virtualDavis

For years I’ve been talking about stories and storytelling. For years people have rolled their eyes and reminded me that storytelling is for kids. Okay, that’s not quite true. I’ve managed to win over a few along the way who’re willing to admit that stories and storytelling are among the most vital building blocks of community, of education, of entertainment, of marketing, of sales… Especially in the last few years. Finally folks seem interested in storytelling. Storytelling is cool! This makes cocktail parties a little more exciting for me, and it encourages me to explore further, question more, dream bigger.

This morning I woke up thinking about the intersection of storytelling and technology. My mind was racing. My rumination included various dissimilar but related ingredients including:

• Intersect – a site where people can share stories and chart them by time and place to see where their paths might cross.
• Storify – a next-generation storytelling platform that lets you build stories from social media.
• Hacks/Hackers – “a network of people interested in Web/digital application development and technology innovation supporting the mission and goals of journalism.”
• Paper.li – a newspaper-style interface for curating and accessing Twitter content.
• Apture – a tool enabling readers to search and explore rich content and media from the web without even leaving the page
• Mrs. Farnsworth – A.R. Gurney’s comedy in which I’ve been playing the part of Gordon Bell.

On the one hand, last night I performed in Mrs. Farnthsworth at the Old Mill Studio in Elizabethtown. Community theater. Amateur. Fun. Short run. We started out at BlueSeed in Saranac Lake and we head up to SUNY Plattsburgh later this week. The show dishes up plenty of political snarkiness and the audience is the final judge of what is true and what is fabrication. This Thursday and Friday you can judge Mrs. Farnsworth for yourself.

I haven’t acted in a few years, and my first inclination was to decline when I was approached last winter. But then I read the play. And I reconsidered. Not because of the politics. Not even because of the uncanny coincidence that my character was also a creative writing teacher. Two stronger reasons compelled me, a longstanding fascination with acting as a form of storytelling and the notion that remembering how a play is produced (as seen from the inside out) might serve to make me a better president of the Depot Theatre board. I’ll weigh in again on this once we conclude our run.

Last night was our fourth performance of six. Not out best. That was Friday. We really aced it on Friday. Actors were at the top of their game, and the packed audience didn’t miss a beat. Such fun. Virtual reality in the oldest sense! It’s a quirky play, especially fun for me to play Gordon since I’m both a teacher and a writer. Reminded me of moments in the classroom when a lesson was really humming along, students were totally in the zone and ideas were popping. An amazing experience. Addictive. Just ask a teacher. It also reminded me that my first moment in a classroom was storytelling… But that tale for another day.

On the other hand, I spent yesterday experimenting with Intersect’s story sharing platform, and urging Storify to let me “alpha preview” their storytelling platform. Both services offer so much promise! I really enjoy the stripped down simplicity of Intersect, but I’m fascinated with the curatorial potential of Storify. Both platforms are still mere glimmers of what they might become, not exactly prenatal, but early, early in their development. That said, these two technologies offer two of the essentail ingredients for the future of journalism: intersection and curating. I don’t just mean sharing content easily and across multiple platforms. I don’t just mean offering a clumsy threaded link list to interested story followers. I mean that convergence of these two platforms could literally reinvent journalism, collaborative, real time reporting and storytelling.

Stories, by their very nature are rhizomic. Instead of simply converting traditional print journalism and storytelling to digital (most of what the large media outlets have undertaken so far), the future isn’t flat. Nor is it linear. Nor is it ever in final format. The future is fluid. Information is viral, mutable, shareable. Collaboration is critical. Content affinity is critical. Similar and/or complementary content must connect. And as the massive proliferation of content overwhelms us, curating and aggregating and reviewing/commenting and fact checking become essential. Information strata and intertextuality and multimodal media must interlink, be sortable, trackable. Trying to flatten this future model of journalism, of storytelling into one dimensional print interface will not only be more and more challenging, it will also be less and less necessary, less and less desirable.

