How Great Stories Can Help Design Our Future
It’s a serendipitous thing, clicking on ‘New Story’ on my new Medium publication this morning. I say serendipitous as that’s what this channel is all about; stories. Very specifically stories that change the world.
My own story is in flux at the moment as, around 6 months ago, I reduced the days I was working for the global innovation studio Sense Worldwide, to focus on getting a very specific story out of my head. A fantasy story that had been brewing for four years (The Stone Keepers if you’re interested).
Now, this was not a move I took lightly. In fact it was one of the biggest decisions I’ve ever made. Having sat with the decision, nerves, pride, anxiety, joy (and all the other emotions that come with a kick of a reduced salary but the freedom of explorative headspace and creative focus) for a while now, it dawned on me recently that, hidden in the depths of my motivations, there was an unearthed purpose in my madness. And this purpose is the reason for this publication; Making Make Believe.
Making Make Believe: where the future of real world and fantasy writing collide.
As practitioners in the innovation space, my team and I spend our entire lives ‘making believe’. We research, design and create products and services for the future… sometimes even based on human needs and behaviours that don’t exist yet. It makes us master storytellers in our own way. It’s the reason I banned ‘marketing’ from the business a year ago. We don’t sell, we storytell. We share stories about the extraordinary humans we work with in our research to uncover fresh insight. And, because we tell our stories well enough, our clients have the confidence to invest in these stories and build for the future.
As an emerging author I was fascinated to find many of the practises I adopted in my day job transcending into my writing. The ability to embrace the ambiguity of not knowing the answer straight away and having the confidence in my personal process of exploration (I’m currently sitting in The London Library for this very reason). The delight in surrounding yourself with people unlike you, but that are likeminded, supportive and challenging. The dedication to researching your story in such detail that you’re able to suspend your audiences’ disbelief just enough that they feel a troll really could live under the bridge at the end of the garden.
And speaking of bridges.
Suspending disbelief is a critical part of any storytelling process. Whether that be a non-fiction dive into the future of science (watch out for Gemma Milne’s new foray into this topic — and her newsletter is ace), Neil Gaiman’s retelling of Norse Mythology or in an ad agency pitch process. The suspension of disbelief, at it’s core, is proof that your audience have confidence in you, the storyteller, and trust what you say to be true.
Truth.
Truth is an interesting topic in the days of Trump, fake news and flat earthers. How little it takes to undermine scientific discovery with a tweet, cover up atrocities with photoshop and a forum or catfish yourself into oblivion. Realities are being washed away with a click and share. On the other hand some stark realities find new opportunities to have their day. The plastics crisis, equality… dare I say I’m even hopeful we may be moving towards positively tackling climate change?*
*While I’ve got you, I read a fascinating article on how to reduce junk food consumption in kids by getting them to critically evaluate ads and tell their own truths on top — read it here.
What unites all these topics are stories. Great stories. Am I’m not talking about substance, I’m talking about structure. Each of these stories, whether they be told, read, watched or overheard, have managed to do what others often fail to. Suspend disbelief. Whether that be due to the communications failings of the scientific community to build empathy with mainstream consumers or because a movement like #MeToo made a new, different future look possible… hopefully even attainable. All these examples are proof that great storytelling (in the widest sense of the world) can effect great, albeit not always good, change in the world.
Will You Follow Me?
This publication will explore just how great storytelling can change the world. Whether that be through making your client the hero in your own Hero’s Journey pitch deck or digging deep into the Behavioural Economics of irrational and rational thinking and its applications in non-fiction narratives. I hope to bring together great storytellers from across disciplines, life experiences and interests to explore and share how we can tell stories that empower audiences to imagine a new future, a better future.
So we can design for it.
