LinkedIn Post: The Story Drive

Source: NSFW Podcast ep. 123 — "Prison Breaks Are in the Bible" with Channa & Nolan (DARK / "Not Our Budget" story drive; episode-123-prison-breaks-are-in-the-bible-with-channa-and-nolan.txt)

Topic: How to gather real stories instead of chasing testimonials

There's a way to get real stories from real people that almost nobody uses.

Some organizers I know in Atlanta needed neighbors on camera talking about what a safer city would look like. Most people would chase that. DMs, follow-ups, beg for a testimonial, get ghosted, settle for whatever they could scrape.

They did the opposite. They called it a story drive. Like a blood drive, but you donate your story instead of your blood.

They picked a day, got a room at Park Avenue Baptist Church, set up two cameras and a few lights, and told people to come through in half-hour slots. Twelve people showed up. Then they cut a film from it and screened it for about seventy people on a Sunday night.

The person who came up with the idea didn't shoot it. The person who shot it didn't come up with the idea. Somebody had the concept, somebody else had the technical skill, and the whole thing worked because they stopped asking people to perform and instead built a place people wanted to come to.

I keep coming back to this with the venue owners and restaurant people I work with. Everybody says they want the real stuff, the kitchen, the regulars, the block. Then they try to manufacture it by asking someone to send a video or leave a review. That's the hard way.

You don't collect stories. You make it worth someone's afternoon to come tell you one.

draft from corpus — based on NSFW Podcast ep. 123