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My intellectually versatile friend Olle Jonsson talks about Storytelling for virtualization.
Whenever the topic of storytelling comes up, I think of Neil Gaiman’s great read Anansi Boys (sprung from West African folklore about Anansi, the spider). One of the central subject is who owns the stories. Anansi stole them from Tiger a long time ago and Tiger resents him for it and wants them back. Anansi stories favor the smart and witty, they are light and humorous. Tiger stories favor strength and are dark, evil.
Controlling the story is crucial to any venture. It is also virtually impossible because the story doesn’t end with you, it starts with you and it never ends. People and corporations alike need not only build and defend their brands, but also participate in the conversation, even when everyone’s shouting at you. Places like Get Satisfaction may slowly be replacing the unfriendly forums many companies resort to.
It’s unlikely you’ll be able to control the story. But you can nudge it in the right direction. Don’t try to be something you’re not. Being honest has never been more important because nothing you do will ever go away.
Have your story be an Anansi story. Start by unsucking your website, aim for focus and clarity of purpose. Offer services people actually want, as opposed to things you want them to buy. Hire and maintain customer support staff that have actual skills and don’t hate their jobs. And listen to your customers, already.
On Friday, we deployed a new website for Svenska Förläggareföreningen. They represent the majority of the Swedish book industry, and are members of the International Publishers Association. FYI, they’re announcing the nominees for Augustpriset 2008 tomorrow.
We used Umbraco for CMS, and I hope it’s the last I need to work with v3. Not that Umbraco is bad – I’ve developed sites backed by most major publishing systems over the past 12 years, and I’d put Umbraco right at the top of the heap of misery that comprise the CMS market. Umbraco v4, currently available as a developer preview, is going to be an important step up the ladder for everyone. I’ll even go out on a limb and say that it will be a hallmark event for the CMS market when we look back a few years from now. Here’s why; v4 goes out of it’s way to abstract the CMS from the editor.
I’ll revisit the tragedy of usability in content management systems before long.
In face of my never ending task list, it always seemed the only rational choice was to not blog. Instead, I’ve kept it all in my head (good thing it’s roomy). This was of course a bad decision; processing ideas and experiences into writing begets definition and evolution.
So without further ado, in my continuous effort to embrace change, it’s time to put it in the cloud. Enjoy.
Mitt hjärta klappar hårt för oslagbara användarupplevelser och 2009 var jag med och startade byrån The Amazing Society, där jag sysselsätter mig med att lösa komplexa problem åt smarta människor.
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