Can you here me?

Right now, we are planning the next StoryCamp in VALLEY and the accompanying pillow book called READER which circles around the title HEAR & NOW. Wonderful articles from all over the world are arriving – fueling the curating process and deepening the relations between all the people involved.

Meanwhile, in another universe, there is this kind of flat discourse around AI – representing a final rebellion of the old spirit, which – algorithmically recharged – becomes a sparkling weapon. It is compliance disguised as innovation, ambitiously simulating creativity but not able to be creative. The amusing part is that most of their apologists are dinosaurs whose days are numbered.

I don’t say that it cannot make fun to play with programs like chatGPT. But the problem is, that it overrates the responses and avoids questioning. So, the dialogue process – if intended – often starts refreshing and soon becomes boring. To exemplify this statement I want to share my latest example of a dialogue (with chatGPT) about the project I care so much.

Can you reflect on this phrase? "HEAR & NOW” …

The phrase "HEAR & NOW" carries a powerful message about being present in the moment and actively engaging with what is happening around us.

"Hear" implies not just listening passively, but truly understanding and absorbing what is being said or experienced. It suggests being attuned to the sounds, voices, and messages in our environment. It also encourages empathy and openness to others' perspectives and emotions.

© unsplash by anastasiya-badun

"Now" emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment. It urges us to let go of distractions from the past or worries about the future, and instead, focus our attention on the here and now. By doing so, we can fully experience and appreciate the richness of life as it unfolds in front of us.

Together, "HEAR & NOW" serves as a reminder to actively listen, engage, and participate in the present moment with awareness, mindfulness, and openness. It encourages us to embrace the beauty, challenges, and opportunities that exist in the here and now.

Why do you think we write "HEAR & NOW" and not more common "HERE & NOW"?

The choice to write "HEAR & NOW" instead of the more common "HERE & NOW" could be intentional to emphasize the act of listening and active engagement. While "here" typically refers to a physical location, "hear" implies not just physical presence, but also mental attentiveness and understanding.

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The agony of choice

You know it? You stand somewhere at a crossroads in your life and you don't know whether to turn right or left. Or if your life were a forest, whether you should pass the next tree on the right or left.

Both options seem tempting. Especially when I'm looking for mushrooms. It can happen that after choosing the right option, I also choose the left, out of fear that my decision was wrong and that great happiness awaits me on the left loop.

I love getting lost in the woods, following all the rules of mushroom hunting. Outwitting, disabling my sense of direction, which in normal life is quite excellent. I love surrendering almost spinelessly to the whirlwind of possibilities and the secret forces that act upon me and around me.

When I become pure possibility, I step out of the prison of my own four walls, the supposedly self-made identity that is only a kit provided by others. When I become pure possibility, I can lose myself under the radar and discover myself anew as something spacious and future-oriented.

Then, the quiet sorrow of unused possibilities, which in the either-or space did not stand for doors, but for windowless corridors, is forgotten.

Life is like a game of chess. It's simply very complicated. Claude Shannon attempted to count the trees that make up this forest. His result should not burden us, but encourage us – to play, to embrace the possibilities that arise, rather than to mourn those that we missed.

According to Shannon, there are 400 possibilities for the first two moves in chess. After each player has moved a piece five times, there are already 69,352,859,712,417 (sixty-nine trillion, three hundred fifty-two billion, eight hundred ninety million, seven hundred twelve thousand, four hundred seventeen) alternative games that have not been played.

We can't go back to the beginning.

Endings, beginnings, and some messy middles, intertwined

Reflections on Storycamp Goldegg

What is beginning
in a circle?
A ring, lost and found.
It might not be that same ring,
but it still counts.
A couple walks into the chaordic path of marriage
in a room layered with stories.
Power stories turn to love stories,
thundering with light.
A fire burning,
heat is rising,
and what is left when it burns out its glories,
or rather, who?
A lake of raindrops, teardrops,
water still and always moving,
tension creating an illusion of a surface
of a clear floor made of glass.
Surface tension, tensions surface.
Losing balance?
Walking is just falling, interrupted,
always on and on and forward…
Or not.
Why must we always learn?
We are more spacious than we think.
We can hold the whole of us
and all the shattered pieces
bound with golden thread of cracks.
The only thing that’s ever still is dead
and even death just keeps on moving,
dancing, letting go and catching on,
falling down to rise again,
digging deep and giving birth
to something that has never been,
and is yet re-membered.
In our circle,
what is ending?

That´s the kind of amazing thing that I have lost ...

Holding the old READER in my hands. This booklet, eons aways, that doesn’t want to get old. And remember exactly how it felt back then – before Corona – when we planned the conference in Berlin. In the Silent Green Kulturquartier. A place packed with stories. POWER OF STORY / STORIES OF POWER – we sorcerer’s apprentices, overrun by history.

2020 still started like every year. But after that starting, which was more like an ending, nothing was the same anymore.

Beginnings & Endings. Our new pillow book is on the way. I can feel my friends thinking, hesitating, doubting, writing. As I do. I stumble upon the last page of the READER and the song from Werner Pfeffer – A NEW TIME IS COMING.

And play it up and down, all day long. On the trail of a mystery that knows no exit. Centrifugal whiplash? Concentric disaster – or rather like the annual rings of a tree?

Which strings in me are being touched here? What is resonating in me?

„That‘s the kind of amazing thing
That I have lost
Well“

Anyway: My friend Werner Pfeffer will participate at our StoryCamp 2022 in Goldegg. And I burn like a chandelier when I think about it – even if the world of today makes me feel like I hear the grass growing from underneath.

A new time is coming.
Try to get some sleep.

Tomorrow will be more beauty.
#peaceforukraine

Ohne Titel. Von den Rändern ins Herz ...

Das Bild zeigt das Bödele. Symbolischer Ort der Heimat und Sehnsucht meiner Großeltern, und happy place für viele seit Generationen, Platzliebe. Das Bild begleitet mich schon lange und ergänzt das Hochzeitsbild meiner sehr jungen Großeltern am Bödele. Es ist mir zugelaufen, weil mich die Frau von hinten an meine Omi erinnert hat, auch die Puffärmel. Für mich ist das Bild ein Gedenken an den Krieg, nach dem meine Omi allein auf dem Bödele gestanden ist. Ich hab mit Patricia Reinhart, die das Bild gemalt hat, noch nie gesprochen, was ihre Geschichte hinter dem Bild ist, holen wir bald nach. Für mich hat es wie eine Zwiebel über die Jahre immer wieder eine neue seiner vielen Schichten gezeigt. Die erste, die ich einst entdeckt hab, ist der über allem schwebende, gefallene Mann. Mein Großvater war sein ganzes erwachsenes Leben nach der Matura an der Front, hat durchgehalten bis zum Heimweg mit 27 am letzten Kriegstag, da ist dann doch noch was passiert. Er ist nicht mehr zurückgekommen, als Mann, als Vater, als Großvater. Wie in vielen Familien damals eine Lücke, die unser aller Leben in eine andere Richtung geführt hat, als es mit ihm in Bregenz vermutlich gewesen wäre. Über die Jahre finden sich Wege, die Lücke zu füllen und die Fülle zu erkennen, die die Lücke gebracht hat. Durch diese Lücke war Krieg für mich, freilich in einem sehr geschützten Raum, immer präsent, und doch hab ich nie daran gedacht, dass er uns wieder so nahe rücken würde. Das Bild öffnet nun eine neue Schicht, durch die solidarischen Farben, die es teilt. Ich mag Märchen und lebe mit Märchen. Das mag naiv sein, doch sie helfen mir, die Welt zu verstehen, und sie anders zu erzählen, wie sie auch sein kann, für mich selbst und für andere. In meinem Märchen würde sich ein Mädchen auf den Weg machen, allein oder mit einem Buben, oder mit einem anderen Mädchen, oder mit ganz vielen Kindern und Menschen. Sie würden immer mehr werden, ihren Weg finden zum Bösen, ihn einfach umarmen, ganz lang, bis er erlöst zusammensackt. Den Weg würden die Kinder und die Menschen finden, weil sie auf dem Weg alle umarmen, die ihnen begegnen. Ich hab mir gut gemerkt, was Michael Gleich, Journalist und Pazifist, gesagt hat: ,Frieden hat immer was mit uns zu tun. Daher hat auch der Krieg immer was mit uns zu tun.’ Wir sind alle Verbindungsbeauftragte. Am Weg alle umarmen nicht vergessen. Hugh and hug.

Feedback StoryCamp Paretz

What was the StoryCamp for you? What made it special? What did you learn from it?

StoryCamp helped me understand how important stories are in our lives and in our work. And that nothing beats a good story, regardless of the topic :) We were telling stories and experienced to be connected. You gave us the perfect and inspiring frame and shared your knowledge. I will come back.

It was rejuvenating. Mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Special: The select group of people, wonderful facilitation, openness. Learn: how to better interact with others, how to think around stories (personal and organizational alike).

