<img alt="RelatedWork.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/de2f-RelatedWork" id="RelatedWork.png" class="">With Story Time our purpose has always been to help recognise people, to craft stories about the journey people make and how they contribute to business success. We want to help surface stories as clear as Welcome New Starters or Thank You shout outs up to Product Updates or OKR Achievements and have people see that their contributions, their impact, is appreciated.The issue with this in most solutions is a disconnect from the actual work. Where are people are spending their time and what are they doing to help achieve business success? How are teams working together? What is my old peer up to these days? To solve this we're excited to introduce First Party Integrations! The first integration is with Jira, the prominent task management tool in Product Development. Every task completed within Jira will find it's way into Story Time and attribute it to who completed it. See what Evelyn has been up to directly on her timeline! Then reference it in your story to help highlight the impact she has brought.<img alt="EvelynCompleted.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5145-EvelynCompleted" id="EvelynCompleted.png" class="">Through our user research and experience we find an unfortunate outcome for focusing only on work completed is it misses the broader picture to be successful. Work is rarely completed in isolation but by a team so at Story Time we make sure their success is included! <img alt="EvelynHelped.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4f5ba8daff28-EvelynHelped" id="EvelynHelped.png" class="">We are excited to push ahead with our vision of surfacing the invisible impact and recognising all employees for their contributions through our integrations, and we look forward to offering more integrations soon.---Not yet using Story Time? <a href="https://story-time.io/signup" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(68, 64, 60);">Sign-up</a> is free or <a href="https://story-time.io/#request-info" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(68, 64, 60);">get in touch</a> for a demo. We'd love to help you build a more transparent, inclusive, supportive culture.

Getting the work directly from where it's recorded!

First Party Integrations

At Story Time, we understand the importance of creating a positive and productive workplace culture so we're excited to announce our latest feature, the Timeline, which makes it even easier to recognize and appreciate the hard work of your employees.<img alt="timeline.jpg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5514-timeline" id="timeline.jpg" class=""> Research shows that when employees feel valued and appreciated, they are more engaged, productive, and likely to stay with their company. However, the Harvard Business Review found that employees may feel disengaged when there is a values mismatch between what they value, what the business does, and what they complete for the business. This is where the Timeline comes in, by surfacing your employees' work, and creating visibility to align with each other's work, people can feel more connected, valued, and appreciated.The Timeline feature provides insights into how employees are collaborating and engaging with each other at a glance. This helps to create a culture of transparency and accountability so employees can feel their work is visible, appreciated and building on top of each other. Some of the key features of the Timeline include:<ul><li>Surfacing collaboration: The Timeline surfaces how employees are collaborating with each other. Work is rarely completed in isolation so being able to easily see collaboration you can identify areas where employees are working well together, as well as areas where they may need additional support.</li><li>Tracking engagement: The Timeline tracks how employees are engaging with each other. This includes things like giving and receiving recognition, writing stories which recognise each other, and even seeing how people are viewing the stories of each other. By tracking engagement, you can identify employees who are actively participating in the workplace culture, and can check-in on those who need a little but more visibility and recognition.</li><li>Connecting work with business needs: With the Timeline, employees can easily see how each other's work is contributing to the business needs. This helps employees understand how their work fits into the bigger picture, and how they can better contribute across the team silos to the success of the company.</li></ul>At Story Time, we believe that the Timeline will help to create a more positive and productive workplace. By connecting the employees' work with the business needs, and with each other's work, you can create a workplace where everyone feels valued and appreciated.

Lisa Tassone

Surfacing the impact each employee is bringing to your organisation

Introducing the Timeline

One of the common pieces of feedback we've received boils down to "how do I recognise a group of people? I want to show a whole team I appreciate their effort and my work would not be possible without theirs."And that's why we're here today!<h2>Teams teams teams</h2><img alt="teams-storypreview.svg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/1545-teams-storypreview" id="teams-storypreview.svg" class="">Today we're introducing Teams in Story Time. Show a team that you appreciate their effort, that your work is built on top of theirs, just that you like what that team has been up to lately.When you write your story, you can have Shoutouts, link to other stories, assign categories, now you can add Teams that helped make your work possible.<img alt="team-attribution.svg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5514-team-attribution" id="team-attribution.svg" class=""><h2>What is a team?</h2>A team is a group of Storytellers that are within your Story Time organisation. To add people to a team you can through the Storytellers list.<img alt="teams-listassignment.svg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5514-teams-listassignment" id="teams-listassignment.svg" class="">If a team doesn't exist, you can create new teams directly against the Storyteller.<h2>Where does this change matter?</h2>We take the heavy lift out of attribution for you right here. When the story is saved we take a snapshot of the team at this date, and add all members of the team as contributors on your story.<img alt="teams-contribution.svg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5415-teams-contribution" id="teams-contribution.svg" class="">The impact reports for these contributors will then be updated with each view and love on your story. They will see that their contribution matters and that they are appreciated.<h2>How do I see a team's stories?</h2>Last step on the team's feature is being able to see the stories of this team. Want to see what the Product team has been working on? Or what's been made possible from the clients Sales are targeting? You can filter within the Stories view.<img alt="teams-filter.svg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/1c2a-teams-filter" id="teams-filter.svg" class="">There's a lot more we have in mind for teams but, with every product journey we need to start with a first step.- The team at Story Time

