The Campfire

At a party, when people ask me what I do, I say I’m a Storytelling Consultant.

Eyebrows go up. “What’s that?”. And fair enough — I don’t think it’s immediately clear either. But here’s how I’ve got to this point.

I have a sense that storytelling has been lost at large. When the storytellers gathered around a campfire to tell a tale they were in no doubt who their audience was. These days, when the time between start and release of a product can be weeks or months, the audience can be easy to ignore. In the same way that somebody would fall asleep if a tale wasn’t compelling, customers will be lost (or gained) proportional to how much respect and attention they are given.

The stories we tell nowadays are so varied. News and advertising are two examples in which storytelling is alive. Gaming is another. And websites tell stories through their interaction, the problems they solve and the way they communicate information.

I’ve helped to develop a lot of websites in the last 16 years. I think only about 30% of them I’ve written added value to anyone — some products were never released, budgets were pulled, sometimes we released but the audience didn’t care. That was the start of the journey for me.

Trying to find the answer to: “how can I add more value to people with what I do?” for which the business proposition is “how can I add value to a organization so that they can add more value to what they’re doing?”

If our storyteller was to answer he’d probably say “are you listening to your audience?”
Around the campfire he listens as he talks responding seamlessly to changes in the environment: including a bird cry in the narrative, sensing hints of boredom, broadening the story where there’s interest, exploring an emotion or character that seems to have resonance that evening.

So what do I do? I help to show organisations that there is a campfire around which their audience is still gathered and to facilitate how they shape that story. And after the analysis comes the hard work — which is my favorite part — the crafting of the resulting story which may involve customer interviews, community engagement, producing a video, writing copy, changing strategy, reviewing processes.

The work is sticky notes, brainstorming sessions, user interaction testing, visions, values, budgets, movement, play, writing, editing, presentations.

Why should the organization do this hard work? Economics. And only ever economics. And maybe survival. There’s a theory that the stories that Homer wrote are the evolutionary winners from the prior eons of the oral tradition. The strongest stories were those which compelled the audience more. What are the companies which tell the best stories? Nike. Apple. Converse.

Finally, here’s a list of qualities I think organizations (or people) need to be master storytellers. Or maybe these are just my values:

Listening — look around the campfire. Who’s there? What are their needs? What story are you about to tell? You begin, are they bought in? Do they feel included?

Vulnerability—one must bring themselves into their story. I’ve seen so many ads, campaigns, actors tell stories that felt empty. When Johnny Cash recorded the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt, he first sang it over a 100 times. He made the raw material his own.

Adaptability— to change the story as the audience changes, as the environment changes, as the storyteller’s understanding of the world changes.

Empathy — to be sensitive to other’s needs (read: customers, community).

Craft — to create a good story takes work. If a story has been easy to produce then it’s probably too thin. The first draft is always going to be terrible. Keep working at it. Test it; see how the audience responds to it. Never be convinced of your own genius.