Enhance Your Online Facilitation with Storytelling

Throughout history, story has been a powerful and effective way to build relationships within groups of people. Facilitators know the power that story can bring to the workshops and group sessions they lead. This conference session will present some of the key findings from research conducted by a group of eighteen IAF facilitators into the use of storytelling to facilitate relationship building within online groups. The session will cover the use of storytelling within a variety of media, including: email; telephone, video and web conferencing; instant messaging; discussion forums; blogging; Second Life and the use of online surveys. Some of the best practical processes and techniques developed by the research group will be shared and discussed in this interactive workshop as well as implications for online facilitation practice.

Workshop Resources

PowerPoint Slides
Enhance Your Online Facilitation with Storytelling - PowerPoint slides from the workshop session at the IAF North America conference in Vancouver on 22 April 2009. 2402KB pps.

Notes
Workshop Manual Notes - Tips for using story online. 37KB pdf.

The two primary chapters are:

The Use of Story in Building Online Group Relationships - A chapter by Stephen Thorpe in the Handbook of Research on Computer Mediated Communication published by Idea Group Inc (2008). 243KB pdf.
Facilitation Online - A chapter by Stephen Thorpe in The Art of Facilitation published by Random House New Zealand (2007). 64KB pdf.

Web Links

Virtualis - Virtualis™ is the largest convention center in the revolutionary, 3-D computer-generated world of Second Life®. The way to gain access is through Dan Parks - .

Onlinestory.net - Website for the co-operative inquiry group who investigated how narrative is beneficial in building relationships in online groups.

Other Reading

The Fairy Tale – A Form of Organisational Inquiry - written by Dr. Andrew Rixon - article looks at using fairy tales in organisations and draws on Australasian facilitators stories. 1,356KB pdf.
How Storytelling Builds Next Generation Leaders - by Douglas A. Ready - An article looking at the storytelling in organisational leadership. 1.503KB pdf.
How to Use Stories to Size Up a Aituation: Why traditional interviews and surveys are insufficient for understanding what really is going on in your organisation - by Shawn Callahan - When and how to use narrative techniques to suppliment traditional interviews and surveys. 114KB pdf.
Online Facilitation: It's not just for Geeks anymore! - by Nancy White - An introduction to online facilitation. 665KB pdf.

Methodology

Peter Reason - Integrating Action and Reflection Through Co-operative Inquiry 206KB pdf.
Peter Reason - The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry 390KB pdf.
Mark Baldwin - Cooperative Inquiry as a Tool for Professional Development 47KB pdf.

Flyer for the Online Facilitation Skills Programme

Online Facilitations Skills Flyer - Details Zenergy's 10-week Online Facilitation Skills Programme.
www.zenergyglobal.com/of

Presenter

Stephen Thorpe is a Zenergy facilitator specializing in the online domain and trains others in online facilitation. He has been researching ways to enhance the effectiveness of online groups. His PhD explores facilitation as a vital domain in assisting online groups with a focus on the benefit of story and narrative in online relationship development. Stephen is the Secretary of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and the Editor-in-Chief of the IAF’s Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal. He is on the Advisory Panel of the Global Facilitators Service Corps (GFSC),a member of Heart Politics, The New Zealand Computer Society, Toastmasters (District 72: Club 7686) and the Participation Community of Practice - part of New Zealand's E-government Strategy. Stephen holds a Zenergy Diploma of Facilitation and a Bachelor of Business with First Class Honors from Auckland University of Technology (AUT) where he has a background researching computer-assisted group work.

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If you have an article, book review, something of interest to facilitators in your region or an upcoming training programme that you would like to include in the newsletter please contact Stephen Thorpe .