Category: Blog

Visions of the Future: Food of the Future

Posted on by Jack Moran

September 26th, 2018: What are you cooking today?

Well – here’s a recipe for you.

Take:

  • 9.1 billion people, the world’s projected population by 2050;
  • 25% of farmland worldwide: the proportion that’s now highly degraded, subject to soil erosion, water degradation, and biodiversity loss;
  • 8% of farmland worldwide: the proportion that’s now moderately degraded;
  • The year 2023: the year that the population in China, India, and Africa will constitute over half the world’s population;
  • 63kg of meat per year – as of 2016, the average meat consumption per capita per annum in China.

Heat by 2.6 degrees Celsius: the upper-bound estimate, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of how much the earth might warm by 2050: the year that Oxfam estimate that the world will no longer be able to produce enough food to feed itself.

This recipe doesn’t come with a picture, but, to conjure up a vision of the future presented by this slow-cooking combination, imagine 379 Big Macs.

Then try and imagine 379 billion Big Macs (more burgers, incidentally, than McDonalds has cooked up in its entire existence).

Then try to imagine – if you can – a world that’s short of 379 billion Big Macs. Each year.

That’s the vision of the future outlined by Ms. Sara Menker, founder and Chief Executive of Gro Intelligence. When will our collective meal be ready? Cooking time for this unique recipe: uncertain, but take out and try any time between 2023 and 2050.

There’s a recipe for you.

September 26th, 2020: What are you cooking today?

Here’s another recipe for you (innovative business partner required):

  • Take the world’s favourite foods – anything you like;
  • Pass favourite foods through 3D scanner, pressure sensor, and MRI scanner. Record texture, density, moisture content, visual data, and flavour in database;
  • Repeat for all favourite foods until your database contains all one could possibly want to feed the world;
  • Save database to a USB stick (yes: this vision of the future features fast food, too);
  • Insert USB into USB port on specialist 3D pixel food printer;
  • Select chosen meal;
  • Download chosen meal – and enjoy!

Imagine cooking from a computer. Imagine food that requires minimal – if any – farmland. Imagine a kitchen that requires not a gas-guzzling oven, but just your laptop and a 3D printer. Imagine a vision of the future where you can send your dinner via email, your breakfast from your smartphone – from folder to fork in minutes. Imagine a vision of the future where feeding the world doesn’t cost the world.

There’s a recipe for you.

If we want to combat climate change and ensure a sustainable future for the world, altering agricultural practice is imperative. Currently, 75% of our food can be sourced back to only 12 plants and 5 animal species, while global calorific demand continues to increase relentlessly with population increase.

Unsurprisingly, this will cease to be sustainable unless new nutritional sources are discovered or found. That doing so is increasingly imperative has been amply documented, with a range of reports – from Gro Intelligence to Oxfam – offering grave estimates of the risk posed by imminent food insecurity: 2023? 2030? 2050?

However, panic is premature. The power of human ingenuity is being devoted – with alacrity – to the task, with the Open Meals project one example of the attempt to combine new technology and ingenious innovation in ways that safeguard a prosperous future for humanity.

Futuristic and cutting-edge though this vision is, those behind Open Meals envisage a world where a meal can be downloaded and printed as easily as a PDF from a USB, combining big data, food analysis, and 3D printing technology to try and ensure that – no matter how much land we lose – the world stays fed, full – and, we hope – cool.

We are The Storytellers. We exist to move more people to do great things through the power and influence of storytelling.

Which story will move you and the people around you to do great things in 2018? Share your story with us. 

The real millennial story  

Posted on by Bex Felton

It’s a messy business, the work of intergenerational definition. Almost impossible to do in real-time, the work falls latterly to the older cohort – tasked with setting the parameters that shape the next through the cloudy lens of age. These parameters are increasingly subject to anxious scrutiny from businesses concerned with the needs, wants, moods, skills and yet-unobserved deficits of the future workforce in a world that faces – in the short-term at least – a battle for competent new recruits.

