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Flickr has a cool group project in which group members each day take a self portrait, tag it with “365days,” and submit it.

Below a small selection from a member with the screen name “everythingsjustjake.”

I love this idea. What a fantastic way to tell the story of a year and be able to look back at each photo and remember what you were experiencing and feeling on that day.

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Right on the heels of my latest gnashing of teeth over personal branding are two developments on the subject.

The first is a highly retweeted blog post on Web Worker Daily by Georgina Laidlaw on using storytelling techniques in personal branding. In what is expected to be a three-part series on this topic, Laidlaw begins with characterization. Agreeing at least in part with Gareth Jones who says that brands are static but people are not, Laidlaw diverges from Jones’s assertion that people, therefore, cannot be branded.

“You’re the key character in your story,” Laidlaw notes, and as such, you select “crucial defining information about their characters and focuses on communicating that clearly, in a way that suits the character” and hence, build your brand. Among the choices for information you might select about your character, Laidlaw says, are:

• the channels you use
• the language you use
• your profile data
• the photos you publish of yourself and others
• your interests, pastimes, and the topics you focus on, including links and other content you promote
• your frequency and depth of public engagement with others
• the places you like to visit or meet others

In answer to the question, “How do you know what will best illustrate your character to your contacts?”, Laidlaw states that “the answer will depend on your character! I usually only communicate about things that I feel very strongly about — topics I’m passionate about — which in itself reflects my character to some degree.”

The second development is a new (free) product from Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist network, the “social resume.” This product strikes me as a cross between a LinkedIn Profile and a social-media resume. Intended for Gen Y workers, Brazen Careerist resumes do not focus on the “story” metaphor; “story” is never mentioned. Instead, “ideas” is the top buzzword, followed by “conversation.” (John Zappe quotes Trunk: “The recruiting industry is shifting from search ninjas to those who understand conversations.”)

Still, the Brazen Careerist social resume provides opportunities for storytelling in its “About Me” section, and some of the social resumes I looked at by community members offer stories in that space, such as the one for Brazen Community Manager Ryan Paugh (thumbnail of resume pictured here).

But, ugh, the way Brazen Careerist solicits information for the Experience portion of users’ social resumes is anathema to storytelling; the form asks for a “job description.” I can guarantee that no storytelling will be forthcoming from job descriptions. Brazen should be asking for accomplishments, achievements, initiatives, results, and the like.

Here’s where I see a terrific mashup: Brazen Careerist social-resume users could use Georgina Laidlaw’s personal-branding storytelling techniques for their social resumes.

I keep bringing up new twists on resumes not because they are explicitly storytelling resume but because each new “resume replacement” or “resume reinvention” (as Zappe calls them) suggests that hiring decision-makers are not getting what they need from traditional resumes. With Zappe using phrases like “better portrait” and “living, breathing profile,” I know there is a place for storytelling in these new incarnations.

A couple of recent pieces have examined the role of relationships and connections in storytelling.

In a scholarly piece called Different Ways of Remembering: the Example of Storytelling, Mark Oppenneer writes:

The telling of a story not only suggests the physical presence of a storyteller and an audience, but the relationship that exists between the two, the relationships between members of the audience, the relationship between humans and the land on which they live and in which the action of the story transpires, etc.

Oppeneer notes that the tendency to see “story” as text is a “Western information bias,” and Westerners tend to find audio and video recordings “sufficient to capture the telling of a story.” But such manifestations of story strip away “essential components of relationship,” Oppenneer asserts.

Laura S. Packer views storytelling and relationships from a different angle in Storytelling as connective tissue:

…[T]he shared experience of listening to a story makes the entire audience into one being. The story is the ligament that binds us. … Regardless of the length of the story, the setting in which it’s told, the experience of the teller or the teller’s background, when we tell authentically tell a story it binds audience members to each other and to the teller. Stories are connective tissue in culture and families as well. They are how we identify ourselves, how we know that I am of this group, so this is my story.

Both authors stress this connective role of storytelling in the act of re-telling. For Packer, listeners “know who they are by the stories they were told and in turn retell.” Oppenneer notes:

..[T]he telling of a story interacts with prior tellings remembered by the audience and is infused with embellishments and improvisations that are in tune with the relationships established during the performance.

and he quotes Rebecca Green: “Repetitive storytelling of the past re-creates, solidifies, and even creates the veracity of events and individuals.”

The underlying message for both authors is that storytelling creates cultural identity, cultural memory, cultural meaning, and knowledge that is passed on from person to person, generation to generation.

As technology provides us with more and more ways to tell stories, we would be wise to ask ourselves the extent to which any given storytelling medium enables us to preserve relationships

I love the words Packer closes with:

Stories reach across time, space and distance to give us the same narrative connection. We are human. We tell stories. Listen to me and I will listen to you: We will recognize ourselves in each others words.

Had to get this out there as soon as I learned of it: The agenda for this year’s Golden Fleece Conference has been posted — now with its own Web site.

And it looks as fabulous as ever.

You can link to registration, speaker bios, and an overview, too.

If you are into applied storytelling, I cannot recommend this conference highly enough.

I was reading a blog entry by Corey Harlock directed at recruiters when this sentence stopped me dead in my tracks:

A resume in no way, shape or form is an indication of the person who created it.

