I.   Ice Breaker - "Name Story"
II.  Nine Key Assumptions
III. The Art of Eliciting Stories
IV. Extracting Knowledge from Stories
V. Demo
VI. Interactive Exercise
VII. Leveraging Computer Networks
VIII. Wrap-Up

1. Stories are fundamental to how we think, learn, and communicate.

2. Knowledge is power so the dissemination of knowledge is empowerment.

3. A lot of knowledge is in the form of unstructured data (i.e. people’s stories -memories, experiences, and ideas).

4. Eliciting stories from employees, and creating opportunities for people to share stories promotes knowledge sharing.

5. Not all stories contain knowledge.

6. Knowledge has to be extracted from a story.

7. Knowledge does not lend itself to being stored in central repositories (i.e. databases).

8. Computer networks provide significant new modalities for human interaction and story sharing.

9. Never assume you know all the assumptions - and never assume everyone agrees with all your assumptions.
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Recommended Recently Published Books on the Topic:

Denning, Stephen. The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge Era Organizations. Boston: Butterworth-Heineman, 2001

Gargiulo, Terrence L. Making Stories: A Practical Guide for Organizational Leaders and Human Resource Specialists. Connecticut: Quorum Books, 2002

Schank, Roger. Designing World-Class E-Learning How IBM, GE, Harvard Business School, and Columbia University Are Succeeding at e-Learning. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002

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"I like to think of stories as holograms. Each pixel of a hologram stores all the information about the entire picture."  - Terrence Gargiulo  

"The example of our stories helps generate a myriad of stories from others, through which the entire group grows a new and larger self-identity and understanding." - Kit Tennis  

"To work well with stories and to use them effectively we do not need to let people know they are telling stories or that we are trying to elicit stories from them. Just allow it to become a natural rhythm to the conversation." - Terrence Gargiulo  

"We have to be willing to spend more time listening and watching than telling. Set a story in motion and let it take it's natural course.  One teller does not create story vitality - lots of listeners who suddenly feel themselves drawn to a wonderful web of personal associations and connections is what gives a story life."  
Terrence Gargiulo  

"That's the thing about stories... they are like a buffer - what people get out of them reflects their personal internal state.  They act as a container for what already exists and they offer a way to transform the current state." -  Glory Ressler  

"An individual's story is the best avenue for personal connection and through it, insight into the different life stories and experiences of others." - Kit Tennis  

"The discrepancy between the intended story and the one(s) that are told 'round the water-coolers speaks to the diagnostic power of stories in orgs - highlighting the gap between who we say we are and what we really are." - Glory Ressler  

"Good leaders will have a rich index of stories (experiences/observations/anecdotes) to draw from. The mark of a good leader is one who finds the right story to tell at the right time - or as I have asserted in early comments - elicits a story from others.  Leaders will use stories not only to answer questions but to uncover new ones." - Terrence Gargiulo  

"One of the great lessons of storytelling as a vehicle of change, that the storytelling needs to be reciprocal, if we are to be successful in building a team, organization, or society that combines the best talents of all its members....  Besides, it's a lot more fun when we really share the intimacy that comes from trading the vital spirit of our lives through our stories." - Kit Tennis  

"It is far better to stimulate story sharing than to be a storyteller." - Terrence Gargiulo