If Bob Dylan and Willy Nelson are two of the most unique voices in music, Ira Glass has to be one of the most unique voices in storytelling. Don’t you think? His slightly nasal voice, awkward cadence and captivating delivery absolutely suck me in.
And Ira Glass isn’t just a master storyteller; he’s a master story crafter. In this series of four YouTube videos Glass explores the building blocks of a great story. Take a few minutes. You’ll learn something. And you’ll enjoy it!
His humility is encouraging, especially when he samples the reporting he was producing after a half dozen years in the business. By his own admission, there was still so much improvement needed, so much learning. All storytellers know this, but it’s helpful to be reminded by a storyteller with a weekly audience of 1.7 million (according the the statistic he offers in the video) to remind us that their is always plenty of improvement to strive for. Even after years of practice!
Trailer for The Double Life of Veronique (video via youtube.com)
This is an exceptionally poor trailer for a remarkably good film, Krzystof Kieślowski‘s The Double Life of Veronique (La double vie de Véronique). I watched it for the second time a few nights ago and was dazzled all over again. Irène Jacob, who also stars in Kieślowski’s Red (Three Colors Trilogy), plays both leads, Weronika, a spritual and somewhat mysterious Polish soprano, and her doppelgänger, Veronique, an often melancholic French music instructor. Both women are intuitive and inexorably fueled by conviction and curiosity. Despite intriguing bookends to the film in which Weronika and Veronique overlap obliquely for a few seconds, their lives echo — almost rhyme — without knowing one another. The audience is left to decipher the uncanny link between them.
Cover of The Double Life of Veronique
Despite Kieślowski’s death in 1996, his films continue to provide essential oases in the Hollywood-saturated film industry. He ignores dramatic cliches and conventions in favor of a more stripped-down, more honest storytelling. As drawn to character as to plot (if not more so) Kieślowski invites us to wonder and question and yearn. The Double Life of Veroniqueis filled with this yearning. What am I talking about? In Annette Insdorf’s film commentary packaged with the Criterion Collection DVD of the film, she describes “rich characters moving through landscapes and situations that force them to grapple with something beyond their immediate circumstances…” Insdorf, a professor in the Graduate Film Program of Columbia University’s School of the Arts and author of the Kieślowski biography Double Lives, Second Chances returns to this idea in an interview with the Columbia University Record:
“you’re made aware that there is something more at work than what the eye can see. At the risk of sounding fuzzy, I’ll suggest that there is a spiritual dimension embedded in his sensual textures… There’s a kind of yearning nostalgia for a world beyond the reach of the characters.”
Kieślowski’s unique screenwriting, directing and editing are complemented in The Double Life of Veronique by Zbigniew Preisner‘s mesmerizing operatic composition. This ethereal, haunting score weaves Weronika and Veronique’s parallel stories — as well as several layers of storytelling (puppeteering, children’s fiction, adult fiction, musical performance) — into a hypnotic and haunting tapestry. A tapestry that can be taken down from the wall when the film ends and taken to a chair by the hearth, wrapped around you while you ponder what you’ve just experienced, while you hum and question in the afterglow. Unless, of course, you can’t resist the temptation to leave the tapestry on the wall to watch all over again. I did!
Pour yourself a cup of tea and toss a few pop rocks down the hatch. Now lean back and enjoy this quirky visual tale about the power of stories. Dabbling in childish imagery but presented in a decidedly adult collage, this video ditty is an enjoyable reminder why storytelling is so compelling. Although I need a little help with “devine”…
If you’re tempted to dismiss the content of this digital story (DWI, designated drivers, etc.), think twice. You’ll be missing out on an innovative and pretty darn slick digital story. And the sobering tale of what happens after earning a DWI is also well worth the slightly over two minute digital pastiche. Check it out!
“It’s the stories, stupid. So, how you relate to people? How you connect to people? It’s not the data; it’s not the dry content. You’ve got to be throwing engaging content, stories, emotional connections that people can relate to… They want to hang out with experiences. They want to relate to humans. And we’re not just tags and data and facts, we’re people!” ~ Chris Camp
Chris Camp’s LavaCon take-away should be a familiar reminder to all at this point. Right? Wrong? Then watch the video again. Web 2.0 (as well as all effective media, marketing, teaching, etc.) needs to humanize and personalize their message. Real content for real people. Give your audience a reason to care. Tell them stories. Listen to their stories. Weave these stories together and you’ll begin to develop the sort of relationship you need if you want to conect in the digital age.
Clever, clever, clever! A slightly annoying yet surprisingly compelling digital story about Mark Zuckerberg (the face behind Facebook), his web progeny’s appetite and the dietary choices Zuckerberg makes for said progeny. I’ll leave the conclusions up to you, but take a moment to experience this digital storytelling gem.
Update:
Activist efforts to green social networking giant Facebook appear to be gaining traction. Corporations around the world are watching and learning from Facebook, not just how to grow a business in record time, but how to respond to global pressure from the very social network you’ve created. Tolerance and dialogue are key, but so is weighing and responding to the needs of your constituents. The following stories are a good barometric reading. What will tomorrow bring?
Facebook Under Pressure to Be Greener “Facebook, the giant social networking site, is under fire from Greenpeace International, the environmental campaigner, over its construction of a data center in Prineville, Oregon, that will be powered by PacifiCorp, a company that gets 58 percent of its energy from burning coal…”
Facebook Saves Face, Joins Verizon, Sony, Microsoft in Green Coalition “Facebook is the latest digital giant to join the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC), a nonprofit launched in 2008 that brings together leaders in the information technology industry to work on environmental and energy consumption issues. The social network joins Intel, Verizon, Sony, Cisco, AMD, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard in the campaign, which works on sustainable best practices for large technology companies…”
Facebook Kicks Off A Weak Green Offensive “Facebook has been repeatedly called out for not doing enough to promote renewable energy for its new data center, so what is the massive social network doing with this public relations dilemma? Launching its own Facebook page and joining groups to demonstrate its green cred, of course…”
Facebook friends the environment … or does it?“Facebook announced today it’s going green. The social networking giant unveiled “Green on Facebook,” [and] … joined the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign, a group that works on public policy and setting standards for energy efficiency. In a way, the move marks Facebook’s position as a top, global company — it’s certainly trendy, if not mandatory, for all large, big-name companies to sign onto green initiatives…”
Facebook enlists in pro-green coalition “Facebook on Thursday unveiled “Green on Facebook,” a page dedicated to spreading environmental awareness and other “green” news, and in tandem announced its participation in the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC), a nonprofit coalition of large technology companies and trade groups designed to solving the problems of environmental degradation and energy consumption. It’s organized by the Information Technology Industry Council…”
It was difficult to think about metadata, RFDI chips and code breaking in the same context, or environment as storytelling. We had to rewire our thinking back to a simple place where story was central – but then apply the basics of that to an audience who consume story so very differently. Keep it simple, but then make it complex enough to engage on new, immersive and constantly evolving levels of engagement… I was lucky to debrief over coffee with Alison Norrington (PHD researcher, transmedia writer, storyteller) and we touched on the difficulties facing writers who want to work in this new environment… Lance Weiler called transmedia storytelling the return to a more ‘campfire scenario’ where stories become passed down, elaborated on, reinterpreted, and retold. So here we have flashes of Barthes ‘Death of the Author’ – since text and author are even less related under new storytelling methodology.
As a writer, or a storyteller, once again your creativity is at the heart, but ownership can’t be. (“It’s not you, it’s Media.”)
Wish I’d been able to participate in those three days in London!
In any event, the debrief is food for thought. For mind wandering. For wondering, and musing and mulling over and… Create. Share. Dig deep. Invent from the source. Share. Surrender your creation and move on.
What do you think about the future of storytelling in the digital age? Where do your storytelling dreams fit into the transmedia landscape?
Let’s start with the grabbing. The graphic is titled, “Social Media Success Process” not “Process by which social media CAN drive increased market share.” There’s an implicit confidence, an assertion that collecting and sharing stories help a company. That humanizing a corporate entity through storytelling is beneficial. Amazing! Not everyone sees it that way. Some worry about the stories. Not the good ones. The other ones. Some worry about the loss of control. The potential damage to a brand. Of course, the near ubiquity of social media has changed so much for big corporations, not the least of which is that they can’t control and spin their message the way they once could. The consumer can access and share information readily, freely, easily, often. It’s easy enough to come up with the risk to companies today. Better play fair! But it’s even more intriguing to consider that stories of all sorts serve to humanize companies and therefore contribute kinship, community, value.
So, what irritated me? Perhaps this same confidence, er, hubris. Maybe it’s that third step: “Humanization Creates Kinship“. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it reinforces bias, distinctions, tribalism. Unless the stories are being curated carefully, thoughtfully, continually. But that’s not really the problem either, because I actually do believe that open storytelling will lead to open corporate culture which will lead to corporate consumables that have nothing to hide and nothing to spin. Some bumps and bruises might be incurred during the transition to this ideal model, but I’m confident it will happen. So maybe it makes sense to say that kinship will follow humanization, but it will be organic and gradual if storytelling and story sharing is truly open. Which leads me to the principle irritant: harvesting. In a model where we’re talking about humanizing a company, it is disingenuous to speak about harvesting stories. You harvest corn. Or apples. You don’t harvest people’s lives, people’s experiences, people’s memories, people’s emotions, people’s emotions, people’s stories. That would be dehumanizing. Make sense?
My fascination has already revealed itself. Stories and storytelling – at best – are not formulaic. Sure, we all learned the basic ingredients for a well crafted story as school children, but good stories invite us into an un-formulaic relationship with another person. Good storytelling is personal, authentic, intriguing, original. Good storytelling builds a unique bridge between story creator and audience. This is why we trust the storyteller, why we WANT to trust the storyteller. So it fascinates me to see this corporate storytelling model reduced to a tidy flow chart. A formula. Fascinates me largely because I think it is pretty accurate!
It lead me to writer and New York Times columnist Rob Walker, and the Significant Objects project. But first, let me connect a few dots. I got hooked up with Ripple100’s Andre Yap (@andreayap) a day or two ago in the magical jungles of Twitterlandia. Turns out we’re both story traffickers, albeit of slightly different stripes. This graphic was the top story on his blog, a good read if you’re a storytelling wonk, and after a little poking around while ruminating on the graphic, I learned about Rob Walker.
“Here is what Rob did. He purchased a bunch of random objects on Ebay. He then distributed the objects to his friends, asked them to write a short story about each. He then put the objects back up for sale on ebay, essentially sold $120 worth of objects for $3,612 – a 2,776% significance markup as he calls it. All based on stories.“(Ripple100)
Wow! That’s right. He turned $120 worth of knickknacks into $3,612 by adding a story to each auction item. Genius. Or is it? Maybe it’s just real world proof of what we already know. We love stories. Whether we realize it or not, part of our human nature is an appetite, possibly even a need for storytelling. And yet, it is difficult to put a value on stories. A book? Sure. A movie? Sure. A song? Sure. A short story published in a magazine. Sure. But in each of those cases, the value of the story gets muddled with the value of the storytelling vehicle.
“What is the actual value of a story? Are people prepared to pay more for something if there is a story attached to it? It turns out that they are. That is the outcome of a very original experiment by writer / NYT columnist Rob Walker… So people were prepared to pay a lot more than the initial value of the storyless object. In fact the difference was so big that Rob concluded that the real value was in the story – the object was merely the vehicle for the story.” (DoubleThink)
So it would seem that the value of each story was the difference between the original price of the object and the final price paid for the object and the story. You can review the experimental data, but it only tells part of the story. Remember that the storytellers intentionally or inadvertantly promoted the experiment, as did the organizers, bidders, etc. In other words, the experiment developed a story of its own. So not only were the objects vehicles for stories, but the entire project became a metastory. It bridged people, connecting them, creating meaning, memories, emotions. In short, the items, the storytellers and the project organizers were “humanized” by virtue of telling stories and weaving others into those stories. Or am I pushing the formula too far? You decide.
“What are people really buying? … There are no easy patterns to sort of say, like, well, this is exactly the answer… Every single object sold for more than we paid for it… The project itself became a story and what, in some ways, people were buying was a souvenier of this experiment.” (Rob Walker)
For years I’ve been talking about stories and storytelling. For years people have rolled their eyes and reminded me that storytelling is for kids. Okay, that’s not quite true. I’ve managed to win over a few along the way who’re willing to admit that stories and storytelling are among the most vital building blocks of community, of education, of entertainment, of marketing, of sales… Especially in the last few years. Finally folks seem interested in storytelling. Storytelling is cool! This makes cocktail parties a little more exciting for me, and it encourages me to explore further, question more, dream bigger.
This morning I woke up thinking about the intersection of storytelling and technology. My mind was racing. My rumination included various dissimilar but related ingredients including:
Intersect – a site where people can share stories and chart them by time and place to see where their paths might cross.
Storify – a next-generation storytelling platform that lets you build stories from social media.
Hacks/Hackers – “a network of people interested in Web/digital application development and technology innovation supporting the mission and goals of journalism.”
Paper.li – a newspaper-style interface for curating and accessing Twitter content.
Apture – a tool enabling readers to search and explore rich content and media from the web without even leaving the page
I haven’t acted in a few years, and my first inclination was to decline when I was approached last winter. But then I read the play. And I reconsidered. Not because of the politics. Not even because of the uncanny coincidence that my character was also a creative writing teacher. Two stronger reasons compelled me, a longstanding fascination with acting as a form of storytelling and the notion that remembering how a play is produced (as seen from the inside out) might serve to make me a better president of the Depot Theatre board. I’ll weigh in again on this once we conclude our run.
Last night was our fourth performance of six. Not out best. That was Friday. We really aced it on Friday. Actors were at the top of their game, and the packed audience didn’t miss a beat. Such fun. Virtual reality in the oldest sense! It’s a quirky play, especially fun for me to play Gordon since I’m both a teacher and a writer. Reminded me of moments in the classroom when a lesson was really humming along, students were totally in the zone and ideas were popping. An amazing experience. Addictive. Just ask a teacher. It also reminded me that my first moment in a classroom was storytelling… But that tale for another day.
On the other hand, I spent yesterday experimenting with Intersect’s story sharing platform, and urging Storify to let me “alpha preview” their storytelling platform. Both services offer so much promise! I really enjoy the stripped down simplicity of Intersect, but I’m fascinated with the curatorial potential of Storify. Both platforms are still mere glimmers of what they might become, not exactly prenatal, but early, early in their development. That said, these two technologies offer two of the essentail ingredients for the future of journalism: intersection and curating. I don’t just mean sharing content easily and across multiple platforms. I don’t just mean offering a clumsy threaded link list to interested story followers. I mean that convergence of these two platforms could literally reinvent journalism, collaborative, real time reporting and storytelling.
Stories, by their very nature are rhizomic. Instead of simply converting traditional print journalism and storytelling to digital (most of what the large media outlets have undertaken so far), the future isn’t flat. Nor is it linear. Nor is it ever in final format. The future is fluid. Information is viral, mutable, shareable. Collaboration is critical. Content affinity is critical. Similar and/or complementary content must connect. And as the massive proliferation of content overwhelms us, curating and aggregating and reviewing/commenting and fact checking become essential. Information strata and intertextuality and multimodal media must interlink, be sortable, trackable. Trying to flatten this future model of journalism, of storytelling into one dimensional print interface will not only be more and more challenging, it will also be less and less necessary, less and less desirable.
Although it’s a somewhat restricted example of the sort of story aggregation and curatorship that could be possible with next generation tools, Tim Carmody’s (@tcarmody on Twitter) “Lobbying for Followers on Twitter: A Love Story” offers an amusing and powerful example of where we’re headed. Add video, audio, slide shows, comments, forums, etc. to the equation, and it’s staggering what you wind up with. How will we navigate, sort, verify, absorb, enjoy this new content interface? Verdict’s still out, but I can’t wait to begin experimenting.
Which takes me back to the video and to Tristan Harris, the CEO of Apture, who waxes enthusiastic but befuddled about the need for a convergence in technology and storytelling:
“You need people from a computational background and from a storytelling background to be able to satisfy the interest of say a publisher who is trying to tell stories and the people who consume information while also satisfying the… and leveraging, I guess, the technology of the medium itself that let’s us do innovative things that we couldn’t do before.”
Yes, we need those people. And we need them to imagine and build and support the next generation of storytelling tools. In the mean time, I’m going to keep exploring their efforts while telling my own stories. And I’m going to continue enjoying the fact that folks finally know (and care) what I’m talking about at cocktail parties!
A warm welcome to Intersect, a virtual campfire for storytellers around the globe. This Seattle startup, under the able leadership of former Microsoft vice president Peter Rinearson, promises the connectivity and community of Facebook with the storytelling prowess and archive of your favorite uncle!
As on Facebook, Intersect users create a personal page, [but] the big differentiator with Intersect is that stories get matched to a specific time and place, with visitors able to locate a person’s story on a map or scroll through an online timeline of a person’s life.
“Basically, it gives people the ability to tell stories collaboratively and in a way which we think is going to be really interesting and fun,” said Monica Harrington, who joined Intersect earlier this year as chief marketing and business development officer. “It is really about bringing storytelling to the Web.”
“Stories are how we communicate values, essentially how we connect with one another,” Harrington continued… “There’s no way to tell our stories in a way where we can be connected together,” she said. (techflash.com)
Perhaps claiming to bring storytelling to the web is a little bold, since there have been all sorts of web-based digital storytelling options for a decade or so. But it does sound like the first user-friendly community open to the public for sharing storytelling. And for searching out stories. An open archive for storytelling. Open source storytelling!
I’ve offered to participate in their beta launch, and I’ll post updates if/when I get the chance to play around with the prototype. Throw another log on the fire and let the stories flow… I’m contemplating a narrative meander around Crown Point fort. What story would you tell?
That image above is one of the “picture poems” I included in 40×41: Midlife Crisis Postponed and it combines contour drawings that I made in 1994 during my final year in college with abstractions from photographs that I took in Peru in 2011. I’ve previously posted elements of “Contours & Artifacts” in Choice (June 4, 2012) and Wonder (December […]
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, plays both leads, Weronika, a spritual and somewhat mysterious Polish soprano, and her doppelgänger, Veronique, an often melancholic French music instructor. Both women are intuitive and inexorably fueled by conviction and curiosity. Despite intriguing bookends to the film in which Weronika and Veronique overlap obliquely for a few seconds, their lives echo — almost rhyme — without knowing one another. The audience is left to decipher the uncanny link between them.
returns to this idea in an interview with the 
