The launch of Community Voices projects is drawing nearer. Organisations will be invited to submit their projects for funding by The Media Trust early in the new year. I was interviewed by one the researchers from Corporate Citizenship who compiled the report that informs the approach to be taken by Media Trust towards the Community Voices project. It’s good to see that Digital Storytelling features in the report.

It is my intention be as fully involved in Community Voices as is practical, hoping to bring to the project my conviction that storytelling can be an important factor in digital inclusion. I am therefore pleased to able to offer support in any way I can, including displaying the project’s logo and links on my sites. If you want to know more just click on the logo or the links.

I’ve just uploaded the final batch of digital stories made by Engineers in the Engenious Stories project. It was organised by The Universities of Salford and Southampton and funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering. I held workshops in Salford, Bradford, York, Birmingham and Southampton where a wide range of people told an equally varied selection of stories.

In addition, school children at Bittern Park School in Southampton created stories which have been used internally although not published.

I have watched all of these stories as they have been uploading and they are, as always, even better for watching them again. My personal thanks to all of the participants for their hard work in making these digital stories and now I hope they will inspire young people, and some not so young, to consider a career in engineering. As someone who began life as a Broadcast Technician with the BBC I was not a little envious of the work these people have devoted their lives to. Whilst I was taking a path of journalism and broadcasting they were solving engineering problems and turning ideas into practical solutions. We all make our choices, but I can still look longingly at a path I might have followed if other callings hadn’t come my way. Running these workshops reminded me that I still get a buzz from science and technology.

Please go to the digistoriesuk YouTube channel and watch these stories.

Culture Shock records ordinary lives in North East

By Culture24 staff | 28 October 2009

(Above) Culture Shock participants editing their digital story. Photograph courtesy Culture Shock

A project in the North East is allowing local people to contribute records of their own lives to the permanent collections of the region’s museums and galleries.

Culture Shock aims to help visitors create 1,000 ‘mini-movies’ in the course of some 100 digital storytelling workshops.

via Culture Shock records ordinary lives in North East | Culture24.

Last year I trained several teams of digital storytellers who have since been running workshops for a project called Culture Shock. The first stories (over 200 of them) are now online. The site is smart and functional and well worth a visit.

The stories are, of course,  a fascinating insight into life in the North East as inspired by the museums collections in the region. All ages are represented from school children to some who are even older than me!

My congratulations to everyone involved in this project. They all worked hard in the Training Trainers workshop and they have clearly continued with dedication to pass their skills on to other storytellers.

Here’s the summary of the DS4 Festival posted by my friend Gareth Morlais on his blog Aberth Digital Storytelling.

This event is this weekend May 16th. There are many storytelling events scattered across the globe – although not many in the UK. I am gathering stories at a digital storytelling workshop in Birmingham for engineers, but it’s not open to the public so it doesn’t qualify as an event for the International Day.

If you want to take part in a passive way why not treat youself to watching a few digital stories on the digistoriesuk YouTube Channel?

To start you off here’s a story from my family …

Engineers – you have a story to tell!

…but do you have the communication skills?
One of the most powerful ways of delivering a message is to tell a story. Being able to create a logical and captivating narrative is essential to this, and these same skills apply equally to writing a grant application or speaking clearly at conferences.

We are offering free digistories workshops run by someone who originally developed the concept for the BBC. These are based around creating short video, telling a personal engineering-related story, from photographs and a recorded script.

The films you create will be used to promote public awareness of engineering, influencing potential engineers of the future and showing them what we really do.

Details are now available for an International Digital Storytelling Conference – also in June 2009.

This one is in Portugal and is being promoted as the follow up to the last international conference in Cardiff in 2003.

I am unable to be in Lisbon for this conference as I am fully booked up in June to run workshops here in England.

So if you are up for the DS4 Festival in Aberystwyth followed by a conference in Lisbon the details are here.