Storytelling with Impact | Blog posts on crafting stories

Zaria Forman: Drawings that show the beauty and fragility of Earth @ TED Talks Live

October 14, 2020/in Art, Climate Change, Nature, TED, TED Talk/by Mark Lovett

TED Talks Live were held at The Town Hall Theater in NYC, in November of 2015. I had the pleasure of attending all six nights to hear speakers present impactful Ideas Worth Spreading. This post is an analysis of a talk by Zaria Forman, about the effects of climate change on the planet.

She does this, not by way of scientific research, but by way of her art. Art that is drawn from personal experiences around the world. Art that documents what’s happening to our planet. Art that can inspire others to act.

Watch Zaria’s TED Talk. I found it to be surprising short, considering the amount of information it contains. But a great deal of that information comes from the images and video that Zaria includes. It’s as though those images are speaking alongside her.

Transcript

(my notes in red)

I consider it my life’s mission to convey the urgency of climate change through my work. I’ve traveled north to the Arctic to the capture the unfolding story of polar melt, and south to the Equator to document the subsequent rising seas. Most recently, I visited the icy coast of Greenland and the low-lying islands of the Maldives, connecting two seemingly disparate but equally endangered parts of our planet.

Consider how engaging Zaria’s opening sentence is, with ‘life’s mission’, ‘urgency’, ‘climate change’, and ‘my work’. She says it in a matter-of-fact way, yet her passion is obvious, and the topic is one that concerns everyone in the audience. She could have followed this opening with a direct statement about her work, such as, “I’m an artist…”, but the image behind her tells that story. Images often reinforce what you’re saying, but they can also be a substitute for words. Think about how images can add to the story you’re telling.

Zaria uses a contrast between Greenland and the Maldives, along with the phrase ‘equally endangered’ to illustrate the global nature of climate change. She also says ‘icy coast’ and ‘low-lying islands’ to amplify the contrast beyond location, allowing the audience to better visualize those places. Are there such contrasts within your story that can help explain differences or diversity in regards to the topic that you’re exploring?

My drawings explore moments of transition, turbulence and tranquility in the landscape, allowing viewers to emotionally connect with a place you might never have the chance to visit. I choose to convey the beauty as opposed to the devastation. If you can experience the sublimity of these landscapes, perhaps you’ll be inspired to protect and preserve them.

The expression ‘out of sight, out of mind’ applies to many important subjects. If we don’t see it, or experience it, these subjects can fade from our memory. Great stories take people into places or experiences, and art can do the same, which Zaria brings to our attention. The point is to have the audience feel, think and experience as though they were there with you.

Behavioral psychology tells us that we take action and make decisions based on our emotions above all else. And studies have shown that art impacts our emotions more effectively than a scary news report. Experts predict ice-free Arctic summers as early as 2020. And sea levels are likely to rise between two and ten feet by century’s end. I have dedicated my career to illuminating these projections with an accessible medium, one that moves us in a way that statistics may not.

Using a statistic story block can be a powerful way to highlight an aspect of your story, but visuals are an alternative. With climate change, a picture taken after a hurricane, flood or drought can convey more emotion than the numbers behind the cause of climate change. While Zaria’s medium is visual, in this case she has chosen to focus on beauty rather than destruction. Either approach is an option. In some situations, you can use two images that tell very different stories. One positive, one negative. Or a before and after comparison.

As to the science Zaria references – ‘behavioral psychology’, ‘studies have shown’, ‘experts predict’ – there is always the question of whether sources should be sighted. Zaria has not done any of this research herself so we’re supposed to accept it as common knowledge. I usually lean toward sighting the source of scientific information, but you will find plenty of talks that don’t. It’s another judgement call for every storyteller.

My process begins with traveling to the places at the forefront of climate change. On-site, I take thousands of photographs. Back in the studio, I work from both my memory of the experience and the photographs to create very large-scale compositions, sometimes over 10 feet wide. I draw with soft pastel, which is dry like charcoal, but colors. I consider my work drawings but others call them painting. I cringe, though, when I’m referred to as a “finger painter.” But I don’t use any tools and I have always used my fingers and palms to manipulate the pigment on the paper.

Drawing is a form of meditation for me. It quiets my mind. I don’t perceive what I’m drawing as ice or water. Instead, the image is stripped down to its most basic form of color and shape. Once the piece is complete, I can finally experience the composition as a whole, as an iceberg floating through glassy water, or a wave cresting with foam. On average, a piece this size takes me about, as you can see, 10 seconds. Really, more like 200 hours, 250 hours for something that size.

The use of video and time lapse photography dramatically increases the impact of Zaria’s narrative. There’s simply no way that words alone could explain her process to the audience. We see the scope of her work, as well as the attention to detail and the use of her fingers.

She also takes the opportunity to turn the time lapse sequence into a moment of humor. Some speakers are reluctant to insert humor into a serious subject, but it can provide a break in the narrative that engages the audience in a positive way. Zaria resets the tone with a real number before shifting from her work to her backstory. Humor will often happen abruptly, which adds to the fun as the audience is not expecting it, but you also need to consider how you will exit from a humorous moment.

But I’ve been drawing ever since I could hold a crayon, really. My mom was an artist, and growing up, we always had art supplies all over the house. My mother’s love of photography propelled her to the most remote regions of the earth, and my family and I were fortunate enough to join and support her on these adventures. We rode camels in Northern Africa and mushed on dog sleds near the North Pole.

Hearing about the roots of a speaker’s passion for their subject is a powerful connection tool that humanizes the narrative. We get a glimpse into Zaria’s childhood, from the ‘art supplies all over the house’ to her ‘mother’s love of photography’ and the references to riding camels and having mushed on dog sleds. We come away with a better sense of who she is and why she’s so passionate about addressing climate change. Does your narrative help explain you?

In August of 2012, I led my first expedition, taking a group of artists and scholars up the northwest coast of Greenland. My mother was originally supposed to lead this trip. She and I were in the early stages of planning, as we had intended to go together, when she fell victim to a brain tumor. The cancer quickly took over her body and mind, and she passed away six months later. During the months of her illness, though, her dedication to the expedition never wavered, and I made a promise to carry out her final journey.

My mother’s passion for the Arctic echoed through my experience in Greenland, and I felt the power and the fragility of the landscape. The sheer size of the icebergs is humbling. The ice fields are alive with movement and sound in a way that I never expected. I expanded the scale of my compositions to give you that same sense of awe that I experienced. Yet, while the grandeur of the ice is evident, so, too, is its vulnerability. From our boat, I could see the ice sweating under the unseasonably warm sun.

This section could have been told without referencing her mother’s illness, instead focusing on just the expedition, but it would have lost a vital element of both drive and appreciation for what Zaria experienced. Sometimes storytellers leave out such personal components in their story, which is fine for a first draft, but when you go back through the narrative, always ask yourself what you were thinking, or what was important, what was motivating you. Often times you will uncover a thread that adds richness to your story.

We had a chance to visit many of the Inuit communities in Greenland that now face huge challenges. The locals spoke to me of vast areas of sea ice that are no longer freezing over as they once did. And without ice, their hunting and harvesting grounds are severely diminished, threatening their way of life and survival.

This short story block tells the story of someone else, in this case the Inuit communities of Greenland. It helps answer the question, “Why does this matter”, which is something you need to ask yourself throughout the Ideation and Narration phases of writing your story.

The melting glaciers in Greenland are one of the largest contributing factors to rising sea levels, which have already begun to drown some of our world’s lowest-lying islands. One year after my trip to Greenland, I visited the Maldives, the lowest and flattest country in the entire world. While I was there, I collected images and inspiration for a new body of work: drawings of waves lapping on the coast of a nation that could be entirely underwater within this century.

Devastating events happen every day on scales both global and personal. When I was in Greenland, I scattered my mother’s ashes amidst the melting ice. Now she remains a part of the landscape she loved so much, even as it, too, passes and takes on new form.

