<p>Published on <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/is-storytelling-a-buzzword-the-10-secret-ingredients-storytellers-can-use-to-stay-relevant-3d29783cf43b?source=rss----eb297ea1161a---4">| Prototyping: From UX to Front End &mdash; Medium</a> Bert O Phillips <img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*XoQQC8NZ_wwdNIIrx2j8qQ.jpeg"></p>
<p>Storytelling holds great power.</p>
<p>Storytelling is also on the brink of experiencing buzzword death.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/356/1*l0jQEWnmhVHPMbJuFn-Erw.gif">SYNERGY</p>
<p>Over the last two decades, <a href="https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/6-examples-genius-brand-storytelling-see/">brands</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/the-mission/why-leadership-equals-storytelling-71877abfe1f0">leaders</a>, <a href="https://www.livecareer.com/quintessential/storytelling-strengthens-job-search">job seekers</a>, CEOs, <a href="https://vimeo.com/98368484">roller coaster designers</a>, your grandma, <a href="https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/lotr/images/b/ba/Smeagol_5.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20060310225156">young Gollum</a>, multiple increasingly haywire clones of Michael Keaton, and probably thousands of precocious household pets have all joined the bandwagon: everyone is growing savvy to the power of storytelling.</p>
<p>We creatives have harnessed the power of stories and wielded it to our advantage.</p>
<p>Why? Because it works.</p>
<p>The power of narrative is neurolinguistic, primordial, pharmacological. When your brain is on stories, it changes. The market has come to demand stories because:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Stories can stir emotion</strong>. Stories can trigger strong feelings more easily than facts. And emotion is the number one factor most decisions made by our feeble human brains.</li>
<li><strong>Stories can improve memory</strong>. Studies show that information packed into a story is much easier to remember.</li>
<li><strong>Stories can back-channel messages</strong>. People develop immunities to brand messages, but they never grow resistant to stories. If you do it right, you can embed your message in a tasty narrative morsel, like how you give your dog medicine in peanut butter.</li>
</ul>
<p>But a saturation point has been reached as everyone’s positioning has shifted to accommodate this demand for storytellers. And if left on its current course, the concept will buckle under the weight of its collective, genericized meanings.</p>
<h3>✨📜✨ BONUS: Brief hiatus from this Medium piece for a 200-word history of Western civilization to demonstrate stories’ deeply embedded presence in our humanity and inextricable link to our economic success ✨📜✨</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Pre-history</strong>. Hunter-gatherers tell orally transmitted stories to avoid getting eated by tigers. Also, there are cave paintings. 🐎🐂</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*UhID8iPym-PhkNpznhrt7w.jpeg">Why do humans exist? Also here are some oxen.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Middle ages</strong>. The soil is tilled by very cold and sad serfs. Monks and poets transcribe the Bible and poems with quills and ink. Everyone is pretty much starving and/or dead.</li>
<li><strong>Renaissance</strong>. Eventually we invent the printing press. The scientific revolution happens. Everyone <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2017/2/17/14653470/kyrie-irving-flat-earth-oh-no">except Kyrie Irving</a> learns the Sun is the center of the solar system. Information becomes democratized. (For rich people. Poor people are still farmers.)</li>
<li><strong>Industrial revolution</strong>. Steam power and capitalism are born. The middle classes triumph over landed elite; millions of people become factory workers. Families read newspapers and connect with the global economy.</li>
<li><strong>1900&#8217;s</strong>. We listen to radio. Then TV. Corporations, empowered by efficiencies of scale, grow massively. Bajillions are spent on advertising to win consumers’ loyalty.</li>
<li><strong>The last 17 years</strong>. Al Gore builds the interweb. Mobile phones connect us. Social media gives us a voice. People begin to crowd-source and share everything. Brands shift from building loyalty to more “personal” engagement. Kim Kardashian. #DeleteUber. Fake news.</li>
<li><strong>The future</strong>. AI. VR. Increasingly socially-minded consumers. The technological singularity. Everyone is a clone of Elon Musk and/or Michael Keaton.</li>
</ul>
<h3>✨📜✨ /End hiatus ✨📜✨</h3>
<h4>And so here we stand.</h4>
<p>The power of storytelling has been identified, adapted, deployed, and codified to the point of breaking.</p>
<p>But I don’t think storytelling deserves an ignominious death. Storytelling isn’t “broken” in the sense that its value is waning. Quite the contrary.</p>
<p>But fatigue is definitely setting in. Hiring managers have heard it all. Your clients are no longer impressed.</p>
<p>And the only way around is through: We need to double down. We need to rely on smarter, more nuanced uses of the concepts and techniques. If we can better understand what storytelling is and where’s it’s going, we can continue to tap into its power.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/960/1*EGyR2PjfoLRfasjqA1y8Rw.gif"></p>
<p>To do that, you’ll have to get smarter in the coming months and years about your storytelling story. You should begin to mix up a recipe, a secret sauce:</p>
<ul>
<li>What specific <strong>skills </strong>enable you to tell stories in a unique way?</li>
<li>What special storytelling <strong>technologies</strong> and tactics are you uniquely qualified to deploy?</li>
<li>What <strong>audiences </strong>is your narrative voice particularly attuned to?</li>
</ul>
<p>To help you (and myself) concoct our mixtures, I want to surface some trends. These developments represent new handholds we can use to grapple with the power of narrative. They’re ideas we need to consider the next time we’re pitching a client or updating our resumes. This is where storytelling is going.</p>
