Beyond good and evil, fact or fiction January 14, 2012 No Comments
Recently, I was sent a link to a Tedx session called ‘Be Suspicious of Stories’ by Tyler Cowen (http://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_cowen_be_suspicious_of_stories.html) and I thought I’d respond with Storify. Suspending your disbelief is a risk, but we must in order to enter our humanity more fully.
Getting back to the story and falling down the rabbit hole December 11, 2011 No Comments
I’ve neglected story for a while. Sure, I’ve talked about it. I’ve listened to TEDxTransmedia lectures. I’ve tweeted about it. I’ve retweeted storytellers, and thanked a lot of PaperLi’s who featured content I had put out there on–you guessed it–storytelling.
But where has my own story gone? Buried in to-do’s. Administration of life.
Eventually, however, if you are creative, you must go down the rabbit hole; you must get back to the story.
In an effort to drill down into story, specifically transmedia storytelling, I had the immense pleasure of attending the Storyworld 2011 Conference in San Francisco. I was so inspired every moment I was there, and surrounded by some huge talents in the Transmedia world–people I truly think are doing world-changing work like Lance Weiler, Christy Dena, Jeff Gomez, Brian Clark, and Henry Jenkins. Jenkins wasn’t actually at Storyworld but he may have well as been–he was in everyone’s keynotes and panels discussions and was referred to across multiple bars and ballrooms for 3.5 days.
But what I really loved about Storyworld was that I felt part of a tribe; I was completely at ease because story was the constant subject that threaded us together as a community in a less-than-friendly wi-fi environment, as we went down the proverbial rabbit-hole of transmedia, delving into the IP issues, the indie versus franchise questions, and above all, the burning desire to tell and share highly-crafted, compelling stories.
On the last day, Brian Clark (chief experience design dude at his company GMD studios) facilitated a totally cool exercise called #OccupyTransmedia which had us filming, tweeting, postering, photographing, and storifying content around Transmedia. It was an electric feeling because of the level of media, storytelling skill, and talented characters in that small room. I had the chance to catch a great conversation and due to the adamant change orders that were being yelled by Brian (standing from a chair) we had to rotate to new media every few minutes and I didn’t get the chance to ask the names of these articulate humans in this video. If you are one of these fabulous folks, just message me so I can give you credit! This conversation really captured the spirit of Storyworld for me as it delves into some of the larger ideas or ‘grand narratives’ if you will, around story and technology. Forgive my use of the Star Wars theme at the beginning, I know it’s hoky, but Star Wars was a sort of meta-narrative running through the conference too. You just can’t get away from the force I guess when it comes to storytellers, particularly in a room filled with entertainment media geniuses.
I am going to stop talking about story now and get back to my transmedia novel! If you’re wanting to get in touch, I’m down the rabbit hole.
The Heart of the Human Story October 23, 2011 No Comments
As media does a sort of double-time jig down communication wires circumnavigating the globe, I think the question of ownership will become more and more relevant (and urgent). Since the title Transmedia Producer was officially approved (thanks to the work of Jeff Gomez) by the Producers Guild of America as an official credit, it makes me wonder how media will be credited (and owned), distributed, and consumed in the near future.
Transmedia requires a collective of talent to be produced, from many different communities, on multiple-platforms, in a myriad of distribution channels. Ownership is a tricky question.
Some of you may have noticed that ‘story’ is everywhere. When Facebook converted their interface to unfold your world in narrative, I knew we had crossed over.
The world is officially immersed in narrative.
Yet, how do we make a living creating storyworld’s when ownership is shared across so many platforms and channels? Shared not only by the big business but by the fan community itself?
In a world of micro-narratives, I wonder, are we losing sense of our ethics? What piece of the narrative is ours, how we embed, tag, share it and is it important that the narrative have purpose or a deeper meaning? Does it matter if the narrative belongs to Coca-Cola or to a non-profit or a teen in his bedroom? Does it matter if it sells puppy food or mosquito netting for people in Africa? Does it matter if only a small group of followers read the narrative or does it only have meaning if it is viral, shared globally, communally, digested by a swath of people across all boundaries? Or can it be a single person experiencing one story by employing all of their senses?
