarraFirma back in the day, but had to put off for lack of time and funding, was a theming page. </p><p>This would be in the catalysis section. You would read each story, write a few brief themes to describe it, and then <b>merge</b> your themes into a short list. The list would become answers to a question with counts you could graph. </p><p>You can actually do this in NF now, using the annotation system. But it's such a pain to do it that way that I usually do my theming in a spreadsheet. I would like to see if I can make an interface within NF that makes theming simpler and more intuitive.<br /></p><p><b>Reporting</b></p><p>The last big-ticket item on my wish list for this pulse is the ability to export a catalysis report in ODT format, which can be read by most word processors. Writing reports only to HTML is a big limitation, and it has bothered me for a long time. I believe that this task is doable; it just requires a lot of time and careful attention. <br /></p><div><p><b>Little things</b></p><p>There are many small suggestions I would like to work on, most of them submitted by NF users. I will be attending to everything listed on the <a href="https://github.com/pdfernhout/narrafirma/issues" target="_blank">GitHub issues page</a>, and I have many other little things to look at that people told me about in emails. </p><p>If there is something <i>you</i> would like me to change in (or add to) NarraFirma, <b>now is the time to speak up</b>. Add an issue on the <a href="https://github.com/pdfernhout/narrafirma/issues" target="_blank">GitHub issues page</a>, or send me an email at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com. I would love to hear from you.<br /></p><p>And as always, I want to say a big <b>thank you</b> to everyone who has helped with NarraFirma, recently and in the past. Every donation, commission, suggestion, and encouraging email has helped me to keep working on the software and making it better and better. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-58747007788858042072021-05-20T15:15:00.007-07:002021-05-24T12:36:15.545-07:00Confluence: The Book<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYpohd-6YJTuorY2tqqIEn6xbMvRhy15GvizhNVzZcEv7o5lZIitreV9UQgJ1JyG4nPPf5-a8cjIO9Z-7tO_N8BGmuVaBJuey5GXAIDMt-bl-CZo2YZnuwl5vzaHkyA3n6Z0-WgY36XRM/s2048/cover-front.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1355" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYpohd-6YJTuorY2tqqIEn6xbMvRhy15GvizhNVzZcEv7o5lZIitreV9UQgJ1JyG4nPPf5-a8cjIO9Z-7tO_N8BGmuVaBJuey5GXAIDMt-bl-CZo2YZnuwl5vzaHkyA3n6Z0-WgY36XRM/s320/cover-front.png" /></a></div>It's done. The new book is ready for you to read. It has an <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991369416" target="_blank">Amazon page with print and Kindle versions</a>, plus a web site (at <a href="http://cfkurtz.com/confluence" target="_blank">cfkurtz.com/confluence</a>) with downloadable excerpts and exercise materials. You should also be able to order the book at your local book store (ISBN: 978-0-9913694-1-6).<br /><p></p><i>Confluence</i> is about the ways in which organized plans (like roads) and self-organized patterns (like traffic) intermingle and interact in our lives, families, communities, and organizations. It's about complexity, but it's not <i>just</i> about complexity. It's about how the structures and procedures we design and the spontaneous patterns that emerge as we interact co-occur, intersect, and press on each other. <br /><p></p><p></p>
The book revolves around the use of seven "thinking spaces," blank canvases you can use to explore organization and self-organization in situations and from perspectives that matter to you. Each space explores a different aspect of confluence. A group exercise helps you use the spaces to make sense of things together. <br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpD62k0BEnXEkiE2Y4lCYAX5SKvYGhqC_gUDZkLXjpJMnNvVwyplg0JqFim5C0w8cjFAKgMqga_KMvi1FiIQMnDcdGSedBpKB2F9oz6qV7DrDb8yHVyFiPv8n8f0F0xF56Nk6WgxDc0J0/s2048/cover-back.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1346" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpD62k0BEnXEkiE2Y4lCYAX5SKvYGhqC_gUDZkLXjpJMnNvVwyplg0JqFim5C0w8cjFAKgMqga_KMvi1FiIQMnDcdGSedBpKB2F9oz6qV7DrDb8yHVyFiPv8n8f0F0xF56Nk6WgxDc0J0/s320/cover-back.png" /></a></div>Aside from the first chapter (which introduces the book) and the third chapter (which explains the group exercise), most of the book uses the seven thinking spaces to explore a variety of situations, from ghost towns to factories to folk tales to mirages. I wrote these explorations for two reasons. First, I wrote them to <i>use the spaces in front of you</i>, so you can see how you can use the spaces yourself. And second, I wrote the examples to help you <i>practice</i> <i>using the spaces</i> as you read and think about my explorations. <br /><p></p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><b>Thank you</b></span><br /></p><p>I would like to say a great big thank you to my wonderful group of 25 "early readers," who sent me feedback on the book and helped me improve it tremendously. Some people sent just a few bits of feedback, and some sent extensive notes. Every bit of it was helpful.