Check Out A Storytelling Festival!

We're big fans of storytelling -- and not just the VoiceQuilt kind. This weekend, more than 10,000 people from all over the country will descend upon Tennessee’s oldest town to be captivated by a well told story. The 3 day, National Storytelling Festival kicks off its 38th year in Jonesboro, Tennessee at 10am tomorrow, October 1. If you have a chance to attend, don’t miss it.

The story of how the festival began is as pure and true as the art of storytelling itself: a journalism teacher, inspired by a tale he and his students heard on the radio, decided to host a local storytelling festival. During its first year in 1973, roughly 60 people sat on hay bales as seats. The storytellers used an old wagon as a stage….and the rest is history.

Thanks to the popularity of the National Storytelling Festival, you can find storytelling events, celebrations and festivals in almost every city. Philadelphia has a storytelling bench; the Storytelling Association of California has weekly story swaps; Texas has an Annual Tumbleweed Storytelling Festival; New York has The Moth, a storytelling group that meets twice a week. My personal favorite is in VoiceQuilt's neighborhood: The Southern Order of Storytellers.

It's terrific entertainment: family-friendly and inexpensive (usually free). So, just google “storytelling” plus the name of your closest city and see what you find. You won’t be disappointed.

Audio Recordings + Fire = MyBirthdayCandle.com

A friend wrote me about this crazy candle for birthday cakes.

“It exceeds expectations -- I'm even ordering another set. Check out the video on the home page. Used it for my daughter's birthday this week. Everyone went wild. It's hysterical.”

I must confess that “As seen on TV” sites have never had much appeal for me. I am also morally opposed to web sites that automatically play audio, especially the tinny, loud kind. Last but not least, I hear many, many snippets of “Happy Birthday” on a daily basis, thanks to VoiceQuilt Fulfillment quality testing in our office. (“Happy birthday” rendered on a tuba is one of the more extraordinary experiences I have had.)

Yet, I just had to do it. Went to MyBirthdayCandle.com, bought the candle, put it on a cake and surpised our turning-12-daughter. Truly a pyromaniac's delight. What a hit!

Crowdsourcing A Birthday, Anniversary or Other Gift with VoiceQuilt

Lori and her "crowd" of cancer walk teammates

Crowdsourcing is quite the buzz these days. It usually involves companies that are outsourcing tasks to a community (a crowd), through an open call or invitation.

From a company's perspective, these are the advantages of crowdsourcing:

• no fear of going "over budget" since the price is set up by the customer at the beginning of the project.
• no fear that the designer will get the money and then leave the job undone. Payment follows only if a winner is selected
• clients can provide feedback, request revisions and send messages to designers
• guaranteed satisfaction - the client doesn't have to select a winner

Many distinguished companies have jumped on the crowdsourcing bandwagon. The most notable example is Pepsi's 2007 Design Our Pepsi Can promotion. The winning designer received a $10,000 prize as well as the distinction of seeing their work on 500 million Pepsi cans.

The most well known sites for crowdsourcing are the following:

99designs
namethis
poptent
crowdSPRING

We're big fans of crowdsourcing. In fact, we believe that VoiceQuilt is crowdsourcing - in audio form - for people like you and me.

A VoiceQuilt gift giver is in control of what "crowd" is invited to call in with messages. The gift giver controls the messages that are included, their sequence and how they are labeled. The VoiceQuilt gift giver also chooses how the voice messages are delivered - Keepsake Box, CD, MP3 Flash, email, download -- and how widely messages are shared.

Some gift givers share the entire voice message playlist on Facebook; others share messages with close family via email; others keep the messages private, delivering them only via the actual keepsake gift: a VoiceQuilt Keepsake box, flash drive or CD.

The crowd is what makes each VoiceQuilt keepsake so unique ...or rather, the crowd's assembled toasts, tributes and favorite memories. It's the sum of all those voice messages - the collaboration of all those people that love the gift recipient -- that makes a VoiceQuilt so meaningful.

A Cheering Squad of Voices: Get Well, Stay Strong or Thinking Of You

Inspired by Robin Roberts, we began distributing flyers in local chemotherapy centers a few months back. We thought that patients like Robin Roberts would benefit from a cheering squad of family and friends, offering words of encouragement.

Our biggest surprise? The “get well” flyer here was not well-received.

As turns out, chemotherapy patients expect to feel worse after treatment. For them, it’s not about “getting well”. It’s all about “staying strong”. As a result, we developed the flyer you see at the top of this post.

