When people tell stories about their experience, they usually have a live audience which influences what stories are told, who tells them, and when and how they are told. In order to design methods for collecting and providing access to stories, we wanted to understand the social dynamics of naturally occurring storytelling. It has been studied by a number of disciplines, including linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropology, sociology, management science, and psychology. Here is a brief overview what they have learned and some of the implications for designing ways to collect stores and make them available:

STORYTELLERS HAVE POWER.
Telling a story is a bid for power in several respects (Toolan, 1988). In group settings, telling a story involves holding the floor for a relatively long conversational turn. In relatively formal contexts, such as business meetings, individuals of higher status tell more stores than individuals of lower status.

IMPLICATIONS: One potential benefit of collecting stories in a corporate setting could be to distribute storytelling authority more broadly (and thereby capture more total experience). But for that to happen, the methods for eliciting stories may have to overcome a natural reluctance of many individuals to act as storytellers; the role may seem incommensurate with their own perceived status. Good story elicitors, such as interviewers for documentaries and counselors, attempt to empower the storyteller before eliciting their stories: They first establish both the value of the person's experience and the benefits of communicating it.

STORYTELLING TAKES RISK.
Storytellers take a risk in that their story may not be accepted as relevant or newsworthy. Hearers' response may be 'So what?' or 'What's the point?' (Labov & Fanschel, 1977; Polanyi 1979). Individuals with strong status in a group have more protection from this potential loss of face. Labov notes that storytellers often include an explicit 'evaluation' within the story, i.e., a comment illustrating how the story is notable or newsworthy (e.g., 'It was an amazing experience' or 'I'll never do THAT again'). In group settings, storytellers often open with a bid for floor time, which elicits some group endorsement of the story they propose to tell ('Did I tell you about...?' 'Did you hear what happened yesterday?') (Labov & Waletzsky, 1967; Toolan, 1988).

IMPLICATIONS: If stories are not elicited in a group discussion context, tellers will have to judge the relevance and noteworthiness of a story in a semi-vacuum. What's new enough? What's sufficiently interesting, important, etc. to warrant a story? Who wants/needs to know? There may be a reluctance to speak in the absence of social cues from the target group. Our initial approach has been to derive topics from interviews, have group members rate the value of those topics, and then obtain stories on valued topics. The relevance and noteworthiness of the topic has been validated, which may reduce the need for immediate audience feedback. Storytellers may also want to limit the audience to particular groups.

STORYTELLING IS OFTEN COLLABORATIVE.
Often, multiple people participate in the telling (e.g. Ochs, Taylor, Rudolph, & Smith, 1992; Sacks, 1974). Each entry represents a bid for some power, or entitlement to tell (Norrick 1997; Blum-Kulka, 1993; Ochs, et al, 1992). Often, others present at the telling of a story were involved in the events related in the tale, but even those who were not involved may insert additions, corrections, comments, questions, protests, etc. A story defines and frames the events described in the narrative, and storytelling 'rights' are complex. Group storytelling can be a collective activity of sense-building and prediction (Boje, 1991; Ochs et al, 1992; Sacks, 1974).

IMPLICATIONS: Storytellers producing a story for 'canned' use will be aware that it may subsequently be heard/read by individuals who were also involved in the events, but who were not present at the telling, and who may have other input. Even in a face-to-face context, co-tellers often challenge each other with protests, corrections, etc. Providing for asynchronous collaborative contributions is an especially delicate matter, since electronic media are more prone to misinterpretations, etc., than face-to-face communications.

STORIES MAINTAIN GROUP VALUES.
In a group context, members may tell stories about some shared value such as frugality or helpfulness. Members often ratify membership in the group by demonstrating that they share the same values (Norrick, 1997). Group members whose status is conditional in some sense (e.g., new in-laws in a family or new members of a work team) might tell stories to establish or strengthen their membership. It's well illustrated in a phenomenon Sacks calls 'second stories' (Sacks, 1974; also Boje, 1991): After one group member relates a story illustrating a group value -- thrift, for example -- another member interested in ratifying their group membership may relate a parallel story about themselves, illustrating their own thrift.

PEOPLE USE STORIES TO ENHANCE FACE.
Our presentation of self is enhanced when others endorse the line we present by accepting and positively evaluating our stories (Goffman, 1981). Related to face enhancement is Schank's notion of ME-GOALS (Schank, 1990). People often tell stories to demonstrate something they want to say about themselves (e.g., 'I'm smart', or 'I'm funny', etc.).

IMPLICATIONS: Some of the most interesting and useful stories are about mistakes. But telling stories about one's own mistakes runs the risk of loss of face. Mistake stories can also be face-enhancing, of course, if the storyteller implies that they learned something or that they offer their mistakes to help others. If we think mistake stories are of particular value, we might ask for such stories. The request could be general ('a story about a mistake you've made') or specific (naming a particular type of mistake that we've heard mentioned). If it seemed necessary, we could also provide a rationale for telling such stories.

Some mistake stories carry much higher risk than others. The easiest mistake stories to tell are stories about events that were not recent, where the issue came out all right in the end, and which involve mistakes that can be avoided in the future. (People often tell stories about something dumb they did on their first day on the job because of some simple lack of information). Higher risk stories, which might be of even more value to the group, would be stories involving mistakes that are more recent, that may have entailed some real cost, and that may be repeated in ever new ways (e.g. mistakes such as 'failing to hear the customer'). How could we encourage such high risk stories? They may be of particular value, since they deal with the real difficulties of the job. Learning to 'hear the customer' is a never ending thing, and stories about such failures may contribute wisdom. Modeling might help here. If a respected persons provides a high risk mistake story, others might encouraged to do so.

REFERENCES

Blum-Kulka, S. (1993). You gotta know how to tell a story: Telling, tales, and tellers in American And Israeli narrative events at dinner. Language in Society 22, 361-402.

Boje, D. (1991). The storytelling organization: A study of story performance in an office-supply firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 106-121.

Covin, T., Killmann, R. & Killman, I. Using organizational stories for the diagnostic phase of a planned change: Some possibilities and precautions. Psychological Reports. 74, 623-634.

Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia.

Labov, W. & Fanschel, D. (1977). Therapeutic Discourse. New York: Academic Press.

Labov, W. & Waletzsky, J. (1967). Narrative Analysis: Oral version of personal experience. In June Helm, Ed. Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts. , 12-44. Seattle, University of Washington Press.

Norrick, N. (1997). Twice-Told Tales: Collaborative narration of familiar stories. Language in Society, 26, 199-220.

Ochs, Taylor, Rudolph, & Smith, (1992). Storytelling as a theory-building activity. Discourse Processes, 15, 32-72

Polanyi, L. (1979). So what's the point? Semiotica, 25, 207-41.

Sacks, H. (1974). An analysis of the course of a joke's telling. In Richard Bauman & Joel Sherzer (eds.) Explorations in the ethology of speaking, 337-353. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Schank, R. (1990). Tell Me a Story: Narrative and intelligence. Northwestern University Press: Evanston.

Toolan, M. (1988). Narrative: A critical linguistic introduction. Routledge: New York.