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Telling a Chaos Engineering Story People Will L...

Telling a Chaos Engineering Story People Will Listen To

Chaos Engineering can be a hard sell and even tougher to read about after the fact. Telling a great story is one way to cut through the content noise of today. Our ultimate goal is to build trust with an audience, and here are some hints on how to structure your write ups to do so.

Matthew (Brender) Broberg

November 11, 2019
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  1. HEY! I’m Matt. I love telling stories about technology and

    the communities that build it. @mbbroberg
  2. Readers in October 1,950,000 Your daily source of open source

    Opensource.com Authors this year alone 273 Articles per month 82 new @mbbroberg
  3. CORE TAKEAWAYS HOOK THEM Have one or offer a TL;DR

    to make it worth their while. PERSPECTIVE Decide on a point of view, then enrich it with emotion. NARRATIVE Use tools to immerse the reader in a story. @mbbroberg
  4. Readers have a lot of options. They’re wondering: • Is

    this link worth clicking? • Why should I care? • What’s in it for me? And our goal is to have answers for them. @mbbroberg
  5. We have options: • Is this link worth clicking? •

    Why should I care? • What’s in it for me? And our goal is to have answers for them. ANSWERS THE QUESTION @mbbroberg
  6. — analysis from Opensource.com “The listicle headline promises understandable segments

    or actionable insights. When that headline delivers, trust is built between us and our readers.” @mbbroberg
  7. PERSPECTIVE (how) FIRST PERSON Use “I,” “me,” and “we” in

    your writing. EXCITED The protagonist is curious and playful about what’s happening SURPRISED Starting with the question “How in the world did this happen? SECOND PERSON Writing to “you.” Less common but can be powerful. THIRD PERSON “They,” “them” (“her,” “him”). Common, like the cold. Avoid: Disappointed (“should have”), superior (“obviously”), reductionist (hindsight bias) POV (who) @mbbroberg
  8. “There are fires, and there are tire fires, and then

    there was this.” “DNS hates me, and I know it’s personal.” “We thought the SQL query would be another drop in the bucket of our DBaaS, but it was more like a firehorse of JOIN statements.” “It sent a jolt down my spine.” “My palms started sweating at the discovery of a default password.” “I could taste the mischief.” “Using the cuddly kubectl, I dove into the pod state.” Themes - Simile and metaphor - Personification - Evoke the five senses - Hyperbole to draw attention - Vivid imagery - Colloquial or playful NARRATIVE @mbbroberg
  9. CORE TAKEAWAYS HOOK THEM Have one or offer a TL;DR

    to make it worth their while. PERSPECTIVE Decide on a point of view, then enrich it with emotion. NARRATIVE Use tools to immerse the reader in a story. Then add - data - images - outcomes - call to action @mbbroberg
  10. HEADLINE RELEVANCE URGENCY HERO DATA CORROBORATION PAYOFF CALL TO ACTION

    What you’re saying RESOLUTION CONFIDENCE AGREEMENT STORY ARC CHALLENGE
  11. HEADLINE RELEVANCE URGENCY HERO DATA CORROBORATION PAYOFF CALL TO ACTION

    What you’re saying RESOLUTION CONFIDENCE AGREEMENT STORY ARC CHALLENGE What you want people to be feeling
  12. HEADLINE RELEVANCE URGENCY HERO DATA CORROBORATION PAYOFF CALL TO ACTION

    RESOLUTION CONFIDENCE AGREEMENT STORY ARC CHALLENGE
  13. CREDITS This presentation template was created by Slidesgo, including icons

    by Flaticon, and infographics & images by Freepik [email protected] or [email protected] or @mbbroberg on Practice your storytelling on OPENSOURCE.COM