The millennials – the most debated, disputed and denigrated generation to enter the workforce in living memory – will soon be the most dominant presence in the workplace, accounting for a third of all employees by 2020. At the same time, this 1.8 billion-strong demographic will also become our most dominant and voracious global consumers – making them the target market for the majority of the worlds’ increasingly millennial-led enterprises. Together, this is a decisive moment for the way we work, the work we do, and the things we consume. The millennial moment has arrived.

But as one generation gives way to the next – as the rule-breakers become the decision-makers – the anxiety persists, lacing questions of legacy with endemic categoric confusion about just who it is that will be taking up the mantle. Because despite the millennial moment we are now in, despite the presumably now-commonplace presence they exert on the office, markets and society at large, questions persist among politicians, business leaders, managers, marketers, media. Who are the millenials? Are they forty, or twenty? Entrepreneurs or flight risk? Selfless socialist or entitled brats? Woke or lit? Pink or yellow? What do they need? What do they want? How do they think?

By the Pew Research Centre, the line has finally been drawn. Those born in 1981 will be the first millenials. Those born in 1996 will be the last. The new post-millenial cohort – who have never known a world without smart phones, the war on terror, extreme partisan politics, austerity, immigration crises, and everything else that shapes a generation – present the next big headache. And just when we thought we were all getting comfortable with the new status quo.

I’m a millennial. So are many of my colleagues, and my clients. So, probably, are you.

So what do we want?

Spanning nearly two decades, the millennial experience, drivers and values will be as diverse as the life trajectories we’ve known. But there are some things we do all share. Our first, inescapable bond: we’re all post-recession. One way or another, as Pew observes, the credit crisis hit us with a ‘slow start’ – either losing us more developed careers altogether or stalling the ones we’d been promised.

A decade ago this month, my own breed of squarely mid-millenial watched Lehman collapse from the cloistered world of college: bankers in suits on sidewalks, clutching cardboard boxes and dazed faces. We didn’t understand sub-prime mortgages. We had finals. It was a ripple, we thought, in a world very far away from us. When we graduated, it was into an economy with almost zero opportunity. To be paid for work was a luxury that suddenly did not fit the new world order. Those with means could work for free. Many, most, could not. And to be young and unemployed – or young and underused, or young and exploited – is a bad thing for fledgling minds. So yes. We’ve been delayed. Because of this, we’re impatient. Where 62% of our boomer forebears were married with a house by the age of 34, this is true for just 31% of us. We are statistically unsettled, forced to place value on different things in life. We’re reformers, because we’ve had to imagine something better.

And because we’ll be working for a long, long time – to plug the gap between our lengthening lives and our shrinking pension pot – we need our work to be meaningful. Meaningful in the sense that we have a clear and positive impact for our teams, for our clients, and for society. We expect our work to support and align with our values, because we see our work as an extension of ourselves: the place where the majority of our time and experiences will be spent, for most of our lives. We demand authenticity because, after decades of unfettered capitalism, we’re highly attuned to the gap between brand and reality. We need to feel invested in, because work will be our life and our life will need to be enhanced by our work in ways that keep us engaged and productive in an economy where no one can ever afford to stop learning.  We seek purpose because the great myth of money is no longer enough to sate our freer, more restless, more educated and global-minded appetites, in a world full of problems we can no longer afford to ignore. We crave a story to tell ourselves and our peers about who we are and what we do because this is the currency of our times, and we know that no one else is going to make our meaning for us.

So who are the millennials? What do we want? What do we need?

Meaningful work. Positive impact. Opportunities to learn and contribute. A story we’re proud to tell.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be so complicated.