Among the many gifts my mother gave me was the ability to focus on the positive, rather than the negative. My drawings celebrate the beauty of what we all stand to lose. I hope they can serve as records of sublime landscapes in flux, documenting the transition and inspiring our global community to take action for the future.

Thank you.

Zaria continues the thread of her mother’s influence on her work; to remain positive and celebrate nature’s beauty. Her call-to-action is wrapped within her final message of hoping her work can inspire others to take action. Part of the ‘why does it matter question’ is to ask ‘what do we have to lose’, which is a common element in a topic with implications for society.

Compare Zaria’s talk to one that I recently reviewed by Juan Enriquez about reprogramming life. His talk was focused on the topic, from both a historical, present day, and futuristic standpoint, and lacked the personal history and resulting passion that Zaria included. I will usually suggest that storytellers include some backstory as it helps the audience to connect with them, but not everyone is comfortable with that, or feels that it’s necessary.

One way to become a better storyteller is by hearing / watching / reading a variety of stories and thinking about which narrative styles / formats impacted you the most. Your stories will benefit from the process.

[Note: all comments inserted into this transcript are my opinions, not those of the speaker, the TED organization, nor anyone else on the planet. In my view, each story is unique, as is every interpretation of that story. The sole purpose of these analytical posts is to inspire a storyteller to become a storylistener, and in doing so, make their stories more impactful.]

Learn more about the coaching process or
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!

◆

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates!

Sal Khan: Let’s teach for mastery, not test scores @ TED Talks Live

October 7, 2020/in Education, Science, Technology, TED, TED Talk/by Mark Lovett

TED Talks Live were held at The Town Hall Theater in NYC, in November of 2015. I had the pleasure of attending all six nights to hear speakers present impactful Ideas Worth Spreading. This post is an analysis of a talk by Sal Khan about how mastery and mindset can improve learning.

It’s a classic problem/solution story. One that describes a process that is being used on a global scale – in this case the process of learning – but often delivers less than ideal results. In such situations the stakes are high and new ways of thinking are required in order to address rapid changes in society.

Watch Sal’s TED Talk. He demonstrates that the status quo is not serving most students as it should, and offers an alternative that is based on his experience running the Khan Academy. In his view, it’s imperative that we change the way we learn. And if we do, the benefits to society are significant.

Transcript

(my notes in red)

I’m here today to talk about the two ideas that, at least based on my observations at Khan Academy, are kind of the core, or the key leverage points for learning. And it’s the idea of mastery and the idea of mindset.

When a speaker is well known, as is the case with Sal Khan who founded Khan Academy, a phrase such as ‘my observations at Khan Academy’ speaks volumes. He doesn’t need to explain his role or the history of the academy, but if you don’t have such notoriety, adding another sentence of explanation will keep the audience from being confused about who you are and the work you’re doing. In fact, at no point in his talk does Sal speak about his credentials. Few of us would be so fortunate.

I saw this in the early days working with my cousins. A lot of them were having trouble with math at first, because they had all of these gaps accumulated in their learning. And because of that, at some point they got to an algebra class and they might have been a little bit shaky on some of the pre-algebra, and because of that, they thought they didn’t have the math gene. Or they’d get to a calculus class, and they’d be a little bit shaky on the algebra. I saw it in the early days when I was uploading some of those videos on YouTube, and I realized that people who were not my cousins were watching.

Having introduced ‘the idea of mastery and the idea of mindset’, Sal provides an example that is also personal – ‘my cousins’ and by mentioning that it happened ‘in the early days’, he takes us back in time to the beginning of his journey. When you’re taking an audience on a journey of discovery, of developing a new view of the world, people want to know where it all started. What’s your origin story?

And at first, those comments were just simple thank yous. I thought that was a pretty big deal. I don’t know how much time you all spend on YouTube. Most of the comments are not “Thank you.” They’re a little edgier than that.

But then the comments got a little more intense, student after student saying that they had grown up not liking math. It was getting difficult as they got into more advanced math topics. By the time they got to algebra, they had so many gaps in their knowledge they couldn’t engage with it. They thought they didn’t have the math gene. But when they were a bit older, they took a little agency and decided to engage. They found resources like Khan Academy and they were able to fill in those gaps and master those concepts, and that reinforced their mindset that it wasn’t fixed; that they actually were capable of learning mathematics.

He then shifts the narrative from his cousins to the general public who have been watching his math videos on YouTube. In doing so Sal offers evidence that people who struggled with math could master the concepts that had been troublesome. In your idea-driven story, can you offer examples of how your idea is having an impact? That signifies that your idea has been, to some extent, validated.

And in a lot of ways, this is how you would master a lot of things in life. It’s the way you would learn a martial art. In a martial art, you would practice the white belt skills as long as necessary, and only when you’ve mastered it you would move on to become a yellow belt. It’s the way you learn a musical instrument: you practice the basic piece over and over again, and only when you’ve mastered it, you go on to the more advanced one.

Sal uses the examples of martial arts and music to support the idea of mastery that he began with. In this way we understand that the principle at hand is not confined to his one subject, but instead is common in many aspects of life. Most social problems have parallels elsewhere in society.

But what we point out — this is not the way a traditional academic model is structured, the type of academic model that most of us grew up in. In a traditional academic model, we group students together, usually by age, and around middle school, by age and perceived ability, and we shepherd them all together at the same pace. And what typically happens, let’s say we’re in a middle school pre-algebra class, and the current unit is on exponents, the teacher will give a lecture on exponents, then we’ll go home, do some homework. The next morning, we’ll review the homework, then another lecture, homework, lecture, homework. That will continue for about two or three weeks, and then we get a test. On that test, maybe I get a 75 percent, maybe you get a 90 percent, maybe you get a 95 percent. And even though the test identified gaps in our knowledge, I didn’t know 25 percent of the material. Even the A student, what was the five percent they didn’t know?

Even though we’ve identified the gaps, the whole class will then move on to the next subject, probably a more advanced subject that’s going to build on those gaps. It might be logarithms or negative exponents. And that process continues, and you immediately start to realize how strange this is. I didn’t know 25 percent of the more foundational thing, and now I’m being pushed to the more advanced thing. And this will continue for months, years, all the way until at some point, I might be in an algebra class or trigonometry class and I hit a wall. And it’s not because algebra is fundamentally difficult or because the student isn’t bright. It’s because I’m seeing an equation and they’re dealing with exponents and that 30 percent that I didn’t know is showing up. And then I start to disengage.

In this story block, Sal describes how a traditional education system works and identifies a fundamental flaw in the learning process – the fact that students are expected to learn new concepts using a foundation that contains knowledge gaps. This description not only resonates with the highly educated audience at the event, but will also be familiar with students around the world. In doing so, he builds a connection to the local, as well as the remote, audience.

To appreciate how absurd that is, imagine if we did other things in our life that way. Say, home-building. So we bring in the contractor and say, “We were told we have two weeks to build a foundation. Do what you can.” So they do what they can. Maybe it rains. Maybe some of the supplies don’t show up. And two weeks later, the inspector comes, looks around, says, “OK, the concrete is still wet right over there, that part’s not quite up to code … I’ll give it an 80 percent.” You say, “Great! That’s a C. Let’s build the first floor.”

Same thing. We have two weeks, do what you can, inspector shows up, it’s a 75 percent. Great, that’s a D-plus. Second floor, third floor, and all of a sudden, while you’re building the third floor, the whole structure collapses. And if your reaction is the reaction you typically have in education, or that a lot of folks have, you might say, maybe we had a bad contractor, or maybe we needed better inspection or more frequent inspection. But what was really broken was the process. We were artificially constraining how long we had to something, pretty much ensuring a variable outcome, and we took the trouble of inspecting and identifying those gaps, but then we built right on top of it.

As he did previously, Sal uses an analogy – this time building a house – to illustrate the result of creating a flawed foundation. Analogies can be an impactful part of your narrative, as they provide your audience with another way of seeing the problem that you’re addressing. When Sal says ‘Let’s build the first floor.’ what goes through your mind is, ‘This is not going to end well.’ Which is the point he’s making about the education system. You would never consider building a house with a flawed foundation.

