{"id":604,"date":"2010-05-10T23:01:25","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T23:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=604"},"modified":"2010-05-10T23:01:25","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T23:01:25","slug":"digital-storytelling-comics-heroes-symbols-and-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/digital-storytelling-comics-heroes-symbols-and-myths\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Storytelling: comics, heroes, symbols and myths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Friday I got to combine my lit-geek and WOM-geek selves at Digital Storytelling 2010<\/a>, \u201can afternoon of inspirational speakers and events for journalists, academics, entrepreneurs, digital experts and students\u201d created by not on the wires<\/a> and the BBC College of Journalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

1000heads were very proud to be Headline Sponsors of such an eclectic and intelligent<\/a> event. Sadly I couldn\u2019t stay for long, but I did catch Ben Chesterton<\/a>\u2019s moving presentation of the work he\u2019s doing with Duckrabbit<\/a>, mashing up audio and photography in the Condition Critical<\/a> slideshows for M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, which tell some pretty important and powerful tales.<\/p>\n

For my braindump I chose to look at how – and if – social media is changing the way we tell our own stories, brands tell their stories, and how the two collide. I hooked my thoughts on four key themes; here\u2019s a quick pr\u00e9cis.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1. Comics<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m a comic geek, and I\u2019ve written before at the Guardian<\/a> about how I think social media encourages a architectural, multi-media way of storytelling similar to graphic novelists. I find this most powerful when fewer words are used (we\u2019re all fighting for space and attention in the online world, after all), but they are deepened and complexified by their link-rich context. The next level of this 3D storytelling will be mobile-driven augmented reality<\/a> – the real world glossed with information, irony, images and opinion.<\/p>\n

2. Heroes<\/h2>\n

In social media, we\u2019re all the heroes of our own stories, and we\u2019re uploading fragments of our stories all the time. That\u2019s why gaming is such a natural fit for the space,; the newly released Heavy Rain<\/a> is the first in a new generation of games where our own decisions and characters determine the plot. Brands are recognising this shift from consumers to creators, from\u00a0personalising their offerings<\/a> to put our preferences at the core (from Nike<\/a> to Mountain Dew<\/a>) to, in the words of Chris Brogan<\/a>, \u2018making your audience feel like a superhero.\u2019<\/p>\n

3. Symbols<\/h2>\n

Time was, it felt naff to see specific brand names used in a story; a sell-out of the grander symbolism, somehow, But truly the evil queen\u2019s red apple has become the Apple; the purity of the lily has become use of Cr\u00e8me de la Mer; Penelope\u2019s tapestry has become a Moleskine. We constantly and shamelessly use brands to express our identity online – the general has become the specific.<\/p>\n

4. Myths<\/h2>\n

When we don\u2019t have face to face instincts to rely on when building trust, only digital words and images, what do we rely on to capture our attention or empathy? Stories. Brands are realising the importance of building and sharing their own creation and evolution myths, and making sure they feel authentic<\/a> to consumers. Moreover, they are starting to appropriate our myths – to include our stories in their own, by listening to us and engaging us to join their journey.<\/p>\n

A nice example which ties these themes together is that of Isobella Jade<\/a>, a New York model who tweeted me a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Isobella had read a couple of my online articles, felt a connection, and offered to share her own story, a memoir she wrote on the free computers in the Apple store, and which became a cult success after they invited her to give a public reading in the store and the press picked up on it<\/a>. We had a digital conversation, and last Tuesday she sent me a copy, alongside clippings and a card – which I duly talked about on Friday.<\/p>\n

This little encounter exemplifies \u2018the social media tale\u2019. Isobella is the hero of her own grassroots story. The book is written in graphic, scenic chunks. She connected with me through my stories. She uses brands like Apple and Walmart and Vogue throughout the book to define what she is and isn\u2019t; and Apple in turn uses her to reinforce its myth<\/a> as an inclusive, empowering company. And that story, inherently conversational and emotive, spreads.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much here to dig into and discuss – there were some great questions on the day we barely got a chance to get into – but I just wanted to throw some conversation starters out there. These kinds of insights are central to 1000heads\u2019 tactics<\/a> in helping brands to share stories and become part of the stories their consumers share.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your take?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Friday I got to combine my lit-geek and WOM-geek selves at Digital Storytelling 2010, \u201can afternoon of inspirational speakers and events for journalists, academics, entrepreneurs, digital experts and students\u201d created by not on the wires and the BBC College of Journalism. 1000heads were very proud to be Headline Sponsors of such an eclectic and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,371],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-mollyflatt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":609,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions\/609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}