02 Saturday May 2020
Posted in hiSTORY, music, Poetry, StorycodeX, Storytelling
Tags
corona, history, Music, musical storytelling, story, Storytelling
A crisis is a strange thing. Paralysing and constringent for some. Liberating and revealing for others. I choose the latter, it’s better for your health.
So I started my Living Room Sessions with a couple of verses that poured themselves over my strings not too long ago. A look back ahead at what’s happenig right now…
16 Friday Dec 2016
Posted in Business Story, Co-creation, Ideas, StorycodeX, Storytelling, Storytrain
Tags
advertising, business storytelling, cluetrain, Co-creation, content, Content Marketing, corporate storytelling, Holy Grail, Marketing, Monty Python, Storytelling
They’re everywhere, omnipresent. Exhaustive articles about why Content Marketing is revolutionizing professional communications. Dreadful lists with “Ten Rules to Successful Content Marketing”. Repetitive, full-of-themselves conferences with self-acclaimed gurus, self-advertising agencies and boastful corporations sharing Content Marketing commandments and so-called best practices (although most of the time they’re at best merely good). Holy Grail, here I come!
“He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail in the Castel of Arrrr…” (“Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, 1975; Image: Screenshot from youtube.com)
Here’s old news to all you helplessly disoriented: Content Marketing ain’t no holy grail, ain’t even the end of no road. It’s simply a step in the right direction, to where we need to venture as corporate communicators and marketers. Nothing more, nothing less. So stop jerkin off, pull up your trousers, and move on!
Why and where to, you might ask (or might not, but I’ll answer anyway…)?
Firstly: Content Marketing is acting upon the idea of content as an adjective (which is good and overdue), but
It implies that there is stuff to market which in the first place no one wants or needs, a clear old-school messaging and sales approach. In this respect, the term Content Marketing is a contradiction in itself: You publish content that is supposed to make users, consumers, personas (or whatever terminology you use to categorize and de-humanize audiences) happy, but you create and distribute it with a one-directional sender-recipient marketing attitude. Ain’t gonna work in the long run, sorry. Conversation markets have already become smarter than enterprises, immune to advertising, just forget it, remember? And, if we’re honest: In the end, Content Marketing is advertising, very subtle, indirect, outside-in, but still: advertising.
Secondly: In the words of Jay-Z: I got four revolutions, but Content Marketing ain’t one.
even though it might be shaking up and (in a colloquial sense of the word) ‘revolutionizing’ the way many corporations approach their communication strategies and operations. Revolution is a strong word, one we should only use cautiously, a noun stronger than its verb. The history of modern, professional, mass-oriented communications mandates a more humble perspective. There have only been four true revolutions, i.e. developments that have irreversibly changed how people produce, receive, consume and conceive information: The invention of book printing (1450), the invention of TV (1884), the invention of radio (1893), and the invention of the Internet (1989).* That’s it, end of story. So far at least. Every trend that was born in the wake of these revolutionary technological developments is nothing more than an evolution step, making more and more sophisticated use of the opportunities offered thereby: Advertising, Public Relations, Marketing, Branded Content, Brand Journalism, you name it. They were all set out talk about a company’s product portfolio or brand in a broadcast fashion, addressing huge target groups with an unbelievable divergence loss.
The first such trend consequently taking advantage of digital media, the internet and its social version 2.0 is indeed Content Marketing. By collecting big amounts of data and clustering target groups into smaller entities – so-called personas – the observed behavioural patterns of customer journeys enable companies to deduct apparent consumer desires and preferences, and give them what they apparently want, at the right time in the right place. Content Marketing finally starts to put the other side of the communication spectrum, the listener, viewer, reader, into the centre of strategies, and not the corporate sender.
Thirdly, nevertheless: Content Marketing disregards one important aspect of modern communications: The social web has long turned us all from target groups and personas into what we truly are: Humans. Individuals. Emotional, irrational, unpredictable beings. No more B2B or B2C, it’s H2H we want!
The past of how people communicated before above-mentioned technological revolutions may indeed show us the future. Way back then, people used to share stories (not content, not data, no: story!) to exchange information and convey messages. They knew that by sharing their stories, these would be re-told to others, would be interpreted, and turned into new versions, or even new stories. It wasn’t about the singer, it was about the song. Before we were able to manifest and archive content on paper and other ‘devices’, it was the most normal thing to carry them from place to place, from generation to generation, in altering versions. In 21st-century pro speak we would probably call this phenomenon “Co-Creation”. So yes:
Back to the openness of the fireside where we allowed our listeners not only to comment on our stories, but also add dramatic ideas, maybe even take the narrative baton from the storyteller and continue the story in their own words, with their own dramatic twists, maybe even their own ending.
People in the social web are like those people sitting around the fireplaces of the past: They want to become part of the stories they hear, read and see. They don’t merely want to listen, read, watch, and comment; they want to add their version of the story to a brand’s narrative, carry it on to the next chapter, with or without the company’s active involvement, add dramatic spice (positive or negative) on their way. And they will reward the brands for this deliberate loss of control by bringing unknown stories, insights, and maybe even new listeners aka fans back with them from their journey. Like a boomerang you throw away to get it back.
For those who think less in words, here is a simplified (too simplified, academics will rightfully say, but sometimes you have to get rid of the clutter to see the light) graphic, visualizing the morale of my story:
Communication in a “professional”, i.e. purposeful, message-oriented sense, has developed and changed in waves: In a pre-technology period (the so-far longest in human history), which was dominated by oral and hand-written content, audience interaction, sharing and co-creation was on a relatively high level in terms of quality, but limited to small audiences. Content in today’s marketing slang didn’t exist yet; it was stories people shared to make their point and make it stick in others’ hearts and minds. We refer to this period as the Pre-Technology Age.