So the idea of mastery learning is to do the exact opposite. Instead of artificially constraining, fixing when and how long you work on something, pretty much ensuring that variable outcome, the A, B, C, D, F — do it the other way around. What’s variable is when and how long a student actually has to work on something, and what’s fixed is that they actually master the material.

Every story that is concerned with a problem, must naturally shift to the solution, which in this story is ‘… to do the exact opposite.’ The change is from focusing on the time constraint to focusing on ‘mastery learning’. Where this pivot occurs is different in every story. In this talk, it’s about the half way point, which is pretty common. What’s important is that the pivot is clear the audience.

And it’s important to realize that not only will this make the student learn their exponents better, but it’ll reinforce the right mindset muscles. It makes them realize that if you got 20 percent wrong on something, it doesn’t mean that you have a C branded in your DNA somehow. It means that you should just keep working on it. You should have grit; you should have perseverance; you should take agency over your learning.

As he continues with the benefits of his approach to learning, Sal touches upon the second idea that he mentioned at the beginning of his talk – mindset. Rather than feeling that a low score is the final word, he encourages students to take control of their situation, to have grit, perseverance and agency. Solutions to problems that require individual action should include the inspiration to take those actions.

Now, a lot of skeptics might say, well, hey, this is all great, philosophically, this whole idea of mastery-based learning and its connection to mindset, students taking agency over their learning. It makes a lot of sense, but it seems impractical. To actually do it, every student would be on their own track. It would have to be personalized, you’d have to have private tutors and worksheets for every student. And these aren’t new ideas — there were experiments in Winnetka, Illinois, 100 years ago, where they did mastery-based learning and saw great results, but they said it wouldn’t scale because it was logistically difficult. The teacher had to give different worksheets to every student, give on-demand assessments.

If there are audience members who doubt the veracity of your idea, including an opposite viewpoint story block allows the speaker to address concerns that might be present. In this case he includes the example of a previous experiment, the challenges they encountered, then follows on with his view that such issues are no longer a problem today. The general approach is ‘you may see the situation this way, but I have a different view that I want to share with you’.

But now today, it’s no longer impractical. We have the tools to do it. Students see an explanation at their own time and pace? There’s on-demand video for that. They need practice? They need feedback? There’s adaptive exercises readily available for students.

In a longer talk there would be time to provide examples of how ‘on-demand video’ and ‘adaptive exercises’ would work for students. I was left with a concept, but not much in the way of understanding. Hearing one story about an individual would have made the idea much more impactful.

And when that happens, all sorts of neat things happen. One, the students can actually master the concepts, but they’re also building their growth mindset, they’re building grit, perseverance, they’re taking agency over their learning. And all sorts of beautiful things can start to happen in the actual classroom. Instead of it being focused on the lecture, students can interact with each other. They can get deeper mastery over the material. They can go into simulations, Socratic dialogue.

Sal reiterates some of the key point previously mentioned in his talk – mastering the concepts, building a growth mindset, building grit and perseverance and taking agency. This is a way to remind the audience of those factors which are important to your solution. Once again, however, I wanted to hear a story. An example of how a more dynamic classroom would operate. Take me inside the room. Let me feel the experience.

To appreciate what we’re talking about and the tragedy of lost potential here, I’d like to give a little bit of a thought experiment. If we were to go 400 years into the past to Western Europe, which even then, was one of the more literate parts of the planet, you would see that about 15 percent of the population knew how to read. And I suspect that if you asked someone who did know how to read, say a member of the clergy, “What percentage of the population do you think is even capable of reading?” They might say, “Well, with a great education system, maybe 20 or 30 percent.”

But if you fast forward to today, we know that that prediction would have been wildly pessimistic, that pretty close to 100 percent of the population is capable of reading. But if I were to ask you a similar question: “What percentage of the population do you think is capable of truly mastering calculus, or understanding organic chemistry, or being able to contribute to cancer research?” A lot of you might say, “Well, with a great education system, maybe 20, 30 percent.”

But what if that estimate is just based on your own experience in a non-mastery framework, your own experience with yourself or observing your peers, where you’re being pushed at this set pace through classes, accumulating all these gaps? Even when you got the A, that 95 percent, what was that five percent you missed? And it keeps accumulating — you get to an advanced class, all of a sudden you hit a wall and say, “I’m not meant to be a cancer researcher; I’m not meant to be a physicist; I’m not meant to be a mathematician.”

And I suspect that that actually is the case, but if you were allowed to be operating in a mastery framework, if you were allowed to really take agency over your learning, and when you get something wrong, embrace it — view that failure as a moment of learning — that number, the percent that could really master calculus or understand organic chemistry, is actually a lot closer to 100 percent.

The use of a ‘what if’ type of hypothetical question allows the audience to envision what could be better if the process was improved. In a problem/solution, idea-driven storyline, that’s a way of asking, ‘What if my solution were implemented? What would the result be?’ There are no guarantees that a proposed solution will work, but if you explain it clearly and give examples, the audience can imagine what the future might look like.

And this isn’t even just a “nice to have.” I think it’s a social imperative. We’re exiting what you could call the industrial age and we’re going into this, whatever, information revolution. And it’s clear that some things are happening. In the industrial age, society was a pyramid. And at the base of the pyramid, you needed human labor. In the middle of the pyramid, you had an information processing, a bureaucracy class, and at the top of the pyramid, you had your owners of capital and your entrepreneurs and your creative class. But we know what’s happening already, as we go into this information revolution. The bottom of that pyramid, automation, is going to take over. Even that middle tier, information processing, that’s what computers are good at.

Sal brings up an important point, that society is changing rapidly due to a revolution in information processing, which in his mind, means that it’s imperative to adopt a new way of learning. This is common for social issues that are not static. Which is to say, your solution is not just about solving a current problem, but is also needed going forward to prevent even greater harm. Think about how the future will look without your ideas being implemented. Is there a similar imperative within your story that the audience needs to understand?

So as a society, we have a question: All this new productivity is happening because of this technology, but who participates in it? Is it just going to be that very top of the pyramid, in which case, what does everyone else do? How do they operate? Or do we do something that’s more aspirational? Do we actually attempt to invert the pyramid, where you have a large creative class, where almost everyone can participate as an entrepreneur, an artist, as a researcher?

And I don’t think that this is utopian. I really think that this is all based on the idea that if we let people tap into their potential by mastering concepts, by being able to exercise agency over their learning, that they can get there. And when you think of it as just a citizen of the world, it’s pretty exciting. I mean, think about the type of equity we can we have, and the rate at which civilization could even progress. And so, I’m pretty optimistic about it. I think it’s going to be a pretty exciting time to be alive.

Thank you.

The visual of ‘inverting the pyramid’ is powerful, it’s a classic, ‘turn the problem on its head’ sort of narrative, but I’m not sure it works here. It may make sense to you, but it had me scratching my head. I was thinking that Sal’s approach to learning, whereby students learn at their own pace, master each level before moving on, and take control of their future, feels more like ‘leveling the playing field’.

But that’s a relatively small complaint, as the crux of his talk is about how our education system is fundamentally flawed, but doesn’t need to be. That we can change how the system operates, and in doing so, give students the opportunity to thrive instead of struggle.

Learn more about the coaching process or
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!

◆

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates!

Samantha Nutt: The real harm of the global arms trade @ TED Talks Live

September 28, 2020/in Humanity, TED, TED Talk, Violence, Warfare/by Mark Lovett

TED Talks Live were held at The Town Hall Theater in NYC, in November of 2015. I had the pleasure of attending all six nights to hear speakers present impactful Ideas Worth Spreading. This post is an analysis of a talk by Samantha Nutt that reveals the damage caused by global arms trade.

Creating a concise narrative about a global issue is difficult due to the fact that the problems and solutions are far reaching, affecting millions if not billions of people across multiple continents. In this case there is a contrast between the countries that are selling arms around the world, and the countries which are experiencing the consequences of those arms sales.