Our strategic narrative: practising what we preach

Posted on by Alison Esse

There’s a saying that you can tell a cobbler by his shoes, implying that he is so busy he has little time to address his own footwear. In the same vein, ‘doctors make the worst patients’ might also apply (and if you happen to be the child of two doctors, as am I, you’ll know that you certainly don’t get the same sympathy as you’d hope their actual patients get).

So when we embarked on creating our own strategic narrative at The Storytellers – an exercise we’ve now done for over 170 major organisations across the world – we weren’t entirely sure how it was going to pan out or, more importantly, how we could possibly stay friends during the process. Roger, one of our best-loved and most talented storywriters, was tasked with drafting it, based on interviews with each of the senior leadership team, and aligning us behind the draft narrative that emerged.

It took time, not least because we were so busy with our clients that it kept getting put on the back-burner. But we eventually reached final alignment, and ‘Our Journey to Soar’ was born.

I have to admit, the black-and-white, words-only version was good: beautifully written by Roger as we’d expected. Of course. But it wasn’t until one of our designers, Sana, brought it to life with a stunning, colourful Da Vinci-esque creative treatment that captured the concept of the art and science of storytelling so well, that it really came into its own. I have to say I actually felt quite emotional when I saw it transformed into a stupendous piece of art. Our creative expertise really did do the trick.

Two years later we are embarking on ‘the next episode’…an updated story that will show progress and weave in the next set of challenges and opportunities that underpin our journey of growth. But what’s been so gratifying is how we’ve used our Story at every opportunity to remind the team of where we’re going, why we make the decisions we make, how we need to act and behave, and what our priorities need to be.

Every week it makes an appearance as we relate stories of the previous week, linking them back to the narrative. It has been a reminder of the approach we need to take with our clients, and other priorities, which has influenced the shape of our business plan. It has provided clarity and direction for our decision-making. It has proved a useful tool for positive team conversations, and occasionally to take the heat out of a ‘difficult conversation’. It has reinforced our new brand and provided us with a wonderful creative campaign. We use it for conversations with potential candidates and induction for new recruits. It has aligned us as a leadership team and has helped us to explain the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. It is a brilliant strategic engagement tool. And clients love the fact that we’re actually walking the talk ourselves (after all, it’s what we preach to them….!). It’s no coincidence that we’ve enjoyed one of our best-ever years from a performance point-of-view.

So next time I pop into our local shoe-repair shop I’ll check out the state of the owner’s shoes. If they’re shiny and clean, it won’t necessarily mean he’s not diligent and too busy dealing with his own customers’ shoes. It could be that he simply appreciates the benefits of looking after his own footwear. Walking the talk, so to speak. Literally.

 

Alison Esse
Co-founder and Director

Storytelling: to provide all people

Posted on by Sana Iqbal

To celebrate the 70th birthday of the National Health Service (NHS), BBC Wales produced an emotional film named ‘To provide all people’. The poetic script weaves together real-life stories of staff and patients punctuated by the historical birth of the NHS. The film is a perfect example of the power of visual storytelling. It turns the organisation’s birthday celebration into something more meaningful.

Writer, and acclaimed poet, Owen Sheers masterfully interwove over 70 hours worth of interviews to create the script. The stories include a father nearly losing his wife and child during a difficult pregnancy to a nurse going above and beyond to fulfil the final wish of a patient to die back home. The film doesn’t shy away from the challenges faced by the NHS, a subject always on the agenda of the national news and politicians. Combining stories of celebration with the current reality stop cynical viewers from seeing the film as propaganda. The choice to develop the script into a poem adds another layer of emotion. It adds musical quality to the script making the words memorable and amplifies deep feelings.

“Here’s the thing. How exactly… does an idea begin? Where does it all start? In one woman’s brain, in one man’s heart? It doesn’t seem likely… all of us are fuelled by the thoughts of others, by what we’ve read, gleaned or seen.”

The medium of film brings the poem alive. The cinematography is gritty and authentic with scenes filmed in Neville Hall Hospital. The direct dialogue to camera and intimate framing strengthens the connection with the viewer. The diverse cast reflect the NHS core purpose: to provide free healthcare for all.