</p><span style="color: #274e13;"><b>The journey so far</b></span><p>I developed the first of the book's seven thinking spaces in 2001 at IBM. For a time it was part of the Cynefin sensemaking framework. In 2010 I renamed the space the Confluence sensemaking framework and posted it <a href="http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/p/confluence-sensemaking-framework.html" target="_blank">here</a> on my blog. At that time I added three more spaces. But then I got busy with other matters (mainly <i>Working with Stories</i> and <i>NarraFirma</i>) and put the whole thing aside. </p><p>Two summers ago, I finally decided that it was time to go back to Confluence and see what it wanted to be next. At first I thought it should be a game, but it quickly morphed into a book. I wrote the first chapter in two weeks, so I thought the book might flow out in a matter of months. It did, but the number of months was close to twenty-four. </p><p>Some of the spaces were fine the way I had them, but some were embarrassingly awful, and I threw them out and started over from scratch. Most of the chapters took two or three months to work out and write. A few took four or six or even eight months.<br /></p><p>I finished the writing in January of this year. Since then I've been busy getting feedback, improving usability, and getting the book ready for publication. Finally it is published and ready to read.<br /></p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><b>What comes next</b></span><br /></p><p>I have no idea. </p><p>I've been thinking about this topic since roughly 1989, and I will probably continue to think about it as long as I can think about anything. I don't know what anyone will do with what I have created. I know that people have used some of these thinking tools in the past and found them useful. I have a <i>sense</i> that more people might find them useful in the future. That sense has carried me through the past two years, even through the months when it seemed like I was wasting my time writing this book. So I'll see what people do with what I have created this time, on this pass over the idea.<br /></p><p>I do have a few plans. I'm not big on promotion -- I usually want to move on to the next project on my list -- but I have been asked to talk about the book by something like three or four people who have podcasts, newsletters, interviews, that sort of thing. So I'll do those. If you have a podcast or interview series and want to have me talk about the book on it, drop me an email.</p><p>It is possible that I'll end up doing some consulting or coaching related to helping groups use the confluence thinking spaces in their projects. I don't know. What I <i>do</i> know is that this book wanted me to write it. So I did. And I'll see what happens next.</p><p>If you have a comment on the book, or advice, suggestions, or anything, feel free to let me know.<br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-62617428761914971472021-01-18T14:23:00.006-08:002021-01-19T11:01:54.701-08:00Introducing the Participatory Narrative Practitioner Network<p>Today I want to talk to you about the PNI Institute, its history, its ending, and its successor. </p><p>(<a href="http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/2020/09/what-i-have-been-up-to.html">Book</a> update: I am still working on the last chapter. It is shaping up well, though more slowly than expected. I hope to be ready to send the book to my early readers in the next 3-4 weeks. If you are not on the early reader list and want to be, send me an email.)</p><p><b>The rise and fall of the PNI Institute </b><br /></p><p>The PNI Institute was created by myself and three colleagues in the fall of 2014. Our goal was to support and advance participatory narrative inquiry. Over the past six years, our main activity has been a monthly Zoom call. We have had about sixty Zoom calls. Many have been excellent conversations, with lots of attendees, lively discussions, surprising insights, and plenty of camaraderie.</p><p>However, the original energy of the group has waned. Two of the four founders dropped out almost immediately (for reasons they could not foresee or change). Myself and the other remaining founder kept the group going for about five years. For the past year or so, it has been mostly me keeping the group going. In collaborative efforts, I believe, whoever does the work should get to say what happens. At this point, I think I have earned the right to decide what happens to the PNI Institute. And I think it's time for a change. </p><p>To start, I never liked the name. It has been a thorn in my side all along. It seemed, and still seems, pretentious to