Show the teams that your work is built on top of theirs

Introducing Teams

Here at Story Time we've always wanted to extend how we recognise contributors, the ways we surface impact that people bring to our user's organisation.Until now the only way to recognise people was to invite them as a Storyteller, have them publish a story capturing their work, then you can connect to this story, then publish for others to see. This kickstarted our reports around impact but ugh, so much effort.So what's next?<h2>Give people a Shoutout!</h2><img alt="shoutout-storycontributors.svg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4155-shoutout-storycontributors" id="shoutout-storycontributors.svg" class="">To help you recognise more people, more easily, today we're introducing Shout Outs! Show individuals directly that you appreciate them, whether they're Storytellers already crafting work, or people external that you'd like to show your appreciation.<h2>So how does it work?</h2>When you write your story you will see a new region on the right called Shoutouts. In here you can Shoutout people who are already Storytellers within your organisation, or you can add people external!<img alt="shoutout-fulllist.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/f2de-shoutout-fulllist" id="shoutout-fulllist.png" class=""><h2>Where does it go?</h2>Once you've published your story they will be mentioned as a fellow contributor.<img alt="shoutout-contributors2.svg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5415-shoutout-contributors2" id="shoutout-contributors2.svg" class="">All the impact statistics around views and hearts will be updated in the same way as before when linking stories.We hope that you enjoy this new way to recognise people that make a difference to your organisation. Those that work within, and those that make success possible from outside of Story Time.- The team at Story Time

Show your appreciation for the individuals that bring success.

Introducing Shout Outs

<img alt="TeamStory.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4155-TeamStory" id="TeamStory.png" class="">At Story Time we're moving in to our next phase of development and we're excited to introduce you to the first step on the journey around team visibility.Today, we're introducing the Team Story Activity widget that appears on your dashboard.Curious about how your peers are going? You can see it! Are your staff receiving enough recognition for how they're helping move the needle? Here you can get an overview and help boost. Are you a VP or Exec leader and curious who your hidden performers are? That is now front and centre for you to see!With this feature we're introducing a few new concepts so let's get into what they mean so you can get the best out of Story Time<h2>Contributions Received/Shared</h2><img alt="Contributions.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/21ca-Contributions" id="Contributions.png" class="">Work is never delivered independently.If you're in an Engineering team your work expands on the product features that have been discovered through Product Management team or Sales.When in Sales there's a key feature or possibly technical documentation that has helped close a deal.Your company has OKRs that have been fine tuned to help move the needle so we connect with that.All of this work is a contribution to the business's success, and we want to recognise how everyone has contributed. With our Contributions columns we surface how often people have been added as contributors to stories, and how often they have shared with others.<h2>Impact</h2><img alt="Impact.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/edf2-Impact" id="Impact.png" class="">While everyone contributes to a business, people get lost in the noise of the day-to-day or aren't as visible as they could be. They are still important to the success of the business and are making an impact.Here, Impact is the amount of engagement that their contributions have made. Has a Showcased story resonated with the community and you've been recognised as a contributor? You are making a broad impact and get to see how far your work is travelling.<h2>Engagement</h2><img alt="Graph.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4155-Graph" id="Graph.png" class="">Engagement is no longer just for people to see on their dashboards, it is now available for everyone to see so they appreciate the value each individual brings.Some have found this feature somewhat confronting, but in a good way! It's rare that the work people perform is visible alongside their peers or those of other departments. It is hidden in reports, or apps, lacks context or doesn't resonate. With Story Time everyone's work is important, and it is now visible.We hope that you make the most of this new feature and become prepared for the next steps of our journey where everyone's contribution, made visible.- The team at Story Time

With Story Time, everyone's impact and contribution is now made visible.