Later, print, radio and TV destroyed this interaction quality by losing direct contact to audiences, but on the other hand brought professional communication to unprecedented heights in terms of quantity, both in terms of content and target groups (including the already mentioned divergence loss). Audience interaction dropped to an historical low, and was also not really desired by senders. That’s why we refer to this period as the Broadcast Age.
Then, only 27 years ago, the emergence of the hybrid medium Internet / WWWeb not only enabled a combination of all kinds of communication formats, but more importantly became the first mass medium for individuals – many-to-many, many-to-one, one-to-many, one-to-one, all in one. Suddenly, content and story creation, consumption and sharing became democratic, simultaneous acts. The result for enterprises: loss of control combined with the sudden need to interact with audiences, acknowledge their individualism and desires. Operationalizing this insight is currently merging into the Content Marketing Age. This will, however, be a short evolution period compared to the others before, as it is already being overtaken by the resurrection of the Story Co-Creation Age, on an unprecedented level auf audience interaction, both regarding quality and quantity. Product co-creation has already been around for quite a while, content crowd sourcing or crowd funding all the same, but the full-blown dawn of the Story Co-Creation Age will lead to nothing less than the democratization of brands, their reputations, and their stories. These will equally belong to the company and its audiences, giving birth to an unknown amalgamation of sender and recipient. Exciting. Promising. Essential for survival.**
P.S.: Oh and, the future after that? Who knows? Nobody knows. So I presume “???” is the appropriate way to make a reliable prognosis of future technologies and audience interaction schemes. Only time will tell, and the answer, my friend, is blowing in the web.
20 Saturday Feb 2016
Posted in Business Story, experiences, StorycodeX, Storytelling, Storytrain, What is STORY?
Tags
advertising, authentic, brand journalism, brand storytelling, business storytelling, change, Content Marketing, conversations, corporate storytelling, DACS, digital storytelling, expectation, hero, Human, Marketing, social media, story, Storytelling, surprise, Truth, Werbung
Vor gut eineinhalb Jahren hatte ich Freude und Ehre, im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe “DACS Show and Share” der Münchner Architekten Dina Andersen und Christian Schmid zu sprechen.
Es war ein heißer Juliabend, der erste heiße Abend nach vielen Wochen ungewöhnlicher Kälte und Regen im Juli. Das war cool. Einerseits, denn die die Atmosphäre im Hinterhof der Türkenstraße 21 in Münchens Studentenviertel war an diesem Abend mediterran, einladend ausladend, ausgelassen gelassen, geschichtenträchtig. Andererseits hingegen, was macht man an so einem heißen Sommerabend in Minga, gerade nach einer gefühlten Eiszeit? Genau: Biergarten. Dem geschuldet (so nahmen wir selbstsicher an) kamen statt der angemeldeten 80 Gäste gerade mal 35…
Enttäuschung? Nur im ersten Moment. Denn die, die kamen, wollten’s wirklich. Setzten erfreuliche Prioritäten, nahmen kurze wie längere Wege auf sich, um beim Vortrag “Geschichten als Gestaltungsräume für moderne Marken” über das immerheiße, immergrüne Geschichtenerzählen (neudeutsch: Storytelling), Bedeutung und Chancen für Imagebildung, Imageschärfung, Dialogfähigkeit und Geschäftsunterstützung moderner Marken (erfolglos) der Hitze zu entfliehen. Verschmähten Hoibe und Brezn, tauschten sie gegen Flaschenbier und Hirnschmalz, eingerahmt von Bob Dylan, Tracy Chapman, Mr. Jones und Guy Clark. Ein Traum von Sommer in der Stadt.
Warum denke ich gerade jetzt an diesen Abend zurück? Sicher, weil’s draußen grad mal wieder eklig regnerisch windet und in schwachen Minuten gar schneit. Aber auch, weil mir folgendes Video, das im Vorfeld dieses Vortrags entstanden ist, zwar nicht in die Hände, aber doch virtuell zufällig vor die Augen fiel, als es schüchtern aus seiner Verbannung hinter den Gittern von Vimeo heraus lugte.
Alles noch so wahr wie damals, so wahr wie gestern und vorgestern, so wahr wie heute und morgen, so wahr ich dort stand):
Und wen’s interessiert, so fand’s die tapfere Teilnehmerin Susanne Kleiner:
“Starke Marken erzählen starke Geschichten”
07 Thursday Jan 2016
Posted in Business Story, Ideas, StorycodeX, Storytelling, What is STORY?
Tags
Authenticity, Big Data, brand journalism, brand storytelling, business storytelling, change, Corporate Newsroom, Corporate Story Architecture, corporate storytelling, digital storytelling, drama, expectation, Organisational Storytelling, story, Storytelling, surprise
“You better start swimmin’
or you’ll sink like a stone,
for the times, they are a-changin’.
— Bob Dylan, 1964
Alles im Wandel, immer zu, immer wieder. Evolution, das reicht uns schon lange nicht mehr. Talkin’ ’bout a revolution! Allerorten, politisch, wirtschaftlich, medial. Auch im Land der unbegrenzten Marketingmöglichkeiten des Internet. Hochkonjunktur der Hilf- und Orientierungslosen. Und tatsächlich: Angeblich revolutionäre Trends schießen wie kontaminierte Pilze aus medialen Böden, seit Jahren. Werden uns professionell Kommunikativen auf dem Altar der digitalen Eitelkeiten feilgeboten wie heilige Grale: Folgt dem Messias – oder gehet unter im Fegefeuer der Followerlosen! Und was tun wir? Folgen, natürlich. Wie Brians Jünger der liegengebliebenen Sandale.