call a bunch of people chatting an "Institute." Also, call attendance has been dropping off over the past year or two. Often it is just me and one other person on the call. The calls I looked forward to six years ago have slowly descended into obligations I would rather do without. </p><p>None of this is anybody's fault. It's just the normal ebb and flow of a social group.<br /></p><p><b>What should come next?</b><br /></p><p>This fall, I put out a survey to ask people what they thought the PNI Institute should do next. Out of over 130 people "registered" on the site (all of whom got a pleading email), there were 11 responses. From the low response rate, and from the responses themselves, I got the sense that there is only weak interest in the PNI Institute continuing and growing into something bigger. </p><p>This lack of interest dovetailed with a concern that has been growing in my mind for the past year or two. I keep seeing people mention PNI as though it belongs to <i>me</i>. As though it is my thing, as though people can use it but can't change it. That was not what I wanted. </p><p>I wrote a book about PNI, but I never wanted to own it. I still don't. I want to <i>share</i> it. I want people to <i>join me</i> inside PNI, to work on it with me, to improve it and enlarge it. Of course it will change somewhat as people do that; but I've always been okay with that. I've been hoping to see more books come out about PNI, or at least some book <i>chapters</i>. A few articles and a few Ph.D. dissertations have mentioned PNI. But I had hoped for much more.<br /></p><p>One way I can counter the PNI-is-me trend, I think, is to stop talking only about PNI. Having a group that talks only about PNI keeps it separated from other approaches. But the truth is, most of the people who use PNI use it alongside other approaches. Hardly anyone uses it all by itself. I see that as a good thing, and I would like to explore it.<br /></p><p>So I have decided that I no longer want to run a group that talks <i>only</i> about PNI. I want to talk about bigger things, wider things, of which PNI is just one part. I think that might be the best way to help the approach survive and grow -- as part of a family of approaches.<br /></p><p><b>A wider view </b><br /></p><p>What should a group that goes beyond PNI talk about? Should we drop the <b>participatory</b> part of it, and open the door to non-participatory, extractive methods? No. I would not want to join such a group. It would suck all the joy out of it for me. Helping ordinary people make sense of their lives, families, communities, and organizations is why I do what I do. </p><p>What about a group that discusses participation but without the <b>narrative</b> aspect? Again, I would not be interested in joining such a group. I have a special fondness for stories. And, I believe, they are being used too little to help people and too much to manipulate them. I want to keep talking about helping people work with their own stories.</p><p>What about <b>inquiry</b>? Could we talk about participatory story work that does not (necessarily) focus on finding things out? </p><p>Of the three possibilities, I am most open to this one. I care about people and I care about stories. I don't care as much about data and trends and proof. Besides, the sensemaking that is at the core of PNI happens whether or not you gather reams of data. I have always seen that part of the work as optional, nice to have, supportive but not central.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCbzS1UCksj3hFD9bZR8iX7-_H8jFaC4OJ3kdiYoUegAQhlRf86SYhszy4ea0Jhg1i1KEqlNKu_K7qB0EF5UNy6y7R4MKwhuvbXxuNiH7KQhwYV5eEZgz6e_awYn9eAyAHM_DwNUrc92Y/s2048/pnpn+logo+no+name.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1425" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCbzS1UCksj3hFD9bZR8iX7-_H8jFaC4OJ3kdiYoUegAQhlRf86SYhszy4ea0Jhg1i1KEqlNKu_K7qB0EF5UNy6y7R4MKwhuvbXxuNiH7KQhwYV5eEZgz6e_awYn9eAyAHM_DwNUrc92Y/s320/pnpn+logo+no+name.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><b>Introducing the</b> <b>Participatory Narrative Practitioner Network</b></p><p>I would like to invite you to join a new discussion group: the <a href="https://pnpnet.org">Participatory Narrative Practitioner Network</a> (PNpn). </p><p>In this group we will talk about many approaches to participatory narrative, including: narrative therapy,
narrative medicine,
narrative coaching,
appreciative inquiry,
participatory narrative inquiry, oral history,
action research,
and participatory theatre. (We may change this list as we talk, but that's what we have right now.)</p><p>If you are a practitioner or a fan of any of these approaches, we would love to talk to you. Whether participatory narrative is the only thing you do, or whether it is one of many tools in your toolbox, we invite you to join us. You can read more at the group's new web site, <a href="https://pnpnet.org/" target="_blank">pnpnet.org</a>, which I encourage you to look at. <br /></p><p>We will continue the same Zoom calls as we had for the PNI Institute,
