How to Tell Stories, 2.0

Lots of synchronicity out there on the subject of Story: 

Valeria Maltoni's recent post on "Elevating the Conversation on Stories" is well worth your time. I've been wrestling with the notion of Story as a definition or motivation for all this lifecasting/blogging/social networking--why it matters and why marketers and audiences should care. Philippe Deltenre's weighed in as well with a conversation on the metrics of conversation marketing.

Feels to me like the definition of Story--what is a Story--has rapidly changed. We "-cast" or blog to continue telling an ongoing, ever evolving story. We're vastly more enabled now to tell those stories, as well as consume them.  The Public Timeline on Twitter is a kind of story. At 1:27am last night, that story was being told mostly in Japanese.

Story is also much more collaborative now, and ongoing. Story is now conversation. Less the writer in their turret, more the group commenting from around the globe. From an advertising perspective, it's much less about the writer & art director working alone against the world to tell their story--and if you like it, great, the end. It's more about the writer & art director creating an idea or structure that enables others to contribute to the story--which might just continue being told long after that team left the account or the agency.

Story is also much less linear. It's much less sequential. It's much less obvious. Look at the narrative structure of Lost or 24. And both those examples provide ample evidence of collaboration, of consumer-involvement. You can join a story today and work it backwards as well as forwards, and still get entertainment and meaning.

In essence, the role of the Writer (or the creator) is in flux, too. And I'm primarily referring to that role within an advertising agency. In the past, a creative team might view a film (take Blade Runner) and use it as inspiration for an advertising concept (take Apple's "1984"). It's not really a conversation. The creatives controlled what was to be appropriated, what was to be referenced, what was to be said. Now, the role of the creator is as much about being the guide, the talent scout, and the editor--influencing and motivating others in an ongoing conversation/story that (one hopes!) will ultimately benefit a client's brand. (Let's get that conversation measurement thing figured out quick, Philippe.)

And yes, today's definition of Story is a work in progress, perhaps even a Mystery (as Grudin might put it). Because we, "Sense either that there is something curiously 'wrong'...or that there is something strangely wonderful" going on here. And this is awesome. Because "We must, in solving the problem (of Story) solve ourselves."

Comments

[Philippe]

I'll do my best to draw conclusions about return on conversation but it's a tricky topic.

About conversations, pay a visit to www.ck-blog.com. She plans to organize a big marketing-blogger event in the US (NY, Vegas, Miami or Orlando). I love the idea!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Wow, Tim. You are right, I would love Grudin. I did an interview with a good friend of mine who lives in Australia not long ago. One of the things Peter talked about what singing ourselves into existence. Here's the URL http://conversationagent.typepad.com/conversation_agent/2007/01/conversation_on.html [I'm low tech, I'm afraid]

I studied Liberal Arts in Italy and was trained in the classics. My father was a stage actor. If I can figure out how to go from cassette tape to CD to wave file, I will link to one of his short recitations for an audition. He's a baritone. Conversation is the only way I know how to be. Thank you so much for adding this rich post to our thinking... together.

[Tim Brunelle]

Thank you, Philippe and Valeria. As San Francisco advertising legend Howard Gossage put it back in the early 1960s, "The audience should be considered first and always. They are to be involved. You are there at their pleasure.”