Schluss damit, liebe Volksfront von Digitalien! Emanzipiert Euch!
Übt Euch in kritischer Distanz zur selbsternannten Content Revolution. Zu altem Wein in neuen Schläuchen. Übt Euch in demütiger Bescheidenheit, bevor Ihr das Wort ‚Revolution’ in Mund oder Feder nehmt! Demut vor der Geschichte, die retrospektiv gnadenlos so Manches ins rechte Licht rückt – oder in den Schatten stellt.
Mit dem Weitwinkelobjektiv der Geschichte empfiehlt der Literaturwissenschaftler – vulgo Ego – Besinnung auf alte Werte aus Zeiten, als Storytelling noch Geschichtenerzählen hieß, und Content Literatur oder Dichtung. Lest Aristoteles und Opitz, Shakespeare und Goethe und all ihre Erben. Und lernt so ein wenig mehr Gelassenheit im Umgang mit scheinbar neuen Medien und deren Bewohnern, der unheimlichen Spezies namens User. Entlarvt und demaskiert ist dieser gar nicht mehr so undurchsichtig, bedarf gar keiner großer Daten (für Dengländer: Big Data), um verstanden zu werden. Zwar hat die multidirektionale, grenzenlose Erreichbarkeit und Vernetzheit des Indivualmassenmediums Internet (ob 1.0, 2.0 oder x.0) zu einer medialen Gerissenheit und einem kognitiven Vorsprung des Empfängers vor dem Sender geführt. Doch das ist keine schlechte, sondern eine gute Nachricht, führt sie doch im Kant’schen Sinne zu einem Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten Unmündigkeit. „Habe Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!“, lautete 1784 der Wahlspruch der Aufklärung, und das Internet ist Aufklärung 2.0: Menschen, die Corporate Messages und Corporate Advertising keinen Glauben mehr schenken, Menschen, die, unterstützt durch Technologie, gleichberechtigte Gesprächspartner werden. Nicht mehr der Leitung anderer folgen, sondern selbst diese Leitung zu übernehmen. Über Marken, deren Wahrnehmung, deren Inhalte. Insofern gibt es keine Content Revolution, sondern nur eine Content Quality Revolution, in der das Wort Content nicht nur für Inhalt, sondern auch Gehalt und Zufriedenheit des Empfängers, nicht des Senders steht.
Menschen sind kein Big Data, keine Nullen und Einsen. Sie sind subjektiv und individuell, nicht objektiv und kollektiv. Ein unberechenbarer Teil jeweils unterschiedlich beschaffener, unterschiedlich großer Gemeinschaften (neudeutsch: Communitys). Diese Menschen sind im digitalen Zeitalter Projektionsflächen für Geschichten, für Geschichten, die sie selbst erleben, aber auch für diejenigen, die sie aufsaugen – oder auch wieder angewidert ausspucken. Sie sind eben nicht mehr nur Rezipienten, Konsument und Lemming, sondern Produzent, Prosument und spielregelverändernde Punks.
Schreck lass nach!
Ein Entschreckungsszenario in drei Thesen:
1. User sind Menschen. Menschen lieben Geschichten. Und Geschichtenerzählen kann gelernt werden!
„Der storycodeX“ nach @herrdennehy: Erwartunges schaffen und befriedigen. Überraschen. Verändern.
2. Punks wollen sich nicht bevormunden lassen. Sie wollen mitgestalten und mitbestimmen. Lassen wir sie!
Poe weitergesponnen: Konzentration auf das Individuum in der Crowd, Beobachten, Loslassen. Als Marke zur Crowd werden, und die Crowd zur Marke werden lassen.
3. Alles ist vernetzt und organisiert. Drum müssen auch wir es sein!
Der Siemens Corporate Newsroom in der Unternehmenszentrale in München: Pionierarbeit und erfolgreiches Experiment themenbasierter Zusammenarbeit über Abteilungsgrenzen hinweg.
Die „Corporate Story Architecture“ nach @herrdennehy: Von der großen Markengeschichte über all die kleinen Geschichten, die diese zum Leben erwecken und glaubhaft machen, bis hin zur strategisch geplanten Präsenz der Marke im medialen Mark. Ein stabiles Gebilde, das so manchem medialen Hurricane standhält.
(Dieser Beitrag erschien erstmals am 5. Januar 2016 auf der Blogplattform des Content Marketing Forum unter http://content-marketing-forum.com/blog/wir-sind-punks/)
Mehr zur Corporate Story Architecture, dem storycodeX und der Idee der Co-Creation aus dem Corporate Newsroom im Buch „Storytelling – Digital, Multimedia, Social: Formen und Praxis für PR, Marketing, TV, Game und Social Media“, das im Frühjahr 2016 im Hanser Verlag erscheinen wird, nach- und weiterlesen.
21 Monday Dec 2015
Posted in experiences, hiSTORY, music, Poetry, StorycodeX
Tags
Authenticity, change, drama, history, listening, Storytelling, surprise, surprise. suspense, true story
“Was kommt auf uns zu? Ich sehe herum, und alles zerbricht.
Alles ist in Stücken. Diese Zeit, in der wir leben.
Was, wenn etwas passieren würde? Wer würde sich um uns kümmern?
Es scheint, dass alles uns zerstören könnte.
Die Leute wollen unsere Familie zerstören. Hüte dich vor Ihnen, sie wollen uns alle zerstören.
Ich fühle es, alles so nah.
Diese schreckliche … schreckliche Katastrophe.”