Meeting old friends, finding new friends. Open format. Sense Making through sharing microstories.

Celebrating why stories matter, heal and reveal.

When I see the group photo from last day, I feel all the more sorry that I couldn't stay until the end.So I couldn't really say goodbye and would like to express my big thanks to everyone involved in the process, in the inspiring sessions and dialogues and in the organization!This has never happened to me: That I come back from a multi-day workshop and a 10-hour journey home with more energy than I left. The camp was the best in a long time, the perfect setting, the great open structure, the incredibly interesting people, the food, everything ...! Thank you all very much and best regards from Linz, Gerald

It was a special event with a strong community spirit. I learned a lot about the camp format, about hosting an event, about tools and methods for storytelling, about fellow earth inhabitants and their stories and I experienced the magic of storytelling!

The Camp was bliss, friendship, and soul exchange. the fabulous hosting made it special, as well as the splendid location. I learned a lot about the art of hosting, the magic of the group, and the power of a safe, mindful space, and the right mix between inspiration, reflexion, and relaxation

A unique place to exchange and get inspiration around storywork A great place to meet wonderful People, to go in touch with them, to hear and tell amazing stories, to learn for my personal transformation prozess how to do the next steps and to keep an incredible amount of positive energy to realize those steps on my way. Thank you all so much.

StoryCamp 2021 – Review von Gerald Harringer

“Was nehmt ihr aus dem Storycamp mit nach Hause?

„Sicher die große Vielfalt an Methoden, mit denen Menschen eingeladen werden können, ihre Geschichten zu teilen. Aber auch die enorme Bandbreite zwischen der Instrumentalisierung von Storytelling und dem selbstermächtigenden Aspekten von Geschichten. Auf unsere eigene Arbeit bezogen, würden wir gerne innovative Wege in der narrativen Analyse erkunden – mit Blick auf ‚Embodied Sensemaking‘, mit Einbeziehen von Kunst und Technologie. Letzteres jedoch, ohne dabei den Fokus auf den Wert menschlicher Beziehungen zu verlieren.“

Eine tolle Nachlese von Gerald Harringer zum Storycamp 2021. Den gesamten Text findet sich hier.

PARETZ OR DO YOU WANT TO SEE ME AGAIN

Why ARNO SCHMIDT? Now. When I think about what happened there. The wind. There was no wind. But words in the air. Like the story of three refugees and their tender try to settle somewhere in the woods. Far away from homecoming.

But the faraway seems nearby thinking of PARETZ and REBECCA SOLNITs whispering: “We think we tell stories, but often stories tell us, tell us who to love and who to hate, whether to see or be blind. Often, too often, stories bridle us, ride us, whip us forward, drive us to do something we then do unquestioningly. The task of learning freedom requires learning to listen to stories, to interrogate them, to pause and listen to silence, to name something and become a storyteller ourselves.“

Remembering PARETZ I start with a moment before dawn. Walking along the HAVEL, not really seeing, but feeling the channel beside me. My whispering, than stuttering, than shouting – your name. And then just listening the many voices through which nature happens to answer me. Paretz, do you see me from where I see you? In this camplike gathering. In these roundabouts of growing and becoming small.

My team mates and the participants from all over the world. Don’t care about nations and borders. A ship is passing. Suddenly. A huge vessel that is crossing the entire screen of my eyes. Like in a movie. I watch it passing. See the silence. Feel the colours. Hear the smell of the channel. And touch the birds formations over my head.

We are like these vessels, so welded in difference and so secretly connected. We are communicating. But why? And how? What holds us together? We are connected through story. Secretly spelling the threads of story. Holding this place to gather.

Nature awakes. I unlock the doors of the camp. Like every day. I am the keyholder, the temporary house keeper of this place, where so many magic things are allowed to happen. All the time.

„For a while the pointed Hippocratic face of the moon leaned diagonally up there, in stained linen cloths, so that we first wavered, shuddered: strange: such pale light and wind: and to be human at the same time!“

Yes, indeed. I am a blessed. Human. Being. Because of you.

This camp was built inside of us. A vibrant sculpture of belonging.

Who knows what will become of us?

—————————-

Quotes:
1) Rebecca Solnit: The Faraway Nearby
2) Arno Schmidt. Brand’s Haide. Krumau oder willst du mich noch einmal sehen

Warum unsere Zukunft in der Mehrdeutigkeit liegt

Wir brauchen es jetzt. Das klare Ziel. Und dann – krempeln wir die Ärmeln hoch. Ja, natürlich. Wer möchte das nicht: mit anderen in eine Richtung laufen? Hand in Hand. Auf einen Horizont zu, der betörend glitzert./

We need it now. The clear goal. And then - we roll up our sleeves. Yes, of course. Who wouldn't want that: to run with others in one direction? Hand in hand. Towards a horizon that glitters beguilingly.

Wir sehnen uns nach Eindeutigkeit. Und das umso mehr, je komplexer, unverständlicher die Welt um uns herum sich anfühlt. Deshalb haben Populisten Hochkonjunktur, die mit einfachen Wahrheiten, Reinheitsgeboten und Schuldzuweisungen hausieren gehen. Dabei merken wir gar nicht, wie wir unter der Hand verarmen – in diesem Schwarz-Weiß-Universum, das Farbnuancen und Schattierungen negiert und uns auf überholte Lösungsautobahnen lockt.

Aber warum ist das so? Was lähmt uns zusehends? Und woher kommt es, dass diese duale Welt, die nur Freunde und Feinde kennt, Wahrheitsbesitzer und keine Wahrheitssucher, so anziehend ist? Und warum ist es so, dass wir Vielfalt, Pluralität und Komplexität nicht mehr als Bereicherung empfinden?

Weil wir denk- und differenzierungsmüde geworden sind? Woher kommt diese postmoderne Müdigkeit, die alles, was nicht eindeutig zuzuordnen ist, in den Keller oder auf den Dachboden verbannt, wo die Ober- und Untertöne zuhause sind? Derweil jeder Zwischenton im Erdgeschoß skandalisiert wird.

Aber was hat das alles mit StoryWork zu tun? Und mit unserem StoryCamp, das wir in Paretz errichten? Ganz viel. Glauben Sie mir. Weil Geschichten für Mehrdeutigkeit stehen – egal, ob innerhalb von Unternehmen oder außerhalb. Und mit dieser Mehrdeutigkeit bereichern und inspirieren sie uns. Wobei diese Mehrdeutigkeit nichts von Beliebigkeit hat, wie Thomas Bauer in seinem Büchlein über „die Vereindeutigung der Welt“ betont. Der Bedeutungsüberschuss, den Geschichten erzeugen, sorgt für Bedeutungsöffnungen ohne in Beliebigkeiten abzutriften. Damit helfen sie uns, das Miteinander in pluralen Teams, Unternehmen und Gesellschaften zu gestalten. Weil gute Geschichten immer mindestens zwei Enden haben. Darin unterscheiden sie sich übrigens auch von Gebrauchsanweisungen, mit denen sie immer wieder verwechselt werden.

Die Philosphin Isolde Charim hat mit „Ich und die Anderen“ ein Buch geschrieben, das um das Thema der Pluralität kreist. Ein enorm wichtiges Buch, wenn es darum geht, dass wir uns von einem phantasierten, homogenen Ganzen und einem damit gekoppelten Identitätsbegriff verabschieden, der sich gegen Durchlässigkeiten sperrt. Anzuerkennen, dass wir alle mehrheimisch und multiple Persönlichkeiten sind, ist die Voraussetzung dafür, dass wir uns auf diesem unsicheren Terrain bewegen lernen. Einem Terrain, wo es nicht den einen Wahrheitsweg gibt, sondern viele begehbare Pfade. Einem Terrain ohne Markierungen, aber mit jeder Menge Wegmarken, die den achtsamen Wanderer leiten. Einem Terrain, das mit wenig Vorschreibungen und minimalen Regeln auskommt. Wenn Sie jetzt an den Film “Stalker” von Andrei Tarkovsky denken, liegen Sie nicht falsch. Dieses Terrain hat tatsächlich etwas von der ZONE, in der die alten Gewissheiten und Gesetze ihre Bedeutung verloren haben. Was hier hilft, ist allein Geistesgegenwart im emphatischen Sinn.

Isolde Charim bezieht sich auf die Straßenverkehrsordnung und das Gegenkonzept der Begegnungszonen, wenn sie versucht, diesen neuen Zugang und die damit einhergehende Verhaltensänderung zu beschreiben: Die wundersame Verwandlung aggressiver Verkehrsteilnehmer erreicht man nicht durch Regeln, schreibt sie, sondern durch „Deregulierung. Das ist die bewusste, gezielte Herstellung von subjektiver Unsicherheit. Raumplaner sagen das ganz offen. Durch räumliche Gestaltung – wie den Wegfall von eindeutig zugeordneten Straßenflächen – erzeugt man beim Einzelnen ganz absichtlich das Gefühl der Unsicherheit. Denn genau das führt zu verändertem Verhalten. Die Unsicherheit des Einzelnen erzeugt eine sichere Gesamtsituation… Damit wird die Begegnungszone zum Sinnbild der pluralisierten Gesellschaft des 21. Jahrhunderts.

