Latest / Get Real with Jim Weiss / The Future of Storytelling with the visionary himself, Charlie Melcher

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The Future of Storytelling with the visionary himself, Charlie Melcher · Get Real with Jim Weiss

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, Jim, I K this is gonna be a fun one.
0:02
Speaker 1: You know. I think people take for granted how they
0:04
Speaker 1: tell a story. But this little book, it's like a
0:08
Speaker 1: hard real book too, like not digital or anything. Lots
0:12
Speaker 1: of lights and pictures. It is a beautiful book. Yeah,
0:15
Speaker 1: And I just think it's so interesting how we're going
0:19
Speaker 1: to start to tell stories much more immersively with the
0:23
Speaker 1: various augmented reality materials that are coming out of Meta
0:27
Speaker 1: and everywhere else. I think this makes a lot of sense.
0:29
Speaker 1: Community oriented storytelling is what I like about it. And
0:34
Speaker 1: I had a real like nerd fest with my buddy
0:37
Speaker 1: Charlie Melcher about this business and all that he's worked
0:41
Speaker 1: with Oprah. I mean, yeah, I know, well all over the.
0:46
Speaker 2: Place totally, and he had secret We asked him for
0:48
Speaker 2: some things he was like, sorry, I can't say so.
0:50
Speaker 1: I can't tell you about this. So this was a
0:54
Speaker 1: very fun discussion totally.
0:56
Speaker 2: I think it's an interesting, like as more conversation that
0:58
Speaker 2: happens around how social media has isolated us and how
1:02
Speaker 2: technology keeps us home in the pursuit of community buildings.
1:05
Speaker 2: Storytelling is intersecting. So like storytelling, the future of it
1:09
Speaker 2: is bringing people together even if they're on their devices.
1:12
Speaker 2: So there are a lot of things look.
1:13
Speaker 1: Forward to, but there's got to be interactive ways to
1:16
Speaker 1: work with people on the medical side of things. Right,
1:20
Speaker 1: if you have questions about you know, how do I
1:22
Speaker 1: take this drug optimally? You know what your experience with it?
1:26
Speaker 1: I think can get much more understandable if we're telling
1:29
Speaker 1: the story in a way that is more immersed and
1:33
Speaker 1: more compelling, more interactive. That's the podcast know you right.
1:37
Speaker 1: It's why I think we like them, is that a
1:39
Speaker 1: couple of people are talking and working off one another,
1:43
Speaker 1: and a.
1:43
Speaker 2: Podcast is like going on a walk with a buddy.
1:45
Speaker 2: Put our show on, you listen, and you learn and
1:47
Speaker 2: you're in a conversation. So yeah, he's such an awesome
1:51
Speaker 2: person too, and kind and brilliant.
1:54
Speaker 3: So tune in, Jim, how are you brother?
1:58
Speaker 1: Good to see my friend. It is lucky during our
2:01
Speaker 1: walks to get the insider view of the book. But
2:03
Speaker 1: it's great that today it's published, So congratulations. The future
2:07
Speaker 1: of storytelling here. It is real beauty. So I can't
2:12
Speaker 1: wait to introduce your story and vision to the audience
2:15
Speaker 1: because I do think you had influence on me when
2:17
Speaker 1: we met. We came together through our good friend Just
2:21
Speaker 1: Fine at MERK and I think it's important to talk
2:25
Speaker 1: about origins and then we'll get into how we got
2:29
Speaker 1: to this. But it's so relevant into today's world about
2:32
Speaker 1: how to tell a really compelling story. I don't think
2:35
Speaker 1: it's ever been more critical. I know in my world
2:38
Speaker 1: and healthcare, science and medicine, it's more important than ever
2:42
Speaker 1: to paint a clear picture for people so they can
2:45
Speaker 1: make decisions that will improve their lives. So tell me
2:49
Speaker 1: you founded nineteen ninety three, which I moved back here
2:53
Speaker 1: in ninety two. What was your career before, What were
2:56
Speaker 1: you doing before?
2:56
Speaker 3: Well, I've always been in publishing, and so when I
2:59
Speaker 3: started Ard Meltermedia, it was really to help people tell
3:03
Speaker 3: their stories in print. And even from the beginning, I
3:06
Speaker 3: had this idea that we were going to try to
3:07
Speaker 3: reinvent traditional media, that we would try to make books cool, interactive,
3:13
Speaker 3: the sensoral, make them experiences, and so that's what we did.