At The Storytellers we shape our creative campaigns around employee stories of success and best practise to inspire people to learn from their peers and make connections to their own role, giving them the means to challenge their mindsets, shift their behaviours, and generate their own stories of success. We have seen that our clients make greater impact when producing a film as part of their campaign collateral. For example, we created an epic film for a large supermarket chain to galvanise the organisation’s employees and achieve service excellence. By conducting focus groups and interviews, building trust came out as the core message of the strategic narrative. The ambassador network, who’d champion the Story, were filmed collaborating to literally build the word ‘trust’ across the Peak District. The exercise not only established trust within the ambassador network during the film’s production but meant the rest of the organisation’s people were inspired by the amazing results which can be achieved through building trust with their teams and customers.

‘To provide all people’ is a powerful example of visual storytelling. The musical language, beautiful visuals and emotive acting make for a memorable television experience. Each creative element is carefully designed to amplify the strong emotions of the narrative, touching the heart of the viewer. The power of seeing every day people with their different backgrounds and dialects celebrating the NHS is a powerful way to reconnect the public with the organisation. It reminds us that in challenging times the organisation is still a national success.

‘To provide all people’ is a must-watch and is currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer. You can watch it here.

Sana Iqbal
Creative Consultant

Five defining moments of the World Cup so far

Posted on by Daniel Castro

If journalism is the practice of picking up on the threads of existing stories, exploring how events of today impact those narratives, and exploring where the future could take us, then this year’s World Cup has already been a journalist’s dream.

So far the tournament has been full of twists, turns, and ‘defining moments’ – what we at The Storytellers call the meaningful and memorable moments in a long-term narrative, and that point to big change.

At The Storytellers, we know that ‘defining moments’ are essential towards how companies and organisations shift culture and mindsets – and at the World Cup, we have seen five ‘defining moments’ that have shifted five very different narratives:

Russia: in terms of hosting the World Cup, it is widely acknowledged that Russia has delivered above and beyond what was expected. Prior to the tournament, fears over the country’s problem with hooliganism and clashes with rival fans loomed large – and of course, the West’s frosty relationship with Putin soured the prospect of the tournament for many. What has happened thus far has actually been a carefully staged and violence-free carnival of football. As an event, Russia has gone a long way towards challenging the existing narrative about what kind of a country they are – this really could be a defining moment in the country’s history.

Germany: it’s pretty clear what poor Germany’s defining moment has been: this is the first time that Die Mannschaft have exited the tournament at the group stage, ever. As a team, the next four years will undoubtedly be a process of resetting the journey that they are on. In storytelling terms, they are certainly ready for the ‘Next Episode’ of how they achieve success on the global stage – and most likely, a new leader to give new meaning to those old objectives that once seemed so straightforward.

England: the fascinating thing about England’s campaign so far is the quietly shifting nature of how the public interact with the national team. There is the palpable sense of a nation finally reaching the final stages of grief after years of agonising losses and crushed optimism. Of course, as you read this, England may have already exited the tournament – but there is a sense of belief that under Gareth Southgate’s leadership, English football has quietly begun a new kind of journey towards success.

Messi and Ronaldo: after years of two players dominating the world of football, we have most likely seen the last of the mercurial Ronaldo and magical Messi at a World Cup. Tantalisingly, we might have seen a very different kind of defining moment, as the match between Portugal and Argentina – and a chance for one final showdown – was narrowly missed. So instead the story is that of a glorious era coming to an end – and just as they shared their years of success, how fitting that they both bowed out of the tournament on the same day. Truly a defining moment for these two giants of football.

