Storytelling at the Company

John C. Thomas from IBM gave us the inside dope on corporate storytelling for usability, although he probably wouldn't call it that. He had a compelling story in his presentation about the Walking People. In the Iroquois life, storytelling was key to survival.

Throughout this conference the recurring theme of my conversations with other people is the notion of self/personal identity, and public interface/normative expectations. I believe the latter gets in the way of the former. We tamp down the passion, the pain, the joy, the hate, the lust because we want to be loved. We want to fit in. I judge myself in terms of how I think other people are judging me. Maybe no one is judging me. Maybe nobody really cares, except what I may be thinking about them.

Of course, I may be wrong, and is it a story if nobody listens?