Watch Samantha’s TED Talk. If you’re are developing an impactful story about a far reaching social issue, note how she frames the problem and solution. The credibility comes from the fact that Samantha has lived in the middle of the violence. You can find additional information on her website: War Child USA.

Transcript

(my notes in red)
Some of you may have noticed that my last name is Nutt. And if you did, you are forgiven for wondering how a Nutt managed to end up in a war zone. I actually was offered, right out of medical school, and accepted a volunteer contract to work with UNICEF in war-torn Somalia, that was worth one dollar. And, you see, I had to be paid this dollar in the event that the UN needed to issue an evacuation order, so that I would be covered. I was, after all, heading into one of the world’s most dangerous places. And by now, some of you may be asking yourselves, and I just want to reassure you, that I did get half the money up front.

A common way to begin a story about an important social topic is for the speaker to provide critical background which will set the stage for what’s to come. Samantha tells the audience that 1) she had just graduated from medical school, 2) she accepted a contract with UNICEF, and 3) she was heading to war-torn Somalia. Though it’s serious topic, she takes the opportunity to wrap it in a bit of humor.

But you see, this is how, with 50 cents in my pocket, I ended up in Baidoa, Somalia. Journalists called it the “city of death.” And they called it the city of death because 300,000 people had lost their lives there — 300,000 people, mostly as a result of war-related famine and disease.

This statistics story block states that 300,000 people had lost their lives in the city of Baidoa, Somalia. That’s a startling number for any city, but at the time of this talk the population of Baidoa was around 800,000. Would the impact be different if that second number had been mentioned? That’s something to consider whenever you’re quoting a statistic – quote it alone, next to another number for comparison, or with a range of numbers to illustrate a trend.

I was part of a team that was tasked with trying to figure out how best to respond to this humanitarian catastrophe. It was right on the heels of the Rwandan genocide, and aid money to the region was drying up. Many aid organizations, unfortunately, had been forced to close their doors. And so the question that I was asked to specifically help answer, which is one that aid workers ask themselves in war zones the world over, is: What the hell do we do now? You know, the security environment in Somalia at that moment in time — and nothing has really changed too much — can best be described as “Mad Max” by way of “A Clockwork Orange.”

She paints an overall picture of a dire situation – humanitarian catastrophe, aid money drying up, lack of security – then shifts to a specific experience in the next story block. That’s a common storytelling technique. Think about films you’ve seen that start with a wide shot of a scene, then zoom in to a tighter shot that’s personal and action oriented.

Instead of simply saying the security in Somalia was chaotic, she uses an analogy, comparing the state of security to a pair of chaotic and dysfunctional movies. Samantha knows that the audience in front of her is familiar with the style of these two movies, as they are well known in the Western world. But half the world may not get the reference. That’s not necessarily a bad decision, when to use an analogy is the storyteller’s choice, but I do recommend that storytellers consider their audience whenever they use analogies.

And I remember very distinctly a couple of days after my arrival, I went up to a feeding clinic. There were dozens of women who were standing in line, and they were clutching their infants very close. About 20 minutes into this conversation I was having with this one young woman, I leaned forward and tried to put my finger in the palm of her baby’s hand. And when I did this, I discovered that her baby was already in rigor. She was stiff, and her little, lifeless hand was curled into itself. She had died hours before of malnutrition and dehydration.

I later learned that as her baby was dying, this young woman had been held for two days by some teenage boys who were armed with Kalashnikov rifles, and they were trying to shake her down for more money, money she very clearly did not have. And this is a scene that I have confronted in war zones the world over; places where kids, some as young as eight — they are this big — and those kids, they have never been to school. But they have fought and they have killed with automatic rifles.

From 300,000, a large number that is hard to fully grasp, Samantha tells the story of one woman and her baby. She then explains why the baby died and brings the topic of weapons into the narrative. Note her use of a simple hand gesture to signify the height of an eight year old. The audience knows that eight year olds are shorter than adults, but seeing her hand next to her body provides a visual reinforcement that she’s talking about kids. Is there a point in your story where a hand gesture can add emphasis?

Is this just the way the world is? Some will you tell you that war is unavoidably human. After all, it is as old as existence itself. We say never again, and yet it happens again and again and again. But I will tell you that I have seen the absolute worst of what we as human beings are capable of doing to one another, and yet I still believe a different outcome is possible. Do you want to know why? Because over 20 years of doing this work, going in and out of war zones around the world, I have come to understand that there are aspects of this problem that we, all of us, as people occupying this shared space, that we can change — not through force or coercion or invasion, but by simply looking at all of the options available to us and choosing the ones that favor peace at the expense of war, instead of war at the expense of peace.

Samantha now shifts the focus outward again, this time to include the entire world. The issue she’s addressing extends far beyond Somalia. She’s been to ‘war zones around the world’, so we have a sense of her credibility, her knowledge of the crisis. It’s at this point she mentions the fact that there are things each of us can do to address the problem. We’re engaged with the story in a new way. We’re not just learning about an important issue, we have been invited to be part of the solution.

How so? Well, I want you to consider this: there are at least 800 million small arms and light weapons in circulation in the world today. The vast majority of civilians, like that young baby, who are dying in war zones around the world, are dying at the hands of various armed groups who rely on a near-infinite supply of cheap, easy and efficient weapons to rape, threaten, intimidate and brutalize those civilians at every turn. How cheap? Well, in some parts of the world, you can buy an AK-47 for as little as 10 dollars. In many places in which I have worked, it is easier to get access to an automatic rifle than it is to get access to clean drinking water.

And so now the important part: Can anything be done about this? To answer that question, let’s take a look at this map of the world. And now, let’s add in all of the countries that are currently at war, and the number of people who have either died or have been displaced as a result of that violence. It is a staggering number — more than 40 million people. But you will also notice something else about this map. You will notice that most of those countries are in the Global South. Now, let’s look at the countries that are the world’s top 20 exporters of small arms in the world. And what do we notice? Well, you see them in green. You will notice that those are mostly countries in the Global North, primarily Western countries. What does this tell us? This tells us that most of the people who are dying in war are living in poor countries, and yet most of the people who are profiting from war are living in rich countries — people like you and me.

Two statistics open this section of the narrative – 800 million small arms, and AK-47s going for as little as ten bucks. Frightening indeed. But to illustrate the next two numbers – 40 million people affected and the top 20 exporters of small arms – Samantha uses a visual aid to illustrate the point, and she takes the opportunity to boil the numbers down to the conclusion that rich countries are supplying arms to the poor countries where most of the people are dying. If you’re using numbers in your story, is there a way for you to bring those data points to a logical conclusion?

And then what if we go beyond small arms for a second. What if we look at all weapons in circulation in the world? Who does the biggest business? Well, roughly 80 percent of those weapons come from none other than the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany. It’s shocking, isn’t it?

A majority of people (in my opinion) will know that most of the worlds weapons come from a handful of countries, and a similar number may even know which countries are permanent members of the UN Security Council, but few have made the connection between the two. It’s not uncommon that people are aware of certain facts, but the interrelationship is not obvious to them. Revealing facts in a story can be impactful, but revealing correlations even more so.

Now, some of you might be saying at this moment in time, “Oh yeah, but OK, hang on a second there … Nutt.” Grade school was spectacular for me. It was, really, a wonderful experience.

When to inject a touch of humor? Sometimes in the middle of a serious dialogue. The key is to keep it brief, as you don’t want to completely break the flow of your narrative, and in this fashion, Samantha quickly returns to the subject at hand.

But you might be saying to yourselves, You know, all of these weapons in war zones — they’re not a cause, but an effect of the violence that plagues them each and every single day. You know, places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where they need these weapons to be able to maintain law and order, promote peace and security, to combat terror groups — and surely this is a good thing.