VAR: after mixed successes at the domestic level, one gets the sense that this is a defining moment for how football uses technology to enhance the actual game itself. After years of controversial refereeing decisions, VAR (Video Assistant Referee) has put the thousands of different camera angles at the disposal of the referee and their team, to more accurately judge what has happened. The human touch remains of course – and while this is certainly a defining moment in that VAR is probably here to stay, the wider narrative of how humans interact and make best use of technology continues.

 

Daniel Castro
Producer

Visions of the Future: Better Shelter

Posted on by Jack Moran

June, 2015, Älmhult, Sweden: Another day, another deluge of stories about a world in desperate need of aid. Whether you open a newspaper or your Facebook newsfeed, the crises, the calls for assistance, seem unending.

You’ve had visions of their present: hunger, displacement, the fragmented feelings of fear and frustration, the whine of a drone in their sky.

You’ve seen the figures: over 65 million refugees, one of the worst humanitarian crises since the end of World War Two. For 2.6 million of them, that displacement has been ongoing for over five years.

Governments have tried, desperately, to mitigate the crisis: policy is produced, diplomacy descends, and the calls for help, for home, continue.

The world seems paralysed by the scale of the disruption. But what, you think, if help were simpler? What if some assistance, some relief, could be provided in the form of something as small, as inconsequential, as an Allen key?

Your company might be short on diplomats, you think – but you’re not short of Allen keys. Your company might be short of policymakers, but you don’t lack inventiveness, innovation, initiative. Let’s put them together.

January, 2017, Baghdad: Another day, another deluge. Iraqi weather can be challenging at the best of times, for the most fortunate of people – but, for the displaced, the difficulties are difficult to contemplate, to negotiate.

In the summer, humidity and heat makes a tent unbearable. When the winter and spring come, they bring with them torrents of rain. Water, a foot high. Unclean, each deluge brings the risk of disease, of diarrhoea.

It’s not just the elements that cause such trouble. In a place where desperation and devastation are so common, the prospect of being protected by nothing more than tent walls left you fearful each night.

Today, however, the risk and the rain are unlikely to trouble you, at least for the time being. Four short hours ago, you were facing the prospect of another night in the tents, with their fragility and flimsiness.

Four short hours ago, you were offered an Allen key, and you and your family opened two boxes containing the IKEA Better Shelter: a lifeline, and a security. Solar panels that offer light for four hours, making the darkness less daunting. A stab-proof steel frame, allowing you to sleep more easily. USB ports for mobile phone charging, allowing you to access family, help, information.

You stand up, key in hand, and hold it up to the light. Around you, sixteen Better Shelters stand, secure, stable, strong. Not quite a community – but the closest thing you’ve had to it since you were displaced.

January, 2017, London: Another day, another deluge: five thousand kilometres away, January in London is proving as wet and windswept as ever. However, the rain’s not troubling you: you’re receiving the Beazley Design of the Year Award, with your company lauded for the work you’ve done to bring shelter, privacy, safety, and order to those who need those things most.

Your work, you hope, will inspire other companies to turn a product into protection; to recognise points where the private can fill gaps the public can’t; to adopt an active role in tackling need and negligence; to find those moments where your work becomes a social enterprise.

IKEA’s Better Shelter is one of the finest examples of corporate social responsibility made manifest. It combines altruism and innovation; it unites new technology with sensitivity to the needs of those using that technology; it finds a niche for itself where public policy is inefficient, or delayed. A Better Shelter costs double what another emergency tent might do, but the benefits – security, insulation, stability, three years’ use – make it a vastly-superior source of shelter. And, requiring nothing more complicated than an Allen Key, anyone can put it together.

From Facebook’s attempt to provide internet to some of the world’s most remote inhabited places using drones, to Google’s decision to become one of the world’s leading corporate purchasers of renewable energy, to IKEA’s belief in the power of something as small as the Allen Key, every company has a solution to offer – and a story to tell.

We are The Storytellers. We exist to move more people to do great things through the power and influence of storytelling.

What story will move you and the people around you to do great things in 2018?  Share your story with us.

