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<< What's the Story?
Recently I had a fascinating talk about Twitter with a smart, young, enterprising practitioner. She really showed her smarts in understanding that new media is all about something really old — crisp, effective storytelling.
I myself Twitter, Facebook and YouTube; I'm also a LinkedIner. Don't get me wrong, they all rock. But I worry about our tendency to love the technology, and push the technology, while losing sight of the fact that the technology is just another way of broadcasting.
The means of broadcasting commercial messages has continually evolved ever since Gutenberg. Now, though, in the digital era, the pace of innovation has ramped up exponentially. Almost daily, it seems, fantastic new vehicles pop up.
As we all race each other to catch the wave of the next new thing, I see a tendency to focus on the medium rather than the message. On the sizzle rather than the steak. Clients need to be cautioned that the medium is a mere conveyance.
In a past life I spent 10 years as a reporter in a big-city newsroom. Countless conversations began with the editor asking: "So, what's the story?" The deceptively simple question was shorthand for a much more complicated and multifaceted inquiry.
Did I have something new and surprising to reveal, and could I tell it in an interesting way that captured maximum attention among our readership? In the news business we called this "story sense." It's what also drives the creation of successful, attention-getting commercial messages.
They need to be driven by a powerful intuitive sense of how to find the story and then package it in a way that sells the audience on the need to stop and take note. By all means we should fully exploit the new ways to broadcast.
Let's not, however, let ourselves become so enamored of the blinking gizmo that we misplace our priorities and our energies. By going down that path, we submit to a kind of techno-tyranny.
Somebody right now is dreaming up the next Twitter. Didn't you hear? It's rolling out tomorrow morning! Have a ball on the ride. But don't even think about boarding the bus without a briefcase full of great stories.
-Jim Gribble
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By A www.autson.com
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