Jeff Gomez refers to the Grand Narrative in a presentation he gave for TedXTransmedia and he implores us, at the end of the speech, in a very tender way, to help him ‘stay human’, for us to ‘stay human’. I agree with Jeff that our shared narrative needs to stay human, and not simply be created, and digested for more–more products, more merchandise, more money, more immersion, more ‘stuff‘. Instead, perhaps we can think about narrative as the art and craft that it is and elevate it beyond our common experience to one that is transformative.
If your story is not transformative, whether it be through a fully realized storyworld, or whether it is a micro-story told on Instagram from the palm of your hand, I think the opportunity for transformative telling remains critical. Story may be the new black in the digital space, but we need to remember as we work on cross-platforms, that it needs to begin with a human heart. If it does, then ownership should follow closely and ideation sharing and credit will conversely belong to an ethical set of values with the purpose to serve (and support) the story creator.
Under Our Skin September 11, 2011 No Comments
Story is the fascia that binds us. It our collective emotional skein that allows us entry into one another’s humanity in a way that dissolves politics, religion, age, status, and borders. It is the passport of our global consciousness that imports and exports shared experiences and ignites emotions, from vitriol to joy, outrage to tender love, futility to hope. Today, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, stories from that day are acutely felt around the world and we all partake on some level, from our own ‘where I was’ memory to a respectful nod at the heroism of rescue workers or the shredded, churning anger some still feel and may always feel for the rest of their lives.
I was an entrepreneur at the time of 9/11, designing and selling luxury private label to hotels and destination spas. My life was changed, not only because of the emotional fascia of shared terror, but also because the last thing anyone wanted was to pay for a custom-designed robe for their hotel when there were no guests. Hospitality was changed forever that day. From travel to service to the way in which we think and experience tourism was inevitably altered. Rooms stayed vacant. People lived in fear. Times were highly uncertain.
Flying home from Toronto yesterday, I thought about how 9/11 both divides and collects us together; how the deep sorrows of that moment when the first plane hit still impact us with ragged, scarring emotions as though it happened yesterday. The billowing clouds of debris, the white faces of people covered in dust, screaming in the streets of a fallen New York, the harrowing silence of those who chose a quick death, and the ones who were left behind, bereft of their loved ones in a single instant–all of these voices and their stories still linger in our connective tissue.
Some may say social media has created a culture of narcissism but I would disagree. Looking out at the stories I see emerging today, on this 10th anniversary, I witness instead, a shared skin, a global connectivity that is awe-inspiring in what it could mean for us as a collective consciousness. Couldn’t we, just maybe, use this to eradicate terror in the future?
I like to think so. For all of those who are suffering today, my heart goes out to you. May your stories not be in vain.
From bed to web: Is it a story if it is never told? August 21, 2011 No Comments
(Photo: ’Frida’, a happy dog in the lounge of the Hotel Le Germain,which I posted to Instagram and Twitter then was ‘liked’ by lots of people and acknowledged instantly by Hotel Le Germain. )
I was recently doing a tour in one of the most highly-visited places in all of Canada, Banff National Park, when I started to see a gap in the experience of the traveler story and the telling of it. I would be sitting in a lodge built in 1929 with stories of adventure, high drama, death-defying tales of mountain life, and above all, early stories of tourism entrepreneurs who saw the potential for customer experience in the heart of the Canadian Rockies but noticed these stories were just sitting inside old frames hung on the wall.
If the story isn’t told, does it exist?
In today’s online space, it is challenging for traditional business’ to convey their rich customer experiences on the seemingly endless array of social platforms and digital channels that now pervade the selling cycle. You may have the greatest stories in the world, but if they are not being conveyed online, you likely will be losing market share to your neighbour who is invested in the online space, in particular, on the social channels where they are engaging with their customer and translating customer stories in real-time.