The state of storytelling

Posted on by Jack Roberts

So much of our world is wrapped up inside the constancy of change. Only a few short years ago we had no smart phone. This is just one example of many innovations and progressions that have impacted our society. Think about how our daily story has changed since that time in 2007 at the launch of Apple’s iPhone. We now hold the whole of the world’s organised information on a device in our pockets and use it to argue with strangers or adopt an endless scroll of news we did not curate ourselves. We have greater access to data and solutions to large scale problems than ever before. But, how do we make sense of this?

Concurrently to information becoming the moniker for an age, the next age is emerging. Throughout human history each age seems to hold the seeds or perhaps the needs for the next age within it. This has been true of the information age. We are entering the age of stories. According to creativity author Daniel Pink,1 the information age will be supplanted by the conceptual age, the age of ideas. He posits that “right-brain”or “creative” people will be the next group of leaders in power in business and culture. Once all of the information is aggregated and we know what must be done, one of the only differentiators that will emerge is how it gets done. Pink believes this is why creativity will emerge and the conceptual age will begin. We see it happening today. Two companies may have similar products, similar market share, even similar values but the one engaging their audience creatively accelerates performance. This presents new challenges, too. A company may have extremely innovative concepts, may even be on the cusp of disrupting the market, but, without an inspiring way of communicating their ideas there’s no way to transform the concepts to measurable results. As we move past the information age and need to figure out what to do with all of this big data, we need ideas. But, without storytelling the ideas just become another kind of data point. And what happens in a world of competing ideas?

This is where storytelling comes in. Storytelling could well be called the craft that takes information into the form in which we can assimilate it, and do something with it. In this sense, then, concepts alone, ideation alone, is simply not enough in today’s changing and volatile world. With so many ideas and concepts to choose from in any given moment born from the sheer volume of information how we tell our story is more important that ever. Because this will become our differentiation in a sea of people speaking up for their ideas to be heard.

The Storytellers exercise these specialties for our many clients around the world bringing strategy to life through the power and influence of storytelling. One method in which this can be achieved is through the adoption of bespoke story-driven creative campaigns. By placing creativity through print, video, film, or television within a wider strategic narrative, our approach connects people to a bigger journey and motivates them with a purpose. Distilling the story down to a simple creative idea can amplify the essence of the overarching message, inspire people to learn from the ideas of their peers and make connections to their own. By equipping people with the means to challenge mindsets lasting behavioural change can be accomplished. By adopting a multi-faceted creative campaign alongside the launch of their Purpose, Vision and Values, one of our clients accomplished 2.1% volume growth and increased its trading margin by +30bps to 8.8%. In turn, the approach received industry wide recognition and remains integral to their strategy two years later.

We help inspire, accelerate, and transform their performance in the marketplace. Story or narrative is the power that will carry concepts forward at the end of the information age. The power of visuals drives a compelling narrative communicating to the feelings of people looking for a connection with your organisation. After all, data without a story is simply a set of numbers. Information without knowing how it best fits into the pressing needs of your customers is only idea competing with so many others. Stories create context and connect hearts and minds. These connections remind us of our needs and we then link those needs to the organisation telling the story. At The Storytellers we build these kinds of narratives everyday. At the end of the information age, we will need more than concepts. We need the power of narrative to communicate them. Perhaps then, we are entering into the Age of Story.

 

1 Pink, Daniel. (2014). A Whole New Mind. Riverhead Books.

Guess where I went on the tube today?

Posted on by Poppy Kearney

I’m on the underground huddled up against London commuters on their way to work, blankly avoiding the gaze of my fellow passengers.  Unbeknown to those vacant faces, I’m in Michigan. Rustic cabins, scary stories around the fire, ice-cold lakes, pine forests, camp legends; I’m listening to my favourite podcast, This American Life, and I’m transported to a summer camp. In this episode, the host and narrator Ira Glass sheds light on the magic that is camp. It’s easy to be baffled by the obsessive fixation Americans have with camp – an obsession that acts as a barrier between ‘camp people’ and ‘non-camp people’. I must confess, although not a life long camper, having worked at a summer camp in Seattle I definitely identify more with the ‘camp people’! In this particular episode we experience the power of storytelling to capture the essence of camp, shedding light on personal experiences, transporting the listener to Michigan and bridging this gap.

