Gritty lessons and pearls of wisdom: using oral history interviews to draw deep insights from past action, illuminate heritage and catalyse learning

Resumen

This story comprises a ?factional? (factual in essence but dipped in fiction to protect the identity of our clients) correspondence between the authors during an oral history project for an international development institution celebrating its 40-year anniversary, playfully dubbed the Responsible Earth & Sea Development Agency or RESDA. Insights are drawn from a number of client assignments undertaken over the last 8 years that put story capture tools to work in the context of attempting to achieve broader strategic knowledge management objectives. In this case Victoria Ward ? founder of Sparknow ? was participating in the creation of a knowledge management strategy programme and acting as advisor to Stephanie Colton, who was project managing the experimental oral histories strand. The authors have taken the liberty of writing an extended piece in order that others might benefit from specific, contextualised insights not reduced to general headings. The letters cover parts of the process that might be interesting to others.