The opposite viewpoint story block is often used to address questions or different perspectives that may be on the minds of some audience members. Some speakers avoid going there, but in this case, Samantha puts in on the table. As you’re crafting your storyline ask yourself whether some audience members might be thinking, “But wait a minute…”

Let’s take a look at that assumption for just one moment, because you see there has been a boom in the small-arms trade since the start of the War on Terror. In fact, it is a business that has grown threefold over the past 15 years. And now let’s compare that to the number of people who have directly died in armed conflict around the world in that same period. What do you notice? Well, you notice that, in fact, that also goes up roughly three to fourfold. They basically go up and end at the same point.

Statistics related to different situations can be confusing to any of us. It can be hard to get a clear picture of what the speaker is saying, which is when a chart, such as the one that Samantha uses, can bring the correlation to light. But numbers and trends can be deceiving, and another level of explanation may be needed, which is what Samantha does next.

Now, we can have a circular argument here about whether this increase in fatalities is a response to the increase of small arms, or the other way around. But here’s what we should really take away from this. What we should take away from this is that this is a relationship worth scrutinizing, especially when you consider that small arms that were shipped to Iraq for use by the Iraqi Army, or to Syria for so-called moderate opposition fighters, that those arms, many of them, are now in the hands of ISIS; or when you consider that arms that were shipped to Libya are now actively drifting across the Sahel, and ending up with groups like Boko Haram and al Qaeda and other militant groups. And therein lies the problem. Because, you see, small arms anywhere are a menace everywhere, because their first stop is rarely their last.

Everyone know about second hand markets for many of products – cars, electronics, even clothes – but how many of us have given much thought about such sales channels when it comes to weapons? While the initial sale may be legal, the second or third may not be. Often tossed into the category of ‘unintended consequences’, is there an aspect of your story that is similar? A situation whereby the original intent is not how things turned out, or where the consequences ripple out.

Spending on war per person per year now amounts to about 249 dollars — 249 dollars per person, which is roughly 12 times what we spend on foreign aid, money that is used to educate and vaccinate children and combat malnutrition in the Global South. But we can shift that balance. How do we do this? Well, it is essentially a problem of both supply and demand, so we can tackle it from both sides.

Samantha previously stated that small arms trade had tripled in the past 15 years, but now she provides another way to view the issue. At first the statistic of $246 may not seem like a lot of money, but it becomes significant when we hear that it’s 12 times what is spent on foreign aid. When you quote a number, is there a way to provide the audience with another way to look at it, to see that number through a different lens?

On the supply side, we can push our governments to adopt international arms transparency mechanisms like the Arms Trade Treaty, which makes it so that rich countries have to be more accountable for where their arms are going and what their arms might be used for. Here in the United States, the largest arms-exporting country in the world by far, President Obama has rightly signed the Arms Trade Treaty, but none of it takes effect, it isn’t binding, until it is approved and ratified by the Senate. This is where we need to make our voices heard. You know, the curbing of small arms — it’s not going to solve the problem of war. Increased control mechanisms won’t solve that problem. But it’s an important step in the right direction. And it’s up to all of us who live in those rich countries to make change here.

Samantha presents a partial solution to the problem – the Arms Trade Treaty – and makes an explicit call to action – make our voices heard – in order for this solution to be implemented. Social issues always have a connection to legislation. It may be awaiting approval, or in some cases, laws already exist, but are not being enforced. Your story can raise awareness to such situations.

What about on the demand side? You know, there are generations around the world who are being lost to war. It is possible to disrupt that cycle of violence with investments in education, in strengthening the rule of law and in economic development, especially for women. I have personally seen just how incredibly powerful those kinds of efforts can be around the world.

Samantha states that it’s possible to disrupt the cycle of violence by way of education, rule of law and economic development, and that she’s personally seen how powerful these efforts can be, but she doesn’t provide an example to illustrate her point. It left me wanting to hear about at least one of her experiences. This is a common occurrence.

If you’re speaking out on a social issue, and are offering a solution, can you provide proof that your solution works? Something along the lines of, “Here’s a case where my idea was implemented, here are the positive results, and if we can replicate this solution into other locations or processes, more people will be helped.” This approach takes a hypothetical solution and makes it tangible. Something people can grasp.

But here’s the thing: they take time, which means for you as individuals, if you want to give, please, by all means do it. But know that how you give is just as important as how much you give. Regular contributions like monthly contributions are a far more effective way of giving, because they allow humanitarian organizations to properly plan and be invested over the long term, and to be present in the lives of families who have been affected by war, wars that many of us, frankly, all too quickly forget.

While the first call to action was political – ratifying a treaty – Samantha brings up a second option – making regular contributions to humanitarian organizations. The advice sounds logical, yet once again, I was wanting to hear an example of how donations of this type result in reducing the level of global arms trade or violence.

When I first got on that plane for Somalia as a young doctor, I had no idea what it means to live with war. But I can tell you that I know what it means now. And I know what it means to lie in bed in the pitch-black night and listen to that haunting “pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!” of automatic gunfire, and wonder with absolute dread how many minutes I have left until it will be right on top of me. I can tell you that it is a terrifying and agonizing fear, one that millions of people around the world are forced to confront each and every single day, especially children. Over the years of doing this work, unfortunately, war has killed far too many people close to me. And on at least a couple of occasions, war has very nearly killed me as well.

In circular fashion, Samantha takes us back to the beginning, when she became a volunteer after medical school, and didn’t know what it felt like to live in a war torn city. With emotional detail, she describes what she experienced, and felt, and the audience is there with her. The reason most speakers are on the stage talking about a social issue is that they’ve been in the middle of the problem and want to share their experience. Others experience the world through your eyes.

But I firmly believe, which is why I get up and do what I do every single day, that we can make different choices here. Because you see, war is ours, as human beings. We buy it, sell it, spread it and wage it. We are therefore not powerless to solve it. On the contrary, we are the only ones who can.

In a final call to action she brings everyone into the picture with the basic reality that ‘we’ are causing the problem, and only ‘we’ can solve it. This is true of all social issues. Society creates such problems – injustice, poverty, discrimination, climate change – and only society can create the needed solutions. If this is the kind of story that you’re working on, define the problem(s) and solution(s) clearly. There is an emotional side of the story, but also a logical side. Weaving them together is something Samantha does well.

Thank you very much, and I want to wish you the greatest success.

As you watch Samantha’s TED Talk, listen intently and think about what parts of the story worked for you, and whether there were any places where you wanted to know more, or you became confused. Review your own manuscript in similar fashion. And when you rehearse, ask those listening the same thing. How deep you go is always limited by time constraints, so choose your words wisely as you reveal as much information and emotion as possible.

Learn more about the coaching process or
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!

◆

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates!

Juan Enriquez: We can reprogram life. How to do it wisely @ TED Talks Live

September 21, 2020/in Genetics, Humanity, Science, TED, TED Talk/by Mark Lovett

TED Talks Live were held at The Town Hall Theater in NYC, in November of 2015. I had the pleasure of attending all six nights to hear speakers present impactful Ideas Worth Spreading. This post is an analysis of a talk by Juan Enriquez about reprograming life, and our role in managing / influencing the process.

Crafting a narrative that takes an audience inside an advanced scientific topic is difficult when those listening are members of the general public, rather than a bunch of PhDs who work in research labs. In this talk he explores the topic of reprograming life. Something that our species better get right.

Watch Juan’s TED Talk. If you’re preparing an experience-driven talk, think about whether there is a science story block that can be part of your narrative. If you’re working on an idea-driven story, especially one based on how science may affect our future, pay attention to how Juan presents a very challenging subject.

You may want to watch the talk once and take your own notes as to how the story flowed, how he used examples, and how he made a very complex topic understandable. Then read through the notes below and watch it again. There were many beautiful moments, but also times when I wanted to hear more.

Transcript

(my notes in red)

So, there’s an actor called Dustin Hoffman. And years ago, he made this movie which some of you may have heard of, called “The Graduate.” And there’s two key scenes in that movie. The first one is the seduction scene. I’m not going to talk about that tonight.

It can be tempting to begin a science story with something that’s related to the scientific topic that the story is about, and Juan gets there soon enough, but in a counterintuitive move, he opens with humor. It’s a reference that the audience is familiar with, so it gets a laugh, but it also has people wondering where he’s going next – it’s a combination of humor and mystery in a matter of seconds.