Geschichten sind wie Rundbänke in diesen Begegnungszonen.

Lässt sich Zukunft erzählen?

Wolfgang Tonninger im Gespräch mit Michael Müller. Ein Interview für das Jubiläumsmagazin ZEHN PLUS der Zürcher Kantonalbank Österreich, in dem Fragen gestellt werden, die auch im StoryCamp Paretz mitschwingen werden …

IMG_7761.JPG

Von Lingenau nach Paretz?

So entspannt wie hier im StoryCamp LINGENAU ist Michael Müller eigentlich (fast) immer. Es sei denn, er ist am Zuspätkommen. Denn er ist eher für das Rechtzeitige zuständig, das manchmal der Zeit voraus läuft. Er, der die Storytelling-Disziplin in Deutschland in den 90ern des letzten Jahrtausends miterfunden hat und trotzdem jung geblieben ist. Oder gerade deswegen? Geschichten halten in Schwung, Geschichten inspirieren, Geschichten haben immer zwei Enden, wenn sie gut sind. Das eine liegt in PARETZ, im September für euch bereit.

Seid ihr es auch? Dann meldet euch an, solange es Plätze gibt. Anmeldung direkt unter https://www.beyondstorytelling.com/

“Ein Telefon klingelt. Die Tür geht auf. Etwas ist plötzlich anders. Und die Geschichte nimmt ihren Lauf.”

WT: Michael, warum ist Zukunft heute so ein Thema? Liegt es daran, dass wir nur noch so wenig davon haben?

MM: Das ist eine große Frage. Lass es mich einmal so versuchen. Im Grunde ist das Interesse an einer Zukunft, die über das ewige Leben im Paradies hinausgeht, ein Projekt der Aufklärung. Dass der Mensch nicht mehr hineingeworfen ist in eine Welt, sondern diese sich verfügbar macht und seine Zukunft selbst in die Hand nimmt. Auch mit dem Effekt, dass wir uns damit immer mehr an der Zukunft verschuldet haben.

WT: Ein Leben auf Pump?

MM: Ein Leben auf Pump ist es dann, wenn Aktionen, die wir hier und jetzt unternehmen, unsere Zukunftsaussichten schmälern.

WT: Kann man sich Zukunft überhaupt erzählend aneignen?

MM: Ich würde sagen, dass Geschichten zu vielem in der Lage sind. Sie können Vertrauen schaffen, sie können in den Schlaf wiegen, aber auch den Schlaf rauben. Und sie sind in der Lage, Horizonte zu erweitern …

WT: … und Möglichkeitsräume aufzustoßen.

MM: Genau. Jens Beckert, vom Max-Plank-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung, hat gesagt, dass der Wert von Unternehmen davon abhängt, ob sie glaubwürdige Zukunftsgeschichten erzählen können. Und das gilt nicht nur für Start-ups, bei denen es intuitiv vielleicht einleuchtet, sondern für jede Art von Unternehmen. Und damit natürlich auch für eine Bank wie die Zürcher Kantonalbank, die ja vom Vertrauen seiner Kunden lebt. Weil Menschen prinzipiell nur in etwas vertrauen, das auch eine Zukunft hat. Und das kommt indirekt einer Erzählaufforderung gleich.

Das gesamte Interview findet ihr im ZEHN PLUS Online Magazin der Zürcher Kantonalbank Österreich. Viel Spaß!

Dreaming in Times of Corona – 2nd Wave

We continue to live with the Corona pandemic (and will probably do for a long time). As many countries around the world are still subject to increasing numbers of infections, others are entering or are in the midst of a second wave.

From March to May we conducted a series of interviews, 27 in total, to document some of experiences made with and during the pandemic in different places around the globe. We interviewed colleagues and friends from Brazil, Thailand, Kenia, Austria, the Netherlands and Germany (many of them in Germany) among other places.

The interviews tapped into this shared stream of feelings, thoughts and experiences. As the numbers increase again here in Germany and we have a second, soft lockdown, we think it is important to continue our inquiry of how we individually and collectively experience this time and what hopes and dreams for the future are emerging. 

The first 27 interviews are a great gift and we still go back from time to time to listen to the interviews. We are also in a process of editing the interviews into a even more immerse audio document with the aim to capture the experiences, hopes and dreams between March and May in this year. You can listen to a raw edited version here:

I was also interviewed for an inquiry into appreciative / generative journalism after publishing the interviews. You can listen to the audio feature here.

To pick up the thread and deepen the documentation of these times I want to invite you be part of the second wave of interviews.

I scheduled some time slots for interviews in the upcoming weeks and days and I would love to have you as a part of these interviews. Please go to my calendly page to pick a time that suits you best. You can also contact me directly if none of these time slot fit! I am very much looking forward to continue the conversations.

Stories of Earthly Things – Diffrakt X Didier Debaise

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
Muriel Rukseyer

Sometimes life gives you a moment. On a visit to Berlin in February, scrolling through events on facebook, I found a lecture and conversation hosted by Moritz Gansen from the diffract | centre for theoretical periphery and Didier Debaise from the Free University of Brussels called “Stories of Earthly Things”.

Preparing for BST 2020 Power of Story | Stories of Power, I was diving into the works of Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing and also Ursula K. Le Guin combing through notions of telling stories that are more conducive to life than the traditional arrow-stories of the heroes journey or the stories of separation underlying the notions of Anthropocene.

Reading through the description to the event, I felt very at home. Here is my transcript to the lecture:

story goes everywhere where it was not supposed to go

We can see that in different fields – Anthropology Ethology, Philosophy and Donna Haraways' history of science – there is a new claim that we need to construct stories. And that constructing of new stories is not a practice to express what the other, particularly natural science, are doing. That was the classic storytelling practice before in relation to science: the sciences talk about the world and then we can tell story about the world after. What's made the specificity of this new approach, this new movement is that they think that telling stories is a way to make new, strong knowledge. And that telling stories is a method. And we can say it is a scientific method.

And I think this point makes it a question of inventing and constructing story, something completely different, because with this statement, story goes everywhere where it was not supposed to go. Which means in the construction of true fabrication, of the world, of fabrication, of identities, of the relations between humans and animals and other beings. You can put stories everywhere and you make stories a new method of interrogating and playing.

William James

So for me, this is the main claim of this new movement: using stories as a new method and a new way of composing of experiments. So I decided that I wanted to know more about where it come from, this claim. What did he say? What is this function? Then I wrote a small text that I call the story of earthly things. Then I checked and I was fascinated when I discover some phrase, some proposition in the works of William James. It's in the chapter called "The one and the multiple". And it says something very strange:

"The universe is constituted through the story of earthly things".

This statement reversed the classical assumptions around storytelling. And we would not talk about James if he would have just asserted that story is a way in which humans relate to things. No, he says something more problematic, more difficult to understand. He says that the universe, the matter of the universe, the way by which universe is producing itself is through stories.

And in the same chapter he says something else: The world is full of singular stories and that what we call the world is a kind of multiple network of stories sometimes mixed, sometimes distance, sometimes related one to the other. That we have a universe of intertwined and entangled stories.

Furthermore, he made it more precise: In fact, each thing, each being, each entity tells a story. Also, each human, but also each part of the human – cells, flesh, bones – tell a story. But you can also go further: each rock, plant, grain of sand tells a story.

So why he can claim that? This claim is interesting, because it is the same claim that Deborah Bird Rose, Anna Tsing and Donna Haraway that enable to say that we need other stories and that the world is full of stories.

First it challenges the relationship between language and stories. We are used to say that stories emerge through the human capacity to use language. But of course a rock, a cell, a plant does not possess language (that we understand). But William James never sought to put language into the things. It's exactly the other way around: It's not because we have the language that we can tell stories. It is because there is stories that the language has specific functions. Language requires the practice of stories. The practice of stories doesn't require the language. But how can James claim that the stories are in the things?

It comes mainly – for James – from natural history. The idea derived from natural history is that you cannot express and identify a living without the long evolution of the livings that leave their traces inside this body. To understand what a living is, we have to see all the traces that are left inside the cell, inside the body, inside the animal, inside the bones. And all these traces tell stories about the long history of the livings. And we can take each part of the body and you have a huge network of livings embodied in this reality.

This is the historical source of the idea of beings telling stories. But this idea can be extended well beyond natural history. To technologies, to rocks, to everywhere. Everywhere there are traces of events that go beyond the being. That´s why stories go through the traces embodied in the being and over the being.

what kind of stories do things tell?

