Tale 2 Tale
: a storytelling podcast
MY ROLE
Design Research & Synthesis
Ideation
Wireframing
Prototyping
Project Management
THE INSTRUCTORS
Nathan Shedroff
Sharon Green
Susan Worthman
Marc O' Brien
Sarah Harrison
THE DURATION
Spring, Summer, Fall 2020 (38 weeks)
THE TEAM
Ande Cira
Hardik Kumar
Shervin Nakhjavani
THE OVERVIEW
Joe Lambert, Executive Director (StoryCenter)
My team partnered with StoryCenter, a not-for-profit organization that has been creating a safe space to listen and share stories since 1993.
So we helped them develop a story sharing experience (through a podcast) that can spark empathy towards immigrants and refugees in the United States. The target audience is anybody in America who identifies themselves as ‘traditional, exclusive, and/or intolerant’ towards other nationalities and their choices.
“Our public and custom workshops provide individuals and organizations with skills and tools that support self-expression, creative practice, and community building.” ​
Digital storytelling workshop, Kenya circa 2015
courtesy: StoryCenter website
THE CONTEXT
StoryCenter has been working with different communities within the Bay area to promote digital storytelling. The global crisis (European Refugee crisis of 2015) sparked an ever so needed movement of igniting compassion towards the people who needed it the most at the moment- the immigrants and refugees. Hence, they started organizing workshops under "Stories of Home" and helped people share their vulnerabilities and experience catharsis.
courtesy: StoryCenter website
THE PROBLEM
-
The website was not receiving as much attention as StoryCenter aspired for.
-
The workshops saw engagement only during the workshop days after which the participants found it difficult to stay connected or continue the learning.
-
The videos made during the storytelling workshop needed a common platform to put up for display.
THE PROCESS
2
1
3
RESEARCH PLAN
A classroom activity to draw for the prompt "When I
think of home, I think.........."
Used Mural for interview debriefs and to synthesize information. This gave rise to common themes which further exposed the loop holes.
Used the iceberg model to gauge StoryCenter's events, patterns leading to it, the underlying structures causing those patterns and the mental models giving rise to it all.
INTERVIEWS:
StoryCenter team
Storytellers
Artists
Immigrants
​
SECONDARY:
External websites
Periodicals
Newspaper articles Research papers
ACTIVITIES:
Stakeholder mapping
Iceberg model
Waveline
Card Sorting
Story prompts
Value mapping
​
TOOLS:
Trello
Slack and Zoom
Google Suite
Mural and Miro
Pen and paper
The most important part of primary research is the first set of interviews held with the project heads.
The 'Stakeholder Map' helped us understand the organizational structure and the functional, emotional, social, financial and meaningful relationships among various coordinates.
Used the method of 'Card Sorting' with StoryCenter staff to understand their needs deeply.
Given the pandemic, all the user interviews were held remotely.
A graph combining the wavelines of different stakeholders, namely, the participants in a workshop (storytellers+artists), the StoryCenter staff, the current experience provided and the aspired experience, according to the org.
ARCHETYPES
Jamia, 53
Originally from Tehran, Iran.
Accompanied her husband to America 25 years back. The family consists of Jamia, her husband, and her two children. The children grew up in America and went to a university here.
​
NEED:
To help her children learn as much as possible about her culture and where she comes from.
GOAL:
To archive (in some tangible form) all the stories of her home that she can remember, given her old age.
​
MOTIVATION:
Seeing her children grow up in America, they do not know anything about where their parents come from.
Anya, 31
Originally from the Caribbean islands.
She moved to America for an art fellowship. After completing that, she began freelancing with art galleries in the Bay area. She works with artists, muralists, non-profit organizations in her spare time.
​
NEED:
To help people tell their stories through her art- be a medium.
GOAL:
To connect with artists and storytellers like her and become a part of this creative community.
​
MOTIVATION:
She comes from a small place in the islands and had a very free-spirited youth. She wants to learn more about where people come from and what brings them to this country.
THE INSIGHTS
People feel safer sharing stories with a community having similarities to their own.
“There was a sense of comfort and solidarity.”
—Chagan, storyteller
“I don’t know why, but we don’t have any close American friends.”
—Anwar, immigrant
Even though each story is intimately personal,
this vulnerability acts as a bridge to build trust.
As the founder of 'Stories of Home', Amy talked about the “spirit of togetherness” is integral to the storytelling process.
Assimilation can change people’s identity so much that visiting their home country can eventually feel foreign.
"If you spend a year in the U.S. and then go anywhere else, you won't like it."
—Anwar, immigrant
As immigrants and refugees try to adjust to their new environments, nostalgia brings back connections that they might have left behind.
“No matter where I go, I am still that 18-year-old in Afghanistan.”
—Anwar, immigrant
THE OPPORTUNITY
How might we use storytelling to bridge the gap between those who identify as immigrants and those who don’t?
After gathering various insights, the team then found opportunity areas. There were a few key themes circling around, leading to the following questions-
- How might we enable immigrants to retain a sense of home while assimilating to a new country?
- How might we enable immigrants and traditional Americans to connect with each other?
- How might we use storytelling to bridge the gap between those who identify as immigrants and those who don't?
A map of keywords that describe the intended solution
DESIGN IDEATION
TEAM BRAINSTORMING
Based on the opportunity statement, I did sketchnotes of some potential ideas that could be a good fit for the solution.
The team then voted on the best ideas, using the 'star' method. Podcast in the times of corona- was a clear winner.
HOW IT WORKS
People who want to participate in Tale2Tale, write and submit a story on the weekly theme
These stories are then exchanged with other participants keeping the original writers anonymous
These participants then narrate these stories (though not their own) in the episode, thus establishing the following:
1. Decreases the reliability on preconceived notions that are based on biases.
2. Brings people from different cultures, together.
3. Helps people see themselves in others.
The episodes are recorded and shared with a wider audience
THEORY OF CHANGE
This template is taken from the DIY toolkit- to map the outcomes of the project and the assumptions made along the way
A PODCAST
Our entire process compressed into one audio clip, in a format we think is going to be the best- a podcast