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#205) KAMALA HARRIS THE MORNING AFTER THE NOMINATION

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Randy Olson

There are two age old elements needed for a compelling essay: PLOT and THEME.
With the ABT Framework we have developed analytical tools for both. Here’s how
she did.



Presidential candidate Kamala Harris accepts the nomination with a speech that
was inspiring, yet weak on narrative metrics.



THE HARD COLD NUMBERS OF NARRATIVE

There are two age old elements needed for a compelling essay: PLOT and THEME.
With the ABT Framework we have developed analytical tools for both. Here’s how
she did. (Read the transcript of Kamala’s speech here.)

PLOT: Our tool is the ABT, from which we have derived two metrics. The AND
FREQUENCY (AF) is a measure of dullness. The NARRATIVE INDEX (NI — the BUT/AND
ratio) is a measure of narrative strength. The optimal value for the AF is 2.5.
A somewhat dull score is over 3.0. A solidly dull score is over 4.0. She scored
a 4.6 for her speech. A good score for the NI is over 20. Most politicians score
in the teens. She scored a 9. BOTTOM LINE: She is weak on PLOT (narrative
structure). Her other recent speeches are in these same ranges.

THEME: Our tool is the DOBZHANSKY TEMPLATE, which for a presidential candidate
needs to complete the sentence, “Nothing in America today makes sense except in
the light of … “ There was no clear answer to that from her speech. There has
been for Trump from the start with his word being GREATNESS, a word which is
ASPIRATIONAL, something to reach for. She had nothing of the sort. DO SOMETHING
and NOT GOING BACK are not aspirational. Which means she has no clear singular
central message to hang her campaign on. BOTTOM LINE: She has no clear THEME
(message).

There’s no denying she has pulled the party out of its deep funk, and she is a
figurehead to build something around, but she has very weak NARRATIVE INTUITION.
The result of that is neither the ability to create her own narrative elements
nor the ability to spot the absence of them in the speeches written for her.

I think the overall result, to me, is that she is like a ship headed out into
rough seas that has very shallow draft and is lacking a keel. The ship may
survive the journey, or it might capsize. Her opponent is a ship with a deep
hull and lengthy keel for stability over time, but is now a ship with a LOT of
holes in it that is taken on water and sitting very low (as even true believers
like Megyn Kelly conceded last week). Not clear which ship will go the distance,
but it looks like it will be close.

I desperately hope she wins, but the assessment above is analytical and
objective, based on our analytical tools. There’s no denying the patterns. I
wish I could say she scored a 2.6 AF and a 28 NI, and had a clear aspirational
focus, but she just didn’t.

Posted in NEWS, THOUGHTS


#204) THREE STEPS TO CONCISION: THE CHAT GPT/ABT CONCISION TOOL

Posted on March 23, 2024 by Randy Olson

One of the most important goals for communication is concision. By combining
Chat GPT and the ABT you can achieve it in ways never before possible.



Enter the text of an article into Chat GPT, tell it to use the ABT, and this is
an example of what you’ll get back. Not perfect, but close, and of course
incredibly fast.

 

USING CHAT GPT TO TURN THE ABT INTO A TOOL

I gave a talk on this a year ago at a gene therapy meeting — basically how to
use the ABT with Chat GPT to produce a concise statement of the narrative core
of a text. It’s time to formalize it for everyone. It’s very simple.

1 ENTER THE PROMPT: Type this line into Chat GPT: Using Randy Olson’s ABT
Narrative Framework reduce this text to a one sentence ABT with the words And,
But, Therefore:

2 ADD THE TEXT: On the same line, copy and paste in the ENTIRE text of whatever
you want reduced to its ABT narrative core.

3 BINGO: It gives you the one sentence ABT. Yes, it’s that simple.

 

HERE’S AN EXAMPLE:

This morning I randomly chose an article from the front page of the NY Times
about “Strike Madness” in Germany. The article was 1,275 words in length. I ran
it through the three steps above, here was the output (color coded so you can
see the three ABT elements).

