Stefan Mumaw
Director of Narrative Strategy at First PersonStefan Mumaw is the Director of Narrative Strategy at First Person, a San Francisco headquartered story and experience design shop. He has authored six books, the most recent being Creative Boot Camp, a 30-day crash course on creativity. Previously, he authored Chasing the Monster Idea, co-authored Caffeine for the Creative Team and Caffeine for the Creative Mind with Wendy Lee Oldfield, as well as Redesigning Websites and Simple Websites. Stefan is a regular speaker at creative industry conferences, conducts creativity and story workshops for corporate teams and creative groups, writes frequently for a variety of creative industry content hubs, and has authored multiple LinkedIn Learning and CreativeLive courses.
The term ‘storytelling’ has become an industry buzzword of late, it seems everyone is a storyteller these days. And the truth is... they’re right. We are all storytellers. But few of us are storybuilders, capable of not only understanding the structure of story but able to use it to connect the character of a product, brand, or organisation with the people that use, consume, or participate in it. UX predicts, responds, and directs human behavior, but story gives context to that work… context that helps people understand why, not just who or what.
Story is an equation, one that Stefan Mumaw, the Director of Narrative Strategy at San Francisco story shop, First Person, is going to break down for you in a unique workshop that will help you apply your UX skills in new ways. He’ll lay out the structure of story and use real-world examples to show how each story component is used to build an emotional bridge between people and the things we build. Using a combination of research, synthesis, story arcs, and emotion, attendees will practice translating UX into stories that resonate. Attendees will explore the structure of stories, potential story archetypes, the story beats that make up those archetypes, audience story gaps, the emotion spectrum, and the role UX plays in building stories worth sharing. The session is both emotional and practical, filled with story examples and process exercises alike. Attendees will leave understanding how their work can be applied to the art of storybuilding, and how to present their work in more meaningful ways.
Is user experience a creative expression? We typically think of creativity as an external force that we don’t control or an artistic talent that we don’t have. The reality is that creativity is a procedural, programmable characteristic of problem solving. Which makes creativity a skill, one we not only practice daily in UX, but one we can improve. And Creative Boot Camp author Stefan Mumaw is going to prove it to you. He’ll not only show you what makes us all creative and what simple changes in our processes can have the greatest effect, he’ll run you through a series of creativity exercises that will prove that a few small creative steps will have you generating ideas in greater quantity and quality.
Stefan will elaborate on the key characteristics of prolific creative output, identifying the obstacles to effective creative training and breaking down ideation into digestible steps, all the while using short, fun creative exercises to illuminate key points about creative practice, philosophy and application.