Whilst the host draws the outline, it’s the first-person stories of the children (campers) and counsellors who add depth and colour to the picture.  Dave, a young man who worked his way up the ranks to become the much-anticipated counsellor and the main character in this story, takes the listener on a tour of camp.  Immediately my spirits are lifted: I find myself wanting to sing along with the camp songs, join in with the energetic games and smell the smoke from the campfire. Songs, inside jokes, sailing and sun: it’s enough to momentarily replace the stress of daily life, intensified by technology and social media. In the words of Dave, “all the best moments of my life have happened at camp”. And for a moment, as the listener, you are right there with him, sitting in his cabin hearing the hilarious camp dance de-brief from the 13-year-old boys, joining in with the laughter and banter around a shared first kiss!

A sudden jolt brings me back to London.  Victoria, only two stops left!  I’ve reached part 5 in the episode, the story of colour wars: a camp wide tradition where children compete between their assigned colours in different activities, ranging from canoe races to war-cry competitions. The story traces a group of teenage campers, following the raw emotions they feel in the weeks leading up to the highly anticipated announcement of the colour captain, the greatest honour you can receive at camp. The night has arrived. Through my headphones I hear the crackle of the bonfire, and the tension as the girls are put out their misery and the colour captains are revealed. The elation and pure joy of the girls who received the honour and despair of the girls whose long-lived camp dreams have been squashed; it’s palpable through my headphones.

Through these personal stories, the podcast captures the essence of camp: a place for children that stands still in time, holding onto traditions and rituals, despite the ever-changing word around them. A place where children form bonds and connections with friends that are like no other, and just for a moment, on my commute to work, I feel the rush of nostalgia for my summer spent around the crackling campfire.

Whether it’s understanding the American love affair with camp, a father describing the everyday reality of raising an autistic son, teenagers from the Bronx’s poorest public schools experiencing a day in the life of a private school kid, or the life of a Mexican mother deported from America and separated from her three children, podcasts have the power to tell beautiful, honest stories, exploring the lives of ordinary people through an incredibly intimate lens. Today, podcasting has gone mainstream. With the number of US podcast listeners doubling in 3 years and UK weekly download rates reaching 4.7 million, podcasts are quickly becoming the new accessible way to engage with mind-blowing ideas, incredible facts and extraordinary stories.

The rise in podcast listeners has been attributed to a variety of influences, ranging from the increased ease of access via smart phones to the flexibility podcasts have over radio. Although this is undoubtedly a factor, we cannot ignore the power and influence storytelling plays in the success of podcasts.

People love listening to stories, and not just any story, stories that connect to our lived experiences, stories that we can relate to, stories that increase our understanding and empathy and stories that create shared identities. By connecting to one’s own lived experience, podcasting – through story – provides the trigger to evoke emotive memories of our own. Through this connection a common ground is established between podcaster and the virtual community who share the same, or similar experiences.

These shared identities are powerful, as human beings are instinctively motivated to act in ways that protect or maintain their identity. This kind of ‘digital storytelling’ is increasingly being seen as a mechanism for galvanising political and social change.

Stories spark imagination, they help us find meaning and context, they emotionally engage us in something bigger than ourselves and they build empathy by encouraging us to draw on our own experiences to find common ground with others. So what’s the secret to the success of podcasting? Well it’s the power and influence of storytelling!

Poppy Kearney

Visions of the Future: Driverless Cars

Posted on by Jack Moran

Friday, May 17th, 2019, Mountain View. It’s nearing midday in California, and a sweltering noonday sun is searing down on those in San Francisco and Mountain View alike.

