HOUSE OVERSIGHT 019437 Crafting those stories has proved a little trickier. While the development-focused media has expanded, the standard for what makes a compelling blog, speech or opinion piece have not: clear writing and cogent argument backed up by solid evidence and examples. Putting the pieces together, and injecting the right personal note to make for a truly memorable piece, takes work, self-confidence and practice. For our first New Voices Fellowship meeting in Johannesburg in June, we set up a series of training sessions on how to handle media interviews, how to behave on camera, and how to build an online presence. But the most important part of the curriculum turned out to be a crash course in confidence: how to believe in the importance of what you have to say. For many of our fellows, unused to thinking of themselves as "thought leaders", the leadership component was new territory. We learned that helping the fellows define their specific areas of expertise, and to understand how that personal expertise can translate into important contributions to the global development discussion, was an essential starting point. One fellow, an expert on maternal health from Tanzania, found new confidence in the fact that alongside her medical degrees she has personal experience as an African mother. Another, who specialises in poverty alleviation in Nairobi's slums, began to harness his own stories about growing up in those slums to buttress his points about development in informal settlements. These are exactly the types of new perspectives that will inform and enrich development policy discussions. At Aspen, we will be recruiting our next class of New Voices fellows starting mid-September, and look forward to learning from and working with other organisations which are committed to expanding the dialogue about what works — and what doesn't — in global development. Andrew Quinn is director of the New Voices Fellowship at the Aspen Institute. Bac