Surfacing Team Contribution

The team activity report gives an overview of the engagement each member has received and contributed. You can see the stats day by day and can find out what the latest story has been published from a storyteller.It also includes a rather unique section called Impact statistics. This gives insight into the farther reaching impact a storyteller is having outside of their individual stories. You will be able to see a weekly total of the related views and loves that the storyteller's linked stories have had.<img alt="team-activity-widget.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/2ac1-team-activity-widget" id="team-activity-widget.png" class="">

Aaron Abrook

See what the whole team has been up to - without the creepiness

Weekly team activity dashboard widget

<img alt="results.jpeg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4155-results" id="results.jpeg" class=""> While leading product engineering teams in various capacities, one key metric I've found challenging to surface is the impact my staff bring. How are we bringing value to the business? Are we working on the right thing that will help move the needle?One of the challenges around the empowering the team is, outside of Engineering lead organisations, my teams are seen as a cost centres. A mere necessity to do business, not the partnership to build something great.<h2>Have you tried OKRs!</h2>... yes and I'm yet to work in an environment where they truly work.My experience with OKRs typically fall into 3 categories:<ul><li>the OKR is far removed from customer value making value difficult to measure,</li><li>they are yes/no measures which dictate the goals precisely. These are demotivating because there's no opportunity to experiment or try and make a difference,</li><li>the worst I find are vague enough where any achievement means the teams have achieved success. Participation trophy style and nobody is truly motivate here.</li></ul><h2>Measure individual output?</h2>When people recommend we measure an individual's output they often drop the "how many lines of code are they writing?" Any developer worth their salt knows that number of lines does not equal value. Early career I'd comfortably churn out thousands of lines a day, were they bringing the business value? At the time yes. Could I have solved the client problem in fewer lines? With the experience I have now, that's a resounding yes!For an example against sales, should we reward people for the number of cold emails they send? Of course we shouldn't. A sales person just sending a pitch to anyone with an email address is not how we reward value, it's the work to validate a customer, find the right fit, prepare the pitch, and close where the value is. The quality of the engagement matters, not the number of engagements. "What about the number of features?" This is defined by the rest of the business. What are the customers asking for? What does sales have in the pipeline that would matter? Do these features deliver customer value or are they captain's calls? I've worked in teams that deliver huge features, taking over a dozen people months to implement, that are left to gather dust or be adopted after years, never recouping the initial outlay. Too many features like this and the team becomes demotivated and leans more to sand-bagging deliverables. "Under commit, over deliver" is the phrase you'll hear.<h2>Table stakes</h2>Before you start looking at how I measure value you need to understand the Accelerate metrics. In any modern engineering organisation these are the table stakes:<ul><li>Lead Time - Time code is checked in to customer use</li><li>Deployment frequency - How often code is deployed</li><li>Mean Time to Restore - How fast can the team recover from incident</li><li>Change Fail Percentage - How often we're breaking our production environment</li></ul>Here's a short article that highlights them (https://www.holistics.io/blog/accelerate-measure-software-development/) but it's good to grab the book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35747076-accelerateHaving said that:<h2>How do I measure impact?</h2>Being in a cost centre, having the business define direction and need, I look inwards at what we can influence. The top 3 I look for are:<h3>"Velocity"</h3>Is the team ensuring that we are able to deliver the need quickly and creating initiatives that enforce this. I'm looking at things like design systems, minimal value focus (YAGNI), architectural decisions aligned to the "Now, Next" part of the roadmaps. The type of decisions that I know will help us achieve what we need to in the short term and accelerate us through the needs coming up next. The measurement here is that we are completing more business requests of similar difficulty, faster.Another view is seeing who leverages the work of others because that is work done once, helping others move. Those building pieces that are used by other members of the teams, and other divisions, is a clear metric for impact. (Hint: this is where Story Time plays)<h3>"Quality"</h3>Quality really depends on the organisation. Is the UI/UX paramount for your company? Then I'd focus on this. Are they delivering the right customer experience with minimal need to rework.There's also bugs. Are they delivering more bugs than they should be? This is a double edged sword because introducing lots of bugs can be the team moving too fast, making more mistakes due to excess pressure, or just cutting too many corners. If you estimate your tickets in an agile environment I propose don't point bugs. A bug typically arrises because a feature wasn't correctly implemented the first time. Your team has paid the cost once, now they need to resolve it.This ties into "Change Fail Percentage" above but I try to think broader around process to see it. I look at this from customer support requests. The team should have testing in place to catch the issues, I want to see what makes it out.<h3>"Coaching"</h3>When I think of coaching it's not just in space of "helping other engineers improve" but also "do our stakeholders understand what they're asking?" If the other areas understand more of what we do and the cost of delivery, they will hopefully make different decisions so we can deliver more value.I'm looking at the features a PM is asking for. Do they understand the ask will require large scale rework? Have they had other suggestions from engineers to bring value that gets close to the mark? Is the design team asking for pixel pushing perfection? Are they aware of the time cost when breaking from standards?This measurement requires pulse surveys or stakeholder referrals. If they have confidence in our work then we are delivering.<h2>So have I missed anything?</h2>How do you measure performance? Do you have ever more explicit ways to automate this?Want to carry the story further? Reach out to <a href="mailto:aaron@story-time.io" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">aaron@story-time.io</a> or find me on twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/aabrook" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/aabrook</a>