You’re in your office, glad to be inside. You’ve spent the morning speaking to your colleague, Michaela, a talented young marketing executive, about your upcoming press conference. The future is here, you’ll say, introducing the public release of your first commercially-available driverless car. Sit back, and enjoy the ride. It’s about time.

This release, you’ll say, signifies another step towards swapping human labour for human leisure. Convenience, comfort, cheapness – we’re offering them all to you. After years of careful coding, of battles with legislators, of managing both public excitement and public anxiety, your vision of the future – finally – is here.

Saturday, May 18th, 2019, San Francisco. It’s nearing midday in California, and a sweltering noonday sun is searing down on those in San Francisco and Mountain View alike.

You’re in your car, glad to be inside. Your family are there too – your partner, and two children. No way were they going to let you take your first ride into the future without them. No way were you going to let them miss your first ride into the future. After all, when you were their age, this was science fiction, expressed only in the speculations of futuristic films and idle prophetic chatter.

You’re watching, both excited, and a little restless, as you slide smoothly down sunswept streets. It’s strange, after decades of having to indicate, to brake, to see, to be in the front seat of a car and have to do nothing but watch and wait to arrive. Yes, your driver’s instinct is leaving you a little restless – but above that restlessness is exhilaration as you calculate of the number of free hours you’ll now have, hours previously lost to road-watching.

You still road-watch a little, though: it’s habit. You feel sympathy, then shock, as you see a child to your left run, stop, point to the ice-cream van across the road, break away from their friend, begin to dash, unseeing, across the road.

You know there isn’t time to brake: you’re too close, and moving too fast. You know you couldn’t brake if you wanted to: convenience, comfort, cheapness – but choice? Not included.

You know you could swerve away, but there is a lorry hurtling down the road across from you. You swerve, and your family’s life is on the line. You know you couldn’t swerve if you wanted to: convenience, comfort, cheapness – but choice? Not included.

Visions of your future – rapidly – are here.

Monday, May 14th, 2018: It’s nearing midday in California, and a sweltering noonday sun is searing down on those in San Francisco and Mountain View alike.

You’re in your office, glad to be inside. Sipping ice-cold water, you take a deep breath. Today, you’re going to try and bring your vision of the future one step closer, by proving to the critics – governments fearful of losing popular support, the public fearful of the unknown, academics who see technology coming before ethical considerations – that, in the worst possible scenarios, the autonomous vehicles you’ve spent nearly a decade working on will make the right choice. A choice that will leave you able to sleep at night. After all: choice? Always included – and the moment to choose is now.

Since 2009, Google has been testing self-driving cars: a project that promises to transform the way we travel, and the way we live. In November 2017, after approximately three million miles of testing, Google’s driverless cars arm, Waymo, announced it was going to experiment with truly autonomous vehicles – ones without a safety driver on board.

In March 2018, a driverless Uber car struck a pedestrian while in autonomous mode – the first fatal crash involving a self-driving car and pedestrian in the US.

By 2020, Google hope to release a self-driving car available to the general public: a vision of the future with profound economic and ethical implications.

Automated cars will almost certainly make us safer. One death is perceived as an aberration, especially when placed alongside the 40,100 traffic deaths in the US alone last year.

Fewer deaths, fewer lapses, fewer tears – but also greater unrest when one does occur, perhaps. Human error is ethically uncomplicated in its inevitability, its lack of foresight. The detached determinism of an autonomous agent? Less so.

The streets of Tempe, Arizona won’t be the only ones that create moments where choice isn’t in the moment, moments where an algorithm will determine who lives, and who dies. This year, we try and envisage that future. This year, there is still choice.

We are The Storytellers. We exist to move more people to do great things through the power and influence of storytelling.

What story will move you and the people around you to do great things in 2018? Share your story with us.