(Maxim Gorki, Die Kleinbürger, 2. Akt., 1902)
Die Angst vor dem Fremden, dem Anderen, dem Unverständlichen gehört zum Menschsein und zur Menschgeschichte wie das Auf- und Untergehen der Sonne. Leider. Hierfür gibt es in der Geschichte ebenso wie in den Geschichten der Literatur allerorten viele traurige Beweise. Davon ist Obenstehender nur einer. Aus einer anderen Zeit, aus einem anderen Land, aus einem Drama, das seinen Namen verdient, beschäftigt mit dem einen Thema, das in uns stets und immer fortwährend die größten Ängste und größten Drama auslöst: Die Veränderung. So viel Positives aus jeder Veränderung hervorgeht, aus dem Neuen, aus dem Anderen, aus dem Vermischen des bisher Unvermischten, so sehr hat der Mensch immer genau davor Angst.
Auch heute wieder, 113 Jahre nachdem Gorki seine Kleinbürger über “diese schreckliche Katastrophe” hat lamentieren lassen, klingen die Menschen haargenauso. Alles zerbricht. Alles ist in Stücken. Alles scheint zerstört zu werden. Und hütet Euch vor ihnen. Vor Terroristen. Vor Islamisten. Und überhaupt vor dem Islam. Vor Flüchtlingen. Vor Marie Le Pen. Vor der Pegida. Vor den Medien. Vor Facebook. Vor der Digitalisierung. Vor der Globalisierung. Vor Deinem Nachbarn. Vor …
Und ob wir das (was auch immer DAS ist) schaffen, wird wiederum die Geschichte zeigen. Aber, wie immer, sind nicht die großen, lauten Medienberichte über katastrophale Zustände an Europas Grenzen oder in Flüchtlingsheimen, über zunehmende ausländerfeindliche Übergriffe auf und Demonstrationen gegen selbige, über hilflose Helfer und machtlose, weil ideenlose Politiker die (einzige) Realität. Nein (und auch das zeigen etwas feinfühligere Medien), es sind all die kleinen Geschichten und Momente des Alltags, in denen Integration, begleitet von unglaublichem Einsatz und Geduld, nicht nur möglich wird, sondern schon Realität ist.
Menschlichkeit ist möglich. Menschlichkeit ist Realität.
So gesehen und intensiv gefühlt bei der Schulweihnachtsfeier meiner Töchter in der vergangenen Woche. Liebevoll dekoriert und inszeniert (siehe Foto) bot, wie in jedem Jahr, jede Klasse etwas dar. Gesang, Tanz, Instrumentalmusik. Sehr schön, wie immer. Was nicht wie immer war, war der Weihnachtsrap der sogenannten “Übergangsklasse”, in der Kinder mit Migrations- oder Flüchtlinglingshintergrund über die Sprachbrücke in den Regelschulbetrieb begleitet werden. In erstaunlich gutem Deutsch (man denke an die kurze Zeitspanne von September bis Weihnachten!) und mit unbändiger Freude wurde hier gerappt und getanzt, ungeachtet von Alter, Hautfarbe, Herkunft, Glaube oder anderer angebliche trennender Faktoren. Vereint im Rap.
Es waren nur zwei Minuten, aber zwei Minuten, in denen ich spürte, sicher auch angeschickert von der allgemeinen, dem Frühlingswetter trotzenden Weihnachtssentimentalität, der Stimmung der stimmungsvoll geschmückten Schulweihnachtshalle: Menschlichkeit ist möglich, und Menschlichkeit wird siegen, sie muss. Und ja, wenn wir das alle wollen, dann schaffen wir das!
Wir dürfen nur die Hoffnung nicht aufgeben, dürfen Geschichte und Geschichten nicht vergessen. Derer, die jetzt Hilfe benötigen, ebenso wie die derer, die vor vielen Jahrzehnten oder Jahrhunderten hilfebedürftig waren. Denn das waren möglicherweise die Unseren, waren möglicherweise wir.
History repeats itself. All we have to do is learn.
05 Monday Oct 2015
Posted in experiences, hiSTORY, StorycodeX
Tags
#refugeeswelcome, Babylon, change, drama, expectation, First World War, germany, history, learning from hiSTORY, listening, Mekka, Paradise Lost, Pegida, refugees, Second World War, Storytelling, Thilo Sarrazin, true story, Truth, Willkommenskultur
(Photo: Raul Rognean, 2010 Wien – “Turmbau zu Babel” – Pieter Bruegel dem Älteren, Öl auf Eichenholz, 114 cm × 155 cm – Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien)
In Germany, there is a new dictum, word-of-the-year-to-be: “Willkommenskultur”. It refers to the way that (in a historically remarkable dimension) “the Germans” (whoever that is), have reacted to the (not surprising, but surprisingly massive) influx of refugees to their country, from places less fortunate than their own. These Germans have welcomed and continue to welcome them with open arms, open minds, open hearts. Germany, the new paradise, a refuge where people understand, listen, help, help, help. Wherever they can, whenever they can, however they can – even at their own expense, pecuniarily, temporally, emotionally. Germany, the eye of the world’s storm for so many battered, shattered and scattered men, woman and children. A place where all is calm, all is bright. A Western Mekka with an angel(a)ic halo.
But, unfortunately, Mekka is not that far away from Babylon, never was. It’s a thin line between the land of milk and honey, where all is understanding, same language, same beliefs, same values, and the place where nothing is understood, where languages are world’s apart, beliefs and values just as much. Where a lingua universalis does not exist, where decent English is merely the fragile foundation of Babel’s Tower, rudimentary knowledge of German vocabulary and grammar nothing but an inevitable beginning, yet never a remedy. Language alone cannot bridge gaps, refute misconceptions, overcome prejudices. Misunderstandings generally go deeper.
Paradise Lost?
