How the Curious Mix of Alexa and Theatre Came About
After many years Dirk and I accidentally ran into each other from two different voice assistant ecosystem corners: me, a self-declared occasionally-overeager preacher for VOICE; him, intrigued by the opportunities yet somewhat disappointed with the reality.
“Alexa, do you love me?” was the name of a presentation he had just given. With an eye of an experienced product designer and a performer he explored the emotional connectivity that voice assistants were capable of, yet still lacked.
Over a coffee we discovered that our opinions were fundamentally not that different. We believe that creatively, voice assistant platforms offer a new way to bring characters to life, and with that there are whole new genres of storytelling waiting to be discovered. We also agreed that:
1. much more of creative potential of voice assistants can be tapped into with the current means available.
2. few creatively talented people already recognise the potential voice assistants have, or have the know-how to access it as form of creativity.
3. many creatively talented people in tech industry currently work with digital formats focused on visual consumption, and find it challenging to shift their thinking to content relying on ears and conversation.
So, we thought, what if we could get more traditional storytellers — like theatre writers or improv artists — to “play around” with this format?
What if we could teach them to prototype Alexa skills?
What if they could teach us how to create convincing characters and empathetic dialogues?
What if we could find a format for both skill sets to merge?
We set off exploring. That’s when we met Stefan, who in addition to running an improvisational theatre, uses it in organisational development, digital transformation and innovation. Along came this publication, which is here to document our journey and discoveries.
Follow us, especially if you agree with the above points too, to find where our journey leads us !