3:18
Speaker 3: We started working with big brands, interesting people, We started
3:23
Speaker 3: to play with formats and materials and that was going
3:27
Speaker 3: great for about fifteen years until we hit the recession
3:32
Speaker 3: and people's changing reading habits, and at that moment, this
3:36
Speaker 3: was in two thousand and eight two thousand and nine.
3:39
Speaker 3: I was forced to rethink a little bit what I
3:42
Speaker 3: wanted to do when I grew up because the business
3:44
Speaker 3: was in trouble, and at that moment, we were doing
3:47
Speaker 3: Al Gore's and Inconvenient Truth. We were doing a sequel
3:50
Speaker 3: to that book, which was a huge bestseller that we
3:52
Speaker 3: had helped him produce, and we started to do something digital.
3:56
Speaker 3: We made our first app. It was released in twenty
3:58
Speaker 3: eleven and it was called Our Choice. That was the
4:01
Speaker 3: pivot moment when I went from many years of telling
4:04
Speaker 3: stories just in print to realizing that we could tell
4:07
Speaker 3: stories in new ways with code as a canvas.
4:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, in nineteen ninety three, I was at Gnantech. I
4:13
Speaker 1: remember getting some of the first online things done and
4:19
Speaker 1: we were telling stories more through pictures. But I think
4:22
Speaker 1: it was still a words world. So what was media
4:27
Speaker 1: like in nineteen ninety three. It was all print all
4:30
Speaker 1: the time.
4:32
Speaker 3: I mean it was heavy print. Obviously, there was real
4:35
Speaker 3: successes on television, I mean cable MTV was big. One
4:40
Speaker 3: of our first big clients actually was MTV, and we
4:43
Speaker 3: were helping to translate their online programming into print and
4:48
Speaker 3: making successful books with it, but magazines were huge then.
4:52
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about that just recently because of how
4:54
Speaker 3: far the magazine world has fallen from those heady days.
4:59
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was. It was exciting times, though, and
5:00
Speaker 3: people are starting to shift. I remember when somebody who
5:03
Speaker 3: had worked for me left to start a online erotica
5:08
Speaker 3: site called Nerve, and literally she was an editor for me,
5:12
Speaker 3: and then a few months later she was in Newsweek
5:14
Speaker 3: as this big deal having done this edgy startup in websites.
5:19
Speaker 1: Right, so that became the next thing. Right, you write
5:22
Speaker 1: about how the industry was terrified that digital media would
5:26
Speaker 1: be the end of books. I think that was proven
5:30
Speaker 1: somewhat wrong. Yeah, talk to me about how that changed
5:34
Speaker 1: things for you.
5:35
Speaker 3: At this point, the iPhone was out, apps were starting
5:37
Speaker 3: to take off, there was a lot more experimentation in
5:41
Speaker 3: online storytelling in different forms, and as I mentioned, we
5:46
Speaker 3: were just finishing up a book with al Gore, and
5:47
Speaker 3: we decided it was time to make an app to
5:49
Speaker 3: tell that story in an interactive way, and we worked
5:53
Speaker 3: at these two really talented coders who were able to
5:57
Speaker 3: translate this book into something that was truly multi sense.
6:00
Speaker 3: For example, there was an illustration in it where you
6:03
Speaker 3: could blow into the microphone and it looked like you
6:07
Speaker 3: were blowing into the windmill and it was spinning depending
6:11
Speaker 3: on how hard you blew, and that powered up a
6:13
Speaker 3: battery and turned on the lights in the house in
6:15
Speaker 3: this illustration. Anyway, we were trying to use the sensors
6:18
Speaker 3: in the phone to have interactive storytelling, and that helped
6:21
Speaker 3: make that app wildly successful. It was one of the
6:23
Speaker 3: top grossing apps in the App Store, and we won
6:26
Speaker 3: Apples Award for one of the Best Designed Apps of
6:28
Speaker 3: the Year. And that was this pivotal moment for me
6:30
Speaker 3: when I realized my skills were not about paper and
6:33
Speaker 3: ink and binding, they were really about storytelling, and that
6:36
Speaker 3: we could be free to work across media, not just
6:40
Speaker 3: in print.
6:41
Speaker 1: Were you a writer? What were you historically? Were you
6:45
Speaker 1: working as a publisher? I mean in your formative years?
6:48
Speaker 1: What was your deal?
6:49
Speaker 2: Yeah?
6:50
Speaker 3: I was never a writer. I was always more of
6:52
Speaker 3: a visual person. I studied literature, photography and film in
6:56
Speaker 3: college and started a photography magazine, which is what got
7:00
Speaker 3: me hooked on publishing, and that led to working in publishing,
7:05
Speaker 3: primarily illustrated publishing, which is kind of ironic because I'm dyslexic.