but our topics will range much more broadly than they did before. <br /></p><p>What are we <i>not</i> going to talk about? Story work whose primary goal is persuasion, promotion, influence, self-expression, performance, or entertainment. There is nothing wrong with any of those goals. They are just not what we plan to talk about.<br /></p>To join us, send an email to the address on the PNpn web site (it comes to me) and tell us why you want to join. I will send you an invitation to join our <a href="http://zulip.com">Zulip</a> chat server, which we are using to talk between our Zoom calls. All details of the calls (dates, times, topics) are on the chat server. If you have any questions, send them to me via email. <br />Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-79268795289738944652020-10-06T11:31:00.001-07:002020-10-06T11:36:42.553-07:00Questions for you, questions for me<div><p>Two posts in a row! Hooray! To be honest, I miss writing in the blog. It was fun. I'll see if I can start doing it at least once a month again. However, I will need to hold myself back from writing those long essays that took up weeks of my time. Must not get in too deep. Must not get in too deep.<br /></p><p>Anyhew, I have been thinking a lot about the <a href="pni2.org" target="_blank">PNI Institute</a> lately. We started it six years ago, and it has not grown into what I hoped it would become. This is what I was hoping to create:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>A lively <b>discussion</b></li><li>A free online quarterly or biennial peer-reviewed <b>journal</b> for PNI practitioners, with papers that spread techniques, share tips, recount experiences, and play with ideas</li><li>An annual or biannual online <b>conference</b> that brings people together to brainstorm, learn, talk, share experiences, get to know each other, and help PNI thrive<br /></li></ol><p>We have done the first of these things, with 60+ phone calls during which we talked about many things PNI-related and PNI-adjacent. In that sense the effort has been a success.<br /></p><p>However, <i>I still want to do the other things</i>. (I always say "do the other things" <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon" target="_blank">in a JFK voice</a>.)<br /></p><p>On our last phone call in September, we talked about doing two <i>new</i> things:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>We will hold a series of three <b>special calls</b>, starting in January, to discuss <b>The Future of PNI and the PNI Institute</b> (please say that in a Carl Sagan voice). We will talk about how we could ramp up to a bigger and better PNI Institute that better supports PNI practitioners.</li><li>I have set up a <b>survey</b> to find out what people want from the PNI Institute in the future. If you have used participatory narrative inquiry, or even if you are just interested in it, <b><a href="https://forms.gle/o3425C7YCBzSyM9P9" target="_blank">I would very much value your opinion</a> </b>about what the PNI Institute should do to support you<b>.</b> (Please fill out the survey in <i>your</i> <i>own</i> voice.)<b> </b><br /><b></b></li></ol></div><p>That's it!</p><p>Wait - one more thing. </p><p>A colleague recently sent me <b>an excellent question</b> about PNI in practice, a question that had come up in a workshop. I answered the question, and then I thought - Hey, wait a minute. I used to have a "mail bag" series on the blog, where I would post answers to questions I got in email. I stopped doing that, but it was a good way to feed the blog. <br /></p><p><i>So here's the deal: if you have a question about PNI, <b>send it to me</b> in an email. If I think everyone would benefit from the answer, I'll answer it here. (Otherwise I'll just answer it to you.) Deal?</i></p><p>Now, I don't want to push this blog post off the top of the blog, <a href="https://forms.gle/o3425C7YCBzSyM9P9" target="_blank">because I want people to fill out my survey</a>. So I'll just tack my "mail bag" answer on to this post. </p><p> The question was:</p><blockquote><p>In our story sharing session yesterday, we had a discussion about removing data such as a telephone number and a name that someone mentioned in their story. Some people said they thought <b>removing the information would hurt the integrity of the story</b>. Others said it wouldn't. What is your opinion?<br /></p></blockquote><p>What belongs in a story and what doesn't belong depends entirely on <b>context</b>. In some groups and
communities, at some times, about some topics, and in some circumstances
of story collection and spread (meaning, who told the stories and who
will see them), the inclusion of personal information can contribute to
the integrity of a story. However, context can change in a second.
