Christopher Kalos

Technology, Hobbies, and New Ideas

An avid techie since childhood, I've finally decided that it's time to establish my own presence on the web, as opposed to outsourcing it to a bunch of social network pages.

Here you'll find musings, my professional history, and anything that catches my interest.

As will become obvious as this page grows, I'm an Apple user, through and through:  When I work, I use the best tools for the job.  Sometimes that's Microsoft-based, sometimes it's Apple-based, and often, it's Linux-based.  Once I'm at home, though, I find that comfort, simplicity, and ease of use trump all of the flexibility in the world.   

Cool counts for a lot.  Simplicity counts for a lot more.

 

Dice and Demonstrations: On Stories

August 27, 2024  /  Christopher Kalos

As a Game Master and a Sales Engineer, I’m a storyteller. I’d say that’s the main thrust of this series, but there’s one question that comes up from time to time, and it bears answering in both realms:

How do I come up with these things?

The simplest answer: To tell stories, you need to consume stories. Reading, watching, listening, it all helps. Whenever you have the opportunity to see your peers at work? Take it. Watch how someone else tells a technical story— even one that has nothing to do with your offering. Sometimes, you’ll learn a thing or two about style. About efficiency. About something as simple as a slide transition. If they’re working on the same product offering as you? Maybe they know something you don’t. Maybe they just make a point that you never thought of. Either way, you’ll quickly find yourself comparing notes, adopting what works for you, and sometimes learning that what you’ve been doing the whole time doesn’t work for you.

When telling stories? I can go on about mythology and common tales, but that’s something that I can boil down as this: Whatever story you want to tell is going to pull from the stories that you remember the best. This isn’t due to a lack of imagination, but rather, an abundance of inspiration. If you watched Game of Thrones, you’re probably to tell a fantasy story with political intrigue and brutal stakes. If Star Wars is more your thing? Well, Lucas famously pulled from both Akira Kurosawa and Flash Gordon.

This is where your own flavor will come from, though. If you only watched Rashomon, The Hidden Fortress, and Seven Samurai, your work won’t quite resemble Star Wars, even if you add in blasters and lightsabers. Likewise, if all you ever knew were the old Flash Gordon serials, all you’re likely to tell is another Flash Gordon story. The trick is to learn from everything, from everyone, to get your hands on a variety of stories, because at the end of the day, we’re all cooking with the same ingredients. Sometimes, we’re even cooking with the same spices.

The trick is in your preparation, your style. In taking various things and taking a taste of each of them, finding what you like, and experimenting. There’s nothing wrong in standing on the shoulders of giants, and in fact, it’s better if you change those giants every so often, and in so doing, add new perspectives to your process.

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