Looking for the Story Beneath

Storytelling is one of the big re-discoveries in communication. Books like "Made to Stick" tell that if you want the world to know your message you have to tell it in an accessible story, not with statistics and facts. Brain research supports this: We are more likely to remember content that we learned as part of a story (preferrably an emotional story), rather than from a list of "things to remember". In "The Meme Machine", Susan Blackmore even goes so far to suggest that our brains are so big because we needed the brain power to be better story tellers. Good story tellers increased their chances of survival.

In this context, it is easy to understand that there can be no fundamental change unless we start changing our stories.

Identifying the underlying story in the news, in our own actions is the first step in that direction - the ability to see the cultural meme, the archetypes and symbols is also what, in my view, empowers anyone a) to become a good trend watcher and b) to recognize that we can choose which stories we tell, which memes we spread.


The short documentary by below shows personal stories of people who have been hit hard by the financial crisis. People who realized that they have the choice to either remain in shock and feel victimized, or give their personal life story a new positive turn. Very inspiring!



(see related post "How to Cook Up the Future)