Imagine an international conversation about many story applications. That’s what this book aspires to. “Applied storytelling” covers a wide range of disciplines, such as organizational storytelling, storytelling for marketing and branding, storytelling for job search, and career advancement. Representatives like storytelling genres and many others speak their minds in this book.
The book is an outgrowth of the Q&A series I’ve conducted with storytelling practices since September 2, 2008, on my blog, A Storied Career. In turn, this Q&A series was inspired by a long and popular Q&A series with career professionals on A Storied Career’s parent site, Quintessential Careers. The book covers 43 practitioners from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, Australia, Sweden and France.
I love the wordplay in the title of this book: Historical Careers. Since I have a Google alert set up for a phrase “historical career”, I see articles that almost use a phrase “historical career” to describe how professional sagas of people in the news. So I see the 43 professionals in this book as having “historical careers” because they are all outstanding professionals. But unlike all the people on my Google Alerts having “historical careers,” the professionals in this book have had careers that have focused to varying degrees on storytelling and storytelling – so they are historical careers.
In the book, you will find 20 chapters that address the issues and the thematic areas of the Q&A in which these professionals participated. At the end of the book (page 81), you’ll find a complete directory of all 43 professionals, with minibios, web and blog addresses, email addresses, Twitter IDs, and photos. Note that the order is arranged in reverse alphabetical order; I grew up with a last name at the end of the alphabet and I know how demoralizing it can be to always be at the bottom of the list. I knew I had made the right decision when collaborator Mike Wittenstein told me that this was the first time in his life that he had been first on a list.
– Katharine (Kathy) Hansen, PhD
September 2009
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You can also read Mike’s Q&A with Katharine Hansen on his blog:
