(photo source)

GBD!  Do you know what this Friday is?  Aside from that massive post-turkey induced coma shopping bonanza known as Black Friday?  It’s the National Day of Listening!

What’s National Day of Listening?  It’s a project that encourages people to go out there and preserve some of our community’s wonderful history.  And no…not the kind of dry, stuffy history you may have accidentally drooled on when you fell asleep on your textbook.  We’re talking about living, dynamic history!  The stories that we carry inside us and make up this crazy patchwork world of ours.

So, on National Day of Listening, all you have to do is sit down with someone and record an hour-long conversation with that person.  The someone can be anyone – as long you’re curious enough to listen and have a good conversation with him or her.  For those of you in the States, Thanksgiving break is the PERFECT time to do this.

It’s very much a Do-It-Yourself type of project, but there are plenty of resources available to help you get started.  Basically, what you’ll be doing is conducting an interview, but an audio or video interview because the project’s goal is to get more of us to sit down and listen to each other.

Here’s a bunch of stuff to get you started:

• Do-It-Yourself packet and instruction guide
• StoryCorps questions generator
• Audacity – a free sound recorder and editor

And share what you get with us!  We’d love to listen.

By the way, I’ve mentioned this before on the blog, but The New York Times has a similar project going called One in 8 Million, in which they photograph and interview everyday New Yorkers.  The interviews are edited down to about 2-3 minutes and accompanied by a slideshow of the photographs.  I LOVE this project.  My favorite interview so far is The Corner Druggist.

(via Lifehacker)