The point of the article (I think) is that recruiters should not be so quick to dismiss applicant resumes.

But seriously? A resume in no way, shape or form is an indication of the person who created it?

With all the buzz about personal branding and authenticity, it’s disheartening to think such a disconnect could exist between resume and job-seeker. It’s true that some people hire professional resume writers to craft their resumes, but a good resume-writing practitioner should be able to authentically capture the job-seeker in print.

What’s the best way to ensure your resume really an indicator of the person — you — who created it? In my opinion, storytelling. A storied resume opens a window into your personality, conveys the authentic you, creates an emotional connection with the reader, and makes you memorable. As I’ve written many, many times in this space, the perfect incarnation of the storied resume is yet to emerge. But I’ve developed some ways to add storytelling to your resume. You can read about them beginning here or here.

I wish I had been writing little hash marks each time “story” or “storytelling” was mentioned at last night’s Oscars. So many who spoke cited the importance of storytelling in the movies.

The very first honoree, best supporting actor Christoph Waltz, cleverly crafted his acceptance speech in story form, describing his journey to playing his role in Inglorious Basterds, and weaving in the names of the “characters” in his journey that he wanted to thank.

As the blog Crystal Street (which I think is the name of the blogger) notes, one winner declared that “short films are ‘the jewel box of storytelling.’”

Actors told the stories of working with the best actor and actress nominees.

Many were surprised that The Hurt Locker won for both best picture and director over the wildly successful Avatar; yet I’ve also heard many say that, as groundbreaking as Avatar was in its look and feel, its storytelling was deficient.

As Crystal Street also reports, the same short-film producer said: “The tools never make a great film, the story makes a great film.”

I agree with her words, that “it is refreshing to see that the art of the story is still celebrated in the entertainment industry.”

One of my newest discoveries, Gregg Morris (pictured, from his Twitter profile), produces a weekly feature in his What’s Your Story? blog called The Week in Storytelling.

I freely admit that I am seduced by the fact that Gregg cites a number of entries from A Storied Career and calls me his hero. But he lists plenty of other sites and blogs in his review, so this feature is a great way to get a snapshot of what’s been written about storytelling in the past week. Gregg also runs a near-daily feature of curated stories, “a daily post that shares and curates links to the content that I consume over the course of each day … items [that] all deal with change, stories, writing, business issues, marketing and pr, social media and networking. ”

The Week in Storytelling appears to be a new feature. Hope it continues.

Reader Stephanie Jones asked me a question I couldn’t answer but readers who are oral-performance storytellers perhaps can:

Do you know of any web tools that would enable a storyteller to keep a log of the stories they tell, along with notes about the stories, sources, places they’ve told, etc.? I know I could use a blog or a wiki, but I would like something more like LibraryThing or Shelfari? I am going to be teaching a storytelling class online this summer for my school library candidates and would like them to keep a record of stories they are learning.

If you have suggestions, please e-mail Stephanie.

I’m still feeling curmudgeonly about the concept of personal branding, and when I read skeptical views about personal branding like one called “I am Not a Brand. I am Me,” by Gareth Jones, my curmudgeonliness is reinforced.

One of Jones’s arguments against the personal-branding concept contrasts typical brands with humans:

Brands are largely static. Brands don’t rationalise their actions. Brands don’t change their behaviour or opinion after life changing events or after reflecting on some new piece of evidence. Brands don’t offer humility in the face of arrogance. Brands don’t eat humble pie when they got it wrong and then share that experience over social media.

Even though part of me wants to agree with Jones’s conclusion that “the whole notion of a personal brand is a bit of a nonsense and serves only to create another bit of jargon around which some ‘instant guru’ … can build a consulting proposition that preys on the insecurities of others,” I started to wonder if brands really are static.

Given my belief that brands must have stories and the best brands are the best because they have great stories (like the Moleskin notebook for example), can brands really be static? Stories suggest an ongoing plot.

I find it amusing and ironic that personal-branding gurus assert that one’s personal brand must be authentic, but the very thing that personal-branding naysayers rail against is a lack of authenticity, or as Jones writes, a watered-down authenticity:

And then there is the question of authenticity. Brands are strong, stand for something and carve out their definitive position in their relevant consumer space. They don’t try and water down their personality or message on the basis someone might not buy them if they don’t.

Jones’s final argument is that his online identity does not comprise a brand:

I am the sum of a number of profiles, opinions and conversation online, nothing more. These do not constitute a brand. Yes, I should definitely keep out any potentially offensive content. But water down my online and offline personality or manipulate it to present myself as something other than who I really am? Most definitely not.

Well, of course, Jones’s “profiles, opinions and conversation online” do constitute a brand because, in part, they help tell his story; it’s just not a brand or story that he has consciously crafted and manipulated. He has not concerned himself with whether or not anyone will buy his brand.

And there’s the issue — whether we want to put our brands and stories out there as they are or whether we feel we must watch what we say and massage our stories so as to make them more palatable to the rest of the world. Much depends on whether we have something to sell — ourselves as employees or purveyors of products or services.

And the other question is whether we can truly be authentic — be ourselves — if we seek to present our storied-branded-selves to the world.