7:09
Speaker 3: I didn't come to reading and writing easily. I love
7:13
Speaker 3: it and eventually caught up, but I definitely started off
7:16
Speaker 3: very slowly in my ability to absorb information in tiny
7:21
Speaker 3: little symbols that run in lines on a page. So, yes,
7:24
Speaker 3: a little bit ironic. I ended up in publishing. But
7:27
Speaker 3: even as I came to publishing, I thought about it
7:29
Speaker 3: as a way to tell stories in a multisensoral way,
7:32
Speaker 3: because books are beautiful physical objects, and they have a
7:35
Speaker 3: feel and a smell, and so I was always looking
7:39
Speaker 3: for how to feature those kinds of things and weave
7:40
Speaker 3: them into the content of the storytelling.
7:43
Speaker 1: So you were dyslexic, tell us a little bit about
7:45
Speaker 1: that experience and how it drove you.
7:48
Speaker 3: I mean, I remember it sort of seared in my brain,
7:50
Speaker 3: being in first grade and sitting around in a circle
7:53
Speaker 3: with Dick and Jane books, and when it was my
7:56
Speaker 3: turn to read, I couldn't decipher the words, and as
7:59
Speaker 3: I'm struggle and saying the wrong things, my classmates are
8:02
Speaker 3: laughing at me. And after a few weeks of that,
8:05
Speaker 3: I left thinking I was slow or stupid, and I
8:09
Speaker 3: guess I was lucky. I had a teacher who thought
8:12
Speaker 3: differently that maybe I just had a learning disability, and
8:15
Speaker 3: she encouraged my parents to have me tested, which was
8:18
Speaker 3: not that common back then, and I got identified as
8:22
Speaker 3: dyslexic and that opened up a whole world of remedial
8:26
Speaker 3: reading classes where I was going to special tutors. And
8:29
Speaker 3: there was this older woman, missus Schultz, who was the
8:32
Speaker 3: special ed teacher there, and I remember sitting in her
8:36
Speaker 3: little cubby of an office, knee and knee with her,
8:40
Speaker 3: and she'd take out this tray and she'd pour sand
8:43
Speaker 3: in that she'd collected at the beach, and I would
8:46
Speaker 3: have to when she said the letter B and held
8:49
Speaker 3: up a flashcard with the letter B on it, I
8:51
Speaker 3: would see it and I'd have to say, be buh
8:54
Speaker 3: and then with my finger draw it in the sand.
8:57
Speaker 3: And then she would say d duh, and I would
9:00
Speaker 3: draw that in the sand. And so for me, learning
9:02
Speaker 3: to read and write was reinforced by this kind of
9:06
Speaker 3: multisensoral experiential learning, and so I'm not surprised that I've
9:11
Speaker 3: been fascinated with that ever since. Truthfully, it's how we
9:15
Speaker 3: all learn. We evolved as a species running around outdoors
9:19
Speaker 3: and being able to hear noises in the forest or
9:23
Speaker 3: spot things in the distance. We're not meant to just
9:25
Speaker 3: communicate through our eyes and ears and maybe thumbs on
9:29
Speaker 3: a keyboard. We're supposed to be fully embodied in our
9:32
Speaker 3: communications and in our learning. And there's a lot of
9:35
Speaker 3: research that supports that when you do do that, it's
9:38
Speaker 3: much more memorable, like you learn better, and it's much
9:42
Speaker 3: more emotionally powerful, has the potential to be because emotions
9:46
Speaker 3: actually originate in the body, not in the brain.
9:48
Speaker 1: Well, you know that makes sense to me. Is so
9:51
Speaker 1: you said things changed in two thousand and eight and nine.
9:55
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize there was a change in reading habits.
9:58
Speaker 1: I could see that happening during the evil COVID period
10:02
Speaker 1: where people probably were reading more, But what and how
10:06
Speaker 1: did that reroute storytelling as we know it?
10:09
Speaker 3: At that point, there was such an explosion of content online.
