This document summarizes the experiences and outcomes of the first cooperative digital storytelling campaign called Stories.coop. The campaign collected 450 stories from cooperatives around the world and received 200,000 visits from all continents. While the campaign showed the vitality and diversity of cooperatives, it also revealed that cooperatives have weak storytelling abilities and it can be difficult to access authentic stories from them due to slow procedures. The campaign demonstrated the potential of cooperative storytelling but future efforts need to focus on collecting more human-centered stories that showcase people, failures, and diversity beyond commercial strategies.

1. Experiences and outcomes
of the first cooperative digital campaign
Aleksandra Bobic, Ilana Goetz, Gianluca Salvatori – EURICSE

2. The Gutenberg Parenthesis
• For 500 years we lived in what the Danish academic Thomas
Pettitt calls The Gutenberg Parenthesis where knowledge was
contained in the fix printed format.
• With the digital revolution we’re in a post-Gutenberg state
where the knowledge and the information are constantly
updated, improved, changed, moved, developed.

3. Stories can change the world
• The time of one-way communication is over; media,
enterprises, authorities, nonprofits are adapting to a two-way
communication which is much more “social” because it works
only if it creates engagement, participation and even cocreation.
• Stories are a very powerful communication tool : they can
condition our perceptions, stimulate our thoughts and
reflections, awaken our emotions and senses, determine our
actions…
• Stories can change the way we think, act, and feel.
• Stories can engage, motivate, connect, inspire.

4. Storytelling in the Digital age
• “In the broadcast era, access was power. We developed all
these bad habits when distribution was in the hands of few.
But now storytelling matters again” (Jonah Sachs, author of
“Story Wars”).
• 3 golden rules of storytelling that fit all: political messages,
products and people:
1. Don’t lead with facts.
2. The story isn’t about you.
3. Forget puffery. Find your voice.

5. A good story…
• is clear, simple, authentic,
• tells the truth,
• has a defined plot,
• is emotional,
• goes beyond marketing and positioning policies and strategies
• regenerates the organizational culture in order to improve
the reputation among different stakeholders,
• creates engagement, participation, identification,
involvement.

6. Great storytellers / Obama

7. Corporate storytelling
• is the art of using stories to communicate and connect with
employees, customers, suppliers, partners, and anyone else
involved with the organization.
• is widely employed and for profit enterprises are mastering
this technique.
Seven simple ways to tell a good story by Dave Kerpen, CEO
of Likeable Local:
1) Tell your brand's story; 2) Tell your employees' stories; 3)
Tell your customers' stories; 4) Inspire your customers to tell
stories; 5) Use images often; 6) Use video even more often;
7) Be human.

8. Great storytellers / Jobs

9. Great storytellers / Coca Cola

10. Great storytellers / Lego

11. Private sector is learning from nonprofits
• On McKinsey’s website there’s an article about The
Dragonfly Effect, Stanford University marketing professor
Jennifer Aaker and marketing strategist Andy Smith;
• Through the example of Scott Harrison, an American
photographer, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of the
non-profit “charity: water” they explain to the private
sector how to achieve engagement, which they define as
“truly making people feel emotionally connected to
helping you achieve your goals” through storytelling,
authenticity, and establishing a personal connection.

13. And what about cooperatives?

15. Ceux qui aiment les lundis
• The book was published with one of the most important
French publishers: Hachette - Editions du Chêne.
• The campaign also included: itinerant exhibitions (10),
website, videos, radio commercials, posters…
• The project had excellent results and media coverage.
• The book and the campaign were awarded with three prizes
at the 2013 Conference on communication “Corporate
Business”.
• Example of very good non-digital communication; good
communications isn’t only about technology and new media.

16. Stories.coop / outcomes
• Stories.coop is the first global digital campaign to choose the
storytelling tradition as a way of communicating the
cooperative experience to the general public.
• Stories.coop was imagined as a tool to create authentic
cooperative storytelling which would be able to generate a
real and not just rhetorical image of the cooperative values.
• Outcomes: 450 stories, 200.000 visits from all five
continents, an average of 10.000 views a month.

17. Stories.coop / our experience
Positive
Negative
•
enthusiastic, surprising,
stimulating, challenging;
•
•
impressing vitality, variety and
potential of cooperatives;
still very strong and “old style”
communication: one-way and top
down;
•
weak storytelling abilities;
•
coops are treasure trove of
authentic stories but it’s difficult
to reach them;
•
•
good feedback and reaction to
the project: lots of contacts and
requests to use the stories
database.
interesting stories and
information often go untold due
to slow and bureaucratic
procedures;
•
Diffidence, disinterest, lack of
replies;
•
Language barrier.

18. Stories.coop / What we need
• Authentic stories that go beyond a mere presentation of what
you do and how you do it.
• Stories that tell more about workers, members, customers,
products.
• Don't be too afraid to tell stories that show failure, poor
judgment, or mistakes on your part.
• The story should go beyond data, income and turnover,
commercial and marketing strategies.
• People are at the core of the cooperative business model and
should be the protagonist of cooperative storytelling.

20. Stories.coop /Future
• Authentic and realistic representation of the pluralism of the
cooperative movement on one side and experimentation of
new forms of collaboration, not only among coops but also
between coops and their stakeholders.
• Online and offline platform for the creation of: relations,
networks, and supply chains.
• Crowdfunding platform to support, finance and help the
creation of new cooperative businesses.

24. Thank you for your attention!
gianluca.salvatori@euricse.eu