Why we love the StoryMaps competition finalists

We on Esri's StoryMaps team had an exciting fall, as we saw several hundred storytellers from across the world enter the  2019 StoryMapper of the Year  competition. We winnowed the long list of contenders down to 15 of our favorites, from which  a distinguished panel of judges  chose a grand prize winner and four finalists. The stories were created by a variety of government agencies, nonprofit organizations, research institutions, and passionate individuals.

These exemplary stories display a broad diversity of topics and storytelling approaches. In fact, together they amount to a collection of techniques and best practices that could populate a textbook on excellent storytelling. With that in mind, we're featuring the stories here, along some thoughts on why we think they're so effective. We hope these efforts inspire you to create your own engaging—and potentially prizewinning—multimedia narratives.

The judges of the Storyteller of the Year Competition chose four outstanding stories as runners-up to the grand prize winner.

You've just seen the contest winner and finalists. We feel the rest of the fifteen stories in our penultimate selection are very much worth perusing. These are things we love about them.

We on Esri's StoryMaps team find these superb efforts enormously exciting and gratifying. For nine years or so we've been striving to provide a platform that enables individuals and organizations to tell stories that inspire, inform, and entertain—and that move people to action. The story maps you've just perused are an indication that our efforts are paying off.

The vast bulk of the credit goes not to us, though, but to the talented and committed authors who have produced these‚ and many thousands of other, story maps. Thanks a million for your work—and please keep it up!

—Allen Carroll, Esri StoryMaps team

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