10:12
Speaker 3: There was an infinite amount of free content that you
10:15
Speaker 3: could consume, and so it got to this point where
10:18
Speaker 3: books were competing with other media for people's attention, and
10:23
Speaker 3: they are a little bit slower, It takes a little
10:26
Speaker 3: more concentration and focus. It was certainly easier to just
10:29
Speaker 3: sort of surf the web than it was to sit
10:31
Speaker 3: down and read a book start to finish. So I
10:35
Speaker 3: really think that's how people started to shift their attention
10:39
Speaker 3: from longer form to shorter form. And there were some
10:43
Speaker 3: famous writers at the time and media theorists who were
10:46
Speaker 3: very worried that that was going to be the end
10:48
Speaker 3: of human intelligence, because if we couldn't concentrate, if we
10:52
Speaker 3: couldn't read long form, if we couldn't absorb books, how
10:55
Speaker 3: are we going to learn? Our ability to think deeply
10:59
Speaker 3: was going to disappear, and it was going to be
11:01
Speaker 3: replaced by very super official cat videos. And at the
11:05
Speaker 3: time I was very worried about that also because I
11:08
Speaker 3: did love books and I did love longer form storytelling.
11:11
Speaker 3: I'm so pleased that publishing still exists.
11:14
Speaker 1: Well, right, but I feel like Amazon probably kept that
11:18
Speaker 1: alive longer, right. I mean, while yeah, replaced the mom
11:21
Speaker 1: and pop bookstore and we saw movies about that and
11:25
Speaker 1: things like that in the late nineties into the two thousands,
11:28
Speaker 1: the download on the Kindle or similar items and continue
11:33
Speaker 1: to do what we've always done in a digital form.
11:38
Speaker 3: Yes, there was a real explosion for a while there
11:40
Speaker 3: with the Kindle and other types of e readers, and
11:43
Speaker 3: certainly they have real advantages in some ways. You could
11:46
Speaker 3: get hundreds of them on there, and it's hard to
11:48
Speaker 3: carry a hundred books with you. But I think the
11:51
Speaker 3: most serious readers are many of this serious readers still
11:54
Speaker 3: prefer print. There's something about the tactle nature, something about
11:58
Speaker 3: being able to kind of remember where you are in
12:00
Speaker 3: a three dimensional physical book. That's lost in any reader.
12:03
Speaker 3: But again to each his or her own. I mean,
12:06
Speaker 3: some people just love reading points.
12:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we have such digital natos that a
12:10
Speaker 1: book they wouldn't even think of picking up a book. Yeah,
12:13
Speaker 1: those of us who are still of a certain generation
12:18
Speaker 1: probably get more out of that. And it's something physical
12:22
Speaker 1: to hold, and some can be very beautiful. And is
12:25
Speaker 1: that part of how you worked with clients on their books.
12:29
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think about the paper with size?
12:33
Speaker 1: Give me some of the book engineering and design tips? Sure?
12:38
Speaker 3: Well, we think a lot about that because we're always
12:41
Speaker 3: driven to represent the ideas into the physical form, and
12:45
Speaker 3: so we're consciously trying to embody in the materials, in
12:50
Speaker 3: the design, in the tactile feel. I mean, here's a
12:53
Speaker 3: good example. We were working with Oprah on her book
12:57
Speaker 3: Wisdom of Sundays, and it's really a sort of spiritual book.
13:00
Speaker 3: It's her collection of interviews that she's had with thoughtful
13:04
Speaker 3: leaders and philosophers and authors. And so the decision that
13:09
Speaker 3: we made with her was to take small excerpts from
13:12
Speaker 3: these interviews, but ones that were profound, so that you
13:15
Speaker 3: could have almost like a book of wisdom. And so
13:18
Speaker 3: we ended up deciding to use a course of cloth
13:22
Speaker 3: on the case, something that when you picked it up
13:24
Speaker 3: you would actually feel that there was a tactle nature.
13:28
Speaker 3: You would become conscious in your sensorial experience to try
13:32
Speaker 3: to help bring you into the moment, almost like some
13:34
Speaker 3: people do with beads, where they do a mantra as
13:37
Speaker 3: they move through beads and count. This was meant to
13:40
Speaker 3: be a way to bring you into the moment and
13:43
Speaker 3: surround you in the physical experience of being alive at
13:46
Speaker 3: that moment. I don't know if everyone got that in
13:49
Speaker 3: our choice of fabric on the cover of this book,
13:52
Speaker 3: but I will tell you that Oprah got it and
13:54
Speaker 3: loved it, and the book went on to be a
13:56
Speaker 3: huge New York Times bestseller, So I think other people
13:59
Speaker 3: appreciate did it even subconsciously, if not consciously?
14:03
Speaker 1: Was it cool working with her?
14:05
Speaker 3: It was amazing to work with her. She's a very
14:07
Speaker 3: impressive woman.
14:08
Speaker 1: Have you worked with her since.
14:10
Speaker 3: We've done several books?
14:11
Speaker 1: And how do you help her? So what's the team
14:14
Speaker 1: look like? How do you guys structure or you the lead?
14:17
Speaker 1: I mean, are you writing it? They're writing it? You
14:20
Speaker 1: have authors? How does the thing come together? I mean
14:23
Speaker 1: just fast forwarding today? You know, how do you work
14:26
Speaker 1: with a brand or a company or an author? Tell
14:28
Speaker 1: us about the sausage making?
14:30
Speaker 3: Thank you?
14:31
Speaker 1: Yes?
14:31
Speaker 3: How fun? So it really starts with listening and learning
14:35
Speaker 3: and coming to understand who that person is, what is
14:39
Speaker 3: important to them or, in the case of a company,
14:42
Speaker 3: what they stand for, what their values are, coming to
14:45
Speaker 3: understand the history and the origin stories, if you will.
14:48
Speaker 3: So a lot of our initial work has to do
14:50
Speaker 3: with absorbing everything we can get our hands on and
14:53
Speaker 3: reading it or watching it, and then a whole series
14:56
Speaker 3: of interviews with people who are really there on the inside.
15:00
Speaker 3: And then we need to understand what their goals are,
15:02
Speaker 3: what are they trying to accomplish, and so them our
15:05
Speaker 3: role is to help them think through what's the best
15:08
Speaker 3: book or other form of media that will be true
15:11
Speaker 3: to who they are and accomplish that goal. And so
15:14
Speaker 3: that's where we bring our thirty plus years of experience
15:18
Speaker 3: telling stories with the world's biggest brands and authors and
15:21
Speaker 3: media properties. So we understand what works well in the marketplace,
15:25
Speaker 3: We understand the craft of making books or videos or
15:29
Speaker 3: immersive experiences, and then we bring that knowledge to bear
15:34
Speaker 3: with the brand or author. I remember we did the
15:37
Speaker 3: one hundred anniversary book of Harley Davidson many years ago,
15:41
Speaker 3: and I had never driven a Harley Davidson. I came
15:44
Speaker 3: from a nice New York City Jewish family. My father
15:46
Speaker 3: thought you would die the second you got on a motorcycle.
15:49
Speaker 3: So I had a healthy fear of them, and I
15:51
Speaker 3: had to like saddle up and put on my leathers
15:55
Speaker 3: and get on a bike and learn how to ride
15:58
Speaker 3: a motorcycle. And anyway, we ended up making book that
16:00
Speaker 3: at the end, the CEO came to me and said, Charlie,
16:04
Speaker 3: you created the real McCoy, Like, this book is really us.
16:07
Speaker 3: And that's when we know we've succeeded, when we've created
16:11
Speaker 3: something that the people on the inside feel got them.
16:14
Speaker 1: Are these self published books by the folks that hire
16:17
Speaker 1: you or do you? Then broker? Obviously Oprah has our
16:21
Speaker 1: own book publishing either arm or relationships. You're not the
16:26
Speaker 1: publishing part, in the distribution.
16:29
Speaker 3: Part generally not generally, we get involved in the creative
16:32
Speaker 3: part from concept through finished books, So the building of
16:36
Speaker 3: a creative team, the outline, the writing, the design, the editing,
16:40
Speaker 3: all of that, and the manufacturing. I should also say, Jim,
16:43
Speaker 3: that we started with books, but now we work on
16:46
Speaker 3: a whole array of different types of storytelling. I mean,
16:48
Speaker 3: we're helping to build a presidential library for Theodore Roosevelt,
16:52
Speaker 3: which is really an immersive museum. We're working with one
16:55
Speaker 3: of the world's top automotive brands to help them launch
16:58
Speaker 3: a new vehicle work it was one of the world's
17:01
Speaker 3: top performing artists to create an immersive concert for him
17:05
Speaker 3: with a digital double. It started in print, but actually
17:09
Speaker 3: we work across a lot of different media forms, always
17:12
Speaker 3: though with powerful human storytelling at the core.
17:15
Speaker 1: So the future storytelling is both the title of the
17:18
Speaker 1: book and your well known podcast that I was on.
17:22
Speaker 1: Did you decide to be a futurist in this context
17:27
Speaker 1: or did the role pick you? Hmm.
17:33
Speaker 3: So the origin story for Future Storytelling as was to
17:37
Speaker 3: create a summit. We did a one day event, and
17:40
Speaker 3: I think that for me at that moment, I was
17:44
Speaker 3: feeling a little bit stymied by the book business. I
17:47
Speaker 3: was kind of a very mature medium. I had been
17:49
Speaker 3: in it for many years. My learning curve had leveled off,
17:52
Speaker 3: and I was surrounded by all this exciting stuff that
17:55
Speaker 3: was happening with apps and online and gaming and all
17:58
Speaker 3: these other areas. So I was hungry to get exposed
18:03
Speaker 3: to the cutting edge of storytelling after so many years
18:06
Speaker 3: in the old forms of storytelling, and so deciding to
18:11
Speaker 3: create an event that was called the Future of Storytelling
18:14
Speaker 3: was really an invitation to curate the future. And that's
18:17
Speaker 3: what we did through that summit, and for many years.
18:21
Speaker 3: Our role was to find the most cutting edge technologies,
18:24
Speaker 3: the most innovative thinkers, the creators who were doing things
18:27
Speaker 3: that no one had done before, and bring all of
18:30
Speaker 3: that back to this one event and get people across
18:33
Speaker 3: pollinating and collaborating. So yes, through that we became people
18:37
Speaker 3: who were I wouldn't say futurists, meaning we weren't trying
18:41
Speaker 3: to predict the future. If anything, I always loved that
18:45
Speaker 3: quote that's the future is already here, It's just unevenly
18:48
Speaker 3: distributed so our job was to find it, like, find
18:52
Speaker 3: the most cutting edge pieces that most people hadn't seen
18:55
Speaker 3: and bring it to one place with the hope that
18:58
Speaker 3: we would inspire other people and get them collaborating and
19:02
Speaker 3: that would unlock and if you will, help to create
19:05
Speaker 3: the future because those people would be inspired and find
19:09
Speaker 3: the collaborators or the technologies or the solutions that they
19:12
Speaker 3: were struggling with, and that would open up new opportunities.
19:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, one of the favorites of mine is
19:19
Speaker 1: you can't design the future with the mindset of the past,
19:22
Speaker 1: and that's one that will My old colleague Gary Grach
19:25
Speaker 1: used to use that with clients in our world. I'm
19:29
Speaker 1: sure you are setting out on a similar ideal when
19:33
Speaker 1: you say the future of storytelling won't be watching stories, right,
19:38
Speaker 1: We're actually going to be living now, which is kind
19:41
Speaker 1: of wild, Right, how will we interact with content in
19:45
Speaker 1: the future.
19:45
Speaker 3: A dozen years or more. Now of getting to be
19:48
Speaker 3: invited into these labs or workspaces or performances, like getting
19:54
Speaker 3: to see people doing cutting edge work, I started to
19:57
Speaker 3: notice certain trends, certain things that seem to be taking
20:01
Speaker 3: off or gaining traction, and the insight that I share
20:06
Speaker 3: in the new book is that we grew up in
20:08
Speaker 3: an age where all of our media was linear, flat, fixed,
20:12
Speaker 3: two dimensional, passively consumed and in many cases downright anti social,
20:18
Speaker 3: ironically called social media, but in reality we know from
20:22
Speaker 3: most people it creates the opposite. It creates alienation and
20:26
Speaker 3: polarization and loneliness. There's a new kind of storytelling on
20:30
Speaker 3: the horizon, and it's very different. It's a kind of
20:33
Speaker 3: storytelling that is immersive, It is embodied, It gives us
20:38
Speaker 3: agency a role to play. It's responsive, It sort of
20:42
Speaker 3: personalizes or understands who we are. And it's highly social.
20:46
Speaker 3: And because of all of those things, it has the
20:49
Speaker 3: potential to really stay with us, to be transformative. And
20:53
Speaker 3: I call those kinds of stories living stories. That is,
20:57
Speaker 3: we're not sitting back watching consuming it with our eyes
21:00
Speaker 3: and ears. We are in it. We are living it.
21:03
Speaker 3: We're fully there embody, in our actions and in our emotions.
21:08
Speaker 1: So we'll take on characters as we watch them as
21:11
Speaker 1: that what you're saying, So, how does that work? That's
21:14
Speaker 1: hard for me to imagine.
21:15
Speaker 3: There are all different ways that that's happening.
21:17
Speaker 1: Now.
21:17
Speaker 3: You can see it in certain types of virtual reality
21:20
Speaker 3: experiences where you put on the headset and now you're
21:23
Speaker 3: looking through the eyes or another character.
21:25
Speaker 1: As you wander.