Effective ways to measure engineering employee impact

Measuring employee impact

It's early Sunday afternoon and a text comes through from Aaron, my co-founder of Story Time. "How long do you think it would take to implement auto-save? I've lost an hour's worth of writing :(".I know that feeling, you've started to note down some clear concise thoughts or important take-aways, your thumb accidentally glides down that little bit too much as you review your work and before you can stop it, you've told your mobile browser to refresh.<img alt="froh-no.jpg" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4155-froh-no" id="froh-no.jpg" class="">Or maybe you just closed the wrong tab. Due to having experienced this feeling, in the early days of the app's design, I wanted an auto-save feature but we had other things on the roadmap that took priority.Aaron's frustrating loss that afternoon had us re-visiting how we could implement the feature. We are proud to announce that your writing efforts will now be safely saved incrementally while you are editing your stories!While its unlikely you'll notice this feature, you'll appreciate if you ever accidentally refresh, close the tab or navigate away. The next time you go to edit the story, all your changes will be there.

That feeling when you accidently close a tab - and your work wasn't saved

A small feature this one, but one that is incredibly important for a content platform. The titles of your stories now determine the content of the URLs! A couple of the immediate benefits story tellers get from title based links is it helps give others context when you share stories, it also makes it easier to find in a browser's history.As mentioned, small feature but meaningful.<h2>FAQ</h2><h3>Will my old links redirect?</h3>Your old URLs still exist and all new content will be served from them. One day we might add a redirect to the latest URL but, for now, we keep the history of your links and show only the latest version of your story.<h3>How do I define my URL?</h3>The URL is now based on the title of your story so there isn't a way to customise it. If you would like to have a custom URL are forwarding services that may help.<h3>My story still has an old URL, did I miss something?</h3>Story Time doesn't go through the history of your stories to create new URLs but a quick edit then save will create the new URL for you. All new stories will have friendly URLs.