The issue isn’t really about knowing all the social channels out there. That can be overwhelming for anyone. The real issue is ensuring you capture stories as they happen in order to translate the magic of the moment, and the experience you’ve worked so hard at creating for your customer.
Here are five simple ways you can ensure your stories are captured and shared online:
1. Ensure your front-line staff have the right tools. Example: If you have a guide going out on a mountain hike, be sure they have a smart phone that can take a picture or video and upload it to Twitter. If your guide took a picture say of someone seeing a bear for the first time using Instagram, then did a description of that experience, then posted that picture and description to your Twitter and Facebook page you would be sharing that story in real-time. Real life meets digital equals tourism storytelling at its finest.
2. Create a storytelling team. Ask your employees to contribute meaningfully to the story culture of your business. Extending the customer experience, enriching the experience, and sharing it is part of creating a team that is listening to their customers. Capturing those moments comes from people that are attuned to their guests and watching for those magic moments when eyes light up, gasps happen out loud, smiles brim over, and lives are transformed. These are what the tourism business is really all about–is your team oblivious to these moments or are they saying, hey, can I take your picture? Can I ask you about that fish you just caught? Will you share that experience with our Facebook friends?
3. Make your history come alive. I can’t tell you how many times I visit an incredible place then look at the flat, boring website and go huh? Really? So often, older properties have great guest history, and sometimes it’s hanging on a wall, but oftentimes it’s just living in the head of their oldest server in the fine dining room. Interview this guy or gal! Get yourself a decent quality digital camcorder (here’s a little guide for you) and sit them down near some later afternoon light and just ask them about their best customer stories. (Some will argue you should only have a professional do this but I would argue that you should get a professional to train one of your staff then let them be the guy or gal on your team that shoots video as part of their job). Then post these to your website under your restaurant tab! People want to hear people now. They don’t want to just read your pdf of your damn menu. Make it real. Make it human.
4. Have a Chief Storyteller. When I visit somewhere that blows my mind, I want to know immediately: Who is responsible for this experience, who is the chief storyteller? I recently had the wonderful opportunity to stay at the Hotel Le Germain and marveled at the attention to detail. I noticed there was this blanket on the bed with various gorgeously woven ‘G’s on it. I wanted to lie down immediately and I pulled that blanket over me, placed my head on the softest pillow (well, nearly, the pillows at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver are insanely good too) and instantly wanted to go to sleep. Now, I had a meeting to go to in 10 minutes so this tells you something about that blanket and its cozy factor. So I asked that question: Who is the genius behind the textiles here? The answer was of course, one of the Germain family and visionaries behind the small, chic brand of hotels–Madame Germain–according to my friend and former student who is now a concierge for the brand in Calgary. I was wow-ed. I tweeted about it. I took an Instagram and uploaded it. And guess what? The team at Hotel le Germain instantly responded to me. I am pretty sure without that chief storyteller leading the vision for the customer, my experience from bed to web wouldn’t have been so rewarding.
5. Reward your guests who take the time to share their story online. Now, I am not talking about promo’s attached to swag here. I am talking about acknowledgement. Recently, Fairmont Hotels sent me a nice email that said they’d give me access to ‘fan only’ discounts. I like that. Not so much that I get yet another discount, but that they took the time to think about their social fans who engage with them online, singled us out, and offered an exclusive. It didn’t really cost them a thing. Just an email. So, if your customers hang in your digital space and share their story, make sure you acknowledge it. Always. I can’t stress this enough. Do not go into the social space then forget you are there. Ensure you have leaders who care and are invested in the space to monitor it. And don’t tell me you just Google your name here and there and that is the extent of your monitoring program. Have a dedicated (visionary) strategy to respond to your guest stories and make your customer experience the living, breathing thing that it is online. Your reward will be ten-fold in happy, return guests.
The fact is, everyone is listening. Tell your customer story so they can hear it!
