This Is Story Mapping

Last week, I announced that my partner and I were starting a presentation company may gods have mercy on us. I told you we were going to help companies communicate...in presentations...for the good of all mankind.

Well, we are about a week into it semi-officially, and...well, we're doing it, for crying out loud. So far, so good.

I wanted to track back to a concept that I mentioned in our announcement. Story Maps. The word oozes of consultancy-ese, no?

It oozes. Yes.

I don't know what kind of image the phrase "Story Map" or "Story Mapping" conjures in your mind.

"Sounds expensive."

"Is that like diagramming sentences?"

Truth is, it might sound like, well...bullshit.

So, I wanted to share a bit more about Story Maps - at least as far as we understand and do them - lest the whole of Facebook and LinkedIN think us charlatans.

Right now, in 2019, I found a couple mentions of story maps on the front page of Google. The first instance points to an edu/academic strategy. It uses graphical organization to help students learn the contents of a story.

Dope. But, that's not exactly what we're doing.

The second instance of the phrase points to ESRI. ESRI is a geographical information system company. They have a product that allows people to share narrative media over the top of maps...of places. Also dope. But, that's not what we're doing, either.

When I talk about story maps, I mean that we create visual maps of stories. Here's a zoomed out version of one:

Now, what you're looking at here is a first step in creating a story strategy for a new client. It's a bunch of screenshots and sticky notes in Miro - a tool we use quite a bit. Miro is an infinite canvas of information collaboration. Pretty sweet. Miro used to be called RealTimeBoard. Maybe you're familiar?

In any case, let me break Story Maps down for you and talk a bit about what they can do for us.

1. Plot Narrative Information in a Visual Map

Not every presentation starts with a narrative or editorial document. But, maybe someone has written down what they want to say. Maybe we start with a series of documents that have detailed information in them. That's pretty common.

There are two main challenges facing long, detailed information in enabling or inspiring behavior. First, the human attention span. It's hard to know which of the billion potential stimuli might worth our time at the outset of an experience. If it looks like it'll take 1.5 seconds to process and there's a picture, we're game. If it's not on autoplay, animated, or "snackable," well...we are often out.

But just like in real life, we shouldn't try to live on snacks alone. A deck-ful of memes might get a couple of laughs - but, you might have a hard time convincing anyone to change their behavior with a preso like that. Just like how speed-viewing Instagram or Snapchat seldom elevates us - snacks don't often bind together to form bigger ideas.

Story maps can help us re-map multiple sources of deep, linear information into one cohesive shape. This helps us gather what we will need to earn and maintain attention of the audience.

The second issue with long, detailed information? It's linear. It's meant to be read from beginning to end. It unfolds. It dribbles out detail bit by bit. That's awesome for literature and many other uses of information. But, presentations, meetings, and group knowledge work are all highly variable processes. Sometimes the surface of the story satisfies. Sometimes people need to go deep. There are questions, challenges, and discussions. A front-to-back, top-to-bottom account of information is too slow in that context.

So, when we story map something, we start by plotting out some detailed linear information - or bits of it at a time. The visual space allows narrative to be broken down and read piece-by-piece. It allows us to ask questions with sticky notes in that context, and harvest the valuable nuggets.

Sometimes we just take screenshots of articles, sources, narrative...and we lay them out. The visual space frees us to break up the linear nature of raw information - and build a new story.

2. Mark Up Narrative with Potential Main Ideas or "Takeaways"

Here's the challenge: A great presentation is simple at its core. But, to build an inspiring deck or meeting, we have to be experts in the subject matter. We need deep knowledge, proof points, anecdotes and emotional language.

The act of story architecture is volatile. The attention span demands brief and simple story points. But our innate desire to "explain" drudges up unlistenable detail.

Mapping main ideas helps the storyteller work with just the tips of the icebergs - even for just a moment.

We've started designing a platform of our own for story mapping. This system would allow us to work with these bite-sized ideas and maintain a relationship to deeper, detailed data. This provenance of data sources will power more flexible human/information encounters.

3. Establish a Visual Information Hierarchy

The infinite canvas of Miro enables us to completely deconstruct all that detailed, linear information. It allows us to establish a hierarchy between various ideas. These sticky notes become a visual inventory of key phrases and data points. We keep them around down there - just waiting to support an architecture more appropriate for non-linear showing and telling.

4. Ask Questions in Visual Context to Main Ideas and a Story Arc

When we build a story map, we are typically working as a group. So, we'll leave questions right there in the map - maybe to spark some later thought in our own mind. Maybe these questions spark a new line of thinking for a collaborator. Either way - like happy little land mines of joy, questions right there in spatial, non-linear context allows us to shape the information in new ways. It's super hard to do this in Google Docs or some other linear publishing software.

5. Map Out a Story Arc and a Communication Strategy

We build backbones into story maps. There are all kinds of different arcs and recipes for storytelling. Each unlocks the human heart and mind in various situations. We start by laying out a common story arc. You know it. Setting, sewing seeds of conflict, rising action, character development, conflict, challenge, climax, falling action, resolution...that sort of thing. This spine provides clues for what needs to happen rationally and emotionally across the arc. It gives the deck a beginning, a middle, and an end.

If the presentation needs to do something in particular - like assert an opinion, we might layer in elements of editorial requirements. Or, if it's meant to motivate, we might lay out a Hero's Journey. If it's a pitch, there are tried and true models for being persuasive.

The main thing here is - story mapping helps us identify the potential shape of a presentation or workshop. Independent of detailed, linear information. From here we can craft it to fit the needs of our audience. We can mix and match the tropes that link our story's plight to the needs of the listener or participant.

6. Reconcile the Story and Communication Against the Bigger Strategy

At the bottom of the left-to-right map, we have detailed data. In the middle, we have our ideal story arc elements. At the top of the map, we try to capture content for our communication strategy.

A communication strategy answers a few questions: Who are we trying to motivate or enable? What are their needs? What's holding them back? What motivates them? What's their plight? That's the lock we're trying to pick with the presentation, right? Right.

So, what secret formula will we use to connect with that audience in their heart and their mind? How can we motivate them emotionally? How can we provide the proof they need to make a rationale choice, as well?

The equation for that is a big, main idea that causes the audience to overcome what's holding them back, leading them to a new action.

The other equation at the top might demand that we follow a specific recipe of information presentation. For instance, an opinion piece needs a topic, a clearly stated opinion, and supporting material.

We put all this information together on a canvas and we try to solve it. Does the arc of our story capture and keep attention? Does the story propose a big, main idea? Does the idea lead to a clear call to action? Does the detail support the main ideas and concepts? Do we have enough detail to support questions and discussion?

We think story maps are the future. It's not a perfect science, yet - but, we know that they work. Getting data and story into a flexible, non-linear, multi-dimensional space helps an architect listen, think and do - all at once...and that's magic.