Yearly Archives: 2009

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2010 SA Employer Branding Summit

We are proud to be an Event Partner for the 2010 South African Employer Branding Summit to be held at Deloitte, Johannesburg, South Africa on 23 March 2010. We invite you to join us and spend a day with 9 employer branding specialists including International Presenters from USA, UK and Australia to discover the value of building a sustainable business through employer branding strategies. Summit Chairman Brett Minchington MBA from Australia who has delivered employer branding events in 30 cities in 20 [...]

By |December 14th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

The importance of conversation

As part of the initiation of an impact assessment project, where we'll be using SenseMaker to monitor the way tertiary students progress towards graduation, we have been given a stack of reading as background and context. One of the quotes that has stood out so far is this: Conversations are the way workers discover what they know, share it with their colleagues, and in the process create new knowledge for the organisation. In the new economy, conversations are the most [...]

By |December 3rd, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

An almanac of human emotion

One of the most novel, if not THE most novel applications of narrative I've come across in the last few years is the work of internet-artistJonathan Harris. He has done some really amazing stuff with gathering stories on the web and rendering them as art projects. In particular, We Feel Fine is my personal favourite. It's an almanac of human emotion. By trawling the web for blog posts, images and videos associated with the words "I feel ...", Harris has managed to measure [...]

By |November 12th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

The problem with focus groups …

We're often asked what the difference is between a focus groups and surveys and our approach to research.  I think this cartoon by Tom Fishburne illustrates the problem with most focus groups perfectly.  They are influenced by the facilitator (whether consciously or not) who is usually trying to prove a pre-existing hypothesis.  Our pre-hypothesis approach aims to obtain true insight into the perceptions of staff, customers etc, by mitigating against facilitator bias, and asking indirect questions aimed at eliciting narrative with no [...]

By |November 5th, 2009|Categories: Narrative|Tags: |0 Comments

Self insight (or not …)

I like reading Bob Sutton's blog, he often links to books and writings I never would have known about if not for him.  This week, he wrote about Professor David Dunning from Cornell University, who's done some really interesting research (along with various colleagues) on self-awareness. Some interesting insights from the Professor's new book "Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself. " include:"people do a pretty bad job of guessing their IQ scores, are downright awful at rating their [...]

By |October 28th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

SenseMaker introduction video

We utilise a software suite, SenseMakerTM, when working on projects that involve huge amounts of narrative as well as when a client needs to maximise their own decision-making capability in the face of a complex problem. SenseMakerTM is developed by Cognitive Edge, and Dave and the gang have released this useful video introduing the software.

By |October 20th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

The danger of a single story

This TEDGlobal video is one of the most poignant talks I've ever viewed. It is by Chimamanda Adichie, an African novelist, who shares some experiences of how encountering a single story of a person, people or country framed the way she viewed them. Her point is that being exposed to a single story is very dangerous, and that we've got to open ourselves up to "balanced stories" in order to really get a grasp on the world around us. If you want to [...]

By |October 20th, 2009|Categories: Narrative, Story|0 Comments

Conversation agents

With all credit to Sonja on this one, we're toying with the idea of changing our title's and job descriptions within The Narrative Lab. For a loooong time, we have been uncomfortable with describing ourselves as "consultants". While it may be true that we're consultative in our way of putting together projects of an emergent nature for our clients, we are certainly not consultants of the traditional fold. And so, we've been grappling with a title that brings together the [...]

By |October 19th, 2009|Categories: Culture|0 Comments
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