From Anna Tsing there is the notion, and you can also find it with William James, that the stories things tell are always precarious stories. In this sense, a story that does not tell of precarious events does not exist. It is always a story of a precarious situation and precarious being. When we use the term, what do we mean?

(1) The existence of this life is linked to something or someone else. If someone is in a precarious situation, it means that her ability to continue to live is linked to the help and the sustaining of something else. Each being, object, reality necessitates the network of all other beings that make it possible for the being to exist. It busts the occidental myth that the being should be autonomous and independent and that the being is more alive the more autonomous it is. It is exactly the other way around. There is no being that is not dependent to a lot of other beings. So to tell the story of something is to tell the story of its dependence. For each reality / living you can trace the living territory – the network of its dependencies. So, things tell us their story of their dependencies to other beings.

(2) And the second dimension of precarity means that it could have been possible that it did not exist. Its existence is contingent. This means that there is always an alternative linked to a specific reality. Each event that led to the existence of a being, thing or historical development has a halo of other possibilities. That means that the story of things also tells us of the other possibilities. You cannot tell a story about what has happened without taking into consideration that it would have been possible that it happened. And in this way, telling stories as a practice of knowledge, as a philosophical, as a political claim is strongly linked to science fiction practice, because it's all the time developing the interest for the alternative.

So if all the universe, all our experience is based on story, why do we need to tell stories as a practice? As a method of knowledge? As a way of making us sensitive to the story of those obvious things. Didier Debaise closed with two reasons for this:

First, because it is a rebellious act against majority stories. Because we inherit all the time stories within power relations. And many of the stories that we know today are based on the story of the occidental man discovering nature through his science – increasing our ability to tell what nature is and take control over it.

This is the big story that we narrate. To tell other stories, to tell the stories of the earthly things, as a practice, is first to criticize, to fragilize this practice of the dominant story. Because it is organizing all our ways of knowing the world.

And secondly, if we need to tell other stories, if we need to fabricate, to construct stories other stories, it is to intensify, to give more importance, to make us sensitive to the fragility of all existence and of the situation we are in. It's a practice of intensifying and recognizing the fragility and the importance of the interrelatedness of all beings.


A big thank you to Moritz Gansen and Didier Debaise for leading this session.

Please visit the Website of Diffract and of the ici berlin for their events and additional material.

Picture credit: Alice Mortiaux, Manuel de géologie – Planche 2. Taken from: http://diffrakt.space/en/stories-of-earthly-things/. Please let me know if you want it removed!

Ostergeschichte

Es ist Oktober 2020. Seit ein paar Tagen ist es wieder möglich, Demonstrationen wie vor der Pandemie durchzuführen. Die Beschränkungen bezüglich des Sicherheitsabstandes wurden aufgehoben.

Es ist ein Freitag und in ganz Deutschland treten Menschen auf die Straße: in kleinen und in großen Städten, in Dörfern. Die Menschen blicken sich um und blicken sich an. Es wird gelächelt und die Freude der Menschen ist spürbar. Die noch warme Herbstluft legt sich wie eine Decke um die Schultern von Nachbarn, Partnern und Freunden. 

Nach einigen Minuten der Gespräche, des Sich-und-die-Welt-Begrüßens macht sich Schweigen breit. Manche gedenken den letzten Monaten und den Schwierigkeiten und Herausforderungen, die überstanden wurden. Die teilweise leeren Regale, die Überlastung der Krankenhäuser, den Verlust geliebter Menschen und den wirtschaftlichen Schwierigkeiten. Manche Gesichter werden Ernst, Kiefermuskeln spannen sich an, manche spüren ein Kribbeln der Vorfreude. Alle wissen, dass der Moment gekommen ist. 

Alle haben etwas in der Hand: manche tragen Briefumschläge bei sich, andere CD Hüllen, Kleidungsstücke, Bücher, Elektrogeräte. Schweigend setzen sie einen Fuß vor den anderen und machen sich auf den Weg zum Bürgerhaus, zum Rathaus und zu Ministerien der Landes- und der Bundesregierungen. Als die Menschen nach und nach an den Orten eintreffen, legen sie ihre Mitbringsel nieder. Zeichen und Symbole der alten Zeit. Dinge, Gewohnheiten, Routinen die sie hinter sich lassen wollen. Ein Abschied von der alten Zeit. 

Die Menschen halten nun inne und schauen gespannt auf die Bühnen und Rednerpulte vor Backsteinhäusern, auf weiten Grünflächen, am Brandenburger Tor. Das Bundeskabinett, die Bürgermeisterin, der Bezirksbürgermeister betritt die Bühne – mit einem Lächeln und Tränen in den Augen. 

In den folgenden Minuten stellen die Menschen auf der Bühne ein Programm vor. ein Programm, in dem auf jeder Ebene der Verwaltung, auf jeder Ebene der Exekutive über die kommenden Wochen und Monate gemeinsam mit den Menschen, die dort leben, mit Vertretern der Wissenschaft und der Wirtschaft erarbeitet werden soll, wie die Agenda 2030 umgesetzt werden soll, um das Leben schöner, einfacher und nachhaltiger zu machen. 

Nach wenigen Minuten endet die Rede und die Menschen fallen lachend und lächelnd in Gespräche. Menschen, die sich in den vergangenen Wochen nur über Videokonferenzen gesehen haben, schütteln sich die Hände und lachen zusammen. Sie alle wissen, an welchen Tagen sie bei Gesprächen dabei sein werden. Sie kennen ihre Rolle, die Vision und wie sich die Agenda 2030 realisieren wird. 

Ein neuer Anfang.

Stories of Power: A Conversation with Julie Diamond

Power is one of the most widely used concepts in the social sciences. From organisational theory to political sciences, from sociology to social justice, power is one of the key concepts to understanding, explain and change social and interpersonal dynamics.

To map the field and build context for Beyond Storytelling 2020 POWER OF STORY | STORIES OF POWER, I had the pleasure to spend a half hour in conversation with Julie Diamond about her work and Stories of Power.

In the conversation, we focus on her interest in the topic, the challenges of talking about power, common myth in working with power and what story of power she wants to see more of. It was an enlightning conversation. Enjoy! (And don´t mind the bad lighting on my side – the content is more than worth it).

Julie Diamond is founder of Diamond Leadership, providing leadership and talent development services to clients around the globe. Her special interest are the power dynamics on an interpersonal and personal level. She writes regularly on medium and has published a series of books, most recently “Power: A User´s Guide”.

Not Your Status Quo: Cyborg Shamanism and Its Creator. A Conversation with Adah Parris

Over the next weeks, we will publish some thoughts, interviews and other media to map the field for Beyond Storytelling 2020 – POWER OF STORY | STORIES OF POWER and introduce key noters and contributors of the conference and the masterclasses.

This interview features speaker, futurist and storyteller Adah Parris tracing her career and the emergence of the concept she is currently working with: cyborg shamanism. Adah will contribute a key note and
a
masterclass to the program of #BST2020.

This arricle is reposted here with the kind permission of the authors, Cindy Chin who conducted the interview, (CEO of CLC Advisors) and Adah Parris. The original article can be found here. The interview was conducted at Kinnernet Venice at H-Farm in Roncade, Italy.

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Where did you start out in your career? When did you find your calling?
I feel that my career has been a process of hypothesis forming and experimentation which has led me down some interesting paths. I’ve been fortunate to also be able to explore my seemingly contradictory areas of interest, to eventually see the connections between them to then create or recognise new opportunities.

I read Pure and Applied Mathematics and Educational Studies at University and I think that’s where my love for pattern recognition and problem-solving deepened. I loved modules on the history of maths, algebra, geometry, classical mechanics and group theory. I also loved anything to do with alternative pedagogic models especially Steiner and Montessori schools.

I worked in education at London Business School on the business side of advertising at The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), mostly designing programmes and running committees. That’s where my experience and curiosity into decentralised problem-solving systems was born. Then, I worked at Wayra, Telefonica’s technology accelerator programme and designed the original 6-month programme and that’s where my understanding of emerging technology, innovation and entrepreneurship developed.

My last ‘job’ was working as a Futurist for The Friday Club, a events and venture building type company that brought technology startups and marketing and communications senior people together in a mentoring-innovation learning and development environment.

I’m also an artist who has curated and hosted immersive multisensory and multi-technological experiences. I think my ‘calling,’ if you can call it that, has been to be a storyteller and creative problem solver who cares deeply about equality and injustice. I think that my life and career up until this point has been about helping me to fine tune my skills (an ongoing process) in order to be able to create a way to bring all of those sides of me together for something bigger than purely material or financial gain.

Reading and gaining more knowledge are integral parts of a growth mindset. What book(s) are you currently reading? Who is your favorite author?

I usually have a few books on the go and dip in and out of them so I have time to process and look for connections between what I’ve read and the outside world.

Currently, I am reading “Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc” by Arthur J. Miller.