Workers at the SRW scrap metal plant in Leipzig have been striking for over 136
days, marking the longest postwar strike in Germany, AND while Germany prides
itself on peaceful labor relations, recent widespread strikes across various
sectors are challenging this notion, BUT the country faces economic difficulties
with a shrinking workforce and rising living costs, THEREFORE, workers like
those at SRW are demanding fair wages and better conditions to secure their
future in a rapidly changing economic landscape.

Is this perfect? Of course not, but it did 90% of the job in just one second.
From here you need to tweak it according to what you’re wanting to say and to
whom.

For this particular ABT I’d be inclined to reduce it to this for clarity:

Germany prides itself on peaceful labor relations, BUT the country faces
economic difficulties with a shrinking workforce and rising living
costs, THEREFORE, workers like those at SRW and elsewhere are demanding fair
wages and better conditions to secure their future in a rapidly changing
economic landscape.

For concision I reduced the set up and broadened the THEREFORE element. It is
now a one sentence concise and powerful statement of “the story” that the
article tells.

It’s more than just the subtitle that the NY Times provides with the article,
yet it is still short enough to digest quickly. And again, is powerful.

You should use it for any text you have that you find yourself staring at,
annoyed, wondering, “What in the hell is this thing trying to say?”

The New York Times really should have it as a feature in their daily email that
lists all their major articles. There should be an ABT button next to each title
that you click and it instantly gives you this nicely structured summary of “the
story” being told.

 

NARRATIVE VS REPORTING

Narrative is about a journey. Reporting is about current events.

You can see this divide clearly by looking at what the newspaper provided as
their subtitle for the article versus what the ABT produces. Here’s what the
newspaper provided for this article.

THE NY TIMES SUBTITLE: A wave of strikes by German workers, feeling the sting of
inflation and stagnant growth, is the latest sign of the bleak outlook for
Europe’s economic powerhouse.

Their subtitle is static — saying the article is about “the latest sign” of a
problem.

The ABT gives the SET UP (a past of peaceful labor relations), then introduces
the problem that has arisen (economic difficulties), followed by the consequence
(strikes). It provides a journey, making it more active and thus more powerful
in communication itself.

The bottom line is that narrative is built around three act structure.
Journalism is built around the Inverted Pyramid model.

They are not the same. At all.

Posted in ARTICLES, THOUGHTS | Tagged chatgpt, prompt engineering


#203) TESTIMONY DEBACLE: THE ABT COULD HAVE PREVENTED IT

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Randy Olson

Ironically, as we were working with a biomedical company last week, hammering
out delicately formulated and legally correct ABT-structured answers to common
questions for their product, several university professors were imploding in
front of congress. Sadly, they didn’t have to end up in such a mess.

LOST THE NARRATIVE. There was no narrative flow to most of what they said in
their answers.

 

PLANNING FOR A ROASTING

How much planning do you want to do in advance of a grilling? If you do none,
you run the risk of rambling wildly.  You do too much, you over-think and
over-complicate. There’s a clear optimum, as well as an optimal level of
complexity to the answers.

Last week three university presidents, tragically, secured their place in
history with a catastrophically bad grilling session. It doesn’t matter how many
hours the session was or how heroically they performed. When it comes to mass
communication, perception is reality.

The perception was so bad one of them has already resigned from her position.

What should they have done?

 

ABT-STRUCTURED ANSWERS

Of course everyone will be engaged in literally Monday morning quarterbacking
today (the Monday after the event). All I know is what we would have done to
prepare them.

Here’s how you get ready for important and potentially dangerous questions.

1) EXPERT ADVICE – You bring together your subject and legal experts
2) QUESTIONS – You think up the questions you’re most likely to be asked’
3) DRAFT ANSWERS – You come up with first drafts of answers (using the ABT
structure)
4) REVISION – You keep revising your answers until everyone is comfortable with
them
5) REHEARSAL – You rehearse until the STRUCTURE is embedded in your mind (not
the words)

The key element here — that was missing from their testimony — is the ABT
structure.

 

WHY IS ABT SO IMPORTANT?

One of the cornerstones of our entire ABT Training program is what we termed,
long ago, “The Liz Moment.”

It refers to Dr. Liz Foote who used the ABT for a presentation in 2014, found it
to be powerful, then wrote to me, relating three main features. I wrote this up
in my 2015 book, “Houston, We Have A Narrative.”

