Hello everybody. You might be wondering what I've been up to lately. To begin with, I've been busy visiting relatives, getting sick (then better), and having relatives visit.
In October I attended my second NYSDRA (NY State Dispute Resolution Association) conference, where I showed another friendly group of people what it's like to make sense of stories. For that session I adapted the sticker stories exercise to demonstrate narrative sensemaking by using the same stories three times: first to explore one dimension of meaning (placing stories along a range); then to expand that range into a two-dimensional landscape; then to build story elements. I planned the reuse of stories to save time and to introduce people to a variety of ideas they could use. But I think there is promise in using the same stories in different ways not just to save time but to deepen the exploration of the topic, especially when you have a limited number of stories to work with. It's something to think about.
Finally, I've been doing a lot of heads-down coding and testing of NarraFirma. I've been working on it since sometime in July, and I'm just about ready to release a major version update. Watch this space for that announcement soon.
In the meantime, why not watch this video of me talking to Lex Hoogduin at GloComNet about stories, complexity, economics, and PNI. It's the first interview in their GloComNet Conversations series. I was happy to have the chance to meet with Lex on our visit to Amsterdam this summer.
Also of interest: Harold van Garderen's interview, the next in the series, goes into some detail on the utility of PNI in various domains. Thanks to Harold for setting up the interview with Lex.