The second scene is where he’s taken out by the old guy to the pool, and as a young college graduate, the old guy basically says one word, just one word. And of course, all of you know what that word is. It’s “plastics.” And the only problem with that is, it was completely the wrong advice.

Let me tell you why it was so wrong. The word should have been “silicon.” And the reason it should have been silicon is because the basic patents for semiconductors had already been made, had already been filed, and they were already building them. So Silicon Valley was just being built in 1967, when this movie was released. And the year after the movie was released, Intel was founded. So had the graduate heard the right one word, maybe he would have ended up onstage — oh, I don’t know — maybe with these two.

Juan spends moment on a more serious note based on his reference to silicon – the early days of silicon valley – and once again we think the talk is going to get serious, but he pivots back to humor with a slide featuring Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Note that he refers to them as ‘these two’ and doesn’t mention their names. You can often avoid saying something that a slide says for you.

So as you’re thinking of that, let’s see what bit of advice we might want to give so that your next graduate doesn’t become a Tupperware salesman.

So in 2015, what word of advice would you give people, when you took a college graduate out by the pool and you said one word, just one word? I think the answer would be “lifecode.” So what is “lifecode?” Lifecode is the various ways we have of programming life. So instead of programming computers, we’re using things to program viruses or retroviruses or proteins or DNA or RNA or plants or animals, or a whole series of creatures. And as you’re thinking about this incredible ability to make life do what you want it to do, what it’s programmed to do, what you end up doing is taking what we’ve been doing for thousands of years, which is breeding, changing, mixing, matching all kinds of life-forms, and we accelerate it.

Now we see why Juan opened with a reference to The Graduate. It’s because the iconic scene in the movie was all about one word – plastics – and now Juan is ready to use that same theme to introduce the word that will define his story about genetic modification – ‘lifecode’. That’s a creative use of the callback technique.

It’s a word that few in the audience have heard before so he offers an explanation as to what it means. In doing so, he relates the programming of life (something the audience knows little about) to the programming of a computer (something most everyone understands, at least at a basic level). He also makes reference to the fact that humans have been doing this for a long time, though using nature to do it. This is a way to normalize something different.

And this is not something new. This humble mustard weed has been modified so that if you change it in one way, you get broccoli. And if you change it in a second way, you get kale. And if you change it in a third way, you get cauliflower. So when you go to these all-natural, organic markets, you’re really going to a place where people have been changing the lifecode of plants for a long time. The difference today, to pick a completely politically neutral term is — Intelligent design

In this section he offers up a specific example of how one thing – mustard weed – can become three different things. And in this situation – broccoli, kale and cauliflower – are things that everyone knows about. The science is no longer abstract, it’s something we put on the dinner table.

It’s also a good example of using a short historical story block when he says, “And this is not something new.” Providing a historical reference helps an audience think about past, present, and future. It puts the topic in perspective. The beautiful slide that Juan uses provides even more detail to what those changes were, and the visual representation of the three vegetables reinforces our sense of familiarity.

We’re not even at the 3 minute mark in Juan’s story, and yet he’s built a solid foundation for where he’s taking the audience on the next phase the journey.

We’re beginning to practice intelligent design. That means that instead of doing this at random and seeing what happens over generations, we’re inserting specific genes, we’re inserting specific proteins, and we’re changing lifecode for very deliberate purposes. And that allows us to accelerate how this stuff happens.

Juan now pivots toward the science and connects the idea of ‘intelligent design’ to the previously mentioned ‘lifecode’. Note the use of ‘random’ and ‘deliberate’, connecting ‘inserting’ to ‘changing’, as well as ‘generations’ to ‘accelerate’. Condensing what could be hours of discussion on a complex topic into minutes on stage requires this type of word choice to allow a public audience to follow along. We often understand through contrast.

Let me just give you one example. Some of you occasionally might think about sex. And we kind of take it for granted how we’ve changed sex. So we think it’s perfectly normal and natural to change it. What’s happened with sex over time is — normally, sex equals baby, eventually. But in today’s world, sex plus pill equals no baby.

And again, we think that’s perfectly normal and natural, but that has not been the case for most of human history. And it’s not the case for animals. What it is does is it gives us control, so sex becomes separate from conception. And as you’re thinking of the consequences of that, then we’ve been playing with stuff that’s a little bit more advanced, like art. Not in the sense of painting and sculpture, but in the sense of assisted reproductive technologies. So what are assisted reproductive technologies?

Assisted reproductive technologies are things like in vitro fertilization. And when you do in vitro fertilization, there’s very good reasons to do it. Sometimes you just can’t conceive otherwise. But when you do that, what you’re doing is separating sex, conception, baby. So you haven’t just taken control of when you have a baby, you’ve separated when the baby and where the baby is fertilized. So you’ve separated the baby from the body from the act. And as you’re thinking of other things we’ve been doing, think about twins. So you can freeze sperm, you can freeze eggs, you can freeze fertilized eggs. And what does that mean? Well, that’s a good thing if you’re a cancer patient. You’re about to go under chemotherapy or under radiation, so you save these things. You don’t irradiate them. But if you can save them and you can freeze them, and you can have a surrogate mother, it means that you’ve decoupled sex from time. It means you can have twins born — oh, in 50 years?

In this story block Juan mentions two widely known processes – in vitro fertilization and freezing eggs – but explains them in a new way by stating that humans have separated the act of sex from conception and baby while also decoupling sex from time, thus allowing conception and birth to happen into the future. When I spoke with audience members after the talk their comments were similar. “I never thought of the technology that way.” That’s an important aspect of impact. Seeing the world and our future differently.

In a hundred years? Two hundred years? And these are three really profound changes that are not, like, future stuff. This is stuff we take for granted today. So this lifecode stuff turns out to be a superpower. It turns out to be this incredibly powerful way of changing viruses, of changing plants, of changing animals, perhaps even of evolving ourselves. It’s something that Steve Gullans and I have been thinking about for a while.

Let’s have some risks. Like every powerful technology, like electricity, like an automobile, like computers, this stuff potentially can be misused. And that scares a lot of people. And as you apply these technologies, you can even turn human beings into chimeras. Remember the Greek myth where you mix animals? Well, some of these treatments actually end up changing your blood type. Or they’ll put male cells in a female body or vice versa, which sounds absolutely horrible until you realize, the reason you’re doing that is you’re substituting bone marrow during cancer treatments. So by taking somebody else’s bone marrow, you may be changing some fundamental aspects of yourself, but you’re also saving your life.

Often times there is a dark side of change. What happens if things don’t go as expected. Some speakers choose to focus only on the benefits of their idea or invention, but that can leave an audience feeling that you did just that, that you intentionally avoided the possible negative impacts.

And as you’re thinking about this stuff, here’s something that happened 20 years ago. This is Emma Ott. She’s a recent college admittee. She’s studying accounting. She played two varsity sports. She graduated as a valedictorian. And that’s not particularly extraordinary, except that she’s the first human being born to three parents. Why? Because she had a deadly mitochondrial disease that she might have inherited. So when you swap out a third person’s DNA and you put it in there, you save the lives of people. But you also are doing germline engineering, which means her kids, if she has kids, will be saved and won’t go through this. And her kids will be saved, and their grandchildren will be saved, and this passes on.

Shifting from the overarching storyline, Juan introduces a story block about a specific person. It illustrates how the technology can work. Going from the more general to the more specific is how a listener/viewer/reader comes to better understand on multiple levels.

That makes people nervous. So 20 years ago, the various authorities said, why don’t we study this for a while? There are risks to doing stuff, and there are risks to not doing stuff, because there were a couple dozen people saved by this technology, and then we’ve been thinking about it for the next 20 years. So as we think about it, as we take the time to say, “Hey, maybe we should have longer studies, maybe we should do this, maybe we should do that,” there are consequences to acting, and there are consequences to not acting. Like curing deadly diseases — which, by the way, is completely unnatural. It is normal and natural for humans to be felled by massive epidemics of polio, of smallpox, of tuberculosis.