21:25
Speaker 3: You can even see your hands and have agency and
21:28
Speaker 3: that you can see other people in it. In the book,
21:31
Speaker 3: we have an example of called the Infinite, which is
21:34
Speaker 3: created by Felix and Paul Studios, and it's an experience
21:37
Speaker 3: of going to the International Space Station and you're wandering
21:41
Speaker 3: around and there are other people and in fact this
21:43
Speaker 3: experience can have I think five hundred people at a
21:45
Speaker 3: time in VR wandering around together. It's pretty amazing. Another
21:51
Speaker 3: great example is immersive theater, something like the credibly talented
21:54
Speaker 3: and brilliant Felix Barrett who runs a guitar company called
21:57
Speaker 3: Punch Drunk, and they created something called Sleep, which is
22:00
Speaker 3: a historically significant piece of immersive theater, where again several
22:06
Speaker 3: hundred people at a time are wandering around as ghosts
22:10
Speaker 3: inside this building, interacting with the cast, with the actors,
22:14
Speaker 3: and being able to touch things and explore through these several
22:18
Speaker 3: floors of immaculately designed spaces at will like their choice
22:23
Speaker 3: how this story unfolds, what parts of it they see.
22:26
Speaker 3: So there are many many different examples in different forms
22:29
Speaker 3: of reinvention. There are people in branding know about. Let's
22:32
Speaker 3: say that wonderful experience that Giant Spoon did at south
22:35
Speaker 3: By Southwest a few years ago for the HBO show Westworld,
22:39
Speaker 3: where they created the whole town of Sweetwater. I think
22:42
Speaker 3: it's called where you got to live in West World
22:45
Speaker 3: for an afternoon, mind blowing stuff. But that was a
22:49
Speaker 3: marketing thing. Another one is an art piece, another one's
22:51
Speaker 3: a theater piece. Like this is happening all around us
22:55
Speaker 3: in different industries, with different technologies, in different parts of
22:58
Speaker 3: the globe, and already it's making hundreds of millions of dollars,
23:03
Speaker 3: but it hasn't quite really broken through to mainstream consciousness.
23:07
Speaker 1: But I think we're a few years away. You divide
23:09
Speaker 1: storytelling into six categories, agentic, immersa embodied response of social transformative.
23:16
Speaker 1: It all sounds like, you know, all the things we
23:20
Speaker 1: hear with respect to AI. Can you offer example of
23:24
Speaker 1: how companies like Netflix and CBS or the Sphere fall
23:28
Speaker 1: into those categories? Because I go to the Sphere to
23:32
Speaker 1: see Dead and Company. I just saw the eagles there
23:35
Speaker 1: and so music straight up awesome. But now you're interacting
23:40
Speaker 1: with a lot of visuals as well, which I think
23:43
Speaker 1: is just enhances the experience and almost makes it hard
23:47
Speaker 1: to go just to hear regular music without that.
23:50
Speaker 3: So those six components you just mentioned are the ones
23:53
Speaker 3: that I considered to be essential to this new form. Like,
23:58
Speaker 3: if you want to create a living story, you want
24:00
Speaker 3: it to be immersive, agentic, responsive, social, participatory, transformative, Like
24:07
Speaker 3: all those things are part of what it means to
24:10
Speaker 3: create a living story. Now, not every example in the
24:12
Speaker 3: book perfectly embodies all of those things or represents all
24:16
Speaker 3: of those but I think that's what one aspires to.
24:19
Speaker 3: When you are able to accomplish all those things, it
24:22
Speaker 3: is incredibly powerful. It is so much more powerful than
24:25
Speaker 3: say watching a movie or reading a book or playing
24:28
Speaker 3: a game.
24:29
Speaker 1: So we met when we put together the Mark Book
24:32
Speaker 1: after you did the story of ku Trudea, which is
24:35
Speaker 1: a immunotherapy for cancer that was quite you know, revolutionary
24:39
Speaker 1: at the time. I think one of the things you're
24:41
Speaker 1: talking about here is I, of course believe everyone's gonna
24:47
Speaker 1: get hit by the bouncing ball. There's nothing more important
24:49
Speaker 1: than your health and telling a story that is as
24:52
Speaker 1: well rounded as you can. And healthcare is really this
24:57
Speaker 1: it seems like getting a little more involved, it's more immersive,
25:01
Speaker 1: would all be very useful. Where's the future of stories?
25:05
Speaker 1: Tell us what's coming.