Indications of the gauzy fragility of our newly discovered Willkommenskultur are omnipresent for dialecticians, and I fear the tipping point is soon to come…
Scene #1: Sitting at McD’s a couple of days ago, I overheard a discussion between an elderly couple, cracker-barrel philosophising about the refugee crisis. Sentences like “Die sind doch selber schuld, wenn sie aus ihren Ländern fliehen!” and “Wir sollten die alle wieder zurückschicken” fell amidst fat big mac munchs, nutritious cornerstones American foreigners had brought decades ago, those foreigners that helped put an end to this couple’s own fellow countrymen’s flights.
Scene #2: For the first time in months, anti-islamic, right-wing Pegida movement has managed to active 8.000 supporters for its recent rally, its Facebook presence states an increase of almost 4.000 page likes since September 20, with 62.341 talking abouts. Just highlighting one random comment makes you shomit (shiver and vomit): “Wir sind nicht alle Asylantenfreudlich.Viele,sehr viele Deutsche wollen das Pack hier nicht haben und stehen hinter jedem, der sich gegen die Parasiten wehrt.” Willkommenskultur? Hmmm. The only consoling thing: the ignorant female writing this comment only has 39 friends herself, serves her right. Still: She is not alone, and the engagement rate on Pegida’s Facebook page is alarming, amazing, and incredibly credible to those prone to reactionary German protectionism.
Scene #3: A zeit.de interview with Thilo Sarrazin, German politician and writer, clear-cut enfant terrible who in 2010 published a controversial book called “Die Deutschen schaffen sich ab”. He’s back in town, in search of scandalous limelight, provoking with statements like “Wir müssen unsere eigene Bevölkerung und unser Gesellschaftsmodell vor äußerer Bedrohung schützen. Dazu gehört auch ungeregelte, kulturfremde Einwanderung im Übermaß.” or “Die allermeisten trauen sich vermutlich gar nicht mehr, ihre Ängste und Meinungen offen auszusprechen. Ich kann nur eines sagen: Es gibt eine ganz große unterdrückte Wut und einen ganz großen Frust, der sich keineswegs auf Sachsen beschränkt.” (in: zeit.de from September 13).
Sounds detestable, refusal is the natural reflex.
But: What if he’s right, even if just a little bit? What if the infamous election slogan of Bavaria’s CSU from decades ago “Das Boot ist voll!” may indeed be nothing but the truth very soon? After all, the recent influx of refugees seeking for asylum (however justified or not every individual plea may be) is not even comparable (not in size, not in drama) to the imaginative storm clouds of otherness that were apparently dooming over last century’s Wohlstandsdeutschland, its gardens in Grünwald and kindergardens in Bogenhausen. Now it is indeed a sheer oppressive mass of people, a veritable tsunami smashing its waves on our own front door. What if the first asylum seekers who get accepted begin their eager integration process, willing to become full, respecting and respected members of their new homeland, not only learn our language and customs, but also start applying for and even getting the jobs you or your friend wanted, get the crèche place you thought was reserved for your daughter? “Fachkräftemangel” is yet another IT-word of German society, and certainly many a qualified refugee will help fill this gap, but: “weil sich der einfache Mann nicht durch Ärzte und Ingenieure bedroht fühlt, sondern durch Menschen, die stark sind, Muskeln haben, einfache Tätigkeiten machen können und damit seinen Lohn senken oder ihn vielleicht ganz überflüssig machen” (from same interview with Sarrazin), tolerance and helpfulness might quickly turn into reluctant and coy doubt, which again might turn into open resentfulness, rejection, maybe even uproar and rebellion.
hiSTORY repeats itself with (more or less) instant karma
Might and maybe are dominating words here, and I’m not saying Sarrazin is right, not at all agreeing with most things he says and the way he uses societal developments for his own populist fame (and fortune), BUT: hiSTORY teaches us that people love to help other people as long as it doesn’t interfere with their own lives in a sustainably negative way. So: what, if…what, if…what if…???
During my summer holidays, when the first refugee streams were mere abstract news in digital feeds, so not that long ago, I read a remarkable and highly recommendable book called “Die zerissenen Jahre 1918-1938”. In words understandable to historical laymen like me, author Philipp Blom circumnavigates the macro perspective, historical dates, and hashed and re-hashed highlights that made us detest school history lessons. Blom rather makes use of impressive, very well-dosed storytelling that makes macro developments come to life in micro worlds, spans the perspectives from heroes all over the world, and accountably explains (not justifies) why the darkest chapter of the 20th century was practically inevitable. The book’s 500 pages make this pretty apparent. I read about the seemingly little things that made big things happen, about little misunderstandings that led to massive catastrophes, about manipulated, ill-informed and emotionally ignored people(s) that blew off steam in the face of the innocents and unprotected, but also about power-obsessed, fanatic men (men, NEVER women!) who brought so much pain onto their people that these had to flee their homes, Jews, Russians and Germans being just a few to be named.
And while I read these stories with awestruck incredulity, I frequently felt compelled to draw parallels to what is happening all around the world today, 100 years later: While Europe is certainly a better and safer place to be, so many countries are not: Syria. Afghanistan. Iran. Somalia. Russia, you name it, even China, if we’re honest.
One of the sentences concluding Blom’s hiSTORYcal book puts my thoughts into words:
Für diejenigen, die glauben, dass wir aus der Geschichte lernen können, ist diese Parallele zur Zwischenkriegsgeschichte alles andere als beruhigend. (bpb Edition, p. 507)
To be honest: Looking at the state of the world today, aware of the fragility of Europe’s freedom, peace, and stability, and also of the thin line between Willkommenskultur and Pegida, aware of how quickly moods can change, I am not really beruhigt.
