Episode 6

Using Story to Cut Through the Noise

Published on: 22nd August, 2023

On this episode of The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed Katherine R. Dollar, Lead Storyteller and Content Strategist @ Moxie Blue Media, to the show.

We talked about improving communicating with others by using stories. Effectively communicating across different teams is a vital skill in today’s fast-paced and highly connected groups of teams. To get things done, you must develop greater relationships with other internal and external teammates. That requires being good at getting our ideas, thoughts, and insights across to other people in a way that they understand your meaning or intent. For IT, we have been known to communicate in such technical manners that normal users at times don’t understand us. We discussed several insightful areas, including:

  • The power of a story is the ability to let one explore and relate to other people' lives and conditions that are not our own. 
  • From the standpoint of vendors and solution providers, stories have the power to help companies to better position the value prop of their technology solutions to IT teams. 
  • It is important to understand the mindset of your audience and what they care about to better align how to convey your message. 
  • Katherine offered us the approach of defining a goal, a problem, and a plan of action to use in our communications patterns. 
  • The ability to craft stories is a powerful skill we should all strive to gain and improve upon in our careers. 
  • Better communication has the power to decrease the time to value for our organizations by getting things done faster. 
  • In addition to story, we can make use of analogy and metaphors to get your messages across. It allows us to make our ideas relatable using something the audience already knows. 

We have an opportunity to practice with family members at home to get better at the critical skill of effectively communication ideas that are technical.

LINKS:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherinedollar/

Moxie Blue Media: https://moxiebluemedia.com/

Not So Science Fiction: https://notsosciencefiction.com/

#story #storytellying #communication

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About the Podcast

The Smart IT Podcast
Where IT explores what's next...
The Smart IT Podcast, where IT professionals can assemble and hear from each other, industry leaders, thought leaders, and those in adjacent fields to collaborate and learn from each other and explore what’s next for IT.

The Smart IT Podcast explores what’s next for IT as it continues to find ways to get the important things done for our organizations.
Preparing for the next decade, we need to think differently about how we approach our work to continue to thrive into the future.

Smart IT is an approach, conceptual framework, and development model to getting the important things done by transforming the way traditional IT thinks, works, and leads. It supports the disruption of the status quo, simplifies the complex, reduces uncertainty, and improves risk mitigation.

There has never been more pressure to deliver for our organizations; but I know IT is up to the challenge.

That will require IT to lead by working smarter. Let’s do it together.

About your host

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William Reed

I am an advisor of technology for business use, have seen the possibilities, the challenges, the constraints, and the risks. I have seen firsthand the technical debt, silos, broken communication, despair of IT, and business frustrations. And, I have seen the possibilities, the hopes, and the opportunities while working in the trenches of IT.

As someone that has analyzed, designed, built, and supported technology infrastructure for many businesses over the years, and followed the technology trends and cyber threats, I see the opportunities for our organizations and for the professionals of IT as a fulfilling and thriving career.

I believe we have been blessed with great opportunities to continue to improve ourselves and organizations. If it’s possible, there is no reason enterprise IT cannot reach new heights and help our businesses thrive in age of disruption, complexity, and risk.

I have a passion is bringing a fresh perspective to the challenges in front of IT and help inspire a team to tackle and win. And to help individuals and organizations make better decisions to improve outcomes and experiences.

I advise on matters of technology use for organizational benefits. He has over 20 years’ experience in the Information Technology field. He has worked for multiple technology value added resellers, representing the major vendors and technologies in the industry. He has consulted across the major industries, including banking, health care, retail, oil & gas, education, government, finance, and legal.