Not just fly though, but to go to space. I couldn’t help but have this dream. I grew up in Cocoa, close to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. I watched shuttle launches live. I saw Space Shuttle Discovery up close on a tour of the Space Center, thanks a family member who worked there.
I was in love with the thought of it all, but as it turns out I had poor eye sight and wasn’t that solid in math or science. Not a good combination for want-to-be astronaut.
But that’s all right. Everyone has their place in the world, and I can still live the dream through photos and video footage. Excellent documentaries on the space program, like Discovery Channel’s When We Left Earth, also allow myself and other want-to-be astronauts relive the story of space exploration. If you check out the website, it does a nice job of providing users with some interactive features. Users can explore a quiz, video clips, photos and audio messages chronicling the memories of people who watched the missions from Earth.
As I watched one of the documentary episodes last night, a line by one of the astronauts reinforced one of the biggest ingredients to a successful interactive media project and its story. The episode told of the tale of one of the Apollo Eight mission, and the first time America viewed the moon.
“It’s ironic. We went there to explore the moon and we rediscovered Earth.”
That’s what you have to do with interactive media projects and stories. Never forget to take people where they can’t go. It lets them rediscover things, and live dreams they may not have a chance to live.
There are dozens of posts and blogs dedicated to social media out there, so I hesitate to launch into too much of a how-to here. Mashable is one of favorite blogs on the topic.
But if you’re looking to tell your story, so to speak, through social media – here are three tips to make it easy. And guess what, these three tips tie closely into the first part of this series:
Your story must connect with its audience
That means knowing the users, visitors and customers you’re after. Look to similar sites and personalities in social media for tips and guidance. Listen before you start pushing out your story.
Good stories connect because of tension. People follow it because they want to know what happens next. So keep them craving surprise, but make sure that surprise isn’t completely unexpected.
Try contests. Mark Luckie of 10,000 Words is doing this on Twitter all week, giving away copies of his new book.
Hold weekly question and answer sessions. Allow your followers to have some control over your story. Maybe they select the next new product color?
These events offer expectations, but can yield something new. Be creative.
If your company values creativity, make sure that principle gets reflected in your social media accounts. Pictureframes.com, a company that caters to artists, photographers and creators of all kinds, has done this well. Their Twitter account and Facebook feed is full of great resources and thought-provoking posts. (Disclosure: I worked for them prior to going to grad school.)
Offer takeaways
No one likes to get to the end of a story and feel empty. Sure, you may not be able to do this in 140 characters, but make sure the content you’re linking to and/or posting has value. Your customers and followers will desert you if you fail in this regard.
Often, this translates into not just talking about yourself or what you’re selling. We are only interesting when point to why other people, places and things hold our interest.
So you see, social media represents just another way humankind does what we do best – tell stories.
Stop tweeting and facebooking for a minute, will you? Yes, it’s popular and the love of many.
So much so that comedian Conan O’Brien predicts that in the year 3000, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge to create the ultimate time-wasting website called YouTwitFace. See the video above.
O’Brien may be joking, but social media is no joke.
According to statistics compiled by online marketer and “Socialnomics” author Erik Qualman, social media has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the web. Watch a visualization of the statistics here. Many other experts predict that the Internet of future will be much less cumbersome, becoming very portable, allowing people to communicate even easier than they do now.
So how does storytelling and social media relate?
They both have the ultimate goal of connecting to an audience. Without establishing that connection, each becomes irrelevant and pointless.
Both offer the opportunity to follow characters. Admit it, we stick with stories or visit social media profiles because we enjoy seeing what the characters there do next.
Each have the power to inform, educate and encourage debate. All information sources have this in common.
You get pumped about new projects only to see the excitement fade once you’re buried in the requirements. We’re creative storytellers. Sometimes the fuel just runs low…
You see, I’m a journalist by trade, and having worked at a small, community newspaper, I thrive on more of the quick hit kind of projects. I’m also a distance runner, so I equate this to going out too fast in a race with not enough kick for the big sprint at the end.
I’ve taken on a number of long-term, large projects recently, so I’m learning how to better sustain my creativity over time.
Here are a few tips to keep your creativity running strong:
Plan. The more we plan, the better. Yes, you can over-plan, but I like the old Boy Scout motto: be prepared. Planning can help you spread out your project and attack it one creative spark at a time.
Feedback, anyone? We all need some second opinions. What you think works may not even come close. Find out, and hey, maybe that feedback will spur a new idea.
Take a walk. Famed creative soul Julia Cameron recommends this in her book, Letters to a Young Artist. I do it sometimes. It works for me by taking my mind off what I have to do and centering it on what I want to do. Try it.
Find a Believer. Everyone has that one person in their life that they trust. Lean on them when you have to. When you think all has gone dark, it most likely hasn’t. And they’ll tell you so.
Turn on Some Inspiration. Figure out what inspires you at a moment’s notice. Use it. Always. My go to tends to be music by Seven Mary Three. Yours can be music, art, people, theater, cartoons – whatever works.
After a first day of beneficial chaos, my classmates and I dominated the second day of content gathering in London on one of Elon iMedia’s project for public good.
Our faculty adviser, Ray Johnson, called it “the most productive day by a group I’ve ever seen.”