06 Monday Apr 2015
Posted in Business Story, experiences, Ideas, StorycodeX, Storytrain
Tags
authentic, Boccaccio, brand journalism, brand storytelling, business storytelling, change, cluetrain manifesto, Co-creation, content, conversations, corporate storytelling, Dante, digital storytelling, Friedrich Schiller, Günter Grass, Gehalt, Heinirch Böll, Homer, Inhalt, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Literature, narration, social media, Storytelling, surprise, Thomas Mann, Truth, Zufrieden
Ever since I made my first professional walking attempts in the digital world (20 years ago that must be #feelslikeyesterday), I heard this mantra everywhere in the pre-dotcom bubble euphoria of Cluetrain afficionados, would-be Internet prophets, and notorious panjandrums:
CONTENT IS KING! They all said.
I had been studying Storytelling for five years, long before I even knew it was Storytelling. Back then they called it literature. So it seemed a little odd to hear these Internet geeks regurgitating their royal mantra when I had just meticulously learnt about the history, structure and perennial powers of stories told by early-day classics like Homer, Cervantes, Dante or Boccaccio, classic classics like Goethe, Schiller or Lessing or modern classics like Grass, Mann or Böll. Admittedly, I was also getting carried away by this millennial the-end-of-business-as-usual atmosphere of imminent change. Felt somehow audacious to dust off the venerable Germanstik patina in favour of some fresh … ehem, content?
It was only many years later, after necessary detours through the fires of corporate Mordor, that I realized one ring, I mean thing: The business world was (sorry: IS!) overly attracted by the glare of technological possibilities and features, fanatically prone to wanna-be-first- and because-we-can-itis. And thereby narrowly and one-sidedly interpreting the word “content”, neglecting other, much more elementary facets – facets that become clearest in the three different German translations the word “content” offers.
Back in the late 90’s, corporate content creation had nothing to do with journalistic research or writing talent. Its creators literally were content “managers”, i.e. project managers for pieces of content that they 1:1 transferred from paper to HTML and pinned to the newly discovered digital blackboard called website. Period. Their job was simply about the most general interpretation of content: words and pictures on a screen, publishing material. The (most probable and wide-spread) German translation for this aspect of content would be:
INHALT.
Or: “Something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing, or any of various arts … something that is contained.” (dictionary.com)
But it this Inhalt automatically something meaningful? Something that goes deeper than letters strung together by punctuation marks? Something that links beyond the surface not to just another succession of trivialities and soulless pixels, but to true substance? Mostly not. This is where in recent years (in continental Europe) or maybe decades (in Anglo-American dominated countries) the bandwagon of storytelling has already been able to do a lot for the greater good of meaningful content. If understood well and deployed according to the storycodeX of Expectation, Surprise and Change. The (a lot less wide-spread and more rarely spotted) German translation for this aspect of content with substance would be:
GEHALT.
Or: “Significance or profundity; meaning” (dictionary.com)
But interesting: Gehalt also means “salary” in German. So maybe in the end all just about the dough, be the content meaningful or not. Surely, what did you think? Now let’s once and for all get past the naïve, childish, even insulting notion that any one corporation on this planet has a different purpose than making money. And the more they want you to believe that they’re sustainably trying to save the world, “do something good” on the side with CSR and foundations, a little like a Hollywood actress doing charity, the more they’re deceiving you.
The labyrinth of linguistics … Whatever. What I actually wanted to say was: Meaningful content with substance is a good thing. But is it enough? No. Not today anymore, that’s for sure. Inhalt and Gehalt were a great, successful and sufficient, but nevertheless rare combination in the pre social media age. When the third facet of “content” didn’t really matter. It was the age of broadcast after all, old-school Shannon-Weaver style.
Bad news: those days are over. Interactivity, ubiquitous commentaries, likes and forum discussions have changed the recipient side practically over night (in a historical sense of time).
People and the conglomerates they form called audiences (NOT users!) will no longer be satisfied with consuming content-turned-into-great-stories and commenting on it in a more or less intelligent and fruitful discussion with fellow audience members or members from other audience groups. They will first of all want to be able to dig deeper behind your story, deeper into the spider web, find proof for your story, get in contact with the heroes of your story, and maybe some day also with you. If they’re not disappointed on their journey.
But, even more substantial, they will want to become an active part of a company’s business story and stories, not as actors or heroes, but as co-authors. After all, they are the other half of the corporate truth, the devil on the corporate shoulder, internal versus external perception. Devils who might become angels when they turn into a renowned and emancipated member if a brand’s story creation team. Only then will they be what the third, most vital and rarest facet of German translation attempts hints at:
ZUFRIEDEN.
Or: “Satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else … Archaic: willing.” (dictionary.com)
Yep, content is also an adjective, not only a noun.
And the central question is: Who is it that you want to satisfy with your content? Yourself? Your bosses? Your bosses bosses? Or maybe, only very maybe … your customers? Your customers’ customers? Your audiences? Maybe even a targeted small portion of your audience? Certainly, your answer will be: Of course my customers! Of course my audiences! Plus the fact, now I have all these big and massive and powerful data, I now even know what my audience wants before it knows that it wants it! Ha! There you go, eat this!
I’m eating …
Only: Lies are hard to digest. And all the easier to unmask. As written in the world’s most successful example of purposeful storytelling: “Thou shalt not lie!”
Which brings me to the answer of above-asked headline question: As long as you betray yourself and thereby the people you are apparently creating your content for, there will be no sustainably successful content! Take all your pig data, winnow the refuse from the valuable gold nuggets, take an honest and disarraying look at them, shuffle your cards anew, do away with your organization’s and your management’s old shibboleths, dare, launch a pilot, let go, and see what happens.