When we put vaccines into people, we are putting unnatural things into their body because we think the benefit outweighs the risk. Because we’ve built unnatural plants, unnatural animals, we can feed about seven billion people. We can do things like create new life-forms. And as you create new life-forms, again, that sounds terribly scary and terribly bothersome, until you realize that those life-forms live on your dining room table. Those flowers you’ve got on your dining room table — there’s not a lot that’s natural about them, because people have been breeding the flowers to make this color, to be this size, to last for a week. You don’t usually give your loved one wildflowers because they don’t last a whole lot of time.

In addition to benefits and risks, advances in science (and changes of most any sort) also presents questions, or quandaries. Answers are not always clear. Vaccines clearly save lives, and we enjoy the flowers on our dining room table, but the fact is, both are ‘unnatural’, which is to say that humans have intervened. And this topic of intervention is something that everyone who is crafting an idea-driven narrative needs to consider. What are all the consequences of your proposal – both positive and negative?

What all this does is it flips Darwin completely on his head. See, for four billion years, what lived and died on this planet depended on two principles: on natural selection and random mutation. And so what lived and died, what was structured, has now been flipped on its head. And what we’ve done is created this completely parallel evolutionary system where we are practicing unnatural selection and non-random mutation.

Sometimes story blocks can be a couple of sentences, and in this case, Juan scans back over billions of years to highlight the way things have historically worked, up until humans came on the scene and started changing nature intentionally.

So let me explain these things. This is natural selection. This is unnatural selection.

While a number of the previous slides used were unnecessary, in my opinion, the one used here is informative, visually interesting, and it happens to be funny. Read the text below without the benefit of the slide. The words are still informative, but they only provide a factual description. That’s not bad, but notice how the same words can be received differently when using an image. You decide how you want to do it, of course, but realize there are options.

So what happens with this stuff is, we started breeding wolves thousands of years ago in central Asia to turn them into dogs. And then we started turning them into big dogs and into little dogs. But if you take one of the chihuahuas you see in the Hermès bags on Fifth Avenue and you let it loose on the African plain, you can watch natural selection happen.

In this case, no visual is needed. The audience can visualize on their own what would happen if a small dog was set free in a wild environment. We’ve probably seen that in various wildlife documentaries. In fact, an image of any sort might kill the humor (pun intended) and make the audience squeamish.

Few things on Earth are less natural than a cornfield. You will never, under any scenario, walk through a virgin forest and see the same plant growing in orderly rows at the same time, nothing else living there. When you do a cornfield, you’re selecting what lives and what dies. And you’re doing that through unnatural selection. It’s the same with a wheat field, it’s the same with a rice field. It’s the same with a city, it’s the same with a suburb. In fact, half the surface of Earth has been unnaturally engineered so that what lives and what dies there is what we want, which is the reason why you don’t have grizzly bears walking through downtown Manhattan.

In this story block Juan provides additional description of unnatural selection. It’s not so much a story of one person, or even a group of people, but of society as a whole. It also includes a powerful statistic, that half of the earth’s surface has been engineered by humans. There’s no reference as to where that number comes from. On the one hand, I will tend to believe what Juan says, but on the other, I’m left scratching my head, wondering if that number is accurate. it’s something to consider whenever you quote startling statistics. Will the audience believe you based on your personal authority?

How about this random mutation stuff? Well, this is random mutation. This is Antonio Alfonseca. He’s otherwise known as the Octopus, his nickname. He was the Relief Pitcher of the Year in 2000. And he had a random mutation that gave him six fingers on each hand, which turns out to be really useful if you’re a pitcher.

How about non-random mutation? A non-random mutation is beer. It’s wine. It’s yogurt. How many times have you walked through the forest and found all-natural cheese? Or all-natural yogurt? So we’ve been engineering this stuff. Now, the interesting thing is, we get to know the stuff better. We found one of the single most powerful gene-editing instruments, CRISPR, inside yogurt. And as we start engineering cells, we’re producing eight out of the top 10 pharmaceutical products, including the stuff that you use to treat arthritis, which is the number one best-selling drug, Humira.

The nugget that’s revealed here is that the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR was found inside yogurt. That could be a talk of its own. The history of how that discovery happened and what it means to the field of biological research. If Juan was giving a 30 minute talk, or a 45 minute keynote, this might be a topic that could be expanded upon and comprise a detailed scientific story block.

So this lifecode stuff. It really is a superpower. It really is a way of programming stuff, and there’s nothing that’s going to change us more than this lifecode. So as you’re thinking of lifecode, let’s think of five principles as to how we start guiding, and I’d love you to give me more.

He’s about 80% done with his story, and at this juncture comes back to the key word of his talk, lifecode. Though it’s a very complex topic, with dozens (if not hundreds) of things to think about, he keeps the options limited by offering the audience just five principles to consider now that they’ve heard the backstory on how humans are changing life forms. In essence, these are his calls to action.

So, principle number one: we have to take responsibility for this stuff. The reason we have to take responsibility is because we’re in charge. These aren’t random mutations. This is what we are doing, what we are choosing. It’s not, “Stuff happened.” It didn’t happen at random. It didn’t come down by a verdict of somebody else. We engineer this stuff, and it’s the Pottery Barn rule: you break it, you own it.

Principle number two: we have to recognize and celebrate diversity in this stuff. There have been at least 33 versions of hominids that have walked around this Earth. Most all of them went extinct except us. But the normal and natural state of this Earth is we have various versions of humans walking around at the same time, which is why most of us have some Neanderthal in us. Some of us have some Denisova in us. And some in Washington have a lot more of it.

Stating ‘there have been at least 33 version of hominids’ is another surprising statistic with no backup information. Once again, that could be a talk of its own, or expanded upon in a longer version of this story. As to the number, I did my own search and found a range of numbers / estimates provided – 9, 10, 12, 15 – sometimes there were references to speculation that there were many we haven’t discovered yet.

And every reference I could find states that we’re the only one left. So to say ‘most all of them went extinct’, implies there are other versions walking around. It’s just one word, but there’s a world of different between ‘most all’ and ‘all’. I don’t claim to have the answer, but I bring it up to highlight the fact that what you say – every word – matters greatly to the audience.

Principle number three: we have to respect other people’s choices. Some people will choose to never alter. Some people will choose to alter all. Some people will choose to alter plants but not animals. Some people will choose to alter themselves. Some people will choose to evolve themselves. Diversity is not a bad thing, because even though we think of humans as very diverse, we came so close to extinction that all of us descend from a single African mother and the consequence of that is there’s more genetic diversity in 55 African chimpanzees than there are in seven billion humans.

Using statistics in a comparative fashion can be powerful. In this case, comparing 55 chimpanzees to 7 billion humans within the topic of genetic diversity. That said, I don’t feel that this statistical comparison connects to the topic of ‘choice’, which is what this principle is supposed to be about. And I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but the topic of personal choice when it comes to altering out genetic makeup needs much more time.

Principle number four: we should take about a quarter of the Earth and only let Darwin run the show there. It doesn’t have to be contiguous, doesn’t have to all be tied together. It should be part in the oceans, part on land. But we should not run every evolutionary decision on this planet. We want to have our evolutionary system running. We want to have Darwin’s evolutionary system running. And it’s just really important to have these two things running in parallel and not overwhelm evolution.

This is an interesting point, and draws applause from the audience. While I agree with the statement, someone else may feel that there should be no limits on how much of nature humans can alter. Another opinion might be that it’s too late, that humans have already overwhelmed evolution with far too much genetic manipulation.

Juan states that it’s ‘really important to have these two things running in parallel’, but why? He uses the phrase ‘overwhelm evolution’, but what does that mean? It would have been nice to hear specifics about the downside, but once again, that would require a longer story.