URLs now give more detail before you click

Friendly URLs

<img alt="pexels-cottonbro-3826674 1 (1).png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/ca21-pexels-cottonbro-3826674%201%20(1)" id="pexels-cottonbro-3826674 1 (1).png" class="">Note: recognising employees is motivational and empowering, however if people are not adequately compensated this advice will be seen as cheap and hollow. These tips assume that the employee is already being paid in line with their expectations.It's 2021 and being recognised still seems to be a lost art in many leaders. I still see it as generic or lacking reasonable specificity for the employee to reflect or celebrate. It is not aligned to how the employee likes to be recognised for their work or, worse yet, it's delivered in a back-handed manner where the employee is praised but then followed up with something dismissing, demoralising the recipient.Today, let's talk about recognition and how leaders can better support their teams. Or, take these tips and celebrate your peers! Recognition should never just be from leadership.<h2>Why is recognition important?</h2>So let’s start at the beginning, why should we recognise people? Does it make a meaningful difference? Well, yes! There are a few key ways it helps improve the business:<ul><li>Let’s look at retention - If your employees aren’t recognised appropriately they are twice as likely to to look for a new job within the next year. Right now, during the “Great Attrition” it is more important than ever!</li><li>An employee who is recognised is more productive by about 7% compared to when not recognised. A small "Thank you" is enough to get a boost! When only 1 in 3 think they’re appropriately recognised there is potential for this to yield much higher productivity.</li><li>Surfacing and celebrating with others creates a positive culture where people want to work. If people want to work, they’re motivated to perform.</li><li>Recognition is also a strong source of feedback, helping employees align to the business direction.</li></ul>So with a few solid reasons to recognise employees, here’s a couple of strategies that will help.<h2>1. During 1-on-1s</h2>A 1-on-1 is a space where employees can surface their concerns, create alignment, and receive additional feedback. You’re busy like everyone is but this is the time to take the opportunity and share what you’ve seen and how their work is appreciated. If you’re a manager that is not in the direct line of work this becomes a bit harder but is even more important as impact should spread. Before the 1-on-1 starts be sure to ask their immediate peers for something they found meaningful and return it to the employee. As it's recognition be sure to attribute it to the team members you spoke with!As an additional initiative, before the 1-on-1 is over be sure to find out how others in the team are performing and what is appreciated. This topic becomes a great source of team dynamics and recognition that you can surface either directly or through others. This really helps in tip 2<h2>2. Through someone else in your circle of influence</h2>Everyone has an immediate group they engage with and are hopefully receiving regular praise for how they’re contributing. What’s often more impactful is to receive feedback from outside of the immediate team. Knowing that we’re visible to other employees, that we’re appreciated from those we do not regularly engage with, highlights the individual impact that each of us bring.&nbsp;And the people with the more responsibility in the organisation the more lasting and defining the feedback is.To help surface this there are 2 approaches:<ul><li>the person who we would like to provide this feedback is aware and just needs a nudge. Everyone is busy but a quick "Hey, can you let X know that you really loved when they did Y?" goes a long way.</li><li>secondly, we can capture results that would be useful to the person we want to share recognition with and then ask if they can shout-out. This is where feedback for peers in 1-on-1s is helpful. Quick aside, my most memorable feedback personally was when I, as an engineer, was invited to speak with a Deputy Executive and my manager surfaced the work I did right then and there. The Deputy was thrilled.</li></ul>It’s a small thing, takes a little preparation or reminder, but helps make a big difference.Don’t restrict this just to people within the business, if there’s a customer who has been impacted by the work of the employee, provide that feedback as well! Serving the customer gives us purpose, so celebrate and derive recognition that aligns to this purpose.<h2>3. In public environments to share the appreciation</h2>The final recommendation is to broadcast impact.&nbsp;Make an announcement at all-hands, use the daily standups, team activities, public communication channels viewed by many, just any way to surface to a broad audience that may not realise the work that is being delivered.In a healthy organisation, public appraisal is often met with further praise and appreciation from others as everyone realises the work that is being delivered.&nbsp;I will add a small caveat with this approach, the same as when using employee of the month, if it’s up to peers to praise then those already visible will be made more visible. Don’t forget everyone is contributing to the business success so help surface the invisible as well.<h2>Extra. Recognise employees how they prefer to receive it</h2>The key point to always keep in mind is to be specific with the feedback being provided, individualise it to the recipient, and to be genuine as we can all tell when someone is not being honest with us. Once you have those down be sure to find out how they prefer to be recognised. Everyone likes to feel valued differently so be sure to discuss how best to deliver the news, but don’t restrict it to only the way they think as it's not often that many people receive any form of recognition. Good news is always well received, no matter how it’s delivered.So ditch the employee of the month, the zero-sum or restrictive habits of older recognition practices and build the culture of recognition you want in your organisation.<h2>Additional Reading</h2>Gartner covers this topic incredibly well, so for more read <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236441/employee-recognition-low-cost-high-impact.aspx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Employee Recognition: Low Cost, High Impact</a>

There's no silver bullet to employee recognition but there are ways you can help people feel appreciated.

3 ways to help your employees be recognised

The goal for Story Time is to celebrate what people accomplish with others in their team. To share their contributions and to have them appreciate yours.<h2>How to invite</h2>If you are an administrator for your organisation you will have an option called Invite Storyteller under your Avatar in the top right corner. Click on this to start inviting others to join you.<img alt="AvatarClick.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4155-AvatarClick" id="AvatarClick.png" class="ql-align-center" align="middle"> You will now be prompted with a page to invite others!<img alt="Invite.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5145-Invite" id="Invite.png" class=""> Now enter the employee name, their email address, and the roles they will perform under.<h2>Roles?</h2>In Story Time we have actions restricted based on 3 different roles. Users are not restricted to a single role so if you have an Administrator that you trust to Showcase and Promote, assign them both the Admin and Author roles. Let's explain these roles in a bit more depth:<ul><li>Admin: Today an Administrator is someone who can invite other users. Over time they will have more administrator type privileges to help integrate and manage Story Time.</li><li>Author: An Author is someone with some special, escalated privileges. They have the same capabilities as Contributors but can Promote stories so they appear on everyone's dashboard, and Showcase stories which makes them visible to the world. We recommend this be limited to employees who you trust with your company brand and image, or those that need to highlight important stories.</li><li>Contributor: A Contributor can view, create, link stories. We recommend this role for all other employees that help your business succeed so they can equally be recognised.</li></ul>And that's all there is to it! Add some users, then start building your own culture of recognition!

Story telling is an activity to be shared, so invite others to join you on Story Time.