<br />
<br />When people are sharing stories in person, they constantly renegotiate
what belongs in the story and what doesn't. For example:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>A person who is in the middle of telling a story might
suddenly change tack and reduce the amount of personal information they
reveal when a new person enters the group.</li><li>On the other hand, if the new person shares telling rights and can
corroborate what the storyteller has been saying, the storyteller may
gain confidence and add <i>more</i> personal information, because they now have
backup.</li><li>If a person they are nervous about leaves the group, a storyteller might shift to
telling the story more openly. Conversely, if that person was providing the storyteller with social support, the story might suddenly become more circumspect.<br /></li><li>Say a group is walking together and they pass from a quiet corner
into a busy hallway. The story that is being told may suddenly shrink
until the group gets back to a quieter place again, when it may expand.<br /></li></ul><p>In other words, from moment to moment, <i>stories shift their shapes</i> depending on the shifting contexts in which they are being told.
<br />
<br />The problem with collecting stories is that once a story has been
recorded or written down, it can no longer adapt to its environment. <i>It
has been frozen</i> in one contextual state.
<br />
<br />Thus when you collect stories among groups of people who are talking to
each other, their stories might become frozen into states that make less
sense, or sound strange, or even pose dangers to the storytellers in
other contexts.
<br />
<br />It doesn't seem to me that people are aware of this. They don't notice
that they are renegotiating the shapes of their stories as they talk,
and they don't realize what freezing their story in one context and
thawing it out in another is going to do. </p><p>Of course, sometimes there are no
freezing-and-thawing problems. But when the topic is personal or
emotional, freeze-thaw damage can be significant. And it's invisible. It's not like people are going to <i>tell </i>you that they regretted participating in your project once they saw their story in another context. They'll just walk away the next time you ask them to tell a story. Or they'll tell you a safer, less meaningful story. <i>And you won't know why</i>.<br />
<br />I feel like it is the responsibility of the facilitator to help people
avoid falling into situations they would never be in without the
artificial freezing of their stories. That's why I ask people to leave
personal information out of the stories they tell, even if they are
talking to other people in person, and even if it supports the integrity or meaning of the
story in the present context, because <i>what they say will be heard in other contexts </i>
than the one in which they are telling it.
<br />
<br />I have even gone so far as to remove personal information from stories
to protect storytellers from contextual changes they didn't see coming
when they told the stories. For example, in one project where stories were collected over the web, lots of people put their names and
phone numbers, and the names and phone numbers of other people, into their stories (even though we asked them not to). If that information had been kept with the stories and
posted somewhere, say online, it could have led to harassment of some people. I felt that it was important to take that information out of
the stories, partly because <i>I myself didn't know</i> in what contexts the stories would
end up being read.<br />
<br />For the same reason, I like to give people in story collection sessions
the option to review their transcripts afterward and ask for changes.
Hardly anybody ever asks for changes, or even asks to see the transcripts,
but I think that knowing they <i>can</i> change what they say later on helps
people to open up and trust the process.
