Changing One Thing Changes Everything

Many of you are now familiar with the wisdom of my friend Jessica Esch.  Her posts on this blog always get a ton of hits.  I thought it was time you learned more about her, and how that could impact your organization...read, learn, and answer her question.
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In 2011, I pitched a new job at my old job and became a full-time illustrator and storyteller for a non-profit. I founded United Way of Greater Portland’s LUbrary—the LIVE UNITED storytelling library—and forever fused my personal and professional lives.

My job was to distill complexity and draw people into the organization by explaining the issues, describing the work, and highlighting the great things happening in our community.

It was all good in theory.

But telling stories was the easy part. Having them seen and heard was more challenging. Content strategy became my job too. And then it started to take over as I became responsible for crafting engagement strategies to show others internally and externally how our stories could support their work.

Seeing the world differently is not the same as changing it. It can be lonely, frustrating and a little like climbing Everest without a Sherpa.

So I wrote about it.

I wrote it all down because I knew I was onto something. I knew that how you engage online could impact behavior offline in the physical world.

I needed allies.

I needed to find my tribe.

I uploaded Online Affects Offline: Learnings From the Field to Flickr using sets as chapters on July 4 as a declaration of my independence. I've chosen to let people read it for free because I need their attention more than their money. It covers my love of social media and obsession with photo management to the lifecycle of events and what it is like to try to change an organization from the inside. It’s a work in progress as well as a beacon for my tribe.

Are you my tribe?

Read Jessica's book here: http://bit.ly/onlineaffectsoffline

Find Jessica here: Twitter (@jesch30), Facebook, Website