Although it’s a somewhat restricted example of the sort of story aggregation and curatorship that could be possible with next generation tools, Tim Carmody’s (@tcarmody on Twitter) “Lobbying for Followers on Twitter: A Love Story” offers an amusing and powerful example of where we’re headed. Add video, audio, slide shows, comments, forums, etc. to the equation, and it’s staggering what you wind up with. How will we navigate, sort, verify, absorb, enjoy this new content interface? Verdict’s still out, but I can’t wait to begin experimenting.

Which takes me back to the video and to Tristan Harris, the CEO of Apture, who waxes enthusiastic but befuddled about the need for a convergence in technology and storytelling:

“You need people from a computational background and from a storytelling background to be able to satisfy the interest of say a publisher who is trying to tell stories and the people who consume information while also satisfying the… and leveraging, I guess, the technology of the medium itself that let’s us do innovative things that we couldn’t do before.”

Yes, we need those people. And we need them to imagine and build and support the next generation of storytelling tools. In the mean time, I’m going to keep exploring their efforts while telling my own stories. And I’m going to continue enjoying the fact that folks finally know (and care) what I’m talking about at cocktail parties!

As on Facebook, Intersect users create a personal page, [but] the big differentiator with Intersect is that stories get matched to a specific time and place, with visitors able to locate a person’s story on a map or scroll through an online timeline of a person’s life.

“Basically, it gives people the ability to tell stories collaboratively and in a way which we think is going to be really interesting and fun,” said Monica Harrington, who joined Intersect earlier this year as chief marketing and business development officer. “It is really about bringing storytelling to the Web.”

“Stories are how we communicate values, essentially how we connect with one another,” Harrington continued… “There’s no way to tell our stories in a way where we can be connected together,” she said. (techflash.com)

Perhaps claiming to bring storytelling to the web is a little bold, since there have been all sorts of web-based digital storytelling options for a decade or so. But it does sound like the first user-friendly community open to the public for sharing storytelling. And for searching out stories. An open archive for storytelling. Open source storytelling!

I’ve offered to participate in their beta launch, and I’ll post updates if/when I get the chance to play around with the prototype. Throw another log on the fire and let the stories flow… I’m contemplating a narrative meander around Crown Point fort. What story would you tell?

One of my favorite experiences living in Essex, New York is watching the sun rise out of Vermont’s Green Mountains, reflecting across the surface of Lake Champlain. This morning, the dense cloud bank on the eastern side of the lake created a dramatic effect, a narrow glimpse of color and light, refracted on the bumpy water then gone, snuffed out almost as quickly as it began. Once the sun rose into the clouds the light flattened and the mood changed. An interesting start to this post-Labor Day week…

“I saw people looking and old people laughing… You move… make spirit… people… It’s good fun. I tell what I am feeling. Everybody’s happy!” The old fellow at the end of the video nailed it. Improv Everywhere moves people. Make people laugh. Makes people happy. Another you’re-making-the-world-a-better-place mission. Thanks!

[Ferdinand the bull]… doesn’t fit the typical mold of other young male bulls: he doesn’t like to fight or butt heads. All he wants to do is enjoy the meadow and smell the flowers… “Ferdinand’ is a perfectly absurd story which will make everybody laugh and chuckle.“ ~ Smell the Ink

Absurd, perhaps, and sublime to boot! My favorite book as a boy; and today, my favorite boy as a book. The Story of Ferdinand. Or as I always remember and reference it, “Ferdinand the bull”. Some childhood habits die hard!

This simple but poignant children’s book written by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson has never lost its sparkle for me. It’s still inside, still beside my bedside, still my favorite gift for chilluns and olduns alike. The story, the pictures, the corks in the trees, the flowers in the ladies’ hair, the dazed look of confusion/euphoria on Ferdinand the bull’s handsome mug, his mother’s look of concern, the bee-stings-bull’s-@$$ action sequence, the long ride home. The Story of Ferdinand is a must own, read, re-read for the child in all of us. And the adult in every child.

Ferdinand the Bull Updates:

[January 24, 2012] I’ve come across the video version of Ferdinand the bull quite by accident. I never knew it existed. Raised without television I overlooked the obvious: most good children’s books were at some point Disnified!

