On the day of the G20 protests, I was in two places at once. At home working and listening to Radio 5’s somewhat hysterical coverage, and also watching the Twitter #g20 hashtag and following the tweets of people I know and others from the protests.
Covering live events with Social Media
The ‘coverage’ aggregation I was able to do was amazing. In particular (until his battery ran out!) Steve Lawson (@solobasssteve) was using Qik to report in near realtime from outside the Bank of England where the Police were involved in the bizarre and, I consider, unlawful tactic of ‘kettling’; constraining peaceful protestors and not allowing them free passage through the streets of the City of London.
Watch Steve Lawson’s footage and you will see what I mean – you can hear the stress in his voice and others’ around him as they realise they are hemmed in by Police.
The footage which everyone knows about is of the sad death of Ian Tomlinson. Brought back to mind yesterday again by the failure of the Police to obtain an injunction against Channel 4 News. But the thing I keep remembering is the statement made by the IPCC and immediately carried without any question by conventional media – that “there were no cameras in the locations he was assualted”. I felt cold when I heard that. Close to the Bank of England, in the heart of the City in a country where there is a CCTV camera for every 14 people? Not credible. And the IPCC subsequently admitted they’d ‘mis-spoken’.
Most people must think CCTV cameras in all our towns, cities and villages is a ‘good thing’. Few seem to object and, for example, the residents of a village near ours actually petitioned to have one installed. And then we see the objections to Google Streetview – while I think it sensible for faces to be obscured in Streetview; I don’t know of any reason why the faces of people in a public street taken incidentally to a more general view should not be shown? Should we be bothered that out-of-date images of the street we live in should be available globally to all but happy that live video of us is being monitored locally by people we don’t know – but it’s ok because they’re the Police?
The watched are becoming the watchers
We’re seeing the unintended consequences of pervasive social and new media. We all have cameras, all the time and many of us can upload ‘feed’ from live events immediately. So now the watched become the watchers; we all have our own ‘CCTV’ and we have a new set of tools which could, I hope, be used for positive change and digital engagement but are, if needed, available to watch our own backs.
The goal of the unconference was for the participants to set the agenda to find the cross industry business and collaboration opportunities that mattered to them, to increase their revenue and develop their business model.
Setting priorities
Participants came from film, TV, games, mobile, web, software, interactive media, arts and design to see how they could collaborate and share. Each participant had the opportunity to suggest a session that they would like to run. Notes were taken and then collated together to create a book. Over 30 sessions were created and run. Each session was written-up in the participants’ own words and is the start of a longer conversation. Sometimes after much debate, a session finished with more questions, sometimes a solution or further action planning was suggested.
Narrative and Storytelling
In an increasingly complex and media-saturated world, we need to help people connect with information/content in ways that are meaningful for them.
Not everything is a ‘story’ but we need to invest more time/effort in getting both content producers and consumers to develop their storytelling and narrative skills.
As an example, we could use story archetypes as a filter/ to explore/evaluate/distill the value of content and its connection with multiple audiences.
We need to go back to basics and think about how what we are doing could be changed/improved by re-visiting the fundamentals of narrative storytelling.
Here is one write-up of a session I was involved in.
Action plan: / Narrative and Storytelling Convener; Henry Playfoot, White Loop
Not everything is a story but do we need to invest more time/effort in getting people to develop their storytelling and narrative skills? If you started with the (say) twelve story archetypes use them as a filter/ explore/evaluate/distilling for discussing the efficacy/value of media content.
This could include collaborative experiments that marry ‘traditional’ storytellers with technologists or cutting edge digital service developers and projects that investigate the application of storytelling across all sectors.
Storytelling and Narrative
In an increasingly complex and media-saturated world, we need to help people connect with information/content in ways that are meaningful for them.
Not everything is a ‘story’ but we need to invest more time/effort in getting both content producers and consumers to develop their storytelling and narrative skills.
As an example, we could use story archetypes as a filter/ to explore/evaluate/distill the value of content and its connection with multiple audiences.
We need to go back to basics and think about how what we are doing could be changed/improved by re-visiting the fundamentals of narrative storytelling.
Related Issues:
Whilst we didn’t get very far in the discussion of this theme during the day it was noticeable that this session was so popular when people came to vote at the end of the day. Why was that? What is about ‘The Story’ that resonates and is so important to people?
What is the story now?
Stories still connect with people – it goes to the root of people’s emotions and there is a groundswell of interest in how storytelling/narrative can be used across every sphere – from politics/policy through to business and communities. Within this we should explore the impact and opportunities afforded by digital technology/platforms. With online gaming, for example, there is no longer one storyteller- there are multiple storytellers. Who is the protagonist/ who is the narrator and how do these shifts influence our experiences? There are strong arguments to suggest we need stories now more than ever. We need authorative voices that can help us navigate the often overwhelming amount of information that bombards us. In the emerging Web 3.0 world, we need authoritative and AUTHENTIC voices to help make sense of the world and the vast amount of noise/content. Business communities are beginning to talk about storytelling. We all know that great business leaders and educators are great storytellers. Their skills do not lie in spouting statistics or presenting data, rather than in distilling disparate threads into a coherent story.
Next Steps
In the creative industries – especially those under the One Media banner – we have unrivalled storytelling capacity. It is what we do, from conception of a game through to delivery of complex, cross-platform content and services.
Keeping an eye on some of the excellent work being undertaken in the UK eg Mike Wilson, University of Glamorgan, DEMOS the role of blogging/self narrating to support literacy (see recent report) and research in the US and Canada into the power of storytelling, NESTA should help ensure we formally embed storytelling skills into our offer.
This could include collaborative experiments that marry ‘traditional’ storytellers with technologists or cutting edge digital service developers and projects that investigate the application of storytelling across all sectors. We are convinced that we would get some real insights and that there would be hard economic benefits in terms of generating revenue for One Media businesses through providing expertise and creative consultancy. Additionally, we have identified that formalising and sharing these skills would support the integration of new people into our sector – especially powerful when thinking of equipping graduates/entry level staff with the requisite skills/attributes to succeed.
Co-Conspirators: Henry Playfoot, Brian Condon, Tim Furby, Paul Dorman, George Stamkoski
On the day of the G20 protests, I was in two places at once. At home working and listening to Radio 5’s somewhat hysterical coverage, and also watching the Twitter #g20 hashtag and following the tweets of people I know and others from the protests.