The lesson? Each person is unique. Some are getting well, some are about to undergo a difficult treatment and some face an uncertain situation.

Even so, the best get well, stay strong or thinking of you messages include heartfelt toasts, tributes or favorite memories. A few gift givers have given us permission to share some wonderful examples. Please check out them out here.

Capturing Wartime Memories: The Veterans History Project and VoiceQuilt

A family historian told me to check out the Veterans History Project.

Sponsored by the Library of Congress, the Veterans History Project is dedicated to preserving the experiences of American war veterans. Although most stories are collected on audio or video tape, many are written, too. The goal is to capture the first-hand personal experiences of war veterans – so that history comes alive for future generations.

The stories collected tell us about the people who left their homes, sometimes at a very young age, leaving their parents, sweethearts and even new families behind.

Frequently, a VoiceQuilt customer will give us permission to listen to the toasts and tributes collected for a parent. Often I hear a male voice sharing memories of World War II. I’ve heard about cramped fighting conditions in a tank; I’ve heard about love letters from girlfriends; I’ve heard about bunkmates lost in battle. It's very moving, listening to these snippets of history...

At VoiceQuilt, we’re honored to help capture and preserve memories from "The Greatest Generation".

Our hope is that these voice-based toasts, tributes and favorite memories will make history come alive for today’s children and grandchildren. After all, the sound of someone's voice – their accent, tone and laughter – conveys so much more emotion than an image -- or the written word. (But then again, we're hopelessly biased!)

Auntie Elaine’s 90th VoiceQuilt: Making Lemonade Out of Lemons…

One of our intrepid gift givers is an eloquent blogger. Here is a excerpt from a recent post from her amazing blog here.

Robert Burns is quoted as saying, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry". This was the case when it came to planning my Godmother's (Elaine M.) 90th birthday party scheduled for August 29th.

My brother and his wife, Auntie Elaine's nephew and his wife, and I had planned a wonderful dinner at the golf course for 18 of Auntie Elaine's dearest friends and family. Unfortunately, Auntie Elaine had not been well for several weeks and landed in hospital in the middle of August.

Over the summer, I had invited close to 100 friends and family to participate in making a Voice Quilt for Auntie Elaine's gift....We had calls from all over the world -- some friends told stories that brought laughter and tears, others recited special poems, while others sang various renditions of Happy Birthday! It is an amazing and unique way to include loved ones in a special celebration-- especially with so many people separated by miles.

Never let it be said we aren't adaptable, because although the dinner was cancelled and a tea held instead at the hospital, the "organizing committee" decided to hold a "Happy Hour" on the unit and comandeered a meeting room. Under the premise I would beg forgiveness rather than ask permission, I brought in a backpack full of gin and tonics, wine and beer along with an array of appetizers.

So, we took lemons and made lemonade. In the end, we accomplished what we set out to do -- to celebrate Auntie Elaine's 90th birthday, and to show her how much she is loved. Mission accomplished.

I just love the spirit behind Heather's post: the "can do" attititude, the love for Auntie Elaine and that spunky extra touch: sneaking adult beverages into a hospital environment. Heather's blog is a terrific read. Be sure to check out her exciting travel adventures here.

Let's Talk. It Could Extend Your Life.

Two weeks ago, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study of lung cancer patients. Half of the patients in the study received conventional medical treatment; the other half received palliative care.

Here is the Wikipedia definition of palliative care:

"Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than striving to halt, delay, or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering and to improve quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness."

Not only did the patients with palliative care score higher on quality of life measures, they also lived longer. Here is a quote from an article by ABC News:

"Early palliative care reduced use of aggressive measures at end of life by more than a third, cut the prevalence of depression in half, and added three months to the median survival of patients with advanced non small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC)."

In most situations, palliative care is coordinated by a team of professionals – from medicine, nursing, rehabilitation, nutrition – as well as social workers and family therapists. The goal is to get the patient and family members talking about the disease and its prognosis. In many ways, it’s all about helping patients and their families cope with medical and non-medical aspects of illness.

At VoiceQuilt, we don't have a team of researchers or mounds of statistical data. However, we often speak with gift givers honoring a loved one going through a difficult time. We're told that listening to loving toasts, tributes and favorite memories from family and friends can make all the difference. We're delighted that the medical community is beginning to see the therapeutic value of family conversations -- and family connectedness -- too.