GoldenFleece is an international community of practice devoted to storytelling in business and organizations.

We've assembled a resource guide for business leaders, consultants, educators, marketers, storytellers, artists, activists, students, and anyone else eager to apply story in the world of work. This web site is your invitation to engage and join us in this emerging field.

GOLDEN FLEECE HAS GONE GLOBAL. A virtual conversation space on organizational story has been established so that anyone in the world can participate, no matter where you are located. If you would like join, click here.

THE TENTH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL STORYTELLING WEEKEND will take place on Thursday evening April 15, 2010, Friday April 16, 2010 all day symposium at the Smithsonian and Saturday, April 17, 2010 at the Golden Fleece Annual International Conference on Story at George Mason University. Places are limited. Register NOW!

• Register for Thursday evening: BASICS OF STORYTELLING here
• Register for Friday all day, IMPROVING THE WORKPLACE THROUGH STORYTELLING, here
• Register for Saturday all day: YOU, ME AND WE here
  

Saturday Golden Fleece presents:

You, Me and We: Connecting through Story.

Date and Time of the event: Saturday, April 17, 2010 from 9 to 5.
Location: George Mason University, Arlington VA Campus (Washington, DC area, on the Metro Line)

Golden Fleece, in conjunction with the 2010 Storytelling in Organizations seminar of the Smithsonian Institution's Resident Associates Program (April 16, 2010), is pleased to announce the ninth annual International Storytelling Weekend in Washington. This one-day conference offers the possibility for change leaders, executives, storytelling professionals, organizational development practitioners, students and researchers to attend workshops and discuss the important aspects of using story to connect us.

For more information click here.

THE EIGHTH ANNUAL STORYTELLING WEEKEND: took place on May 8-10, 2008, The theme was storytelling and innovation. It had many participants from all around the world. Audience responses at the end of the day included:

“Inspired!” “Intelligent!” “Energized!” “Enthusiasm!” “Renewed!” “Stimulating!” “Solutions!” “Community!” “Intrigue! “Technique!” “Stimulating to learn!” “Percolating!” “Full up!”  “Overwhelming!” “Blast off!” “Playful!”

Slides and audios will be posted here as they become available. Currently available are:

Thursday May 8, 2008

• Basics of organizational storytelling: part 1: Svend-Erik Engh (audio - 6 megs)
• Basics of organizational storytelling: part 2: Steve Denning (audio - 5 megs)

Friday May 9, 2008

• Madelyn Blair: Introduction to Innovation and Storytelling (audio 2 megs)
• Dorothy Leonard (audio to come)
• Dorothy Leonard: A conversation
• Linda Coffman's slides: Digital Storytelling at P&G
• Linda Coffman: A conversation
• Clauda L'Amoreaux: Second Life and Storytelling (audio - 9 megs)
• Claudia L'Amoreaux: A conversation
• Steve Denning's slides: Hot Spots: How Innovation happens in groups (through storytelling) (9 megs)
• Steve Denning: audio: Hot Spots: How innovation happens in groups (through storytelling) (5 megs)
• Steve Denning: audio: Hot Spots: Q and A (1 meg)
• Summary of the day: audience comments (160kb)
• Svend-Erik Engh: The Raven (600 kb)
  

See also audios and slides from Smithsonian Weekend 2006

The December 2007 meeting of the group was held on December 4, 2007 at Quebec House Party Room. Our program was called a Buzz. Steve Denning (whose latest book--The Secret Language of Leadership-- was just released, and Madelyn Blair were the "Buzzers."

The November meeting of the Golden Fleece group was the Smithsonian session led by Noa Baum and Kelly Cressap on Saturday November 17, 2007 session tapped into the power of story to foster new insight, growth, and connection. Award-winning storytellers Noa Baum and Kelly Cresap guided the group in exploring the life-enhancing story components of archetype and myth. .

The October meeting of the Golden Fleece Group was held on Tuesday October 2, 2007 and was hosted by Atieno Fisher.

The meeting of the Golden Fleece Group on Tuesday July 10, 2007 was the annual get-together with the interns of the Washington Ireland Program.

The meeting of the Golden Fleece group on Tuesday June 5, 2007 was hosted by Paul Costello and Madelyn Blair on the subject of: "The ethics of narrative"

Our Seventh Annual Storytelling Weekend was held on May 4-5, 2007. Once again, it was a huge success. And once again, it delivered on its promise to be "the world's premier organizational storytelling event". We'll be posting highlights, tapes and other resources from the event over the coming days:

• 'Insights' from the conversation starter exercise of May 4.

The March meeting of the Golden Fleece group was held on March 6, 2006. It was facilitated by Katherine Grace Morris, PhD., FSIA. She explore the idea that opening the door to your office is like opening the cover of a book: inside you'll find a story. Have you ever wondered what story your office was telling to those who visit you there? Like your clients? Your boss? Is the story your office tells undermining you? Have you ever wondered what stories client offices have been telling you about them? How can you hone your ability to 'read' those stories?

The February meeting of the Golden Fleece group was held on February 6, 2007, Steve Denning shared some thinking from his forthcoming book, The Secret Language of Leadership, and facilitated a workshop on the theme: Can storytelling be used to deal with any leadership challenge? The thesis of Steve's forthcoming book is: yes, it can be so used, whether the change we are trying to effect as leaders is in the workplace, in politics, in parenting, in teaching, in personal relationships, in coping with old age, whatever, provided that we articulate our goal in an appropriate manner.