There is an even older mantra from our economy’s service sector, way back from the days when storytelling was still literature, when relevant content didn’t need to be called king, when it in fact was a rarity due to its scarcity, not due to its abundance. Back then, the saying went:
Der Kunde ist König. The customer is the King.
Aha. So, so. Let’s try that for once, what do you say?
I can’t get no satisfaction, he says? All the better; let that be your stimulant.
16 Monday Feb 2015
Posted in Business Story, experiences
Tags
Authenticity, Business, business storytelling, cluetrain manifesto, conversation, corporate storytelling, human story, interaction, Malta, Marketing and Advertising, McKee Story, Robert McKee, story, Story Seminar, Storynomics, Storytelling, Winston Churchill
Valetta, Malta, late November. It’s an evening at the end of one of those days. Summer has finally lost his last fight against Jack Frost, reinvigorated by Judas Autumn, his beautiful, deceptive seasonal companion. Stealing the remaining rays of warmth from the year’s sunny season for his own colourful performance. Just to lose his beauty to master Winter with the blow of a November wind. The last moment before the days become grey and miserable, foggy and wet, cold.
Nature’s true game of thrones, a drama of expectation, surprise, and change, story in repetition mode. A perfect platform, autumn the perfect time of year, an island the perfect location for a very unique scene, at least in my life story …
Clouds over Valetta. Nature’s Game of Thrones in the Mediterranean. (copyright: http://idonotdespair.com)
… Dinner with Robert McKee, one of the world’s most renowned, respected and successful story teachers, accompanied by his wife and my dear friend and story consultant James McCabe. Great food and even greater Maltese wine were the witnesses of an evening of lively and inspiring discussions about, naturally, all stories great and small, good and bad. About stories from Hollywood, McKee’s professional backyard, behind and in front of the scenes (very interesting to a provincial Bavarian story lover like me!); about movies galore; about the rise of sophisticated and elaborate TV series like Breaking Bad (the best ever produced, I recall McKee raving, that was some common ground to start an evening on!), and … about the poor state our world is in when it comes to business stories.
From Hollywood Entertainment to Malta Business
“Write the Truth”, he told me.
Robert McKee is not only Hollywood’s #1 story expert and creative writing instructor: His seminal book “STORY” is as famous and well-reviewed as his four-day “Story Seminar” is legendary, a must-attend guide for every ambitious (screen)writer willing to learn the craft or recall its essence. I have yet to judge this for myself, but allegedly 410 of his alumni have won Golden Globes, Academy Awards and many other renowned prizes. Not bad. Alumni like LOTR’s Peter Jackson go into rapture saying things like “McKee is the Guru of Gurus of Storytelling” (whatever a storytelling guru is…), or John Cleese who less guru-ishly claims: “It’s an amazingly important course that I’ve gone back to do three times.” Not bad either.
McKee has as of late also embarked upon the effort to transfer his knowledge and expertise in fiction story (mainly designed for entertainment purposes) to the sphere of business, corporate communications and marketing – storytelling with the slightly altered purpose of not only telling, but actually selling something, products and ideas, by means of entertainment. (Ideally. Mostly though, the State of the Business Story Union suggests that these means are currently mainly boredom, repetition and tutelage.)
McKee’s seminar builds upon one major notion: That companies are not abstract enterprises, they are not their portfolios; they are their employees. And these employees are actual human beings, people creating and experiencing stories every day. Only: They’re simply not telling them, rather burying them on power- and pointless PPT’s, vertiginous data sheets, and propaganda wolves in a press release’s sheep skin.
Frowning at the sight of too many appalling business stories? Robert McKee’s helping overcome self-centred corporate communication and marketing nightmares. (copyright: http://www.storylogue.com)
Businesses must shift from “We” to “You”.
So, there’s a urgent need for action here, a demand that McKee has identified and tries to answer with his “Storynomics Seminar”, which premiered under the then name “Story in Business” (which I find much more intuitive, to be honest) in Valetta, Malta, on above-mentioned autumn day.
Upfront: I sincerely believe that endeavours like this should be on the mandatory training list of EVERY person responsible for communications and marketing, from one-man enterprises to multi-national companies. Actually, while I’m thinking about it: slam McKee business story seminar it into the PMP files of every manager attempting to lead in a meaningful and not just power-centric way!
And why? Cos it’s good. Not perfect yet, but really a great start to break up fossilized PR and Marketing dinosaurs, and introduce them to a world where people are people and not abstract target groups, people that indeed WANT to embark upon meaningful dialogue with people from companies (not the companies!), for whatever purpose.
Here are a couple of notes I made, ideas and impulses that I got from that one day in Valetta – they’re pretty spot-on and need no further commentary:
Amen.
A little less conversation, a little more (inter)action, please.
The seminar is structured into three parts: Story Purpose, Story Design, Story Telling. McKee convincingly demonstrates the principles of a good story that “serves its purpose” (be that entertainment or a trip down the sales funnel), mechanisms are the same everywhere. A story is a story is a story. With many a business video example, good and bad, reinforces the fact that “story is a metaphor for life”, hence also business life. Very illustrative, very stringent, very substantial, at times maybe a little dogmatic, definitely too much from-stage-to-audience style, and unfortunately almost completely interaction-free (apart from a pre-structured Q&A session at the end). Granted, this is probably the maximum you can do in the course of just one day with such a fundamental topic.
Still: While his screenwriting reputation and Hollywood expertise is the greatest asset and perspective-changing element of this lecture, it’s also maybe the cause for its only weakness, or let’s rather call it room for improvement. I really feel that it’s an opportunity wasted for McKee to have so many interested business people in a room hanging on his lips for story expert advice and only TELL them stuff, and not let them experience it themselves. Not just transfer fiction story mechanics to business story in a demonstrative way, but let them experience it hands-on.
