Good Ideas in Storytelling, Vancouver Recap

Over the summer Vancouver hosted its sophomore edition of the Good Ideas Salon. The topic: Good Ideas in Storytelling featured a diverse and talented panel. While we were unable to film the salon we wanted to share some of the discussion. A great salon is one where guests enter with a sense of anticipation not knowing what will be discussed and panelists engage in a dynamic discussion never to be duplicated. This salon certainly was just that.

Our panel featured David Allison, partner of Braun Allison, a destination and property development branding master, formerly Sotheby’s VP of Marketing. Leah Nelson, with Giant Ant Media, is a digital native filmmaker primarily focused on documentaries. Lastly, author, artist, designer, film maker, and pithy Twitterer Douglas Coupland who is currently working on a biography of fellow Canadian Marshall McLuhan and ramping up the media push for Generation A, the eagerly anticipated follow up to Generation X.

The discussion was shaped around three aspects of storytelling, the perspective of the storyteller, distribution of stories and the intertwining of stories and brands. Given the breadth of storytelling as a human trait the conversation meandered throughout the three aspects and beyond. While we encourage specific examples of good ideas in our salons, this discussion delightfully turned extremely philosophical, a sharp reflection of our present moment of change and uncertainty.

Some of the highlights were the discussion around collective storytelling. Both stories created through the contribution of many but also stories taking shared icons or tales that are public property, say Jesus or Santa Clause, and seeing where they evolve in new ways. A term Coupland used “fractal storytelling” is the idea that stories are being broken into smaller and smaller pieces that as you come across them the bigger story opens up. Examples being Susan Boyle, the Iran election and Michael Jackson, who passed away hours before the panel, yet everyone was aware with more than half the room having learned on some form of mobile device.

In the area of democratized distribution when it comes to creators being compensated for their efforts the “black box” has yet to be found. Though the sentiment was that if you are doing something great and original you will find a model given the plethora that are uniquely proving viable. Coupland noted he’s always maintained his attitude as an art student, working through periods on what interests him. Nelson echoed similar sentiments of following what interests you and through their films are compensated via the newer digital models good work finds its audience. There is no “one” model, simply many to chose from accordingly to the nature of your stories, values and needs.

Storytelling and brands was a particularly fascinating discussion. On one hand panelists feel we are entering a time of greater honesty and character. People can tell when a brand story is conjured out of thin air in a focus group. Conversely, some of the brands noted as exemplifying great storytelling, examples shared were Net10 and Axe, likely were as fabricated as they come. Yet they maintain a sense of honesty and full disclosure while providing a tangible sense of entertainment or value in these properties and as brands they always error on the side of new.

Overall it was a very passionate panel, with an overwhelming sense of excitement and eagerness to find out how we can harness emerging tools and platforms in more interesting ways. Get past the functionality of them as tools, and create new ways to sell new stories, or even just a timeless tale in a new way. After all, storytelling is a distinctive trait that makes us human.

While a written summary can never to justice to the experience of attending the salon, we hope this gave a sense of the event.

Matt and Brett thank the panelists and our wonderful guests. The next salon will be Good Ideas in Design, tentatively featuring shoe maker John Fluevog, designer James Bateman creative director of Karacters Design Group and Neils Bendst Canada’s only furniture designer to have a chair accepted into New York’s MOMA. We had promised a September event but with the closing of Workspace a date is TBD as we confirm a new venue.

And for details on future Vancouver salons you can follow Matt and Brett on Twitter or the Vancouver Good Ideas Salon.

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