Invite Storytellers

Welcome to Story Time! We are so excited to see you join and start to use our product. This is the first in a brief series of on-boarding stories to help you get started.<h2>It all starts with a Story</h2>With Story Time we believe that all work should be recognised, visible, celebrated and what a better way to let people know then to regale them with a story of your challenges.So you have completed a task, delivered something that you're proud of, closed a sale, kicked off a campaign, have a weekly update, something that you can share with others in your organisation so everyone can celebrate and connect with your success. First thing you need to do is visit <a href="https://story-time.io/app/stories/create" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://story-time.io/app/stories/create</a> by this link or clicking on the "Create Story" button you'll see in the app.<img alt="CreateStory.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/1455-CreateStory" id="CreateStory.png" class=""><h2>Write your Story</h2>Every story starts with a title. It doesn't have to be to dramatic, and people are tired of click-bait. Write a title that captures what you have done that others can relate to. Titles are really hard to get right so don't judge yourself too harshly, and you can always revisit it later!Next, you have this blank canvas that you can fill. It's not too large so you don't feel the need to commit to a novel but it will grow with more content. Be creative! This is where your personality can truly shine through. If you're new to writing there is a lot of content available to help you! One of our favourites that provides tools to write is <a href="https://www.writing.coach/compose" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The COMPOSE Framework for Writing</a>. Write as little as you want, or as much as you want. Capture the essence of your work so others can recognise and appreciate what you do.Finally, add your summary. Keep this brief. Think of it as a tl;dr that gives enough information for people to know the work you do but not so much that they won't want to read your story. It will appear in the brief views where stories are listed and be included in the descriptions when you share your Showcased stories.<h2>Celebrating the broader story of your business</h2>Our work builds on the effort of others, is inspired by stories, or delivers to the work created by others. So, next link to their work highlight that ours would not have been possible without theirs!<img alt="LinkedStories.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5145-LinkedStories" id="LinkedStories.png" class="ql-align-center" align="middle">Click on Add, then link to their work! They will appear as a contributor on your story, being recognised that their work is connected to yours and appreciated.<h2>Share with others</h2>Once you are satisfied with your creation it's time to let others appreciate it! Click on Draft up next to save and you will have your final choice.Is this a story that is ready for your peers to see? Is it something that you would like customers, user, the rest of the world to see?<img alt="Options.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5145-Options" id="Options.png" class="">Finally, click on Save!Your Story is now available for others to read, link to, love, share, recognise and appreciate!Until next time!The Story Time team

Create your Story so others can recognise how you contribute to the Story of your organisation

Welcome to Story Time!

<img alt="ZapierZap.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/a12c-ZapierZap" id="ZapierZap.png" class="">One of the challenges with making the most of a system that relies on content is sourcing that content. People already manage their work within tools like Jira, Confluence, Github, Asana, and a myriad of other apps. There also the challenge of surfacing stories through tools like Slack or notifying other systems.Today we have a way to help so we're excited to announce our REST Hooks and Actions so you can integrate using Zapier! Now you will be able to announce when stories have been published, maybe to Slack? You can also create Drafts in Story Time from your existing tools to get people writing sooner!Currently the Story Time trigger is only available by invite, if you would like to get started <a href="mailto:support@story-time.io" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reach out</a> and we'd love to help you get setup!<h2>Let's Publish to Slack</h2>Making the work visible is key to helping people understand how they contribute to your business success and how everyone contributes in their own, unique ways. A common tool that people use is Slack, so let's share our stories there first.<h3>Connect to Story Time</h3>First we assume that you have Zapier already setup and ready to go and are familiar with managing your connected accounts. If not they have great support documents, like the <a href="https://zapier.com/help/create/basics/create-zaps" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Basics of creating a Zap</a>.Select Story Time from the list Zaps available.Next, select Story Published (Instant) as your trigger and then Continue.<img alt="Trigger.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/2a1c-Trigger" id="Trigger.png" class="">When setting up and choosing your account you need to create and use an API Key. They are available on request at support@story-time.io for now. Just remember, when you receive a key that it is not recorded anywhere and is like a password to your organisation!<img alt="Choose account.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/1545-Choose%20account" id="Choose account.png" class="">Test the trigger! It will retrieve some of your organisation's recent Published Stories, giving you a preview of what you have available.<h3>Connect to Slack</h3>With your action, Search and choose Slack.Let's share the Story with one of our channels, choose the Action Event "Send Channel Message".<img alt="SlackAction.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/f52fd88b4faa-SlackAction" id="SlackAction.png" class="">Choose your Slack account from the list of available accounts. If you don't have a Slack connection yet, follow the link to "Manage connected accounts" and setup your connection.Choose your Channel and provide a message. Might we recommend including the Title, Author and a link to the Story? The Summary is a nice brief to add as well. This way everyone can see enough of the Story, and celebrate. To link to the Story you can use the format &lt;https://story-time.io/app/stories/:story-id&gt; for just a link, where :story-id is the Zapier helper. If you want to add a title separate the URL and the Title with a | like: &lt;https://story-time.io/app/stories/:story-id|:story-title&gt;.Finally, Continue then test your Zap! You should get a Successful message and see the post within your Slack channel.<img alt="SuccessfulTest.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4515-SuccessfulTest" id="SuccessfulTest.png" class="">Turn it on and that's all there is to it! You are now sharing Stories with your team.To update you can access your Story Time Zap amongst your other Zaps so click and edit to make any changes.<img alt="ZapView.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4551-ZapView" id="ZapView.png" class="">We hope that you and your team find this feature useful and it helps surface how everyone contributes to the Story of your organisation.