Corporate dinosaurs need more than one day to be story-empowered
Maybe invite a co-lecturer or break-out session lead who actually has extensive experience of working INSIDE and just WITH companies, for the benefit of the much-aspired “like me” effect. To share this business expert’s experiences, especially in terms of overcoming organisational hurdles and convincing notorious nay-sayers nevertheless. Let the audiences maybe even work on short business story challenges amongst themselves, so they don’t just see and hear how it’s done, but can actually do it and feel it. Turn it from a lecture into a true seminar where PR and Marketing professionals are not only evangelized but actually enabled and empowered to go back to their desks and produce their first-ever real business story.
That would probably turn the one-day event into a two- or three-day event. But so what? Why not? Business story lecturing is faced with far crustier mindsets than the entertainment sector where disciples already know the Why’s and want to learn the How’s. Corporate dinosaurs need convincing before you can even get to the tutorial, the hands-on learning part. And that requires more than a day, and more story engagement spice in the story telling soup.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”, Churchill once said.
So please continue, Bobby McKee! And thanks for great insights – and great wine.
I WAS THERE! 😉
01 Sunday Feb 2015
Posted in Poetry
randnotizen
alles verfügbar, hier und jetzt
nichts offen, kein wunsch verletzt
kaum erblickt, schon gezückt
fremdwort sehnen.
regale voll, nasen auch
volle köpfe, fetter bauch
kaum erblickt, schon gebückt
alle münder gähnen.
immerschnellerimmerweiterhöhertieferallebreiter
immerbilligerimmerwilligernichtsmehrheilignurmitschein
spriralenkreishinaufhinunterimmertristerimmerbunter
glücklichwähnen.
homo analogus ausgestorben
pixeliges grab schon ausgehoben
immer
langsamer
immer
träger
suchen gesterns kinder heut nach glück
stück für stück mit blick zurück
doch da ist nichts mehr
außer randnotizen.
im sand.
im meer.
©herrdennehy, 2014.
14 Friday Nov 2014
Posted in experiences, StorycodeX, Uncategorized, What is STORY?
Tags
authentic, Authenticity, drama, every-day stories, expectation, hero, imagination, listening, narration, plot, Storytelling, surprise. suspense, true story, Truth
Stories are everywhere around us. In every part and place of our lives.
Only: we are often much too busy to see them. Too blinkered by life’s challenges, the haste of getting from A to B, the illusion that life is a to-do list, and idleness evil.
Open senses are all it takes to escape this gridlock that makes so many of us unhappy; open eyes open up new perspectives.
Here’s a story (or rather a couple of possible plots) I literally stumbled upon while running in a close-by park – not away from anything, not towards anything, actually in circles, letting my thoughts do the same.
It’s the story of this deserted park bench jacket.
*Disclaimer: I didn’t put it there for this post.;)
My circling mind started asking: How did it get there? Where does it comes from? Who and where is the man (was it a man, just because it’s a man’s jacket?) who left it there? And why did he do it?
Plot #1:
The jacket belonged to a homeless man. Lying there, taking a rest from life’s endless atrocities and perpetual failed hopes. Fell asleep in the first rays of warm sunlight surrounded by the colour of hope after yet another night in the rainy cold, looking for shelter, in vain. Hungry, thirsty, desperate, and so terribly tired, tired of life. When, after many hours of peaceful slumber, he was approached by strollers checking on him, he didn’t move. An ambulance was called, but arrived only to find out that the nameless man had passed away, covered by death’s cold hand in the late morning sun. Who was this man? What was his story? Which conflicts and pitfalls in his life brought him to this lonely park bench? And why was the jacket still there?
Plot #2.
The jacket belonged to a man in his mid-forties who had been sitting there, trying to collect his thoughts, agonizing over the best way (if there was one) to avert the imminent drama in his life. The U-turn it was about to take, inflicted only by his own stupidity of cheating on his wife. After all that they had been through, one single moment of vain joy now thwarted it all. Would he ever see her again, his son? After his confession and pleas for forgiveness, honest, but (to her) lame promises, she had thrown him out of their house. Marital silence ever since, he was sleeping at a friend’s place. Suddenly, on his walk through the park, mixing fresh air with chain smoke, his phone rang. It was her. Asking if they could meet. Right away. He jumped up in incredulous joy, already on his way while she was still on the phone, completely forgetting his jacket. A happy ending?
Plot #3:
The jacket belonged to a business man who had messed with the wrong people. Pushing his luck for the deal of his life with different parties, closing the bargain with the one side, pissing off the other, like real. And the other party was not the one to piss off. A thing he didn’t know, but was soon to find out on his daily walk in the park to work. The three thugs came out of nowhere, dashing from a blind spot … and then his world went black. Who was / is this man? Is he still alive? Does he have a family? What was the deal about, and what was really behind this ambush? And why did the jacket stay there while its owner has gone missing ever since?
Sounds like fiction? Sure it does, I just made it up. But .. only maybe. Do we know? Do we know ANYTHING about the world around us, our neighbours, every-day passers-by on our way to work?
Maybe the deserted bench jacket story was much more prosaic than this, maybe someone just accidentally left it there while taking his lunch break in the sunny park, fiddling around with his smart phone, then running off in a hurry to get back to work on time. Maybe just someone who didn’t want this shabby jacket anymore, too lazy to throw it into the used-clothes container?
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
There a story behind everything. And everyone’s story has its intriguing moments, twists and surprises. It’s just a question of taking a closer look, a question of perspective, of attitude.
And there is definitely some story up this jacket’s sleeve, behind its former owner for sure. Oh and: next morning the jacket was gone … Woohaah!
After all: Life is stranger than fiction.
