Introduction to Digital Storytelling

This workshop offers a survey of digital tools and products that can support storytelling for your organization or business. Whether it's incorporating a timeline or narrative map into your website, or thinking through a social media strategy, this workshop is a great first step for organizations that want to survey popular approaches to evaluate what will best serve your project or mission.  Sample topics include audio tours, digital exhibits, interactive maps and timelines, podcasts, walking tours, and social media campaigns. No previous experience is required. 

Introduction to Podcasting

As of 2023, 42% of Americans ages 12 and older have listened to a podcast in the past month. Audio and video stories published as podcasts can offer a great means of communicating your message to your audience. This workshop will provide an overview of podcasting, the production process, and how to get started. No previous experience is required. 

Introduction to Audio Tours 

Audio tours can provide a great outlet for storytelling. This workshop will provide an overview of different formats, breakdown successful uses of the format, and offer information on how to get started planning a great tour for your organization. 

Designing Digital Exhibits 

Digital platforms such as websites or social media platforms offer dynamic spaces to tell stories and communicate an organization’s mission, exhibit, or brand. This workshop will highlight accessible digital tools that can translate an exhibit, story, or campaign online. We will review the steps to designing an engaging digital exhibit, including creating a content inventory, incorporating design elements into a storyboard, and producing a final exhibit drawing on accessible digital tools. 

Create Digital Exhibits with Storymaps.com

Storymaps.com is a free digital tool that offers individuals and organizations the opportunity to tell dynamic multi-media stories. This workshop will introduce users to the platform and invite the audience to follow along and imagine the opportunities of this great digital tool for their own work. No previous experience is required. 

Using Social Media to Tell your Story 

This workshop will survey popular social media platforms and review popular methods of reaching the public and raising brand awareness. This is a good workshop for non-profits, businesses, or entrepreneurs who want to review or refresh their social media presence. We will review typical audience reach for popular platforms such as facebook, instagram, and TikTok, along with offering breakdowns of successful campaigns for different organizations. We’ll conclude by offering strategies for crafting successful social media messaging that will match your message to each medium’s platform and audience.

Crafting your Brand Story

Discover the heart of your story, define your goals, and articulate your vision for your business, organization, or project. Tailored to your needs, this workshop will draw on participant pre-session information to craft questions designed to clarify your message and identify your target audiences. In just one hour, we'll equip you with the clarity and confidence to elevate your brand story and take your work to the next level. 

Writing for the Public

This workshop will cover essential elements of writing for the public. This workshop is appropriate for organizations looking to refresh public-facing text whether on their organization’s website, signage, social media, or other official communication. We will cover ways to make writing accessible, inviting, and relatable to various audiences. 

Design Thinking for Project Design 

This workshop will teach methods in design thinking that can be useful for individuals or organizations in project design. We will review audience analysis, how to identify key stakeholders, create content inventories, storyboard, and how to ask for and receive meaningful feedback. 

User Testing

This workshop will empower participants with effective methods to test any digital stories or work they create for the public. It will discuss how to make your work accessible, and how to find and get meaningful feedback from the target audiences you hope to reach.

Introduction to Project Management 

Running a business or non-profit can be stressful. This workshop will offer support for organizations looking to review how they organize their business or organizational information for productivity and efficiency. Sample topics include how to organize research, shared files, and other data, and how to plan for collaborative project work. We will also discuss digital tools that we recommend for project management, no matter the scale of your organization or previous experience. Lastly, we will recommend templates and documentation that can streamline project work. Importantly, we presume no previous knowledge of project management or related digital tools in this workshop. All are welcome and you will leave this workshop feeling empowered. 

Designing Collaborative Workspaces with Project Management Tools 

This workshop will build on the introduction to project management workshop to offer an overview of Airtable, Google Drive, Notion, Trello and Slack. These project management tools can help streamline group communication across an organization, organize group collaboration, and provide structured access to shared data and documentation. 

Organizing your Institutional Memory: Project logs, preservation plans, style guides, and file management systems

This workshop will teach participants the tools to get their organization on the same digital page. If you’ve ever worried about losing files, not knowing where things are stored, etc., this workshop is for you. Participants will learn about basic concepts in project documentation, file management, and collaborative workspaces. We will help you set up your organization for success by developing a workflow and shared system of collaborative work. Ideally, no one will ever say “Where is that file?” ever again.

Technology changes rapidly, and it can be hard to keep up with the evolving platforms and tools available to us. This series of workshops is designed for those who feel imposter syndrome around technology and how it might be applied in your work. There is no previous experience required for each part, and participants will leave each workshop feeling empowered to incorporate technology into their organization or business. 

These workshops are best for new organizations or businesses or recently onboarded staff members. We recommend these for small teams of 2-5 staff or individual staff members.

Part 1: Social Media

In this session, we’ll review the most popular social media platforms, how social media works, and the ways it can be useful for your organization. This is not a “how-to” workshop so much as it’s a place to ask questions and get basic information about the intended audiences of each platform, and its capabilities, and to explore case studies of successful uses of social media by comparable organizations. We will end by answering questions and offering brainstorming on what social media might best match your needs. 

Part 2: What should a website do? 

Websites are the main signpost for users to learn about your business or organization. In this workshop, we’ll cover the main elements of web design with a focus on understanding the process of designing and updating an engaging site. This will presume no previous experience and will cover important issues in creating and maintaining an engaging and accessible site. We will introduce popular web design platforms, review examples of successful sites, and identify what makes them work. This workshop will empower anyone to begin the process of designing their site or helping guide an organizational design process. 

Part 3: Spreadsheets 101

Does the thought of creating a spreadsheet for your business or organization fill you with dread? Us too. Fortunately, we have figured out how to make great use of simple tools like Google Sheets and Excel. Spend one hour with us to get up to speed.

Part 4: Getting Organized

How many times have you attended a meeting and thought “This could have been an email?” This workshop will introduce participants to easy-to-use digital tools and concepts to help organize your business so you will never wonder where files are located, what is on the agenda, or where that key information you read about in an email is stored.