You may have seen the excellent Humans of New York Facebook page and its mix of story telling and pictures.
The man behind it takes pictures of people with their permission but he then sits with them and asks a series of questions.
All of the captions are in the words of the subject. There is no journalese. It’s just you and the subject.
It’s a technique I’ve seen used in a few places but nothing so effective as in the Humans of COVID-19 Facebook page which uses the technique to allow NHS staff to tell their story.
Here are three examples.
Pick one in one sitting then maybe comeback to the others. When you read them you’ll see why.
I’ll give you a trigger warning, too. It’s a tough read.
Here Leigh talks about sitting with a patient in an ambulance as she dies so she is not alone.
In this post Alfred talks about the stress of being an ICU nurse who has been forced to take time off for his mental health.
Stephen talks about being a physiotherapist redeployed to end of life care.
I don’t know what to say about the content other than it’s important we read it.
The page is run by unnamed people in the NHS in London. The subjects only have a first name. Their stories, I suspect, are universal but their relative anonymity gives a licence they may not otherwise have.
There is no personal data given and there’s no clue as to where these stories happened.
This may be too strong for a corporate Facebook page, I don’t know. But there is something disarming and powerful in reading something in someone’s voice and seeing their picture.
There may be other stories that you can tell.
If you allow people to tell them in their own voice and their own picture you will cut through to people in a way that you may struggle to through a poster or a tweet.