I’m also exploring alternative futures and so reading the works of Nnedi Okorafor who writes about African Futurism so I’ve started with her book Binti, which she has just announced will be remade into a TV series with Hulu. I’m very excited by this news.

What made you decide on your career? Did you have mentors to guide your way?
I’m more of a polymath who has finally worked out a way of bringing all of my loves together, digital and quantum technology makes up part of that value proposition. To me technology is about the use of tools and different mediums to help us solve problems.

I have had a career of exploring and working with a variety of tools (technologies) and have found that there is greater value and impact to be had in taking a holistic or blended approach to innovation. I just happen to also understand how some of the digital (quantum) technology works.

I’ve been very fortunate and have, and continue to have mentors who have helped guide me. In my earlier career, it was those unofficial mentors who helped me explore new career pathways because they recognised the curiosity and skills within me. The best thing about having mentors is that the relationships should be mutually beneficial with curiosity, trust and respect at their base.

I use the word “cyborg” as a deliberate provocation and call for us to think about what it means to be human - the ethics, power, responsibility, boundaries and possibilities of what is possible, and what we are capable of.

I use the word “cyborg” as a deliberate provocation and call for us to think about what it means to be human - the ethics, power, responsibility, boundaries and possibilities of what is possible, and what we are capable of.

How did Cyborg Shamanism come about and why is it relevant right now?
Cyborg Shamanism is a way to empathetically subvert that status quo. It is the result of 5 years of mind-mapping patterns that I saw across different ecosystems and worlds: digital and quantum technology, spirituality and mysticism, psychedelic studies, quantum physics and other areas that I have long had an interest in.

At the time, I was working as a futurist at The Friday Club, organising an event on Transhumanism and was speaking to Liviu Babitz from The North Sense. Liviu calls himself a Cyborg and has a piece of technological hardware inserted into his chest. The North Sense is a device which when it detects magnetic north vibrates. The device effectively turns you into a human compass. I asked him why he had the implant and he said that he felt that this was ‘future human’. The device helped him to develop senses that we as humans didn’t have but some other mammals such as birds do. Liviu talked about how the device helped him to connect and understand himself, his environment and because there were others who had the device they had formed a community.

To me, he was saying the same thing that some people from the psychedelic, plant medicine and shamanic communities were saying. That they journeyed down those paths because the medicine, shaman or psychedelic tool helped them to connect with themselves, their environment and with a particular community of fellow explorers.

I use the word “cyborg” as a deliberate provocation and call for us to think about what it means to be human - the ethics, power, responsibility, boundaries and possibilities of what is possible, and what we are capable of. I use the word “shamanism” as a call to actively seek and find other perspectives, other ways of knowing, and that could be shamanic, quantum, spiritual, algorithmic, or purely by a difference in life or professional experience. All are of equal relevance. I found a new connection between those seemingly juxtapositional worlds. The only difference was their means of exploration, the tool, the technology. And so, Cyborg Shamanism was born.

What do we or should we value? Whose responsibilities is it to determine what is or isn’t valuable and what levels of power do they have (assumed or otherwise)?
We can already see this last question arising when we look at the developments in areas such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies. My focus is to look at measures of success that are humanity (planetary) focused, like the UN Sustainability Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 17, which is about creating partnerships for the other goals to be addressed, and working with others to create spaces in the real and virtual world for these partnerships to occur in trust and transparency.

Do you think that people are looking for things to aspire and worship in a tech world where human interaction can somewhat be isolated?
As humans, I believe that we are always seeking something bigger than ourselves, it’s in our nature. That sense of curiosity, awe and wonder. To give us answers to the questions that we don’t have the immediate answers to. Throughout history this has been through different forms of storytelling (religion, art, TV). I don’t think that has changed.

What has changed are the tools we may use to help us find the answers to these questions. To help us to explore, connect with and quantify ourselves, our surroundings and our connections to each other. The tools that make us ‘smarter’ but also to give us the answers quicker, which is again part of the problem in terms of isolation. We want everything now, we have become digital junkies and constantly want to be inspired, to get our next fix. So we are increasingly looking up to be inspired and for something to worship. There is a lot to be learnt about ourselves and each other in those moments of silence, boredom and chaos.

Does tech like social media connect or diverge people?
Social media is a form of call and response, so to that end it has always existed. Think about smoke signals and other forms of broadcasting messages throughout history. It’s about the way that we choose to see and interact with technologies that is a problem. The rituals and associated behaviours that we don’t take personal responsibility for are a problem. The stories that we tell and create about the potential power of those technologies’ control over us is also a problem.

To quote art critic, novelist, painter and poet John Berger, “Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one.”

Why is diversity and inclusion a critical factor in the world as we know it?
Diversity and inclusion is not just about how humans organise our social, economic, political and cultural lives. It’s bigger, or smaller than that. On a subatomic level diversity and inclusion is critical for life, critical thought and reason to be formed, exist and thrive. So why should our cultures, societies, politics, etc. be any different? How that happens is another matter and that’s what I’m interested in. How to use collective intelligence to transform us from where we are to where we want it to be or should?

What is it like to witness living history and the rise of technology firsthand?
As a child I wanted to be an astronaut because I wanted to be Uhura from Star Trek and I fell in love with Mr Spock from Star Trek. I wanted…

“To explore strange new worlds
To seek out new life
And new civilizations
To boldly go where no [human] has gone before”

To see some of this becoming possible in my lifetime, and to see and have some of the gadgets that I only saw in scifi movies and shows become commodities, can only make me more curious and excited about what else is possible in and beyond it.

How much creativity and imagination is necessary in what you do daily? What is the percentage breakdown?
In terms of living my life, creativity and imagination are daily facets of what we all do. They form the basis of problem solving, which means we are all innovators too.

In relation to work, I apply a different level of creativity and imagination to what I do usually in the form of critical thinking. I’d also say that I’m part philosopher, anthropologists and medium agnostic storyteller. I like to give people things to think about which hopefully means that they feel they have more choices about how to act and why.

What is the next big thing that are you planning?
I’ve recently ran a beta test on a live immersive version of a Cyborg Shamanism experience at the Tate Modern, not a bad location for a beta test, eh? It was a great success and so now I’m designing the next live collective intelligence open innovation experiences, probably on climate change.

Exploring Cyborg Shamanism at Tate Modern. Photo courtesy of Adah Parris.

Exploring Cyborg Shamanism at Tate Modern. Photo courtesy of Adah Parris.

I’m also designing a masterclass on my process so that I can teach others how to create their own experiences. I’m taking all of these insighst and designing a platform to enable and facilitate partnership and collaboration.

In the meantime, I’m preparing to speak at some conferences in Dubai, Berlin and Munich on Cyborg Shamanism and the impact that collective intelligence and other ways of knowing could have on innovation. It seems like loads but they are all interconnected and so once I solve one problem then the others should fall into place.

The great thing is that I’m not doing this alone and have some wonderfully generous mentors, friends, colleagues, and soon to be collaborators and partners who want to join me for this adventure. It’s moving from a “what am I planing, to a what are we planning?” and I love that.

What keeps you up at night?
I’m quite good at falling asleep. My problem is that my brain doesn’t switch off easy and so in the witching hour of the morning (usually around 3.30–4am) I wake up with a word, idea or more recently a partially formed haiku in my head. The haiku writing is an interesting one. I can be quite verbose (I love words) and so they haikus have been a way of helping me to be succinct or simplifying a complex idea.

My subconscious mind is in overdrive and puts things together in weird and wonderful ways, then churns them out through lucid dreams. Generally it’s the culmination of problems that I haven’t been able to solve about work, people, life. I’ve started crying more at the instability and injustice in the world and so power, ethics and responsibility feature highly in my preoccupations. I usually write them down and then go back to sleep and try to work it out in the morning after I’ve had more sleep.

What gets you excited to get out of bed each morning?
A few things. That I’m alive, healthy, have family and friends and have a certain amount of privilege that should not be squandered or used purely for my own gain. Curiosity and possibility for what the day holds and what I can achieve, even if it’s just thinking through a complex problem. Waking up to process what my weird and wonderful subconscious mind has been working on overnight.

What should we be doing now in preparation for the future of work? Will we need cyborgs?
The future is now. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and other forms of digital and quantum technologies are already changing our understanding of what work is. Many repetitive tasks and processes that can be automated have been and will be assigned to technology. So I think the more important questions should be what will be the purpose of work? How will many humans (especially in the developed world) continue to find purpose and strive for their potential when that changes? Just as our understating and relationship with words change so will our understanding of what a cyborg is and so it’s difficult to answer that without opening up a new rabbit hole.

Who will win? Machine or human?
Why does it have to be a competition? Why can’t we find a way to co-exist and augment each other?

Brilliant.

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Learn more and register here.

