What is storytelling? A Let's Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What is storytelling?"

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I spend a lot of time in internet marketing and social media circles. There are a number of buzzwords that get a lot of play in that world and the current most-used and least-understood buzzword is storytelling.

In social media and internet marketing circles, storytelling takes on a shape something like this.

via

Ugh. How do people get paid to come up with such meaningless nonsense? Seriously, what does any of that mean?

My understanding of storytelling comes from something other than a dull-as-dishwater seminar or committee meeting. For me the be-all and end-all example of great storytelling is this, Grimm's Fairy tales.

In 1812, brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first edition of 86 German folk tales under the title Kinder- und Hausmärchen. That's translates literally into Children's and Household Tales. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm kept releasing new volumes of stories through 1857 when the story count consisted of 211 tales.

Then, as now, the Brothers Grimm and their stories were savaged by critics for being so inappropriate for children. I disagree of course and am happy to report that I grew up with them.

For me, the stories contained in my unabridged Grimm's Fairy Tale collection epitomize storytelling. Each tale is, like all good stories, a personalized morality tale. And I mean morality in the true, non-religious, sense of the term. Morality is the code of acceptable behavior in a culture. Good stories personalize an account of an individual's either going along with those rules or defying them. But more important than the morality tale aspect to a good story is the personalization.

It's easy to get caught up in the buzzwords and catch phrases of the day and to lose sight of what it is we're talking about when it comes to a term like storytelling. Storytelling has nothing to do with terms like "project-based learning" or "technology integration" (again, what on earth does any of that mean?). Storytelling is the uniquely human ability to personalize a situation to teach a lesson, to make a point, sell a product or just entertain somebody else.

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

Valencia's spectacular Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències

Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències is this complex's name in Valencian. In Spanish it's known as the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias and in English it's The City of Arts and Sciences. What ever the language, the entire complex is nothing short of magic.

I was in Valencia to attend Cevisama, the Spanish tile and bath industry's massive trade show and I was there as a journalist. My transportation, food and lodging were taken care of by ASCER, the Spanish tile manufacturer's association. ASCER is known in North America as Tile of Spain.

Valencia is an ancient city. It was founded along the banks of the Turia river by the Romans in 137 BCE. The Romans called it Valentia. Valentia means valor in Latin and Valencia was a city established for the benefit of retired Roman soldiers.

The heart of Valencia looks like an ancient city should and the buildings show the effects of 2100 years' worth of human habitation and development. Like a lot of European cities, Valencia juxtaposes the ancient with the shockingly modern with grace and gusto. That's definitely true of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències. In this case, Valenica let homegrown architects Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela go wild and despite the free form nature of these buildings, they relate to the actual uses of the buildings and they're thoroughly grounded in Valencian culture.


The complex consists of seven principle structures and they are:

• L'Hemisfèric — an Imax Cinema, Planetarium and Laserium. Built in the shape of the eye and has an approximate surface of 13,000 m².
• El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe — an interactive museum of science but resembling the skeleton of a whale. It occupies around 40,000 m² on three flats.
• L'Umbracle — a landscaped walk with plant species indigenous to Valencia (such as rockrose, lentisca, romero, lavender, honeysuckle, bougainvillea, palm tree). It harbors in its interior The Walk of the Sculptures, an outdoor art gallery with sculptures from contemporary artists. (Miquel from Navarre, Francesc Abbot, Yoko Ono and others).
• L'Oceanogràfic — an open-air oceanographic park. It is the largest oceanographic aquarium in Europe with 110,000 square meters and 42 million liters of water. It was built in the shape of a water lily and is the work of architect Félix Candela.
• El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía — an opera house and performing arts center. It contains four large rooms: a Main Room, Magisterial Classroom, Amphitheater and Theater of Camera. It is dedicated to music and the scenic arts.
• El Puente de l'Assut de l'Or — a bridge that connects the south side with Minorca Street, whose 125 meters high pillar is the highest point in the city.
• L'Àgora — a covered plaza in which concerts and sporting events (such as the Valencia Open 500) are held.

I walked around it for a few hours on Friday afternoon and I was struck mute by the experience. It was great to have the chance to be alone with these buildings and I could let the complex affect me without having to worry about other people's reactions to my oftentimes emotional responses to what I saw.

I'm standing under one of the support structures of El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe, the Science Museum. That's El Puente de l'Assut de l'Or bridge and L'Àgora in the background. The entire structure of L'Àgora is covered with deep blue Trencadís mosaic. Trencadís is shattered, ceramic tile and is a very traditional material all over Spain.