Using the ABT, she found her talk to be:

1) EASIER TO REHEARSE – the ABT structure locks into your mind better than any
other structure
2) ENGAGED THE CROWD – she felt her audience more connected to her presentation
than ever before
3) RETAINED FIDELITY – in the days after, as people regurgitated on social media
what she had presented, she found their accounts to be more accurate than for
any previous talk.

By coincidence, on Tuesday we did a session with a biomedical company we’re
working with where we hammered out the ABT-structured answers to their three
most common questions they get about their main product. It was a tremendous
session. We were all so psyched with the results.

But then our hearts sunk on Thursday watching the three academics
over-complicate their answers as they failed to get to the THEREFORE’s that were
needed.

What can we say. As far as we know, there is no other model for narrative
structure (which is the essential element to provide answers that are clear,
concise, and confident).

It’s tragic to watch something like that hearing take place. The ABT could have
helped a great deal. If you want to hear more, get in touch with us, we’ll be
glad to walk you through it.

Posted in ARTICLES, THOUGHTS | Tagged ABT-STRUCTURED ANSWERS, congressional
hearing, congressional Testimony, Liz Moment


#202) CHAT GPT IS A GIFT TO THE ABT FRAMEWORK

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Randy Olson

Chat GPT 4.0 is beyond amazing. Maybe not in terms of CONTENT so far (it makes
lots of mistakes and even bullshits), but if you understand FORM there’s no way
you can be anything but stunned by it. On a parallel note the ABT (And, But,
Therefore) Framework is also about FORM. So what this means is that Chat GPT is
the ultimate tool for the ABT Framework PROVIDED … you have narrative intuition.
Allow me to explain further …




OBSTACLE OR OPPORTUNITY?

For the past 30 years I’ve had a mentor (a Hollywood veteran) in my journey into
and through Hollywood. Five years ago he began warning me what was coming with
Artificial Intelligence. He steered me to two important books, “Our Final
Invention,” by James Barrat and “Life 3.0” by Max Tegmark. Together they paint a
picture of the future and probe the question of whether A.I. will ultimately be
benevolent or malevolent.

I asked him recently what he thinks are now the best books on this. He said
those two are still pretty much all you need to make sense of the strange new
world emerging There’s about to be a lot of change that most experts feel is
going to be unlike anything we’ve ever experienced.

As you probably (and hopefully) know, Chat GPT 3.0 was released last fall to
little fanfare yet quickly became the most rapidly adopted app in history. That
by itself underscores its importance. And then last week was Chat GPT 4.0 which
is the real stunner.

And yet, lots of people experimented with 3.0, saw it was making informational
mistakes, and dismissed it as over-hyped. But here’s why that’s a bad mistake to
make.

 

CONTENT VS. FORM, THE AGE OLD DIVIDE

Communication consists of two parts: the information you’re wanting to convey
(CONTENT) and the way you put it together (FORM). This divide is crucial in
considering what is so powerful about Chat GPT.

Chat GPT is not that great so far in terms of CONTENT. You can just use Google
and do a more accurate job for a lot of topics. It’s the second part — FORM —
that you begin to see is truly stunning.

Let me draw on two grand masters to help make this point …

 

THE TIMELESS WISDOM OF THE “SOUTH PARK” CO-CREATORS

In 2015, as I was preparing for the release of “Houston We Have A Narrative,” my
mentor buddy that I mentioned above did a very cool favor for me. He is friends
with Matt Stone, one of the two co-creators of the animated series, “South
Park.” He sent Matt the chapter of the book where I thanked he and Trey Parker
for the knowledge from which I initially derived the ABT Narrative Template.

Matt wrote back a really nice email. It included this extremely profound bit,
which I cited in the second edition of, “Don’t Be Such A Scientist.” He said:

Hey man this is really cool. If there is anything Trey and I work hard on it’s
structure. It’s so important and so so hard to get right. We beat ourselves up
so that causality is really there or at least emotionally implied. Then we put
in some dick jokes and poop stuff and, voila!

Take a look at what he’s saying about “structure” which means FORM.

He says it is “so important” yet “so so hard to get right.” The second part is
what’s crucial– that he gives structure (FORM) not one, but two “so’s.”

And there you have it. THAT is why Chat GPT right now is so so stunning. Which
it truly is. Chat GPT takes that second element and changes it from “so so hard”
into instantly solved. Bingo.

For example, a friend had me use Chat GPT 4.0 to write a Shakespearean sonnet
about a frog that fell in love with a platypus. That’s the sort of thing where
the CONTENT is easy to get right — not a lot of mystery to what a frog and
platypus look like. But the FORM … making all the words rhyme properly and
constructing it to have Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter?

THAT is the part that traditionally would be “so so hard.” It would take a
person like me at least a month, if not a year (if not a lifetime).

Chat GPT solves it in an instant. BOOM! That … that is your miracle of Chat GPT,
broken down into communication dynamics. And that is why it is a huge
opportunity as a tool to allow you to do rapid repetition in ways I never could
have imagined.

 

TWO WAYS CHAT GPT ENHANCES THE ABT BUILD PROCESS

So now let’s look at the two ways we will be putting Chat GPT to use in the ABT
Framework course.

 

1  REPETITION (RAPID PROTOTYPING)

From the start, we’ve said our philosophy for Narrative Training is this simple
formula:

S + R = I

Where S is SIMPLICITY, R is REPETITION and I is your ultimate goal of narrative
INTUITION.

Look at the R element. That is where Chat GPT comes in. It allows you to create
a first draft of an ABT (in using it you should tell it “Using Randy Olson’s ABT
Framework create a one sentence ABT about …” — this gets you directly into ABT
structuring versus other ABT’s like American Ballet Theater).

Then you can begin tweaking it, rapidly. This ends up being the same process as
“Rapid Prototyping” that CAD/CAM brought about for machinery.

We’re just start to explore its power, but here’s the start of an example use of
it …

Using Randy Olson’s ABT Framework create a one sentence ABT for why legislation
is needed to curb gun violence.

And: Gun violence is a significant problem in many communities across the United
States.

But: Current laws and regulations are insufficient to address the issue, and
innocent lives are being lost due to gun violence every day.

Therefore: Legislation is needed to curb gun violence and protect the safety and
well-being of all citizens.

Now add to the “And:” statement the number of deaths per year in the US from gun
violence.

Sure, here’s a revised ABT statement:

And: With over 40,000 deaths per year in the United States from gun violence, it
is a significant problem in many communities across the country.

But: Current laws and regulations are insufficient to address the issue, and
innocent lives are being lost due to gun violence every day.

Therefore: Legislation is needed to curb gun violence and protect the safety and
well-being of all citizens.

Now make the “Therefore:” element more specific by mentioning legislation that
has been proposed in the past to address this problem.

Sure, here’s a revised ABT statement:

And: With over 40,000 deaths per year in the United States from gun violence, it
is a significant problem in many communities across the country.

But: Current laws and regulations are insufficient to address the issue, and
innocent lives are being lost due to gun violence every day.

Therefore: Legislation such as universal background checks, assault weapons
bans, and red flag laws, which have been proposed in the past, are needed to
curb gun violence and protect the safety and well-being of all citizens.

There is so much you can do with it. We’ll give more updates on this element
soon.

 

2  STEERING WHEEL (NARRATIVE IS LEADERSHIP)

The above example shows you exactly what I’ve been saying for the past few
months — Chat GPT is like a beautiful and awesome race car, BUT … narrative
intuition is the steering wheel. Without narrative intuition, you’ve got an
amazing gadget that races all over the place but ultimately amounts to nothing.

You need to steer the process. To do this, you need narrative intuition. The ABT
Framework helps you develop this. Without it, you’re going to maybe have lots of
fun, but also … you’ll end up wasting too much time. 

And that is bad news in a world where time is increasingly in short supply.

 

Posted in ARTICLES | Tagged chat gpt, chat gpt 4.0


#201) USING THE RIGHT TOOL: A “HOWEVER HAMMER” FOR DIPLOMACY, A “BUT BOMB” FOR
THE MASSES

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Randy Olson

Scientists love their HOWEVERs. It’s the more diplomatic, less forceful word of
contradiction with which to introduce the problem portion of your ABT. We have
data to show how much scientists love it. BUT … the more powerful and more
widely used word of contradiction is THE BUT BOMB. Keep that in mind in matching
your content to your INNER CIRCLE versus OUTER CIRCLE audiences.



TONE DEAF? Okay, maybe this wasn’t the most tactful t-shirt for us to make for
our World Bank friends given current world events, BUT … come on, have a sense
of humor (please insert in your mind a smiley face emoji here). The term BUT
BOMB was coined by the graduate students of Drs. Marlis Douglas and Keisha Bahr
and first presented in our latest version of the NARRATIVE GYM series of books.

 

CHOOSING YOUR WORD OF CONTRADICTION

Narrative structure consists of three forces: AGREEMENT, CONTRADICTION,
CONSEQUENCE. The ABT Narrative Template embodies these three forces. It uses the
most common word of agreement (AND), the most common word of contradiction
(BUT), and the most powerful word of consequence (THEREFORE). These three
elements add up to AND, BUT, THEREFORE which is the ABT.

So here’s what’s fascinating about the central element. BUT is the most commonly
used word of contradiction, but … there are other words that can work as well.
The most common alternative to BUT is HOWEVER.

So why use BUT versus HOWEVER?

Here’s why…

 

BUTs OVER HOWEVERs

Last fall a group of us from the ABT Framework course compiled a few stats on
our two Narrative Metrics (the AND Frequency and the Narrative Index of BUTs to
ANDs). Early on, Marlis Douglas suggested that we also count the use of the word
HOWEVER by scientists. Sure enough, there was a pattern.

We analyzed 25 articles each from three publications which we designated as
BROAD (The New Yorker), RESEARCH (Molecular Ecology), and TARGETED (research
reports from IUCN).

What we found was that writers in the New Yorker almost never use the word
HOWEVER. Their average ratio of HOWEVERs to BUTs was 0.02.

The IUCN reports had a much higher usage with the average score of 0.53.

But the highest use of HOWEVER was the pure research papers of Molecular Ecology
which averaged 0.78 — approaching 1.0 which would be using HOWEVER as much as
BUT. In fact, a few of the papers did have more HOWEVERs than BUTs.

 

HOWEVER IS FOR DIPLOMATS, BUT IS FOR THE PUBLIC

In 2015 I did an ABT workshop with 15 diplomats from the State Department. They
told me that one of the first things they are taught in their training is to
never use the word BUT. The same thing happens with improv actors.

Why? Because BUT is so powerful, and is a word of negation.

BUT … they had nothing to say about HOWEVER, nor do improv actors. Why? Because
it is a softer, less forceful word, which makes it perfect for diplomacy (or
beating around the bush).

 

IMPORTANT PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE: THE HOWEVER HAMMER VS. THE BUT BOMB

So here’s the big point. Think about your audience. If they are your INNER
CIRCLE they’re already listening closely to you. They don’t need to have their
attention grabbed. In fact, they would appreciate if you’d respect their
knowledge and be a little more gentle with them. That’s the whole idea of
diplomacy — speaking softly. So you use HOWEVER as your word of contradiction in
the ABT structure.

Think of it as THE HOWEVER HAMMER — a delicate tool for fine detail work. It’s a
much softer tool than the BUT BOMB.

Now think about your OUTER CIRCLE — they’re not listening as closely, are not as
clued in on what you’re saying, and more likely to need a jolt to get their
attention. Writers at The New Yorker know this intuitively, and that’s why they
use BUT almost exclusively as their word of contradiction.

So that’s what you need to learn here.

Chose the right tool for the right job. If you’re talking to scientists or
diplomats, use more HOWEVERs. If you’re talking to the general public, you want
lots of BUTs.

It’s a simple difference, BUT … is a fundamental element of effective
communication.

You can learn lots more about narrative metrics in my 5th book, Narrative Is
Everything.

Posted in ARTICLES, THOUGHTS | Tagged but bomb, however hammer


#200) 2023 IS THE TIPPING POINT YEAR FOR THE ABT FRAMEWORK

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Randy Olson

There’s lots of excitement around Chat GPT AND it’s clear Artificial
Intelligence will soon put an end to human culture (as Maureen Dowd conceded
yesterday in the NY Times), BUT in the meanwhile Narrative Structure is still
everything, THEREFORE we’re hard at work in 2023 propagating the ABT everywhere
possible.



Suddenly the ABT is being put to work in a lot of places. Yay.

 

OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

It’s taken a decade. From the World Bank to Pfizer to the Smithsonian to Cornell
University … people are seeing the power and application of the ABT Framework as
a tool for finding the narrative core of your material.

All we can say is yes, it works.

To learn more:  ATBFramework.com

Posted in NEWS, THOUGHTS | Tagged ABT, pfizer, world bank


#199) AL GORE’S “WRONG PROBLEM” 16 YEARS LATER: WANTS VS NEEDS

Posted on July 25, 2022 by Randy Olson

Hollywood screenwriters like to talk about wants versus needs for characters. In
2006 Al Gore announced his “want” with his landmark movie, “An Inconvenient
Truth.” He pointed to the ultimate problem of global warming and announced that
he wanted very much to stop it. But then the question to ask (that he never
really did) was, “What do we NEED to achieve this goal?” The specific answer was
60 votes in the U.S. Senate for significant climate legislation. And even more
specific would have been a plan for how to change minds to achieve those votes.
That was never addressed. Lots of science, very little politics. And now, on
Meet the Press this week, he was once again blaming the right for everything and
calling them “deniers,” but not addressing that fundamental question of how to
change minds. Still.


For decades Al Gore has talked about how he wants to end global warming, but
he’s never answered the question of how to change minds. Still.

 

HOW DO YOU CHANGE MINDS?

One of my best friends from my science days, now a senior scientist at NIH, sent
me an email yesterday asking me this simple question. He, of course, asked it in
reference to all the work I’ve done with narrative structure, the structure of
stories, and the anti-science movement in general. My answer was basically I
don’t know.

This is the same question that Al Gore should have been addressing in 2006 with,
“An Inconvenient Truth,” but he didn’t. He hosted a movie that presented a huge
amount of scientific evidence, wrapped in a moralizing tone of shame on us if we
don’t fix this.

The result, 16 years later was his appearance yesterday on NBC’s Meet the Press
where host Chuck Todd seemed to call him a visionary for having foretold all the
climate mess we have today.

 

BUT … DUDE, WHERE’S MY “WOW INNOVATION” AWARDS?

Yes, Al Gore foretold disaster, but he failed to provide a realistic plan to
avert it. What happened?

Why wasn’t a couple hundred million spent on experimentation to see how to
actually change minds on the climate issue?

At the core of changing minds is communication. Why wasn’t there an explosion of
experimentation and exploration on communication, sponsored by the major
foundations who by 2011, when I gave my, “Dude, Where’s My Climate Movement,”
talk at the 50th anniversary of World Wildlife Fund were already spending
hundreds of millions of dollars on climate. Why wasn’t there a gigantic
initiative underway to answer this most important question of changing minds?

But there never has been. The climate movement has spent a fortune throwing
science at the public, but where have been the experimental, exploratory
projects on communication? At the end of that 2011 talk (at 22 minutes) I told
the story of the group at CDC who created the Zombie Disaster Preparedness Kits
project that won the “Wow, Innovation” Award from a professional advertising
society then asked verbatim, “Why isn’t the climate community winning Wow
Innovation awards?”

 

SERIOUSLY, WHERE IS THE INNOVATION?

More important to me — as we prepare this fall to run our ABT Framework
Narrative Training program with major organizations like Pfizer, Genentech, the
World Bank, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Park
Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Georgia Medical School Consortium, the
National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, and lots and lots more … I have
one over-riding question, still.

Why are none of the foundations interested in even talking about the ABT, and
why is there not an initiative to address the real question that Gore never has
been able to answer.

How do you change minds?

Posted in THOUGHTS | Tagged Al Gore, dude, inconvenient truth, Meet the Press,
where's my climate movement


#198) CROWDSOURCING OUR KNOWLEDGE OF “HOW TO TEACH THE ABT”

Posted on July 7, 2022 by Randy Olson

What do you do when you’ve created an incredibly powerful communications model
that has you so busy training people with it that you don’t have time to write a
book on how to teach it? You crowdsource it. Which is what we’re doing now as
people contact me with their great stories and publications on how they are
using the ABT Narrative Framework in teaching. Our podcast, “ABT Time,” has
become our forum for this with two in-depth discussions (so far) of How to Teach
the ABT, Parts ONE (2021) and TWO (2022).



THE NEWEST BATCH OF ABT TEACHERS. From English to Geography to Biology, the ABT
Narrative Framework is spreading rapidly. Tune in to our two podcast discussions
(so far) to hear how complete strangers to us are weaponizing the ABT for
teaching.

 

TEACHING THE ABT: PART ONE (2021)

Q: We’re too busy to write a book on how to teach the ABT, what should we do?

A: Crowdsource it!

Time for an ABT (if you don’t know what an ABT is read this article in Ensia).

ABT: We’ve spent a decade developing AND understanding the power of the ABT
Narrative Template, BUT teaching it turns out to be a whole separate challenge,
THEREFORE we pulled together a special episode of our ABT Time podcast last June
for an initial discussion. It proved to be our most popular episode to date (of
41 episodes) drawing in a crowd of listeners somewhere between 2.5 million and a
couple hundred (our tracking numbers are a little fuzzy).

In the year since then I’ve continued to receive a steady stream of awesome
emails from people telling me how they’ve been using the ABT in teaching. Which
led us last week to do a second installment on teaching the ABT.

 

TEACHING THE ABT: PART TWO (2020)

Last week, a year after our first teaching special episode, we pulled together 4
more professors who have been using the ABT in teaching. They’ve even written a
book built around it (Alan Crivellaro’s, “Effective Scientific Presentations:
The Winning Formula”) and published an academic paper about its use in teaching
geography (Robert Wilson’s paper, “Writing Geography: Teaching research writing
and storytelling in the discipline”).

And guess what, I’ve already got another batch of folks who have contacted me
with further experience in teaching the ABT. I’ll probably pull them together
for a Part 3, in probably just a few months.

If you’re using the ABT in teaching please write to me directly at
rolson@usc.edu to join our crowd!

Posted in ARTICLES, NEWS


#197) TWO EXAMPLES OF HOW THE ABT IS FOR EVERYBODY

Posted on April 14, 2022 by Randy Olson

Yes, we use the ABT Framework in working with the most sophisticated folks from
the Federal Aviation Administration to Pfizer’s Global Epidemiology Team, but I
also help my friends use it on a daily basis for everything from love letters to
wedding speeches. Here’s two great examples from the past couple weeks of
friends using it for a GoFundMe campaign and a non-profit fundraising video.



This is the photo from the GoFundMe page for Jesse Bielmann that has proven
hugely successful. The concise ABT-structured text has been a major strength.


 

EXAMPLE 1: GoFundMe Campaign: ABT is on the job

This is a really tragic and painful story of my best friend Brian Bielmann’s
military veteran son, Jesse having a complication from medication he takes for
his military service ailments. The medical bills were staggering so we put
together a GoFundMe page. I helped them write the one paragraph of text for it
(not three pages of content as was their initial instinct — that “more is
more”).

Look at what we posted. Very simple, with one big BUT right in the middle of it,
then the last sentence is the THEREFORE (help us out). Plain, simple — set up,
problem, solution.

Greetings, Friends – My name is Gina Cubero, and I am the Proud Mother of Jesse
Bielmann, a highly decorated combat war Veteran. We need your help. My son Jesse
served six years in the Air Force as a Special Operator with multiple
deployments including a combat deployment to Afghanistan. As an Air Force Combat
Controller, he was involved in very intense combat. His courageous journey has
been manageable until now. Jesse successfully coped with the significant
physical and psychological trauma from horrific combat experiences. But, in
March 2022, he had an adverse reaction to prescribed medications for his
physical and psychological traumas. Jesse had multiple seizures that left him in
a coma with sustained heart and organ failure. He is unable to work while he is
on the pathway to recovery. Daily necessities and crippling medical costs have
caused severe financial duress for himself and family. Normally, Jesse is
strong, resilient and resourceful, but his medical and financial challenges can
not be met alone or with just family support. The funds that we raise will cover
Jesse’s bills until he can get back on his feet. The time has come to ask for
your help!