The December meeting of the Golden Fleece group was held on December 5, 2006 and was facilitated by Kelly Cresap. It was a combination holiday party and LaughingMuse
program focused on sharing laughter and interacting and telling stories in which humor came to the rescue.

The November meeting of the Golden Fleece group was held on November 7, 2006. , 7:00 to 9:00 in the party room, Quebec House North. The co-authors will discuss the new book,"Wake Me When The Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Storytelling to Drive Results." To find out more about the book, click here.

The October meeting of the Golden Fleece group was held on October 3, 2006, 7:00 to 9:00 at Quebec House North. The speaker was Susan Bales, long time Senior Executive and entrepreneur within the Department of Navy. Susan explored the issues of business and organizational needs and how story can help to address them.

The September meeting of Golden Fleece took place on Tuesday September 12, 2006, Denise Lee introduced Robert S. Frey of RSIS, talking about using storytelling in successful proposal strategies to government, private sector, and international contracts.

The August Golden Fleece meeting was held on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006. Kit Turen facilitated the Living Stories process to share some of our personal experiences and wisdom.

The July Golden Fleece meeting took place on July 11, 2006 . Paul Costello hosted a lively meeting with the young leaders of the Washington-Ireland program.

The June 2006 Golden Fleece meeting was facilitated by Seth Kahan and the topic was "The Social Construction of the Storytelling Community". Among the multifaceted aspects of the meeting, there was a set of postings by participants about the Golden Fleece community. The postings from the meeting can be viewed here. To find out more about social constructionism and framing, click here

The May meeting was held on Tuesday May 2, 2006: it discussed how to grow a storytelling business. A 25-minute audio recording of Steve Denning's opening presentation and the initial discussion is available here (MOV-10megs). A background paper is available here.

Our Sixth Annual Storytelling Weekend was held on April 21-22, 2006. Everyone we talked to agreed that it delivered on its promise to be "the world's premier organizational storytelling event". The depth and breadth of the intellectual content was truly impressive and the atmosphere magical. Highlights included:

A welcome to participants from around the world (MP3 - 4 megs)
Steve Denning explains "the OS moment" (MOV - 1 meg)
Steve Denning's slides (PowerPoint - 5 megs)
Madelyn Blair discusses "the UN story" (MP3 - 4 megs)
Madelyn Blair's slides (PDF - 1 meg)
Jim Stuart on creating the space for a story (MOV - 2 megs)
Jim Stuart is hit by a bunch of asteroids (MOV - 2 megs)
Jim Stuart discovers his springboard story (MOV - 3 megs)
Jim Stuart: the impact of the story on the storyteller: (MOV - 2megs)
Jim Stuart explains how story begins in yearning (MOV - 1 meg)
Jim Stuart talks about creating the space for the story to emerge (MOV - 2megs)
Gerry Lantz slides on "stories that work" (PDF - 1 meg)
Ashraf Ramzy tells his own story (MOV - 2 megs)
Ashraf Ramzy tells the story of "the perfect storm" (MP3 - 5 megs )
Ashraf Ramzy's slides (PDF - 2 megs)
Svend-Erik Engh reveals his secret (MP3 - 2 megs)
Atieno Fisher's slides: using simulations to help learning (PowerPoint: 98kb)
Glory Ressler's handouts (Word - 4 megs)
Terrence Gargiulo slides: using story to improve communication (PDF - 750kb)
Terrence Gargiulo's article "Power of Stories" (PDF - 160 kb)
Feedback from the participants

What Golden Fleece is about:

We believe in practicing and living in a narrative world, where everything is shaped by our relationship to story.

Story is healing & unifying. We passionately believe that story has significant contributions to make the world a better place. We are shepherding the emergence of a narrative approach into widespread recognition and validity.

GoldenFleece is creating a professional practice around the use of story in business. We provide a venue to support one another in this work. We invite you to join us.

We'd love to hear from you.

Email us at steve@stevedenning.com with your feedback, suggestions, and questions.

Want to join the listserv?

Actually, there are two listservs.

One is the local listserv for the Washington DC area, called the GoldenFleece list. This is a list intended mainly for people who live in or around the Washington D.C. area in the U.S.A., and who would like to hook up with other storytelling practitioners in the area. They meet once a month to discuss storytelling in organizations, and you can join by (1) sending an email to: 
       GoldnFleece-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

and (2) remembering to put "Subscribe Goldn-Fleece" in the subject line. (Otherwise your email may be blocked by spam filters or deleted.)

The other is WorkingStories, the international listserv for anyone in the world interested in organizational storytelling. You subscribe to this list by going to this page.

Which list should you join? If you're from outside the Washington DC area, the more obvious choice is the Working Stories listserv. If you sign up for the Golden Fleece list, which is possible, you will get a fair bit of traffic about meetings, parking, and so on, that may not be of very much interest to you if you're living on the other side of the planet. Nevertheless, if you are from out of town, and you want to stay in touch with the folks in Washington DC, feel free to join the GoldenFleece list.

If on the other hand, you're in the Washington DC area, you will certainly want to join the Golden Fleece listserv, because this is how you get notice of meetings and other relevant doings in the area. But you may also want to join the Working Stories list, so that you stay in touch with the various global conversations that take place there.

Still have questions about which list to join? Then send me an email, at steve@stevedenning.com and I'll try to sort things out for you.