Hello Reader,

In November 2023, shortly after I had met her in person for the first time, Jenn Brandel shared a Radiolab episode she had produced about the interstitium, a vast network of fluid channels inside the tissues around our organs that scientists have just begun to understand.

While the medical research and implications for patients' health outcomes are fascinating, what intrigued me the most was the metaphorical interstitium in our systems change work. Jenn is one of the co-founders of Zebras Unite and Zebras think A LOT about systems change (it's kind of their thing).

Jenn, movement builder, journalist and overall awesome human being translated this element into an article titled "Invisible Landscapes" in Orion Magazine.

Her argument? The interstitium in science is what ecosystem builders are in their communities:

In February, I received an email from the Interstitionaries (sounds pretty clandestine and I'm here for it!) with an update, planned activities for 2025 and an invitation to join their small group meetups, share stories and contribute to their library of shared examples.

I'm thrilled to see a movement emerge that is so entirely built on community and curiosity. I am particularly interested in the storytelling element (more below) and seeing what they come up with as well as how this might cross-pollinate with the work of existing ecosystem building organizations (EBLN, Startup Champions Networks, etc.).

Ecosystem Essentials: Ecosystem Storytelling - An Emerging Practice

Telling meaningful stories about entrepreneurial ecosystems and the people who make them happen behind is just about one of my favorite things to work on.

At InBIA's #ICBI39 conference two weeks ago, I co-hosted a storytelling workshop with the inimitable Kathryn Dankesreiter from Texas Tech. I've talked and written a lot about ecosystem storytelling, and yet, I continue to be fascinated by this emerging discipline. Here are a few questions and ideas that I'm currently working on:

1. What do we mean by ecosystem storytelling and how is it different from marketing, journalism, PR? Is there a hierarchy? How do these elements play together and who actually does this work in an ecosystem? I will explore this more deeply at Technical.ly's Builders Conference in Philadelphia on May 8. Join us!
2. In conversation with other ecosystem storytellers, I realized that we play in three different areas:
   1. Tell stories (Season 6 of Ecosystems for Change introduces six storytellers with different approaches and formats)
   2. Amplify existing stories: How and where do source them, and what do we do with them once we have them?
   3. Equip others to tell meaningful stories that add to the greater ecosystem narrative: How do we develop and collaborate with emerging storytellers in our community?
3. I'm committed to find answers to some of these questions and source others. And in the spirit of learning in public, I'd love to hear from you:
   1. If you're new to ecosystem storytelling, what questions do you have? What's holding you back? What feels "unknonwn"?
   2. If you're already telling your founders', changemakers', ecosystem's story, what are you up against? What do you wish you knew or had access to?
   3. If you're involved in ecosystem storytelling, what's working for you? Do you know of solid examples, resources and tools, approaches?

My promise to you: I will gather all these responses and try to make sense of this collaborative learning experiment. It might lead to another workbook, story collection or emerging resource that can help inform our field and equip us all with more insights and resources to tell our community's story.

Who's with me? Let's hear it! Simply respond to this email and share away!

Storyteller's Toolbox: Since most of you couldn't be with us at #ICBI39, here's the exclusive toolbox for storytellers that my co-presenter Kathryn and I developed for our session attendees, including all the links to the tools and resources we use daily (Thanks for making this available to my readers, Kathryn!):

Book me to speak!

Around this time last year, a little voice in my head nagged me to finally capture some video of me speaking. At the time I was still the Director of Ecosystem Building for the Shenandoah Valley and had zero idea when or why I would use that footage.

One month later I was laid off.

Suddenly my schedule opened up and I knew the time was right to start setting up my speaking platform.

After almost a year and many rounds of edit later (thank you Millpond Photography for your endless patience!), I am super excited to give you all a taste of what it's like to work with me:

In other words, you can now bring me to your organization or ecosystem to host workshops and talks about the practice of entrepreneurial ecosystem building!

Shen-Anika-ns

I've been gathering all the ecosystem storytelling resources and want to share my my favorites ones so far:

• The Interstitionaries invite you to join their inaugural storytelling session on May 6 (virtual).
• Join us in person at Technical.ly's Builders Conference in Philadelphia May 8 to discuss ecosystem storytelling!
• Stanford Social Innovation Review published a series about systems change (if you read issue #100, you've heard me talk about it). One of the articles talks about narrative change. I wish it was more specific but the example of IllumiNative gives some insight into what narrative change can look like on a systems level.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to gather all these resources (pdfs, urls, podcast etc.) and make them easily accessible. If you have ideas beyond a Google doc (where they may or may not currently live😂), I'm ALL EARS!

I will be back in your inbox in two weeks to talk about Impact Networks!

In camaraderie,

Anika

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