On Storytelling and Resilience

I enjoyed this post from Nicholas Bate.  Not only is the message relevant but it is also resonant in vintage Bate style.  Nicholas has a narrative style which draws on simple, but visceral, imagery to make his points real.  Whether logs under the tarpaulin or bags of Starbucks coffee, it is the story which sticks in mind.

More than ever before, we are bombarded by data on a daily basis (Nicholas Carr describes this brilliantly in his recent book, The Shallows), but this overload seems to make it more difficult to distil out and retain the relevant information.  That is where storytellers come in.  The tales we recall from childhood and the myths which have rolled down through time succeed because they use simple and powerful images to tell important truths.  The same is true of today’s, cloud-enabled, always-on world.  Those who can weave a compelling, memorable narrative will be ever more valuable.

I love the fact that Steve Clayton has adopted the title of Storyteller for his new role at Microsoft and his blog-post contains a couple of links to fascinating articles on the concept of “transmedia storytelling” where the story-telling art is being combined with cross-platform technology skills to build that compelling narrative across media.