Add Story Time as part of your core business flow with the power of Zapier.

Story Time now with Zapier Integrations

It's important to feel encouraged that our work is being seen, our peers are seeing it and enjoying what we have delivered. To help surface these statistics we are launching the initial statistics engagement piece on the Dashboard, weekly reports showing Your Story Activity and Engagement.This is the foundation that we can build on to show you that your work matters to the success of your business.<img alt="RecentTotals.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/2fa85df8b4af-RecentTotals" id="RecentTotals.png" class=""><img alt="EngagementGraph.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/1455-EngagementGraph" id="EngagementGraph.png" class=""> <h2>Questions?</h2><ul><li>What is engagement?</li></ul>We capture different types of data relating to how your work is seen and interacted with but believe seeing the aggregate of views and loves is important. The Engagement widget combines the views, both Published and Showcased, on a per day basis, and the Loves are the total loves people have given to your stories.<ul><li>Can I see previous reports?</li></ul>Not today. We store all of your previous engagement reports so they are safe and sound.<ul><li>What stats will we see next?</li></ul>We haven't planned the next round of stats yet but have a few things in mind. First though, what would you like to see? What would help you feel recognised by your team with the work you produce?If you enjoy this update then please click that heart, if you aren't using Story Time yet then reach out to <a href="mailto:support@story-time.io" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">support@story-time.io</a> and join the pilot program. Let's redefine how people are recognised and encouraged to do their best work.

See how your peers and the world engage with your work!

User engagement

<img alt="InlinePromotedStory.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/4155-InlinePromotedStory" id="InlinePromotedStory.png" class="">A consistent trend across our user research and experience is helping people surface the stories that matter. "How does my work align to the vision?", "How come we haven't heard about this new feature before today?", or "Who is starting this month?" are a few questions we've heard, a lot. So to help our customers surface the stories they find important we're excited to introduce Promoted Stories.Above we can see a Promoted Story inline with the rest of the stories that have been published but, that's not front and center so we've added the Promoted Stories to your Dashboard. So when someone logs in they can see it along with their own engagement statistics.<img alt="Frame 1.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5415-Frame%201" id="Frame 1.png" class=""><h2>How to Promote</h2>Promoted stories are limited to the Authors within your organisation, the same people that can Showcase a story and share it with the world!At the bottom of stories located in your Stories list you will see a Promote action.<img alt="PromoteAction.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/5415-PromoteAction" id="PromoteAction.png" class="">Clicking on this will expand the promotion period. It's good to know how long do you want this story to be published and when would you like it to show? Has your team worked towards a pitch that has been chosen for the next round of work? Is there a marketing campaign that has a start date that would be good for your peers to know is active?<img alt="PromotionPeriod.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/1ac2-PromotionPeriod" id="PromotionPeriod.png" class="">Once you've selected your period, click Promote Story! When the story is active it will have the star and appear on everyone's Dashboard.<h2>Cancel or chance a Promotion</h2>What if you want to stop a promotion early? Or choose a different period to promote? That's nice and straight forward. Go to the story in the list view, click on Promoted, then Cancel Promotion. Once a promotion has been canceled you can update the dates as needed.<img alt="CancelPromotion.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/story-time/image/upload/da446e17-def2-4155-a21c-2f858fdbaaf4/a1c2-CancelPromotion" id="CancelPromotion.png" class="">We hope that this helps your organisation bring the stories front of mind that matter to the business. Whether these stories are celebratory, performance related, process driven, something fun, promote them and help everyone see what your teams have been working on!

Share and highlight the stories which matter across your organisation!