We’re back in the States now, and have an incredible amount of media to go through to create our final product – a digital prospectus for an elementary school in London.
We kept up a solid momentum for the last three days of the project and collected thousands of photos and videos. Now we have to turn all this media into a story, and it makes me wonder – can you have too much media on a project?
No. No way.
Here’s why:
A variety of media gives you choice and flexibility in storytelling.
You probably won’t regret not getting a shot or piece of footage.
You can give your client plenty of b-roll footage for future projects or as other sources of income.
You have plenty of places to find inspiration and stories.
Of course, a ton of media creates obstacles. You have more to comb through, it may be easy to lose focus of your final product and the sheer amount of material you have may eat up valuable time.
Here’s the strategy we’re taking on our London project:
We held a content and brainstorming meeting after two days to hash out exactly where the project was headed. We planned out our final product, so we knew exactly what we needed, but agreed we’d be flexible if we discovered any gems during the rest of the trip.
We created a shot list for video and followed it.
We created a log sheet for all media, so we know exactly what we have and how it might be organized.
These three simple steps have helped guide us and keep the amount of media we have from overwhelming us. That lets us concentrate on the important part of the project – the story.
To follow my journey in London, and the creative project my classmates and I produce, be sure to check this blog regularly. You can explore all the posts about London 2010 here. Also, please follow me on Twitter.
The winter term project I’m working on with my classmates at Elon University in London is no different. We knew that it would throw challenges our way, but the project hasn’t even begun and we’ve faced a major one.
It snowed in London a few days before we arrived and the school where we plan to shoot shut down for the week. It snowed again today, so we’re hoping the same thing doesn’t happen Monday.
To combat the uncertainty we’ve brainstormed ideas for possible new story ideas and solutions if the snow falls and we have to change plans. And we will probably have to ramp that up because it’s supposed to snow again tomorrow. We’ve also already shot one standalone project for the piece though, so starting the process felt good.
Ultimately, it’s about going with the flow.
You can do the same thing, no matter what kind of storytelling project you’re working on.
Go with this strategy:
Create a plan and a back-up plan for your project.
Go in knowing everything won’t work out.
Be ready to adjust at any time.
It’s a simple strategy, but one that can help you accomplish anything.
To follow my journey in London, and the creative project my classmates and I produce, be sure to check this blog regularly. You can explore all the posts about London 2010 here. Also, please follow me on Twitter.
My classmates and I at Elon University have been huddled together planning some very exciting projects for public good.
My group heads to London tomorrow. We’ve brainstormed and brainstormed and discovered that many of our decisions about our project will have to wait until we get on the ground.
We will be creating a multimedia Web site for an elementary school in London – a digital prospectus, so to speak. We’d love to have more knowns than unknowns, but I think we’re learning that’s part of the excitement of this project.
It’s very journalistic in nature, even though it will serve as more of a marketing piece for the school in London. And that means reacting to what’s happening (with as much planning as possible) rather than following a specific schedule.
One of my classmates, and the Creative Director of our London project, Conor Britain, spelled out a great strategy for us yesterday.
He said that we will plan to create a good project, but once we get in London, we will discover how to make it great.
I like that approach – for any big storytelling project.
You’ll never know all the details. So plan all that is possible and be ready to be flexible.
To follow my journey in London, and the creative project my classmates and I produce, be sure to check this blog regularly. You can explore all the posts about London 2010 here. Also, please follow me on Twitter.
Planning any large, group project can prove daunting.
However, with some creative thinking and teamwork, group members can accomplish a lot of pre-planning before any boots hit the ground. That’s something I’m realizing with one big project I’m working on right now.
The Adventure
I’ll be creating a digital prospectus for an elementary school in London with 10 classmates of mine. The project is part of the curriculum in my Interactive Media Master’s program at Elon University.
My 34 classmates and I will embark on four separate projects for public good around the world. We leave for London, Costa Rica and Panama in the coming days.
The Challenge
As my group members and I have planned how to attack our project, we’ve faced a few challenges. One of the biggest has been how to organize our creative teams.
We will develop a multimedia website for our client that tells its story. This will include photos, videos, text and more. To effectively gather the content we need, using all the technology available to us, we’ve split ourselves into three creative teams. Each team has three to four people.
The Solution
How could we divide our team’s talents and divvy up responsibilities without locking anyone into a role for good?
We took each person’s talents into account, placing a strong videographer, photographer and interviewer in each group. Then we developed a varied roles within each group for the members to keep in mind as they were out collecting content.
Obviously, we will have one person responsible for shooting video and one person responsible for shooting photos. The third role is the storyteller. When this person isn’t interviewing folks, he or she will be required to have an eye for what the videographer and photographer might be missing.
Are they missing any shots or angles? Who are the most engaging subjects or characters? They are a producer, more or less.
It’s not terribly innovative, but these roles will be interchangeable among group members, giving people the opportunity to try different tasks. And what could happen if we fail to have someone keeping their eye on the story?
I shudder just thinking about it.
To follow my journey in London, and the creative project my classmates and I produce, be sure to check this blog regularly. You can explore all the posts about London 2010 here. Also, please follow me on Twitter.