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Searching for the Unknown - Keynote Speaker Bettina Haasen talks about the power of narrations

Bettina Haasen, Organizational Consultant and awarded Documentary Filmer will be Keynote Speaker at BST2020. Who is Bettina Haasen, what will her Keynote speech enlight on the stage? As we talked about her professional past, she began her story with a guy called Musa. Musa is a Pheul-Nomad, who became friend of Bettina: back in the 90ies she got to know Musa in Nigeria, being there for a few months while studying African Languages.

Bettina_Haasen_BST2020.jpg

4 years later she went back to West-Africa, this time to Niger, to explore the possibilities of Storytelling in Documentary Filming. She wanted to find Musa again and asked here and there, filming her search for Musa, “Between 2 worlds”. It became a film which differs from other ethnographic films creating an intimate atmosphere and deconstructing the notion of “home” and “belonging”. The National Radio broadcasted about the Documentary Filmer and her search for Musa, and it became a national quest.

Africa_BST2020.jpg

"I really need the Unknown", answers Bettina, when I ask her about her motives for filming and, later on about her journey into the Present, for working as a Peace Advisor in Burundi and coordinating a network of journalists in the Great Lakes Region committed to peace, journalism and democracy.

Soon this important role of journalists was turning out to be a poisoned gift.

"What does it mean to be a journalist in a crisis area?", this question was driving her, when she began her research for the PHD. In these months in Burundi, Bettina was interviewing many journalists from radio stations, that have been destroyed during the following military coup in 2015. In her PhD she is studying the meaning of the concept of habitus and resilience in a context where liberty of speech is no longer guaranteed. She talks about the extreme danger the local journalists were in, when the military coup pushed the country into violence and traumata.

Her voice sounds vulnerable at the telephone, she slows down in her pace of talking. The breaks between her words let me sense her sadness, when she remembers the encounters with former journalists, transformed into hunted targets of the military. Her PHD was about finding the collective narratives of those journalists. She wrote a book about her findings with the thrilling subtitle “Erfahrungswelten in Konflikt und Transformation”.

"I found out so many things about their past and how it influences the present. Their stories showed me, how they were overcoming dominant narratives which have been clustering people in ethnic concepts and categories of “good” and “bad” for decades."

We arrive at the Present, where Bettina is working as an Organizational Consultant in a very different transformational context such as the automotive industry. What is the Unknown beyond the spoken words, the underlying paradigms, unspoken rules and beliefs in an organization? She laughs: "I still need the Unknown, I couldn't go along with pretending to be an external consultant, who knows the answers to the organization's problems better than itself. I still stick to the listening of the stories people tell me. And then I search, what is beyond."

Her Keynote will take the audience on a journey to three peak moments of transformational settings, that she experienced during her own journey as a Documentary Filmer, a researcher and a consultant: How does the power of narrations emerge in these different settings? What does work with narrations achieve in transformational tasks? Her speech will also reflect on the concept of development and maturity and how it affects how a person thinks, feels and acts and how stories can support the course of empowerment.

We are looking forward to searching for the Unknown together with Bettina Haasen at BEYOND STORYTELLING 2020!

Creative Rituals – A primer on the BST2020 Learning Journey

The astonishing thing for me is that a bunch of strangers come together, and when they enter the room at BST they turn into friends. What is really not happening, is promotion or selling of one´s own ideas trying to make a point. This does not happen at BST. Everyone is focused on stories. And this makes it unique.

Petra Sammer

There are many ways to organize and curate conferences. And Beyond Storytelling does indeed call itself a conference. But there are a few things that set BST apart from traditional conferences, in which one-to-many interaction often take the best part of the program.

From our point of view – and inspired by our long-time involvement with other conferences, especially the Berlin Change Days – BST is a beautiful hybrid of different formats, with the aim to create a space in which learning from and with each takes center stage.

We invite and host carefully curated content: workshops, key notes and late stages. Content and contributions we selected to reflect the diversity of working with story around the theme of power.

Yet, we also offer open sessions in which participants and contributors can propose spontaneous sessions and invite other to create together, to explore and present interesting themes and topics. We believe that this balance is at the heart of what people describe as a powerful community experience.

And then there is our learning journey. Hosted and facilitated by the BST core team, it is a string of dialoge formats, small interventions and moments of reflection that foster networking, community building and the communal learning space that we are so proud of.

This year, we team up with Meike Ziegler to invite a special element into the learning journey: the power of ritual. Last week, I had the privilege to visit her in her studio in Berlin and talk about her work, creative rituals and her contribution to the BST learning journey. Enjoy!

Working with Brands: From storytelling to narrative territories and distributed authorship. A conversation with Marco Ruckenbrod.

Brands need to find this little sweetspot between themselves and the agglomeration of needs, desires and aspirations of people out there. This overlap is exactly the point where narration comes into play. It connects with people emotionally – and creates relationships. Narration is an approach to charge this sweetspot with life.

Jacques Chlopczyk: Could you shortly explain what you do?

Marco Ruckenbrod: Well, my name is Marco and I help brands to develop themselves further and to co-create their future. This includes to find answers to very basic questions such as ‚What does the brand stand for?‘ or ‚How does the brand look and feel like?‘. Besides these quite fundamental questions I also help companies to create compelling narratives around their brands, products and services.

Jacques: When I think about brands, and this is not my home turf, I imagine brands being about semantics and meaning. How do you strategize what something means?

Marco: D’accord! Being a real brand is about answering the core questions of ‘What do I stand for?’ and ‘Why do I exist at all? What’s my reason for being?’ A brand is not just a logo or a typeface, it is about meaning. But again, it’s not about defining it. You need to change perspectives and ask yourself: ‘What is our brand’s meaning and role in people’s life?’ To understand people first is a good starting point to ‘strategize“ what something should mean.

Jacques: So, the question is what the function of the brand is in the eyes of the customer?

Marco: Yes. Brands need to find this little sweetspot between themselves and the agglomeration of needs, desires and aspirations of people out there. This overlap is exactly the point where narration comes into play. It connects with people emotionally – and creates relationships. Narration is an approach to charge this sweetspot with life.

Jacques: When I look at the field, many people talk about story- telling. That brands should be storytellers. Why do you think it is a good perspective?

Marco: To be honest: I wouldn ́t agree that this is a good perspective. It is a bit of old-fashioned thinking, because it assumes that the brand itself is the author. If you go back through the decades, this is where we started many years ago. Brands saw themselves – and they still do – as the authors of stories. And don’t get me wrong: it is still something brands need to do, but it ́s not the whole story. Because as time passed by, the way how brands communicate evolved. Just think of the Marlboro brand. They

did not only tell a story but they created a whole narrative world around their brand – the Wild West as a setting, the Cowboy as a hero and the feeling of freedom and liberty as the main theme of the brand – and entered a next level, of how to deal with narration. But what we see today is that some brands even turn themselves into platforms for stories. The brand’s ecosystem offers a stage for stories written by others, e.g. by influencers or by customers. It is no longer just a question of storytelling but more a question of storysharing. It’s a shift from being the author to becoming a publisher.

The brand’s ecosystem offers a stage for stories written by others, e.g. by influencers or by customers. It is no longer just a question of storytelling but more a question of storysharing. It’s a shift from being the author to becoming a publisher.

Jacques: Let ́s stay a bit with stories. What makes a good story from your point of view? What are the ingredients for good brand stories?

Marco: Doubtless, there are lots of ingredients a good sto- ry contains. But from my point of view, there is one angle every good story absolutely requires: it’s the conflict. The conflict is the lifeblood of a story. Robert McKee once said: „Nothing moves forward except through conflict“. And I totally agree with him.

When it comes to brand stories, ironically we can identify a paradoxon: although good stories need a conflict, many brands lack conflicts. I believe that a lot of brands indeed try to tell stories but honestly most of these stories are not worth to be told. Because they hide any kind of conflict. They are either hiding a cultural tension or just touching it softly. And this cultural tension is the sweet spot between brands and people I was speaking about shortly before. Brands should seek for their area of conflict and then jump into it courageously. This is a great starting point to build up strong relationships with people.

Jacques: Sometimes, advertisements have a “Teflon” feel for me. I look at them and see shimmering surfaces, but nothing behind. Maybe the conflict is what is behind.

Marco: Oh yes. I really like your metaphor of a teflon-like brand. I would call these brands just boring. These brands bore the hell out of us. Unfortunately, most brands are boring. And the answer is quite simple: as mentioned before, they lack conflict. A brand that has been quite successful during the past years is Dove. I mean, Dove is a well-known and not very exotic example, but what they are doing quite well is to build their entire brand on a conflict scenario and the cultural tension of beauty. A great ex- ample of how to play with conflict on very different levels: the individual sphere, the interpersonal sphere and the societal sphere in the most broaden context. Dove creates an entire world about these conflict levels. The brand was brave enough to move into this conflict-based territory.

Jacques: At the same time, stepping into a conflict means to take a stand; a position, right? I believe that there is a certain hesitation to take a stand?