Promoted Stories

Today permit me to regale you with a story; a story of a product launch that may change the way you understand and collaborate at work. One to help your business surface work while the world pivots to being more remote. Everyone, gather around, it’s Story Time.<h2>Story Time?</h2>Have you ever wanted to know what other divisions or teams are working on? Or find out how the other teams recognise or use your work? These are the questions that Story Time aims to solve. Using visibility, encouragement and recognition we believe we can help your business answer these questions and collaborate more meaningfully.<h2>Our story so far</h2>After spending a combined 30 years in technology solving business and product needs there has been a consistent series of questions we at Story Time have encountered. “How am I contributing to the story of this business?”, “How important are my contributions?”, then as we’ve grown to become leaders,&nbsp;“How are my staff contributing to the story of the business?” and “How can we help Division X contribute to the business story?”Surfacing these answers to our staff, peers and others around us, has seen&nbsp;a noticeable increase in engagement. People care about how their work is used&nbsp;for a bigger cause and how it’s helping&nbsp;others. It is a strong intrinsic motivator helping people achieve their goals and bringing value to where they spend most of their time.With a deep understanding of this problem, an idea, a pitch, a name, it was time to kick into gear and start building the product. There were missteps along this early journey, and we’ll share some of them in a future Story Time but for now we ask ourselves, what would others think of our vision?<h2>User research</h2>Don’t ever start on a journey of product development without validating the need. Story Time is a tool that I would love in my work, but what about other people? Is this a need unique to my experiences or are others experiencing the same?Through our initial investigation we interviewed Engineering Managers, Customer Success Managers, Engineers, Product Managers, Researchers, and Marketers. It was a simple interview with relatively open questions aligning to our core mission:<ul><li>Encouragement: What are strategies that you work with to engage with other teams/business units?</li><li>Recognition: How do you like to be recognised for your contribution?</li><li>Visibility: Is there any information you would like that would make you better in your role?</li></ul>The answers highlighted that it wasn’t just us missing out on deeper collaboration and visibility of work. Sometimes marketing would create material with features so far away from current delivery that it was near wishful. Customer success managers (CSM) would receive calls from their customers when a new feature or bug appears, wanting an explanation or information the CSM didn’t have. Engineers not understanding the "why" in their work and just delivering solutions someone else defined. Product Development dropping a major feature update one Friday without sharing the journey so others could prepare.Communication is hard, but we believe with the right motivators and visibility then teams can align and deliver their best work.<h2>How will Story Time help?</h2>With each plan, each forecast roadmap, each piece of delivered work there are artifacts. They’re typically documents, release notes, a sales pitch, a bet, something that contributes to the success of the business and what is valuable. We call these stories and each user can create and publish them so the broader team can see their work.Now that wouldn’t be a big difference to any knowledge base, so we encourage those who create stories to link to the stories of others. Take advantage of the work that others are sharing and link to their stories as you build up your own. Our work is never delivered completely independent from others so share the success!Stories help with the visibility of work created, and encourage collaboration through linking, but what about recognition? The first part of recognition is linking, recognising that others work has contributed to your own, and your work has contributed to others. It’s nice to know that our hard work doesn’t get ignored yet that’s not enough. We have :hearts: so you can highlight what others are delivering that you find valuable. Go crazy with :hearts:, they’re not a currency or a limited resource so if you truly love a story then show them! Make the :hearts: rain!With these 3 core focuses, we believe that when people are recognised for their contribution they will contribute more! No more sending our stories out into the world to be forgotten or ignored. Send it out so other people can appreciate what we have done and know how we help others.We also have an option to Showcase stories. Does your business have a story that you wish to showcase to the world? Something like a new feature, product launch, a celebration that would be good for the world to see, or a technology choice that you think would help others? Showcase your story and it will be available for all the world to see, allowing you to receive views and :hearts: from all around the world.<h2>What makes Story Time unique?</h2>We have felt the pain of delivering work that is never validated nor finding out the value we bring to the business. We’ve seen others brought to tears when their work is publicly recognised and we’ve brought changes to workplaces which encourage visibility and recognition to help people collaborate. This is what we see, it’s what we’ve experienced, it’s what we can do to help your business.When people complete their work we see it as a milestone to be celebrated and shared. We recognise that work is never delivered in isolation but is built on the effort of others through collaboration. With Story Time your staff can see how they contribute to the bigger story of your business while recognising each other in the work they do. And once your staff are recognised their engagement, productivity, and performance are up by 14%.Once people are intrinsically motivated there’s no need to reach for surface level thanks disconnected from the work done. We can link it, highlight it, make the invisible work visible, and celebrate the success of the business together.&nbsp;If removing the extrinsic bandaids of staff recognition and&nbsp;creating a more thankful company in a world where people are becoming less visible is of interest to you then head over and <a href="https://story-time.io/register" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">register</a> your interest.

Today is the day we share Story Time with the world! 