<br />
<br />I guess I would say that storytelling is both powerful and dangerous,
and that the power of stories to communicate and make sense of the world
cannot be accessed until the danger inherent in telling stories is kept
under control. </p><p>That's my answer to one of your questions - now <a href="https://forms.gle/o3425C7YCBzSyM9P9" target="_blank">what are your answers</a> to my questions? <br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468631352102294695.post-17311886379294444482020-09-28T15:02:00.004-07:002020-10-09T12:55:17.243-07:00What I have been up to<p>Hello people. It has been increasingly bothering me that my last blog post was over a year ago. I wonder if people might think I have vanished off the face of the earth! Not yet. </p><p>I have been working on a book. I have been working on it harder and more exclusively than I usually work on books, to the point of refusing paid work, shunning correspondence, and not keeping up with other projects (including this blog). But now I'm close to being done with the book, close enough to tell you about it.<br /></p><p>It is not the book you think it is. For the past several years I have been working on a book (<i>At Home with Stories) </i>about the interplay between commercial and conversational storytelling. Two years ago, I was putting a lot of time into that book project, and I felt like I was maybe six months away from finishing it. Then I suddenly got a rush of consulting work that lasted for several months. I was glad to make some money! Then I was eager to get back to the book. </p><p>But then, just as I was getting started on the book again, my mother suddenly passed away. She was 87 years old, but we thought she had another year or two left, and besides, my mother was not the kind of person who did things without a plan. Anyway, last summer I ended up spending a lot of time at the house I grew up in, helping to clean it out and sell it. </p><p>There is nothing like being suddenly orphaned to draw your attention to what you are going to do with the rest of your time on the planet. That's probably why I found myself thinking a lot about the Confluence framework. It had been years since I had put any time or thought into it, but somehow, at my childhood home, it reached out to me and asked me to work on it some more.<br /></p><p>The Confluence framework is a series of two-dimensional spaces that people can use to think about organization and self-organization in situations they care about. From 2001 to 2010, its basic form (its first space) was part of the Cynefin sensemaking framework. In 2010, I <a href="http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/2010/06/confluence.html" target="_blank">started</a> calling it the Confluence sensemaking framework. Since then it has existed only as
<a href="http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/p/confluence-sensemaking-framework.html" target="_blank">a page on this blog</a>. I wanted to develop it into something better, but other projects kept getting in the way (see above). Then, last summer, as I said, I decided to spend a little time on it before I plunged back into working on the <i>At Home with Stories</i> book. <br /></p><p>My first thought was that I should write an academic paper. As an independent researcher, I try to publish peer-reviewed papers every so often. But I can't say that I enjoy the process. Finding the right publisher, figuring out what they want, writing the paper, dealing with the editing process, and then realizing that hardly anybody will ever read what I have written . . . is a little disheartening. Writing for everyone on earth, like I did with my first book, gives me a lot more creative energy. So I decided not to write an academic paper.<br /></p><p>Then I thought: maybe I should make the framework into a game. I mean, it <i>is</i> a game, in the sense that it is a group exercise people do with materials and instructions. So I thought: why not make it into a nice cheap or free card game that lots of people could download and use? So I started working on card designs and board patterns. </p><p>One part of the game, an essential part, I thought, was a series of <i>example</i> cards: situations people could think and talk about as they placed them on the spaces. I started working on a series of example cards. The explanatory texts on the example cards kept getting longer. And the game's instruction sheet kept getting longer. Then one day I realized that the Confluence framework didn't want to be a game with a book in it. It wanted to be a book with a game in it. <br /></p><p><i>Another</i> book? I was still in the middle of writing <i>At Home with Stories</i>, and I had started writing that book in the middle of writing <i>More Work with Stories</i>. Did I really want to live inside <i>three</i> nested book projects? But I thought: well, maybe I can write this new book quickly, and then I can get back to the other one (and then the other one after that). So I tried writing just the first chapter of the book, as a test. It took two weeks, and it was a lot of fun. So I thought, well, maybe I can finish the whole book in six months. </p><p>It has been over a year since that day, but I am <i>close</i> to finishing the book. These are the chapters as they stand right now.