Last thing I’ll say. This is the single most exciting adventure human beings have been on. This is the single greatest superpower humans have ever had. It would be a crime for you not to participate in this stuff because you’re scared of it, because you’re hiding from it. You can participate in the ethics. You can participate in the politics. You can participate in the business. You can participate in just thinking about where medicine is going, where industry is going, where we’re going to take the world. It would be a crime for all of us not to be aware when somebody shows up at a swimming pool and says one word, just one word, if you don’t listen if that word is “lifecode.”

He describes his five calls to action – take responsibility, celebrate diversity, respect others, protect nature, educate ourselves – then does a callback to the beginning. To the movie reference about one word ‘plastics’, and how the new word to pay attention to is ‘lifecode’. There’s a power and completeness to that kind of full circle storytelling.

Thank you very much.

Overall, I enjoyed Juan’s talk. He was able to take a very technical topic and craft a story in under 15 minutes which makes us think about the technology that is here now, and that will continue to evolve in the future. The point being made is that our decisions will have an effect on what that technology is used for.

My main issue with this story involves the points which needed far more exploration. I would like to hear a one hour version of this talk, but even then there would be many points without full explanations. That’s an issue that virtually all storytellers have to face. Taking a long story and presenting it within a short timeframe.

Learn more about the coaching process or
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!

◆

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates!

Nadia Lopez: Why open a school? To close a prison @ TED Talks Live

September 14, 2020/in Education, Prison, TED, TED Talk/by Mark Lovett

TED Talks Live were held at The Town Hall Theater in NYC, in November of 2015. I had the pleasure of attending all six nights to hear speakers present impactful Ideas Worth Spreading. This post is an analysis of a talk by Nadia Lopez on the power of the education system to change lives.

As some of you may know, I worked on two events held inside a state prison. TEDxDonovanCorrectional was an eye-opening experience, as the men that I coached often told me stories about growing up without a proper education. It wasn’t an uncommon story for a teenager to drop out of school and join a gang. Nadia’s story is a reminder that changes to the education system are possible, but it takes a new vision and a dedicated team to make that happen.

Watch Nadia’s TED Talk. It’s an ideal example of personal storytelling that is effective within a short timeframe. Then review your own manuscript. Have you tightened your prose to be direct and impactful? Does every sentence matter?

Transcript

(my notes in red)

When I opened Mott Hall Bridges Academy in 2010, my goal was simple: open a school to close a prison. Now to some, this was an audacious goal, because our school is located in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn — one of the most underserved and violent neighborhoods in all of New York City. Like many urban schools with high poverty rates, we face numerous challenges, like finding teachers who can empathize with the complexities of a disadvantaged community, lack of funding for technology, low parental involvement and neighborhood gangs that recruit children as early as fourth grade.

Notice how much the first line, in just 20 words, says about the story. Her action – opening the academy. When action happened – 2010. Her goal – opening a school to close a prison. We don’t know what that means, exactly, so she’s caught our interest and we want to know the answer. In the next 2 sentences she goes deeper into the background of the story – the neighborhood, poverty rates, finding teachers, lack of funding, parents and gangs. All of this is revealed in less than a minute. She makes every word count.

She shows a slide comparing the rate of shootings between the Brownsville section of Brooklyn to all of Manhattan. The visual is easy to understand – the comparison startling.

So here I was, the founding principal of a middle school that was a district public school, and I only had 45 kids to start. Thirty percent of them had special needs. Eighty-six percent of them were below grade level in English and in math. And 100 percent were living below the poverty level.

Nadia uses 3 key statistics to illustrate the difficulties that she faced – 30% special needs, 86% below grade level, 100% below poverty level. With few words we come to understand the extent of the challenge that’s ahead of her.

If our children are not in our classrooms, how will they learn? And if they’re not learning, where would they end up? It was evident when I would ask my 13-year-old, “Young man, where do you see yourself in five years?” And his response: “I don’t know if I’m gonna live that long.”

In a longer talk Nadia could have given us more background on her son, but I doubt that it would have done anything to increase the impact of considering a 13-year-old who doubts whether he will celebrate his 18th birthday.

Or to have a young woman say to me that she had a lifelong goal of working in a fast-food restaurant. To me, this was unacceptable. It was also evident that they had no idea that there was a landscape of opportunity that existed beyond their neighborhood.

We call our students “scholars,” because they’re lifelong learners. And the skills that they learn today will prepare them for college and career readiness. I chose the royal colors of purple and black, because I want them to be reminded that they are descendants of greatness, and that through education, they are future engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and even leaders who can and will take over this world. To date, we have had three graduating classes, at a 98 (applause) At a 98-percent graduation rate. This is nearly 200 children, who are now going to some of the most competitive high schools in New York City.

The narrative shifts from background to the students in her school, with a brief description of her philosophy, and ending with a statistic – 98% graduation rate – that is in stark contrast to the opening set of statistics. Contrast is a powerful way to use statistics.

It was a cold day in January when my scholar, Vidal Chastanet, met Brandon Stanton, the founder of the popular blog “Humans of New York.” Brandon shared the story of a young man from Brownsville who had witnessed violence firsthand, by witnessing a man being thrown off of a roof. Yet he can still be influenced by a principal who had opened up a school that believes in all children. Vidal embodies the story of so many of our underprivileged children who are struggling to survive, which is why we must make education a priority.

The narrative shifts again, this time to a specific student and a blogger – a story block about other people. Showing a picture of Vidal also serves to humanize the segment. We are now able to experience more than her words. Vidal is a vivid part of the story too.

Brandon’s post created a global sensation that touched the lives of millions. This resulted in 1.4 million dollars being raised for our scholars to attend field trips to colleges and universities, Summer STEAM programs, as well as college scholarships. You need to understand that when 200 young people from Brownsville visited Harvard, they now understood that a college of their choice was a real possibility. And the impossibilities that had been imposed upon them by a disadvantaged community were replaced by hope and purpose.

Nadia then shares the result of that blog post, using a statistic – 1.4 million dollars – and what that number equates to – field trips, STEAM programs, college scholarships. We easily follow the chain of events – student, blogger, post, donations, programs – it’s clear in our mind.

The revolution in education is happening in our schools, with adults who provide love, structure, support and knowledge. These are the things that inspire children. But it is not an easy task. And there are high demands within an education system that is not perfect.

But I have a dynamic group of educators who collaborate as a team to determine what is the best curriculum. They take time beyond their school day, and come in on weekends and even use their own money to often provide resources when we do not have it. And as the principal, I have to inspect what I expect.

So I show up in classes and I conduct observations to give feedback, because I want my teachers to be just as successful as the name Mott Hall Bridges Academy. And I give them access to me every single day, which is why they all have my personal cell number, including my scholars and those who graduated — which is probably why I get phone calls and text messages at three o’clock in the morning.

We come back to the topic of education, the revolution that’s happening, the educators dedication, her personal commitment to everyone involved in the process. And she turns the spotlight on the people who are part of the team to give them credit for their contribution.

But we are all connected to succeed, and good leaders do this. Tomorrow’s future is sitting in our classrooms. And they are our responsibility. That means everyone in here, and those who are watching the screen. We must believe in their brilliance, and remind them by teaching them that there indeed is power in education.

In her closing, Nadia brings the audience into the narrative and emphasizes the responsibility that we all share, to support the power in education. There’s no specific call to action – to volunteer at your local school, or donate money, or write to a politician – it’s a simple reminder that we hold the future of these young students in our hands.

Thank you.

Note her composure on stage, and her measured pace of speaking that makes the narrative and underlying message easy to understand. Yet you can still hear the passion in her voice. Without moving across the stage Nadia turns to address each section of the audience, making direct eye contact. She also uses her hands in a way that emphasizes key words.

At under 7 minutes this story says a lot, and serves as an example of how much can be said in a short amount of time. But in my opinion, I would appreciate a longer talk, maybe in the 12 minute range, as I know she has so much more to say. But that’s just me. How about you? Where there questions on your mind at the end, or issues that you wanted to hear more about? This is one of the biggest challenges we all have when crafting a personal story. Maximizing the impact in the time allowed. So make sure every word counts.

Learn more about the coaching process or
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!

◆

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates!