National Future Facing Learning Conference 2024

The Power of Storytelling - A Personal Perspective

Often when we think of the word storytelling what comes to mind is fairy tales and storybooks. But stories are not just for books, films, or entertainment. Storytelling is a powerful way of sharing and interpreting experiences to connect, persuade and influence, minds, beliefs, and behaviours.

In any walk of life storytelling is one of the most powerful marketing and leadership skills. We see it everywhere (sometimes without realising), and many people use it daily. How we convey a message, how we describe a product or service are all examples of storytelling. A business pitch, a bid for funds, a presentation, a plea, are all stories, and storytelling is a vital part of any business environment.

Iain Standen is the CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust, a former career Army officer and an accomplished battlefield tour guide and historian. In this illustrated keynote address he will draw on all this experience to examine how and why storytelling is a key skill. He will explain how, as a CEO and the organisation's 'chief storyteller', he uses these skills to advocate for the organisation and motivate his team. He will explain, as a former Army officer, how, even in a world where most people think orders are the main way to communicate, storytelling was an important tool to getting people to do what was required. Lastly, how as a battlefield guide and historian, long forgotten battles and battlefields can be brought to life by vivid storytelling.

Iain will try to persuade that storytelling is a key skill for so many walks of life, that it should be widely taught and used in education, to equip students to be effective and persuasive communicators in any walk of life in the world of work.

Biography

Iain Standen has been the CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust since January 2012. He has led Bletchley Park through a major transformation, restoring and regenerating many of its wartime buildings, and creating evocative exhibitions about the role of Bletchley Park during World War Two. Prior to Bletchley Park he served for 28 years as a commissioned officer in the British Army working in the communications and intelligence fields. He served in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Cyprus, and on operational deployments in Northern Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Iraq. He gained his first degree, a BA in Geography from King's College London in 1985, and has since completed an MA in Military Studies from Cranfield University, and an MA in Military History from the University of Buckingham. Iain has a lifelong interest in history and heritage and has been an active battlefield guide for over 25 years.

Curiosity and human-centred learning for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The landscape of higher education now stands at a critical juncture, grappling with the accelerating pace of change wrought by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This current era - characterised by increasingly rapid change and coupled with a fusion of ever-evolving technologies - blurs the lines between the physical and digital realms and, in so doing, demands a radical rethinking of how we educate present and future generations. Curiosity also is a core mindset and behaviour of human-centred design. It is this very intersection that led me to human-centred design (HCD) as both a resource and as inspiration for how we might transform higher education to more fully meet the needs of our current age, the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Biography

As director of innovation design for the Program on Law and Innovation, Caitlin 'Cat' Moon designs the J.D. curriculum for PoLI with the goal of empowering students to lead in the innovation of 21st century legal services delivery. Professor Moon also founded and directs the PoLI Institute, which provides interactive post-graduate executive education to legal professionals. She also co-founded and produces the Summit on Law and Innovation, which brings together experts across legal, technology and other disciplines in collaborative innovation projects. She has developed and teaches several core courses in the Law and Innovation curriculum, including Law as a Business, Data in Law Practice, Legal Project Management, Leading in the Law, a skills course, and Legal Problem Solving, which focuses on human-centred design for law.

In addition to her roles at Vanderbilt, Moon works with law firms, legal departments and law schools globally to apply the methods and mindsets of human-centred design to re-imagine leadership and legal professional formation and modernise the delivery of legal services. Her current research focuses on innovation leadership and legal professional formation and includes co-creation of a 21st century framework for lawyer competency, the Delta Model. Moon maintains an active law license and, before joining the Vanderbilt Law faculty, she provided legal counsel and strategic guidance to start-up companies through her Nashville-based legal practice for over 20 years. She serves on the College of Law Practice Management's Board of Trustees and on the advisory boards of the MIT Computational Law Report and the Justice Technology Association. Moon was recognised in 2016 by the American Bar Association among the inaugural Women in Legal Tech and as a Fastcase 50 honouree. She received the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services' 2017 Janice M. Holder Award, which recognises a legal professional who 'has made significant contributions in advancing the quality of justice statewide by ensuring the legal system is open and available to all.'