Digital Convergence, Digital Theatre August 4, 2011 No Comments
Recently, I was sitting on a lovely veranda enjoying some Okanagan wine and talking to my friend Bill Weaver about Transmedia and digital storytelling and I thought how exciting this new frontier is, where there is the convergence of story, digital media and traditional art forms. Along this same topic, I am also reading Henry Jenkins thesis The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence which is taking me quite a while to digest because it is incredibly rich with complex and fascinating content. Jenkins also wrote the book Convergence Culture and is likely the world’s leading specialist on Transmedia along with Christy Dena and only a handful of others.
The exciting opportunity of Transmedia is not only that it allows for a richer audience experience or user experience, it enriches the narrative in a way that allows for immersion and this I believe is the key differentiator between Transmedia and tradational media.
On his blog, Jenkins provides what I think is an excellent definition of Transmedia:
Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it ownunique contribution to the unfolding of the story.
Transmedia is the digital theatre of our time.
When I was an undergrad, I studied theatre direction with the Phoenix Theatre, at the University of Victoria. It was an amazing time to be there under the tutelage of Alan Hughes who was our Dean and who was in my mind, one of my most influential creative forces of my life. He pushed us to be innovative in telling stories–we never settled as theatre directors for simple proscenium delivery–our directing scenes were competitively creative and we sought to deliver an experience for the audience that would bring them into the story as much as possible. I remember one young director who used a dark stairwell as the setting for the infamous sword fight in Romeo and Juliet. It was immersive, dangerous, participatory and breathtaking.
Taking this idea of immersion further, we can deliver entertainment and story using film, photography, text, animation, gaming, social media, and traditional media to weave together a narrative that reaches all the senses and allows the viewer to become, in fact, part of the story. To stand in the stairwell so to speak, and immerse themselves right into the story.
In the future, our experiences of art will likely all have some Transmedia component, which we already see happening with music everywhere. As each of us become more adept at publishing on various platforms, so too will we be able to create our own ‘story-worlds’ and share them with one another. Google + is already all over this–we are our own curators of narrative, deftly offering film, photos, text, content every day to those who are in our digital world.
We are all actors, directors, writers, creators and to what degree our ability to converge these digital narratives and elevate everyday expression to the level of art will depend on our skill at producing digital theatre with an immersive, participatory experience that can transform the person who is consuming it.
Who is digging your data? June 22, 2011 No Comments
As emergent technology speeds up and the monitoring of digital and social media escalates, data collection will definitely continue to be a front-and-centre concern, albeit one that has to be managed well. In his article, ‘Reading the River’, (Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/OgilvyWW/read-the-riverogilvyredpaper-4843692), Dimitri Maex writes that “what had been a nourishing trickle of data has turned into a roaring torrent. The trick, as any whitewater guide could tell you, is learning to read the river.”
What if you don’t have the capacity to do so within your organization?
Why not utilize academia as partners? The Wharton School Customer Analytics Initiative is a perfect storm of industry, student, and faculty working collectively on business issues that require both an applied and purely academic approach. Any university worth going to should have industry knocking on its doors to work on case studies, specific business challenges, and offer mentoring and engagement in the classrooms where students will gain the most benefit working shoulder to shoulder with respected business leaders.
I think there is also a benefit to marketers to working with not only IT departments in universities, but also law departments and in some cases, anthropology faculty who can analyze data with yet another lens on customer behavior. The data challenge is only going to grow. David Pogue from the New York Times recently wrote an article about the challenge of data storage, the cloud, bandwidth, and data caps. These will all impact marketers in the future who will have to execute campaigns that have looked under every ‘rock’ as it were to assess possible risks for their clients. I think partnering with experts in the field within the academic community can only augment a successful research strategy.
Since digital natives will outnumber boomers soon enough, there will be a greater need for comprehensive data measurement in particular because so much of it will be on social and mobile platforms.
