Thank you for reading and commenting, Omar. And I am delighted that you found this article useful. Yup, too many organizations ignore the seemingly small and yet highly resonant stories surrounding them, while searching for that seemingly perfect, Hollywood-ish story.

Glenda, thank you so much!

Thank you, Howard!

Cynthia, thank you so much for commenting and sharing your experience and insight. I especially appreciate your definition of and advice to use metaphorical pictures. The Picture Your Legacy iphone app is now available at no cost, if you want to look at the photos that way. Picture Your Legacy is tailored to 21/64's promotion of multi-generational philanthropy: they contain a great number of metaphorical images, and also images specific to potential giving areas, such as education, advocacy, health care, and Jewish issues. Thank you again for commenting, Cynthia. I always welcome learning from you.

Thank you for commenting, and nice to know of a fundraising consultancy that is using a similar tool with success.

Nancy, thank you for your comments, and the link to Visuals Speak.

Thank you, Limor!

Drew, while I cannot comment on the value the viewer may find in the finale of Lost, I can say that, most definitely, many narratives about our lives and the world do not have simple resolutions. The brilliant narrative expert David Boje commented on my earlier post, What, Why and How Story Matters, about story resolution or the lack thereof. David says, "I like to look at storytelling as an intra-play of narratives (past), living story webs (present) and antenarratives about the future field of possibilities. "So sometime a living story web, is full of relationship, lots of emergence, and stuff happening we don't have an ending for, and maybe no beginning sorted out." You can read David's full commentary here: http://pndblog.typepad.com/pndblog/2010/03/what-why-and-how-story-matters.html? My goal, Drew, is to assist smart leaders and their organizations in finding and sharing their stories. So, although the larger, what I call meta-narrative may not yet have a clear beginning or a tidy resolution, the communication of the narrative will have a clear construction, with a beginning, middle and an end. That is the story that can be shared.

Pamela, I will be writing about this in upcoming months, and I will be presenting on it latter this Spring and Summer. In the meantime, my web site offers a page on How Story Helps, which offers different points during a project in which qualitative, narrative evaluation can occur. You may be interested in these terrific forms from the Urban Institute: http://www.urban.org/center/cnp/Projects/outcomeindicators.cfm Let me know if this is helpful - and if you find your good forms! Thank you for commenting, Pamela.

Thank you, Aspen. It means a great deal to me that my work can support your important organization.

Anne, thank you so much for your comment. I have not yet seen a Playback Theater performance, but I am on the mailing list for NYC and hope to attend one, soon (I am also studying Improv). Thank you so much for introducing me to your wonderful site (and work). I am especially impressed by the quality, structure, and content of the stories you are sharing and the various ways in which they are made accessible.