A quirky little video, certainly no more compelling than the story. Perhaps less so? I am intrigued to see Lawson’s illustrations animated, as if — after so many years — Ferdinand the bull had wiggled off the page. However Ferd’s mother, especially her goofy walk and her grating voice, are a little far from the mark.

The rather dated flavor or this Walt Disney short and the almost literal translation of the story to film does provoke my curiosity what a modern digital version of Ferdinand the bull would look like. I imagine that the potential of today’s digital storytelling is much more compelling than Disney’s short film. Perhaps it already exists? Perhaps we should add it to the great “To Do” list in the sky?

Ferdinand the bull tattoo (Credit: TheNinth)

[March 26, 2013] It’s always fun to discover old posts that continue to be read. A lot. Like this goofy glimpse at Ferdinand the bull, a truly “evergreen” story! While it’s a pleasant surprise to be reminded how many folks stumble onto this post, I am even more delighted by the number of people I meet who remember Ferdinand the bull with fondness, who reference his story to help clarify real life situations, and often enough who tell me that I’m a real world Ferdinand the bull. I know that sometimes they’re gently (or not so gently!) mocking me, but the gibe always flatters me. Silly? Perhaps.

But there is something more I’d like to pass along, a more peculiar and wonderful update that I couldn’t possibly allow to languish in the distant reaches of the web: a Ferdinand the bull tattoo! No, I haven’t overcome my phobia of needles to commemorate my favorite flower smelling bull. But the magic of the interwebs have brought this illustrated arm (or leg?) to my joyful attention. Enjoy!

Related articles

• Ferdinand the Bull Turns 75 (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)

Video via YouTube.com

Ever wonder how Depot Theatre performers spend their off-stage time in the Adirondacks? What I hear again and again from the parade of professional actors, directors, musicians, etc. who grace us with their talents each summer is that they love to perform at the Depot Theatre because they love the Shami and Chris, they love the audience, the old train station, the community, the Champlain Valley.

Kelly Rypkema, who just wrapped up her performance of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” at the Depot Theatre took time out for a little Lake Champlain waterskiing. And wouldn’t you know, she’s almost as gifted on waterskies as she is on stage. Bravo, Kelly!

I’ve just discovered The Point, a clever web-based platform for social action, fundraising, group action. I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan to. Here’s the mission: “As a consumer, employee, citizen, activist, parent, or whatever, sometimes you can’t do things alone – you need the power of many. The Point offers a new approach to leveraging the influence of groups and making things happen.”

And here’s how founder Andrew Mason describes why (and how) The Point is for people like you: “[The Point is] a site where anyone can start a campaign to give money or collectively do something but nobody takes action until certain present conditions are met that let everybody know that their participation is really going to make a difference.”

Sounds like a great concept! Perhaps overlapping somewhat with Fundable.com which is next on my “Check it out!” list. Do you have experience with either of these?

Related articles

• New directions for goods, services and capital in the hands of the people, for the people (socialmediaclub.org)

Game changer? It will be interesting to see how this affects the explosion of web video. Google’s Vic Gundotra unveils a new open-source video format called WebM that it’s rolling out in conjunction with Mozilla and Opera.

Semantic web and Drupal video via buytaert.net

This video was at Drupalcon 2010 in San Francisco yesterday by Dries Buytaert (@dries) to help introduce the future of RDF in Drupal 7.

Warmer and balmier this morning. Though hazier than yesterday’s bluebird skies when I posted this clip on flickr.com with the following description:

Pretty crisp out this morning considering the beautiful weather we’ve been enjoying. There was still frost on the ground when I headed out to the dock house to watch the sun rising over Vermont’s Green Mountains. Wisps of clouds over Vermont, but crystal clear overhead. (This jerky video is proof that I am an amateur at shooting moving pictures. Of course, this was shot with the video feature on my still camera, so that accounts for some of the poor quality, doesn’t it?)

Today, I’m trying to wrap up at my desk early to get outside and work in the garden. A week and a half of rain expected to start tomorrow. If I could only get some spinach into the garden first…