Sentiment 360 state that they “can refine that ocean of new media data into actionable streams of business intelligence that can then be integrated with your legacy decision support systems.” Saatchi and Saatchi hired Sentiment 360 a month after they opened their doors. A month. This tells me not only is data changing, but how important it is for marketers and advertisers to collect the right kind of data. At seven grand a month, no one is kidding around about the importance of sentiment analysis on the web. It isn’t simply a matter of Google analytics anymore—what are people feeling about your brand, what is the ‘sentiment’ in forums, on Twitter, Facebook and blog comments? What is their level of emotion about your brand and how do you assess that engagement and utilize the measurement to increase your ROI? Actually, I like to use the term, ROE (return on experience) because it seems to fit this new media world more aptly sometimes than the traditional ROI acronym.
So in light of this ‘torrent’ of data, it seems to me that it just makes good business sense to utilize outside sources, such as academia to dig deeper into data, across multiple disciplines, and as someone who is passionate about experiential education, I think allowing digital natives—soon your largest user group—to wade in on your customer behavior will generate tremendous ROI (and ROE!).
The craft of story, the delivery of five star service May 28, 2011 No Comments
Story is ancient, we’ve been drawing, telling, singing them forever. What has changed radically, is the speed at which we’re sharing them. Is it possible to find emotional connection in the midst of a limitless cosmos of micro-stories? Not always. Because storytelling is a craft; if there is no emotional investment, with careful thought to reaching out to the heart of someone, even for a digital moment, then that story is not going to connect.
So how do you engage your customer as they’re loading their kids into the car for school, rushing off to a meeting, driving through Starbucks, or playing mental hooky in a meeting? (Not that I know anything about that).
One word: Talent.
Good communication can get you by but great storytelling will travel across decades and be shared between multiple generations. It takes powerhouse talent to become a household name like Seth Godin or Brian Solis. But the same work ethic and understanding of the customer experience is just as critical at your front desk or in the hands of your most junior employee. However, for many of you, the company may still assume a particular department should be responsible to tell your story on digital channels such as the sales department or marketing or PR because that is the traditional function of these departments–selling the product or service to the end user and commercializing those relationships.
This is a gross underestimation of what it requires to be a storyteller.
There are hotels that I never knew about that I now plan to travel to simply because of the stories they skillfully tell on Twitter everyday. I start to invest my time in their world, reading what they’ve recommended, laughing at their jokes, responding to their questions, sharing some personal, human moment I can relate to and it converts me. Because they’re talented storytellers, not because they’re giving me a Groupon.
If I owned a hotel, I would make my frontline staff my chief storytellers and ensure they were trained and had all the resources they could possibly need to learn the craft of storytelling. I am pretty sure that is what Isadore Sharp had in mind when he began instilling a service ethic (the Golden Rule) across the Four Seasons hotels. He posited that there are only a handful of people the customer is going to engage with, and it isn’t you the General Manager, it is the Bellman, the Concierge, the Front Desk, the Dining Room server, or the Housekeeper. In his book, ‘Four Seasons, The Story of a Business Philosophy‘, he tells his managers in regards to frontline employees: “We either trust them or we don’t. We can’t hedge our bets with penalties.” He saw the frontline staff as ‘company facilitators creating our customer base’. Revolutionary at the time, but this is an essential philosophy in delivering the best possible customer experience.
In today’s service world, it pays to empower, nurture, and grow the talent of your storytellers. I’ve talked about Quintessa winery before and their philosophy of service using technology, but I will say it again: service must now bridge from the frontline to the end user seamlessly through technology.
Invest in your talented storytellers. Create strategy and training that reflects the new landscape of digital service then put an iPhone in their uniform pocket next time they come to work.