 

EXAMPLE 2: Non-profit Fundraising video: Paging Dr. Dobzhansky

My friend Laura Pavlakovich has been written up in the New York Times for her
amazing work running a non-profit for Type 1 Diabetes. I’ve introduced her to
the ABT and the Dobzhansky. This post from her a couple days ago says it all…



Posted in ARTICLES, NEWS | Tagged brian bielmann, Dobzhansky


#196) THE 4 ABT LONG HAULERS: PALERMO, HOWELL, PADILLA, KNOWLTON

Posted on March 30, 2022 by Randy Olson

They were there from the very first round of the ABT Framework Course in April,
2020. Two of them gave guest lectures in the first round (Palermo, Howell), two
of them connected with elements of the business world from Park Howell that
instantly resonated with them (Padilla, Knowlton) resulting in them joining the
instruction team. By two years later the four of them had combined for over 100
guest presentations as well as embodied the single most important trait for the
ABT Framework, which is the ability to LISTEN. They are true role models for
effective communication and lead spokespersons for the ABT Framework.



THE FOUR LONG TERM “GUEST” INSTRUCTORS OF THE ABT FRAMEWORK COURSE SINCE ITS
START IN APRIL, 2020.

 

THE EVOLVING COURSE

The ABT Framework course has not been your basic “media training” program. It
has been an incubator as we’ve slowly developed “strengthening the ABT” into a 3
step model. After two years of running the course, it looked by Round 24
drastically different from Round 1.

In the beginning there was no 3 Step Model, no books, no Working Circles — not
much more than just the three word narrative template and the ABT Build
exercise. But by the end there was a whole second level of detail.

 

EVOLVING PRESENTATIONS

Similarly, each of the guest instructors went through a sort of selection and
change process. In the first year we brought in a wide range of guest speakers.
It was partly to entertain myself during the height of the pandemic — a chance
to have fun with old friends.

The guest speakers came from a diverse range of disciplines — filmmakers,
scientists, actors, journalists — each making a connection with the ABT
Template. But by the second year it became clear that four of the guest
instructors needed to be recurring characters.

They became the central cast of: improv actor Brian Palermo, business podcast
host Park Howell, senior scientists Dianna Padilla and Nancy Knowlton (all
pictured above). Each one developed their individual presentations going from “a
bunch of stuff” on their topic in the beginning, to eventually mostly their ONE
THING which was LISTENING (Brian), CLIENT AS HERO (Park), PROPOSALS (Dianna),
and OPTIMISM (Nancy).

By the end, each one fit together like puzzle pieces, following my 5
introductory “Nuts and Bolts” lectures on the basics of the ABT Framework. There
were lots of great rounds of the course, though a few (the coral reef
scientists, fisheries biologists, some of the National Park Service rounds, and
East Carolina University) really stood out as exceptional.

 

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO COMMUNICATE WELL

One of the greatest parts of the whole project has been watching two senior
scientists Dianna and Nancy fully absorb the power of the ABT Framework. I had
them talk about this in a little detail a year ago in this 5 minute video.

The two of them, along with fellow septuagenarians Mike Strauss and Rick Nelson
(formerly of USDA and USFWS, both central members of the instruction crew),
demonstrate that it absolutely is possible for older scientists to learn the ABT
Framework. This is a super-important point. I have had some older scientists say
to me, verbatim, “I’m too old for that communications stuff.” Nope. Sorry. Turns
out it’s actually easier for older folks, provided they’re willing to LISTEN.

 

THE MACHINE WILL NOW SHIFT GEARS

As I’ve said, two years, 25 rounds, over 750 ABT Builds for me … it’s been an
intense and fun incubator for the ABT Framework. Now it’s time to apply what
we’ve learned. As Matt David has pointed out, we’ve completed the “arouse” part
of the “Arouse and Fulfill” couplet, now it’s time for the fulfillment.

So the course has been a huge success AND we’ve all had a ton of fun, BUT we
want to see the ABT Framework in action for a bit, THEREFORE … we’re launching a
new phase starting May 4.

I’ll be explaining this in detail in a blogpost in a few days.

Posted in ARTICLES, NEWS | Tagged abt framework course, Brian Palermo, Dianna
Padilla, Nancy Knowlton, park howell


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