25:06
Speaker 3: There's going to be a real, fairly quick explosion in
25:09
Speaker 3: wearables ar glasses. You already see Meta having great success
25:13
Speaker 3: with ray band and other companies doing similar things, and
25:17
Speaker 3: very quickly we're going to get to that place where
25:19
Speaker 3: we're wearing on our wrists or fingers or belts that
25:22
Speaker 3: will also provide the capturing of information, maybe about our
25:26
Speaker 3: heart rate, maybe about our galvanic skin response. Maybe it'll
25:30
Speaker 3: be able to pick up our emotional response to things
25:33
Speaker 3: by reading those biometrics that we're not even conscious of.
25:37
Speaker 3: So when we start to be able to mix that
25:39
Speaker 3: kind of understanding about our physiology with your ability to
25:45
Speaker 3: add a layer of storytelling onto the real world, it's
25:49
Speaker 3: going to be an incredibly powerful tool. You won't need
25:52
Speaker 3: to go to some fancy theater or a thing like
25:56
Speaker 3: the sphere. You'll be able to actually have a powerful
25:58
Speaker 3: story experience that's responsive and agentic and embodied as you
26:03
Speaker 3: walk down the street.
26:04
Speaker 1: So we could tell stories on a much more compelling, interesting,
26:08
Speaker 1: interactive way than we're doing it today. It sounds like
26:11
Speaker 1: I do want you to get creative on this though, Okay,
26:14
Speaker 1: we always ask two questions. So you've been cast off
26:18
Speaker 1: to a desert island. It's not virtual, it's real, all right.
26:22
Speaker 1: What is your desert island album? What album are you
26:25
Speaker 1: taking to that island?
26:28
Speaker 3: Okay? What album am I taking? Let's see, I might
26:32
Speaker 3: end up taking with me one that I have kind
26:36
Speaker 3: of an emotional response to because of my years working
26:39
Speaker 3: with it, Captain fantastic Elton John.
26:43
Speaker 1: It seems appropriate for you, you know, in this book
26:47
Speaker 1: and all of that. Really great one can't go wrong.
26:50
Speaker 1: And what's your dream vacation? Not on the desert island?
26:54
Speaker 3: Yeah? My dream vacation is where I get to go
26:58
Speaker 3: to some place in the world world and get to
27:02
Speaker 3: meet the most interesting creators and get brought behind the
27:06
Speaker 3: curtain into their process. So I don't have one dream vacation,
27:10
Speaker 3: but I often get to go on my dream vacations
27:13
Speaker 3: through the Future of Storytelling Explorers Club, and for me,
27:16
Speaker 3: the powers being someplace I've never been before and having
27:20
Speaker 3: a mentor or a guide who's really there and understands it,
27:24
Speaker 3: and they bring me into their world and because of
27:27
Speaker 3: that I can connect. It's not just the access, it's
27:30
Speaker 3: the understanding and the emotional connection that makes it meaningful.
27:33
Speaker 1: Well, look, Charlie, you know there's so much more recover.
27:36
Speaker 1: We're going to keep telling stories together. Let's keep connecting
27:39
Speaker 1: the dots. Thanks for being here with me. I do
27:42
Speaker 1: like designing the future and thinking about the future all
27:45
Speaker 1: the time. So this was really time well spent, and
27:48
Speaker 1: I can tell you it will change how I talk
27:51
Speaker 1: through a lot of my colleagues and clients and others
27:54
Speaker 1: in terms of how they tell their stories. There's so
27:56
Speaker 1: much more to so many ways they can do this
27:59
Speaker 1: now that are more interesting than ever.
28:01
Speaker 3: Jim, thank you for the opportunity. And I've always been
28:03
Speaker 3: a huge fan of your storytelling, and you're raising the
28:07
Speaker 3: bar in your field to helping people realize that there's
28:10
Speaker 3: the power to tell really strong stories, the need to
28:13
Speaker 3: tell really strong stories, particularly when you're dealing with such
28:17
Speaker 3: important things like life and death and people's well beings.
28:20
Speaker 3: So thank you for the storytelling you do, and thanks
28:23
Speaker 3: for the opportunity today.
28:24
Speaker 1: All right, man, hey everyone, thanks for joining me on
28:28
Speaker 1: the Get Real podcast. You know, I hope you feel
28:31
Speaker 1: a little healthier hanging out with me. You know, it's
28:33
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of fun passing this along
28:36
Speaker 1: to others. Please subscribe below, Please share. I'm excited not
28:41
Speaker 1: just to talk about healthcare, but a lot of other
28:44
Speaker 1: fun topics. It's about making healthy Talk about healthcare is
28:49
Speaker 1: not a lecture. This is supposed to be fun and
28:52
Speaker 1: look forward to spending more time with you in the future.