The Possibility Of Your Story May 5, 2011 No Comments
Recently, I had the pleasure of attending Developing Leadership Impact at Royal Roads University. There were dozens of moments where I felt a shift, and a new pathway of learning being created in my mind, but one thing that really resonated with me was a short film about a man named Benjamin Zander. He is a conductor, a teacher, and a great storyteller. I searched out everything I could about him online and found several other snippets of video of his deeply affecting storytelling around the subject of leadership. Here he brilliantly uses story to connect with his audience and talk about the ‘Art of Possibility’:
It got me thinking about how we tell our story, and if it allows for possiblity? Or is the ‘situation hopeless’ as the shoe salesman character believes. Do we limit our growth, whether it be personally or in our business, by attitudes of cannot versus can, of risking into the future versus holding onto the past? A practice that Benjamin implemented in his teaching around grading demonstrates, again, the idea of limitlessness, and how powerful that can be. He chose to give all of his students an ‘A’ on the first day of class. He lets them create their own story and it frees these students to be all they can possibly be. They surrender to their own possibility and in doing so, find they are indeed are all ‘A’ students at the end of the year. Here is a short video where Benjamin tells the story of how he began this innovative practice:
What if we all surrendered to the possiblities versus insisting on ‘the way things have been done’ or ‘playing safe’ or worse, simply not believing we are more than what others tell us we are.
Is your business story one of possiblity? Are your employees given A’s the moment they walk in the door? I wonder what kind of workplace we could design if we employed a few of Benjamin’s strategies.
Is Your Business Story Left to Chance? April 25, 2011 2 Comments
I have really noticed that storytelling is a hot buzzword right now and it would seem every second PowerPoint is talking about the power of storytelling but I wonder who is really taking the narrative all the way?
Here’s the truth–good companies, I mean companies that have successfully grown year after year after year–have always known that to succeed they have to be great storytellers. Great. And the key to their storytelling skill is that they never leave the ending to chance.
You know how your older brother or sister would tell you a ghost story, and you would be sitting in your bed, just squirming when suddenly they would scream and then you would scream and you would all laugh because the ending was just so unexpected? The lesson in that is the ending of a story should never be left in the hands of someone who doesn’t care.
In the latest issue of Psychology Today, Peter Guber (famous producer of Rain Man, Midnight Express, Gorillas in the Mist, to name a few) posits that stories “…provide emotional transportation, moving people to take action on your cause because they can very quickly come to psychologically identify with the characters in a narrative or share an experience–courtesy of the images evoked in the telling.”
Coco-Cola produced these cans for a 4th of July promotion. So, just for a moment, imagine it is a hot day, sweat trickling down your back and you are buying a few Cokes for your party that night. And you notice that they’re a special edition, designed just for your country,(Canadians, suspend your disbelief, and pretend you are an American for a second here) and you smile, and think, that is pretty cool, maybe I’ll buy more because really, it’s about celebrating who we are as Americans right? Surfing, BBQ, stars and stripes, family, democracy? Damned straight.
Coca-Cola are still in business for a reason: they are experts at ‘emotional transportation’ and it is no mistake that when you grip that icy cold Coke in your hand there is a story that is relevant to you. It is most certainly not left to chance.
Often, companies will be led by great storytellers who don’t have the buy-in across the organization to execute that story; to tell the story through all levels of the company so that everyone gets it on an emotional level and conveys that to the customer. It’s a bit of a shill game in the end, with the customer feeling let down because the service sucked at their all-inclusive that they thought was going to be a transformative experience because the hotel chain said so. They promised it in their story.
And then let their front line make up the ending.
The most important moment in any story is when the person suspends their disbelief and enters it without reservation, immersing themselves in the world of the story, and emotionally engaging 100% in the experience.
Are your customers able to suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves in your story? Because if they do, your story becomes a part of their story. Customers will tell a story about your company and we all know very well they’ll put it on TripAdvisor, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, you name it–are you confident that the reviews will reveal where you emotionally connected with your customer or will they reveal a company that let the story be dismantled by a thousand scattered endings?
For your story to engage, your belief in it has to be all or nothing. That includes everyone in your company, from CEO to intern. Let your front line tell the ending of your story so that your customer enters the experience with their heart–and leaves with a memory imprinted with feeling and positivity about you as a company. Then let them tell anyone and everyone about it!
Follow through on your ending with care and investment; deliver a complete narrative experience that will inspire your customer and make them willing participants in your ongoing story.