Category: Storytelling

Tiptoe Through Your Digital Tulips

Digital Strategy, Smart Bloggers, Social Media, Storytelling

In a digitally-connected world, our past may no longer be "ours". With sites like the WayBackMachine and Google’s great caching engine, our own words and the words of others ABOUT us will live long into the future. Add to this the "handles", user IDs, profiles and so on that we create in the various courses of our lives — from Facebook to Twitter, Flickr and even dating sites — and we can amass a digital footprint that extends well past the bounds of public/private and into the deeply personal.

But how might this play out for a baby? Or for, say, my nephew who is 10 years old? What is out there and how will all this data affect the relationships that he has in the future? What about his first job? His first date? Or his twentieth? What about the photos taken by his family and friends? Who sees what and who "owns" what is shown?

This video produced by Kanupriya Tewari for the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society’s Digital Natives Project shows how all this may play out for a newborn (hat tip to Katie Chatfield). But watch the video, then read this account of a first date gone wrong.

There are lessons here for brands as well. Clearly, with 78% of consumers trusting the purchase advice of friends or even networked acquaintances over advertising, it pays to at least monitor the conversations that are ALREADY taking place about your products/services. And while, yes, consumers have always spoken about and discussed the brands that they love and hate, in this Age of Conversation, these sentiments are captured, stored and immediately available well into the future.

Social media may look like a tulip field, but it is, in fact, a whole new way of playing and participating. Tiptoe with care!

A Lion of a Story

Storytelling, Videos

What happens when you raise a lion as a pet (!) and then release him into the wild? Kim Komando shares a story about two men who did just that. John Rendall and Ace Berg purchased Christian from the zoo in 1969, but after a couple of years found he was too big to handle safely. They agreed to release him into the wild.

Nine months later, they decided to travel to Africa to see Christian, the lion, one more time. They were told that he would not recognise them. What will happen at their reunion?

Hat tip to David Armano.

The Yelp of Surprise

Creativity, Digital Strategy, Future of Your Brand, Storytelling, Videos

What happens when you see a great creative idea? Can you recognise it for what it is worth? Do you turn away? Do you get shivers, goosebumps or sweats? Does it make you smile or gasp? Any or all of these reactions (or more) indicate that an idea will deliver on the "Yelp of Surprise and Delight" that I discuss in the P-L-A-Y framework.

But, of course, the challenge is not just in the conception of such an idea. It must also follow-through in the execution. For TV that means, a myriad of challenges — setting, casting, script etc. For digital this is magnified — call to action, availability, timing …

Kathryn Schlieben has provided a great demonstration of how this can play out, with this video aimed at attracting the next Gordon Ramsay to the Caterer.com job portal (specialising in hospitality employment).

To deliver a knockout in terms of RESULTS for your brand, it is important to bring all this together in a unified, yet flexible strategy. The P-L-A-Y framework is definitely at work here … can you see the elements? And gasp! I certainly did.

The End of Channel Marketing

Digital Strategy, Old Media, Social Media, Storytelling

In this interesting post, Nic Hodges asks why aren’t we creating great digital work. By this, I think he may be referring specifically to the Australian advertising industry (but I could be wrong) — for there are certainly some excellent digitally-driven campaigns and case studies available for other markets. Nic discusses three issues around producing truly integrated work — lack of skills/knowledge, difficulty in convincing/educating clients, and a lack of process surrounding the integration of digital into an overarching campaign. He explains:

The fundamental idea that underpins these issues is that digital is a channel. Radio was a new channel. Television was a new channel. Digital is not a new channel, digital is a new world. It is an evolution of media that has taken with it the advertising industry. It is an evolution that, in the relatively short history of advertising, has not happened before.

This got me thinking. Perhaps the challenge that we are facing is not one of channels, nor of integration. I have a feeling that we are approaching this from the wrong direction — from the agency, or from the brand out — and maybe it would profit us to think in the other direction. I made the comment that:

We need to look at the nuances of the traditional channels and then think about how best we can amplify, enable and transform the experiences that consumers have with brands.

