Storytelling - important tool for Obama

In his health care campaign President Obama uses the important storytelling tool to comvince his opponents in the Senate and Congress to make a change in America's health care system. The President himself shared a story, in the e-mail below, about his mother's ovarian cancer and her worries about if her health care insurance would cover the costs of her treatments.

The use of story telling is often powerful, you can send a very strong message by using personal stories. It is not at all a new technique, the ancient Greeks used it as well. And don't we all share our personal stories with friends when we want to convince something? The new thing is perhapse that we have started to use storytelling as a communication tool for business leaders. It can be a very nice complement to statistics for example.

The tricky part is to collect other peoples stories out there. Obama and his staff have found their way - collecting them through e-mail and websites shared by his grassroots. "After adding your name, please consider sharing your personal story about the importance of health care reform in your life and the lives of those you love.", Obama (or probably somebody else) wrote in his e-mail.

If you click on one on the link to in the mail I got you will be asked to support Obama's health care campaign through donating money or hosting a party. If you register to do some of that you will also be asked to share your personal story on why we need to change the health care system in America. There it also states that they might use the story in diffrent ways with your name and city connected to it (but not your address). They also encourage you to asked your friends to do the same, and so it spreads... See by yourself: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/healthcarestories

We will soon see how they will use the stories and if it works!