I'm looking to the northeast of the complex in this photo. To the right is El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe and to the left is the underside of L'Umbracle. To the rear is L'Hemisfèric and behind it is El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía.

The first shot I ran is one I took in the opposite direction to this shot. Here it is again.

So looking to the southwest shows L'Hemisfèric and El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe to the left, L'Umbracle to the right, and El Puente de l'Assut de l'Or bridge and L'Àgora to the rear.

There was an art installation going on along the walkway next to L'Umbracle and like a fool I didn't write down the name of the artist. I apologize to the artist, the work was exuberant and cheerful.

I'm standing on a bridge directly in front of El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, the Valencia Opera House. The Palau shines because it's covered entirely in white Trencadís mosaic. Here's a detail shot of Trencadís.

Here's another shot of the Palau.

The cantilevered roof over the Palau is nothing shot of miraculous. The building itself is enormous and its unsupported roof is the largest cantilever I've ever seen. That it arcs down over the course of its run defies every rule of physics there is.

Here's a shot of the concrete work of El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe. I kept marveling the whole time I was there, how do you get building products like concrete and steel to behave like this?

I've been following the building of this complex since it started in the late '90s and that I've now seen it with my own eyes makes me wonder whose life it is I'm living all of the sudden. I cannot thank Tile of Spain enough for the chance to experience the wonders of Spain.

Spain was spectacular

The Reign in Spain tour ended Friday and I flew home yesterday. While I can't say that it's good to be home I will say that it's nice to set aside my suitcases for the time being.

Spain was spectacular in every sense of the word. Prior to leaving, I used the following stock photo a number of times to illustrate what I was going to see in Teruel.

Well as luck would have it, I was in Teruel last Wednesday. I was walking through the Teruel Museum and walked out onto their fifth floor balcony. I was hoping to get a better perspective on the city but what I got was the chance to stand where the photographer who took that stock shot stood. How cool is that?

Now that I'm back, for a month anyway, I'm going to go back to my regular schedule here at good old K&RD. I have learned volumes about the global design scene in the last few weeks and even more about the world political and economic situation. I'm going to start sorting through my findings tomorrow. At first I'll start with the sights and sounds of Spain, then the things I learned about Spanish tile. I'll probably loop back to some other things I found in Germany and Canada after that.

This has been a crazy, wonderful last few weeks and I owe you guys a huge debt of gratitude. Thanks for reading and commenting here and I'm looking forward to being a blogger again.

¡Viva La España!

I am in Spain. Actually, I'm probably not there yet but I'm en route. I've been invited to Spain by ASCER, a Spanish Trade organization that promotes Spanish tile sales in North America under the name Tile of Spain.

I'm part of a small group of designers, architects and press who will spend the next eight days exploring Spain's historic and modern architecture in the cities of Zaragoza, Teruel and Valencia. Our arrival in Valencia next week coincides with the opening of Cevisama, Spain's international showcase for tile, natural stone and bath design.

I'll be checking in regularly with Facebook, Twitter and FourSquare. Additionally, I'll be updating this blog (albeit sporadically) and writing for Contract Design and Houzz.com. This will be a well-documented trip indeed. Let's go to Spain!

An interesting idea from Germany

Blanco sinks had me in Germany last month to attend Cologne's annual furniture show, the IMM. A big part of the IMM is the kitchen category and this year, it had its own name for the first time, The Living Kitchen.

The Living Kitchen was an extravaganza and its size and scope dwarfed its US equivalent, KBIS. My job at the Living Kitchen was to walk around, take photographs and report back the things I saw. It was a tough assignment but somebody had to do it.

I saw a lot of stuff in Cologne, too much almost. But there were a couple of overarching trends I have a feeling we'll start seeing in the US eventually. The most noticeable one I saw was a move away from fat, chunky counters.

The counters on fully half of the kitchens displayed in Cologne were a centimeter thick. At first I was jarred by how thin they were but the more I saw them, the more intrigued I became.

In the US, the desired counter thickness is 1-1/2" and you get close to that by using 3cm counter material. Sometimes, a given stone only comes in 2cm and when forced to use 2cm material, I'd always felt as if I were cheating my clients.

After seeing an entire trade show filled with 1cm counters I'm a convert.

What do you think? Could a 1cm counter ever make you happy?