With a clear shift away from passive interaction with brands, messages and advertising and a growing adoption of social networks/media, user generated content and experiences that extend from the second to the third screen, the role of the digital strategist will necessarily move from the margin to the hub of campaign planning. This is not to downplay the role of the traditional or even the channel planner. But, in the near future (ok, now), brands need to be reaching and inviting us all to participate in ways that deprioritise the channels that favour one-way communications — opting instead for digitally-enabled experiences that blur the boundaries, amplify the stories and activate our engagement in polyphonic conversational structures. It’s time to stop looking through the channel and start listening to the conversations that are already ringing in our ears.

Being Always Open

Storytelling

I was just commenting on this post by Chris Wilson when I needed to check some facts. So I popped over to The Kaiser Edition and was surprised to see this … a deck of slides. Not only that, but also a promise, that in the "spirit of Web 3.0", The Kaiser Edition will return in the next few weeks. More storytelling goodness from the master of context creation.

The Sacrum Slides

7 Questions With … Me

Future of Your Brand, Smart Bloggers, Storytelling

If you are reading this blog, then chances are that you have come across the work of ethos3. They are known for building compelling, story-based presentations for folks like Guy Kawasaki and AMP. You can see, and vote for, some of their latest presentations in the Slideshare “World’s Best Presentation” competition (see below).

Earlier this week I was interviewed by Lori Williams from Ethos3. We looked deeply into the world of storytelling, presentations and the connection between the P-L-A-Y framework for brand engagement and its applicability in presentation storytelling. Hope you like it!

The BIG Idea

YouTube and the Context of “Being Social”

Audience 2.0, Authenticity, Co-creation, Community, Digital Strategy, Good Works, Media, Memes, Smart Bloggers, Social Media, Storytelling, Videos

When it comes to understanding the impact of digital media on the way we live our lives, there are few who dig as deeply as Michael Wesch. This is a recording of his speech at the US Library of Congress in June. And while the presentation starts off with some impressive statistics about the number of videos uploaded to YouTube (9,232 hours per day — 88% of which is original), the fascinating aspect of this presentation is the focus on story. In his own words:

… that is the story of the numbers and this is really a story about new forms of expression and new forms of community and new forms of identity emerging.

For the following 45 minutes or so, Michael Wesch leads us through a discussion on the way in which digital media is celebrating and connecting people in entirely new forms of shared experience. He starts with Numa Numa and his famous The Machine is Us/ing Us. Interestingly, the latter was initially launched the Wednesday before Superbowl Sunday — and as he had quickly reached an audience of over 200 people he sent a screen shot to the head of school for his permanent record. By Saturday the audience had grown to over 1100 viewings and the video had been posted on Digg. As you probably know, this video has at current count, around 5 million views.

As an anthropologist, Michael Wesch is providing a fascinating analysis of the shifts in society and culture that are already underway. In this video he shows how user generated content + user generated filtering + user generated distribution is reinventing the way in which we create, find and share branded and unbranded material via the web. This potent mix is ignited with a final piece, which Michael calls "user generated commentary" — ie blogs — however, I feel this is better represented as user generated CONTEXT. When blog authors share content with their readers, they create a context into which the content becomes more accessible and digestible for their particular audience. It is this final piece which is an essential part of any digital strategy. I fully recommend setting aside an hour to watch this presentation through, however, if you have limited time, I have written my thoughts below.

About 12 minutes into the presentation, Michael turns his attention to the media. Here he talks about the media not as technology but as a system through which human relations are mediated. This is given more context by showcasing the way that remixing and remastering videos allows others to participate in a video meme (eg Charlie Bit My Finger and its 100+ responses). Clearly this is not just about claiming 15 seconds of fame. This type of participation goes to the very heart of the P-L-A-Y (P-ower, L-earning, A-dventure, Y-elp of surprise), delivering an experience that crosses the chasm that is imposed upon us by culture, geography, suburbia and even the isolating experience of TV viewing.

But the experience of this is dislocating. At 23 minutes, Michael explains "context collapse" which is what happens when we first begin to "participate". For example, think back to the first time that you wrote a blog post, think about your first comment on another’s blog. By participating in this way, you release your thoughts into an environment in which you have no context. You don’t know how it will be read or understood, nor where or when. You don’t even necessarily "know" your reader. Now, apply this same thinking to video. You are "speaking" or "presenting" to a small webcam, not a person. Well, not yet anyway. The human interaction is delayed, mediated, spread across time and space. It takes time for "participants" to become used to this new mode of delayed being. It is, perhaps, why the easiest way to understand blogging is to participate.