Marco: Absolutely. Stepping into the world of conflicts means really to take a stand. A brand needs to be very steady and strong to do so. And most of the brands aren’t. But I really have the feeling that this state of mind is about to change because many marketeers started to discuss the purpose of their brand. They are discussing the question ‘Why does our brand exist?’ I really welcome and appreciate this shift, as it deepens the whole thinking about brands.

Stepping into the world of conflicts means really to take a stand. A brand needs to be very steady and strong to do so.

Jacques: You are working with the concept of narrative territo- ries for the development of brand strategies. Could you explain the concept to me?

Marco: Working with narrative territories means to draft the possible development of a brand in the future. You could describe it as a scenario technique working with alternative narratives about the brand. It is a question of how a brand sees and even drafts its own future actively – it’s about the question what’s the story a brand intends to write about itself. What’s the promising direction the brand wants to develop itself into?

When you think about the automotive industry, you have different vectors, different critical topics that impact the whole industry: e-mobility, automotive driving, connectivity. These are topics every brand in this industry has to deal with and give a clear answer about how it wants to position itself regarding these topics.

Jacques: So narrative territories is really about how brands approach the future. To use a metaphor: It is about creating a landscape and then mapping a path.

Marco: Exactly. You can call it a path or maybe let’s better name it a journey. You can really compare this approach with the basic ingredients of storytelling. Because every story starts with an initial event, let ́s call it starting point A. Through the plot and its dramaturgic structure, the story moves more and more to an end point B. When I start to work with brands, they often know where they are right now. This is the starting point A of their journey. But the exciting and very fundamental question is where they want to go. So, what’s their intended end point B? Thereby, it is really helpful to develop different scenarios of the end point B in order to make the right decision.

After making this strategic decision brands are ready to create, establish and evolve their narratives. The more interesting their conflict scenario is, the more compelling is their narrative and the more intensive is the bond to the people out there.

The more interesting their conflict scenario is, the more compelling is their narrative and the more intensive is the bond to the people out there.

Jacques: You said that relevance only comes with conflict. Would you say that Dove with this conflict around the meaning of beauty in our societies created a narrative territory and they are now working within it?

Marco: Absolutely. As mentioned before, Dove is a great example of how to deal with conflict in very different ways. The Dove case shows that a brand does not actually invent such a narrative territory. I mean this whole territory of beauty is so fundamental to us human beings that it wasn’t a brand that invented it. Obviously, Dove didn ́t create it but they are the brand that was brave enough to move into this territory in a way which was true to the brand, highly relevant to people and very truthful at all. And this is exactly what people are very sensitive about: It is not just nice advertising. They see a brand which deals with this cultural tension seriously. The brand does it in a very credible way. They take over responsibility. And thereby Dove shows impressively how rich, substantial and multi-faceted this conflict scenario is. The brand is able to create dozens of campaigns and actions out of it. They are able to cultivate this territory for years. And again: they haven’t invented it. They were just brave enough to enter it and to own it very consequently.

Dove shows impressively how rich, substantial and multi-faceted this conflict scenario is. The brand is able to create dozens of campaigns and actions out of it. They are able to cultivate this territory for years.

Jacques: If someone wants to develop a new narrative territory, what should they focus on?

Marco: They should drop me a line. Seriously, I’d recommend to do three things: At first, become clear what your initial position looks like. What’s your starting point A? Secondly, figure out how many possible end points B are out there – and how does each of them look like? The third step is to draft your individual narrative journey from A to B. And this includes the conflict scenario. This part is crucial. As mentioned before, it’s the core. The lifeblood. Ultimately, you have defined your narrative territory. This is your new playground. Enjoy!

Jacques: We talked about two important movements in the feld of marketing. One shift is from some kind of stories to stories that take a stand and speak about things that matter to people. And the second one being that brands move from being “just” storytellers to being curators and publishers.

Marco: Yes, exactly. I agree that the second one really is a shift that goes through the entire marketing business driven by the digitalisation. The first shift is stimulated by the purpose debate many brands started to lead. I believe the most promising approach is when you try to combine both streams. From a strategic point of view, it is crucial to define your narrative territory first – a territory that should be built on a cultural tension. If this tension is strong, rich and multi-faceted (remember Dove!) enough you are able to offer a very exciting stage to others for sharing their stories around your brand. This is when a brand becomes a platform for storysharing. And it’s the brand’s proof point for its relevance to people.

Marco will host a workshop at
#BST2020 POWER OF STORY | STORIES OF POWER


How woke are you? And is it enough?

Just stumbled UPON a new term: Wokeness – the new, heightened form of political correctness, as I read in the Neue Züricher Zeitung. And of course I also wonder what this has to do with the topic of our conference: POWER OF STORY / STORIES OF POWER ...

What is the power behind these moral categorizations, which are being boosted in social media as never before? And what history? Kevin Baldeosingh puts his "Short History of Wokeness" under my nose, which gives me an approach by building a bridge to the anti-rational movement of the Romantics and a mysticism of the deviant.

But what is it really about? "Woke" is a word creation derived from "awake", which implies a higher form of consciousness regarding the precarious state of the world. I once read in a book: "The world is as we are." And I thought, "I'm not as ghastly as the world." Perhaps this new movement is about keeping this difference high – also in view of the increasingly probable global climate collapse that hangs over us like a sword of Damocles. Individual salvation, when our world is already going down the drain with the planet?

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But maybe it's about something else entirely. In the beginning, we thought of a language police in Political Correctness. Until it turned out that it's about controlling what's possible to think. My grandmother comes to mind, who used to shout out when things got discursively tight in the family dialogue: "You must not even think that!"

But what are we allowed to think? Who edits the “Wokeness” codified catalogue of criteria? And who watches over the moral consensus on what is “woke” and what is not?

Woke is who rejects cars and airplanes as a means of transportation, and who boycotts Amazon. Not woke is anyone who indulges in the antiquated ideal of beauty 90-60-90, or thoughtlessly decides to bring children in this world. Greta Thunberg and Prince Harry are woke. Prince Andrew and Peter Handke are not. Or vice versa the next day?

Where are the guardians of discourse? And what morality feeds their binary worldview? Certain is that this game of inclusion and exclusion is a cruel one. It marks the victory of the singular over the plural, of truth over reality, and the end of the narrative. The storyteller plays with possibility. Those who raise moral categories like fences move between 0 and 1. Stories green the diverse space in between.

Diversity, the much-troubled concept, begins within us – in the moment we embrace ourselves as multiple personalities, instead of focusing on this one feature which tells the truth about us. Instead, we are not well because we do not want what we have and cannot have what we want. And the others have. There is a black hole between our dependencies and our desires, in which we are pulled apart like spaghetti. We believe that our growth and well-being are directly related and are blinded by the promises that surround us. Because the lack - the feeling of having too little and being too little – has eaten into our minds, we can no longer sit still. At the same time, we lean further and further into a future that is slowly but surely running out of resources.

It seems that we have no time left to divide people into binary categories. As entertaining and revealing as it can be at times. And as characteristic as it was of modernity in the name of progress. Suddenly the great Julio Cortazar comes to mind and his subdivision of people into "cronopios" and "famas". As a reminder, the latter were those who meticulously roll up their toothpaste from behind. But shouldn't we pay tribute to them today in front of the backdrop of the Zero-Waste-Movement rather than making fun of them?

Perhaps it is like in music, which is not only made up of notes, but above all of pause marks. Silence. Every melody lives from the fact that we not only exhale, but also inhale. Two notes correspond with each other across the empty space. Pause. And the music is this in-between. A world in which we also want to live. Beyond the strict opposites. And beyond the false ideologies. A space in between. A transition. From me to you. Not a world of fences that separate and not a world of castles that block and lock the way. But a world of possibilities and windows that can be opened. 

POWER OF STORY / STORIES OF POWER – we know that it is a very ambitious and at the same time evasive conference topic. But if you wanna step out of the binary world surrounding you it is a place to be. See you in Berlin at www.beyondstorytelling.com

The Power of Story in the Age of Climate Crisis

“The great turning is the story we hear from those who see the great unraveling and do not want it to have the last word. […] The central plot is about joining together to act for the sake of life on Earth.”

Joanna Macy

Intro

What is the story of the future we want to live into? This was one of the fundamental questions that guided our second conference in Hamburg in 2018. We all know that the future is hard to predict – and that there is power in the stories we tell about it. Working with futures in the last two years has teached me one thing: even if there seems to be a future mapped out in front of us, it is the stories we tell and the metaphors that also impact how it might unfold. This is not an exercise in magic thinking, but in the power of story.

There is hardly anything that challenges us as much as climate change: the impact of the human way of living clearly has an impact. The slow feedback loops of spaceship earth are closing and the impact can hardly be overestimated: something big is coming and we are challenged to collaborate across the planet to somehow brace for that impact – or prepare for the aftermath.