</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Two Forces -- Organization and self-organization</li><li>Thinking in Space -- How to use this book</li><li>The Jungle -- Self-organization considered alone</li><li>The Machine -- Organization considered alone</li><li>Inundation -- How self-organization influences organization</li><li>Regulation -- How organization influences self-organization</li><li>The Mix -- How organization and self-organization interact</li><li>The Void -- When organization and self-organization are weak</li><li>Exercise Materials -- Copy these pages</li><li>FAQ -- Questions about <i>Confluence</i><br /></li></ol><p>Eight of the ten chapters are finished, reviewed, and revised. The ninth chapter (The Mix) is about halfway done. After that only one chapter remains (The Void). As of this writing I am fairly confident that, barring any emergencies, the book will be ready to publish in . . . January? February?<br /></p><p>This is the book cover as it stands right now.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhn0zUaJkHnqkIHrQeVXa7qDziTeRv1Lr3jDjjrHq1x4OcmnxcTW6HMvkP_cDLxL9dFx0P5oCeBySSBtfHnAEbdwdwAsc-w0ta9S_NFQgqX6cwmGXo5EWR4UISygLtJV_tz5xQf0U0lBE/s2000/confluence+PS+cover+11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1432" data-original-width="2000" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhn0zUaJkHnqkIHrQeVXa7qDziTeRv1Lr3jDjjrHq1x4OcmnxcTW6HMvkP_cDLxL9dFx0P5oCeBySSBtfHnAEbdwdwAsc-w0ta9S_NFQgqX6cwmGXo5EWR4UISygLtJV_tz5xQf0U0lBE/w400-h286/confluence+PS+cover+11.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Writing this new book has been an act of faith and patience, but it has also been a joy and a revelation. It has helped me to develop the Confluence framework into a state that I believe will be much more useful to the world. I have reworked all of the framework's spaces, added two more spaces, and
improved all of the diagrams. In fact, I now wince every time I have to look at what I wrote about the framework before. That's an excellent sign of progress.</p><p>For each of the seven book chapters that describes a space, I have allowed the space itself to suggest several situations and stories that I think will help readers understand and make use of the space. In all
there will be about fifty of these examples. </p><p>The process of discovering and exploring these examples has led me on many journeys through subjects I knew little about to start with. Some of the journeys have been simple and straightforward; others have been long, frustrating, and full of surprises. All of them have been revelatory, in the sense that I understand the ways in which organization and self-organization come together much better than I did before I started the book project. Hopefully some of that improved understanding will make its way to the people who read the book. <br /></p><p>Even though the worked examples fill up most of the book, they are not its main purpose. They are there to support the book's main purpose, which is to help groups of people think about and talk about situations <i>they</i> care about. For that reason, the book contains game-like instructions and materials that I expect people to photocopy and use in group exercises. My hope is that people in families and work teams and citizen groups and all kinds of decision-making bodies will use the book to enhance their situational understanding and decision making.<br /></p><p>The book has an upbeat, every-person style like you'd find in a science magazine. I am aiming it at a general readership with a late high school or early college reading ability. And I am forcing myself to keep it short: no longer than 200 pages in total. (That goal alone accounts for a lot of the time I've spent on the book. If I could write as long a book as I wanted, it would probably be done already.)<br /></p><p>I have been having three people read and comment on each chapter as I have written it. In addition, I have a list of sixteen people (of all ages and backgrounds, some of whom know nothing about complexity) who have agreed to read the entire book when it's ready and send me feedback before I publish it. If <i>you</i> are not on that list and would like to be, I would be happy to add you. Just send me an email. The only caveat is that I am asking people to send me their feedback <i>within two weeks </i>of receiving the book draft, so I can get it ready to publish soon after it's done. </p><p>So that's what I've been up to. I hope to get back to writing the other book (<i>At Home with Stories</i>) sometime next year. And even though I haven't been working on that book, I've been working on it in the back of my mind. I have a better plan for it than I did before. So putting it aside for a while might end up being a good thing in the long run.<br /></p><p>A quick note about <a href="http://www.narrafirma.com" target="_blank">NarraFirma</a>. I did plan to work on it for a month this fall. I have a list of small bugs and feature requests I was hoping to address. However, I decided to put off any major releases until the book is done (I do not want to lose momentum). I do plan/hope to spend a good few months on the next version of NarraFirma in the early new year. If you have any ideas for NarraFirma, or if you find any bugs, please let me know. I will be getting to it again soon.<br /></p><p>A quick note about COVID-19. I had it. Don't get it. It's not fun. A few tips in preparation: Learn to sleep on your stomach. Find some breathing exercises online. Practice them daily. Strengthen your lungs. Get lots of aerobic exercise. Take Vitamin D. Buy a pulse oximeter, some cough medicine, some licorice tea, and a good heating pad. Take care of yourself. Practice your gratitude. <br /></p><p>In conclusion: I am still here. I am still working hard. I hope to have something to show you soon.<br /></p>Cynthia Kurtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16185088323080774635noreply@blogger.com0