EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit a new office of my company and meet up with the team that I work with. Normally, we’re all scattered across different offices so it was great to connect and see them in person. While I couldn’t tweet throughout my day, my thread is more of a retelling and recap at the end of the night. The reason we were all getting together was for a team building event. I organized the entire day for us and our team and we did icebreakers and a crafty activity. Read about my day below:

Storytelling principles:

Some of the storytelling principles I used include:

• Writing like I speak, to make what I wrote more digestible and more believable to the audience that knows me personally. Also, using plain speak on platforms like Twitter make it easier to fit within the word count.
• Including visuals. Whenever I could, I tried to include a photo to better portray what I was trying to say in the tweet. Since I was making something artistic, I could post photos of the art studio, the materials we used, and my final product.
• Using emphasis. Whenever I could, I tried to emphasize my words and thoughts using punctuation and capital letters.
• Engaging the audience. I tried to ask the readers questions whenever I could to get first-hand engagement and replies.
• As Gary Vaynerchuk mentioned in the class reading, “Document, don’t create.” My twitter thread was a retelling of my day with no embellishments. This helps readers feel like they’re peeking behind the curtain on my life and can read my actual thoughts.