Ira Glass is the host of the show This American Life on NPR. He is renowned for his storytelling and his advice can be applied to many fields beyond radio or video. A quote in the third video applies to almost anything, and has echoes of Malcolm Gladwell and his book Outliers: “the most important thing you can do is to do a large volume of work; it’s only through doing that large volume of work that you’re going to close that gap and your work will be as good as your ambitions.”

With all my election related activity and having things on my plate at work I have not been able to blog as much recently. On this blog I have no deadlines. I think the blogging is made tougher by the fact that my day job and my extracurriculars both involve lots of confidential information that I am not allowed to share. However this does not mean that these stories are dead. In politics and many other areas of business the most interesting and important insights are not written down; they are stored in people’s heads and kept as oral history. Often times you can learn more about your town or an industry by sitting down with someone who has been involved for a long time and just getting them to share their stories than you would from any textbook or website.

So watch the videos below, and maybe share some of your tips or even a story about storytelling in the comments.

http://youtu.be/loxJ3FtCJJA

http://youtu.be/KW6x7lOIsPE

http://youtu.be/BI23U7U2aUY

http://youtu.be/baCJFAGEuJM