Announcing Startup Stories - A Blog Carnival

Adventures from the Entrepreneurial Edge

In this attention-starved day and age, the fine art of storytelling is drowning in a tidal wave of bullet lists, opinion pieces, how-tos and links to more of the same.

Hey - I have nothing against a good list post, but good stories are endlessly engaging. They provide depth and nuance, context and clarity, where other forms fall short. Large organizations have embraced corporate storytelling as a way to convey information, because they connect an emotional level, not just intellectual.

In an effort to promote more storytelling by small business bloggers, I'm starting a new blog carnival, Startup Stories. In case you're not familiar with blog carnivals, it's a periodic collection of links to blog posts by various authors on a common theme.

In this case, the theme is personal stories about entrepreneurship, preferably told by the entrepreneurs. No lists, no opinion pieces, no re-posts -- just original stories from people who are living out their entrepreneurial dream.

When: The carnival will occur weekly. Posts are due by Wednesday at 9pm Pacific, and the carnivals will be posted some time Friday morning or sooner.

How: Posts must be submitted using the Startup Stories Submission Form at BlogCarnival.com. Please do not send me emails or Twitter tweets asking to have your post included. If you do, I'll just send you a link to the form. ;-)

What: I'll say it again - the post has to be a story about your entrepreneurial experience -- how you handled a particularly challenging client, your first meeting with potential investors, preparing to launch your product, attending a trade show, etc.

There's no limit on the number of stories you can submit or how many will be included in the carnival, but I reserve the right to edit based on quality. If you don't get included, don't take it personally -- just put a little more effort into it next time!

Where: For now, I'll be hosting the carnival here at http://entrepreneurs.about.com, but will open it up to guest hosts once it gets going. If you're interested in hosting it, you can email me to let me know.  You can also subscribe to the carnival via RSS.

I'll create the first edition for this Friday, October 3, from some links I've been collecting. But go ahead and start submitting now for next week's edition.