At around the thirty minute point, Michael walks us through the topic of cultural inversion. This describes the tension that we (in a cultural sense) experience as participants. On the one hand we express individualism, independence and a keen commercialism while desiring community and relationships within an authentic context. YouTube, and to a certain extent, other social media, allow us to experience this tension as a deep connection with others without the responsibility that comes with close, personal relations. It strikes me that by adding a third party into this equation, for example, a "good cause" like a charity, you are able to move quickly from this state of mediated connection to "community actualisation" (thinkng a community version of maslow’s hierarchy of needs).

But what happens when this is "gamed"? Michael explores YouTube’s authenticity crisis about 36 minutes in, using EmoKid21Ohio and LonelyGirl15 as examples. Ten minutes later the topic of copyright is broached (any remixing is basically illegal). Using a clip from Lawrence Lessig’s TED talk, the challenge is contextualised — the culture has moved on and the law is struggling to recontextualise its own relevance:

You can’t kill the instant the technology produces, we can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using it, we can only drive it underground. We can’t make our kids passive again, we can only make them "pirates" … and is that good?

We live in … an age of prohibitions where many areas of our life, we live life constantly against the law, ordinary people live life against the law … and that realization is extraordinarily corrosive, extraordinarily corrupting, and in a democracy we ought to be able to do better.

The presentation is wrapped up by video quoting bnessel1973:

Some people say that the videos we create on YouTube should be created in hopes to change the world. I have made mine to help me live in it.

A Jurassic Experience

Branding, Future of Your Brand, Storytelling

There is something about dinosaurs that captures our imaginations. Perhaps it is their scale, or their seeming impossibility. Perhaps there are remnant echoes buried deep in the human unconscious that reminds us that these great monsters once ruled the world we stamp so carelessly upon.

But what would happen if you came face-to-face with a dinosaur? Would your heart skip? Would your instincts overrule your rational responses? What is the story that you would tell? Luc Debaisieux describes such a situation:

Imagine you are visiting the Natural History Museum of LA with your kids. You take a gentle turn into a hallway and come face-to-face… this dinosaur, looking almost as alive as you and me. I love the reaction of the adult coming from another way who seems to really freak out because of the realism of little-big-dino-boy. That… is definitely some kind of an experience.

These days we talk about "traditional" agencies being dinosaurs. But perhaps they have only been sleeping and will awaken to remind us all of their power to tell stories, to surprise and delight and create truly unique, human responses.


Extinct, my ASS! from The Original Joe Fisher on Vimeo.

Are You a PowerPoint Goose?

Mining the Gold, Storytelling

Goose Eye extreme
Originally uploaded by david ian…

There are no shortages of "how to" guides for creating better, more effective presentations. A quick search on Google will yield thousands of results, from books to websites and blogs through to live examples on YouTube.

There are excellent presentation decks that can be used for inspiration on Slideshare, and simply watching one or two presentations on TED talks can drastically improve your in-person style and approach.

But despite all this, poorly structured, visually cramped presentations continue to dominate the business landscape. Presenters themselves continue to recite slide content without weaving a story between the bullet points or slide topic areas. This means that those "participating" in the meeting, turn their attention to also reading the slide content — focusing not on you, the presenter, but on the words on the screen.

This turns the presenter into a "PowerPoint Goose" — with no attention from the audience, your "speech" turns into non-representative "honking".

But what can you do if you have only a few minutes before your next presentation? How can you avoid turning into a PowerPoint Goose? Laura Fitton has this great post that steps you through the QUICK things you can do to improve a presentation. She identifies four steps:

  1. Review your audience and objective
  2. Get Darwinian and only allow the strongest slides to remain
  3. Reorder your slides
  4. Do a lightning round on your deck, condensing each slide to a single sentence

Even with only a few moments, you can improve your presentation. So before you go into your next meeting, take a quick look at Laura’s post and aim for the golden egg.