<h3>These 10 trends in tech and culture provide clues as to <em>what comes next — and how to mix your unique storytelling “secret sauce.”</em></h3>
<h4><strong>ONE. (Post-)post-truth</strong>.</h4>
<p>We live in a world where the most powerful leader sees facts as an (in)convenience. Our growing nonchalance about the need for veracity has shaken every sector, from journalism to manufacturing to tech. As storytellers, we have a powerful set of tools for illuminating truth (and taking a hammer to falsity). Picasso said art’s a lie that helps you see the truth. How are your stories doing that work?</p>
<h4><strong>TWO. Artificial intelligence.</strong></h4>
<p>Storytelling is inherently human, but who said <em>humans</em> are the only storytellers? Enter the world of computer cognition, where Facebook recently shut down a reward-based AI system after it <a href="http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2274480-facebook-shut-down-ai-after-it-invented-its-own-language/">invented its own language</a>. The field of machine learning presents untold opportunities to engage peoples’ story-mind: chatbots that better engage our curiosities and fears, bespoke interactions centered on users, and automated experiences that feel less… automated.</p>
<h4><strong>THREE. Virtual reality</strong>.</h4>
<p>No one has yet cracked the code on a mass-market VR product. Why? It has nothing to do with the technology. It’s all about the narratives being brought to the table. Bringing VR to the mass market will fall to the people who know how to weave captivating narratives and tap into our strongest emotions.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/600/1*Qbu2lzTzlspigzm9P8MUEw.gif"></p>
<h4><strong>FOUR. Design.</strong></h4>
<p>The intersection of design and storytelling lies in <a href="https://medium.com/story-design-for-nonfiction/storytelling-design-thinking-ed914117f7c1">human experiences</a>. Ask yourself: Am I actually a designer?</p>
<h4><strong>FIVE. Purpose</strong>.</h4>
<p>Millennials (and Gen Z right behind them) are part of a wave driving demand for thoughtful attention to purpose, CSR, and social impact. Brands are wise to this, and there’s a growing need for voices who can teach them to understand how meaning is created, speak the language of marginalized communities, and weave narratives about positive impact.</p>
<h4><strong>SIX. Consumer power</strong>.</h4>
<p>Consumers are now the protagonists. Our information and decision-making flows through our social graphs. To insert themselves into that flow, smart brands have authentic approaches to “<a href="http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/characteristics-great-storymaking/298327/">storymaking</a>,” user-generated content, and other user-first narratives. Learn to coax these stories out of customers in compelling ways.</p>
<h4><strong>SEVEN. Data</strong>.</h4>
<p>Companies are choking on it. But making sense of all the numbers requires a lot of creativity and, dare I say, art. Being an interpreter (data-to-human) is a highly employable skill today, whether you use your <a href="http://poly-graph.co/billboard/">dope data visualization</a> skills or thoughtfully employ <a href="https://medium.com/ethnography-matters/why-big-data-needs-thick-data-b4b3e75e3d7">thick data</a>.</p>
<h4><strong>EIGHT. </strong>The analog rebellion.</h4>
<p>There is a movement afoot. As our society plunges headlong into technological acceleration, some people have begun to long for a more human touch. Tim Leberecht has founded the anti-algorithmic <a href="http://timleberecht.com/the-society/">Business Romantic Society</a>. People are thirsty for fantasy and randomness. Analog experiences. Word of mouth. Local communities. How can your stories quench that thirst?</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*-ZYgfl2AoGhiFO5VJAxgvQ.jpeg">“I say good fellow, might I offer you these luxurious tapestries in exchange for those bosom-shaped bags of fruit?”</p>
<h4><strong>NINE. Immersive games</strong>.</h4>
<p>Gaming — partially because of the powerful pull we feel when we get to <em>become </em>the protagonist — is an industry that is growing fast. (The Paris Olymic Committee just <a href="https://compete.kotaku.com/paris-olympic-committee-will-consider-esports-for-the-2-1797678847">announced they’d consider</a> esports for the 2024 games.) What cues can you take from game designers in involving your audience and letting them participate?</p>
<h4><strong>TEN. Get a little woke</strong>.</h4>
<p>As the world gets more global and we cry out for more diversity in our work and thinking, it falls to leaders, marketers, and thinkers like you to ask how your work is contributing. Stories are told and listened to differently across cultures. Understanding those dynamics isn’t just important, it’s an ethical imperative.</p>
<h3>Choosing your own adventure</h3>
<p>Storytelling isn’t going anywhere. But if we hope to be at the vanguard, we have to keep our finger on the pulse of where it’s going.</p>
<p>The key, I think, is for us to understand where technologies and markets are moving, and develop this unique secret sauce. As my friend <a href="http://www.jamesvanie.com/">James Vanie</a> recently asked me, “What’s your song?”</p>
<p>Good question. For now, maybe next time I’m updating my LinkedIn bio, I’ll have some more nuanced ingredients to use.</p>
<p>Storytelling is dead.</p>
<p>Long live storytelling.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p><em>Bert O Phillips is the founder of </em><a href="http://peripl.us"><em>Peripl.us</em></a><em>, a consultancy that helps companies illuminate what makes their work purposeful, using it as a compass to design services and narratives built on meaning.</em></p>
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<p><a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/is-storytelling-a-buzzword-the-10-secret-ingredients-storytellers-can-use-to-stay-relevant-3d29783cf43b">Is “STORYTELLING” a buzzword? The 10 secret ingredients storytellers can use to stay relevant</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io">prototypr</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


Is “STORYTELLING” a buzzword? The 10 secret ingredients storytellers can use to stay relevant

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