And of course, this story of the future is driven by fear: the fear of the annihilation of entire ecosystems, of toxic oceans and the depletion of our live stock. Fear can be a tremendous catalyst for change. But it can also freeze us against the wall. Unable to find our speech, unable to do the small wise steps that would move us forward.

So what if we would ask what we could win in the long struggle to recalibrate our ways of living to something that is within the planetary boundaries of survival? How can we imagine a future in which the conditions for life on this planet are regenerated? What would be the treasures that we would find at the end of this collective hero´s journey?

I had the opportunity to host two sessions on this topic in the last months. The first one at BEYOND STORYTELLING 2019 – StoryCamp Lingenau. The second one during the House of Beautiful Business. Here I try to capture the treasures that we found.

StoryCamp Lingenau: Climate Change – What´s the Treasure?

The idea for asking about the treasure was born during the StoryCamp in Lingenau. It was early summer but the temperatures easily crossed 30 degrees. It was my first night there and we just set up the Camp in and around the village. It was so hot, I couldn´t sleep. Amazonia was burning, and the air in Austria felt like that too. It was to hot to sleep.

Fast forward a day. StoryCamp, second day. A blank wall fills with topics that people want to explore. I think of the hero´s journey and the treasure. The question was born. In the morning session I find myself sitting in the library with 5 companions, ready to explore the question.

Part 1: Getting started

Talking about climate change can lead to abstract discussions. As an introduction, the participants were therefore asked to share a moment when climate change becomes "tangible" for them:

  • A participant from Slovenia spoke about air conditioning systems. She could not remember that in her childhood there was air conditioning in summer - neither in her house nor in holiday flats. Today they are part of the standard equipment. And they are also urgently needed in summer.

  • A participant from Switzerland reported how a spring behind her house carries less and less water every year. Where water used to flow all year round some time ago, today it is limited to winter, spring and times when it rains heavily.

  • One participant spoke of a book about "collapsology". From your decision to buy a book that talks about the way of dealing with the end of the world as we know it. And she buys the book because she is afraid for the future of her children.

In reflecting on these moments, our discussion revolved around two points:

The difficult emotions associated with the climate crisis: many of the participants experienced or observed helplessness, anger, frustration, hopelessness. It was reported of the feeling to be "slain" by news (e.g. about the forest fires in the Amazon) and to fall into a "rigidity".

What is missing is a story that can bundle people's efforts, skills and abilities for a common, different future. Industrial modernity was carried by a narrative of growth and exploitation/control of nature. But what story replaces this narrative?

Part 2: What is the treasure? From value creation to creation of well-being

What's there to win? What treasure could wait for mankind if it succeeds in overcoming the climate crisis? With these questions we started into an open development of ideas.

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Connectedness: Many of the ideas can be summarized under the concept of connectedness: a new connectedness not only with our fellow human beings, but with the planet as a whole, with the planet as a living system. Instead of isolation in filter bubbles and alienation in abstract value chains, there is a sense of community. A community that understands that all parts are interconnected and that the consequences of human actions are a central factor for the living conditions on this planet.

The creation of well being instead of value creation: The treasure is also a redefinition of what is considered valuable. It is about a form of life and economic activity in which values are not "extracted" from the soil, people or nature, but value creation is understood as a contribution to improving the basis of life for all life.

Technology: In the course of dealing with the climate crisis, there will be technological breakthroughs that will enable this change from "extracting" to "regenerative" forms of economic activity.

Part 3: Reflection

In the aftermath of this collection of ideas, the conversation was reflected upon from different perspectives.

The main topics:

Conflicts and polarities: The climate crisis is the result of a certain form of economic activity and consumption. Over the past two centuries, this form of economic activity has made possible incredible prosperity in some parts of the world. At the same time, the way we deal with the climate crisis shows the rigidity of the system and the fear of losing the privileges that come with being part of it. A change in the economy is partly perceived as a threat to these privileges.

When our descendants look back at our time with satisfaction at some point, they will also tell a story of shame, forgiveness and reconciliation between generations.

This is especially true for the post-war generation, for example in Germany: what carried this generation after the Second World War was the history of reconstruction and the pursuit of a life of peace and prosperity. This history became reality, at least in West Germany. It is difficult to acknowledge that this history is also responsible, that our livelihood is in danger: it calls life plans into question. When our descendants look back at our time with satisfaction at some point, they will also tell a story of shame, forgiveness and reconciliation between generations.

Story and metaphors: At the beginning of the session, the analogy of a monster-in-house story was used for the climate crisis. Climate change - like the monster in ... - must be fought. But what if this story were a "man on the moon" story? What if it were the story of the "growing up" of the human species? What if the climate crisis were the frog king of mankind?

Earth has been our dance floor long enough, now it's up to us to learn to be a good dance partner.

This awareness of the stories of the climate crisis is necessary. This is because the metaphors and stories we tell influence what we think is possible or impossible. New stories enable new perspectives and new ideas. At the end of the session, there was a metaphor that summarized a lot of what was discussed: The earth was long enough our dance floor, now it is up to us to learn to be a good dance partner.

Climate Change – What´s the treasure? @ the House of Beautiful Business

The House of Beautiful Business is dedicated to the question of how the economy can be rethought in the age of machines. What place do people have when added value is increasingly automated and digitalized? In addition to lectures, workshops and an accompanying programme, rooms were also offered for spontaneous sessions. A good framework for exploring the question "What could be the end result of a successful handling of the climate crisis? The session was structured similarly to the StoryCamp Lingenau:

Part 1: Getting started

Here, too, we asked the participants about moments when climate change would become "tangible" for them. It became clear that climate change and the associated weather events and ecological consequences are only part of a more complex challenge: environmental pollution and the problematic use of planetary resources. The moments I can still see most clearly:

  • A participant from China reports about a conversation with his son. He asks (the family previously lived in Switzerland): "Why is the sky no longer blue? Beijing has a massive problem with smog.

  • A participant from Sweden reported about his concern about global cynicism: instead of asking the basic questions, there is a cynical "Keep it up! It's too late anyway"

  • A participant from Germany tells how difficult it is to choose the right means of transport. When planning trips, distance plays an increasingly important role: he wants to avoid flying.

Part 2: The moment in 2050

Afterwards the participants were asked to imagine the moment in the year 2050. In the meantime, humanity has managed to overcome the climate crisis and find solutions to the ecological crisis. The moment was captured in small texts and pictures.

"In the year 2050 I am sitting with my husband in a house for the elderly. It is high in the mountains, surrounded by beautiful nature - the sun is shining and it is peaceful - and I think "Yes - we made it". We were able to get this terrible time behind us in the 20s. To leave behind the hatred, the divisions and the cynicism and to come together: as a family of all people, driven by the realization that we die or live together. I feel hope for my son and my grandson."

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In small groups, the participants then imagined their future moments. The listeners should search the stories and pictures for possible "treasures" and then summarize them by asking two questions:

  • How did life develop for the better after the climate crisis was overcome?

  • What has changed in our relationship to ourselves, nature, our communities and technology?

Part 3: Finding the treasures

Solidarity and community: Overcoming the climate crisis has led to more solidarity between people. We are in better contact with each other - on a global and local level. This solidarity is both the cause and the result of the successful handling of the climate crisis.

Economy and consumption: The economy has been transformed. Instead of gross domestic product, other criteria for measuring economic performance were introduced. New technologies have led to new economic impulses. People are prepared to consume less matter.

Education and personal development: The foundations of a new way of life and working are at the heart of education from childhood. Spiritual and personal development is an integral part of what is taught and learned.

Part 4: Reflection

In the reflection of the session, the "how" of change was once again addressed. All participants agreed that it will be difficult to change old habits, structures and world views. And that this change must take place on all levels: on a personal level, in the local "communities" and on a structural level: in laws and the economic system.

The sentence I remember most clearly:

To make it happen, we have to be warriors not worriers.

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What if we don´t make it?

I recent article by Jonathan Franzen sparked quite a bit of dissarray. In this piece, he argues that humanity should brace for the full impact of the climate crisis. That the efforts to stop and reverse global warming are indeed pointless. That we should invest in strengthening the institutions that will guide a good way of living after the damage is done.

One can critize this position for many reasons. Yet, thinking through that scenario might provide additional insights. One of the final sessions of the House of Beautiful Business addressed exactly this question: A new social contract – how can we live together if we fail to solve the climate crisis?

Facilitating an unstructured session is not an easy thing, yet the participants permitted me to change the question a bit. After all, beauty was a central theme to the conference. The question for the final harvest was: How can we live together in beauty if we can´t solve the climate crisis?

These are a few of the results of the session:

  • We have make more of what really matters. Or to put it into the words of a participant: stop filling the emptiness with pointless shit.

  • Platforms for sharing and pooliing of resources have to grow. Grass-roots and community building initiatives have to carry this effort. Both off- and online local networks have to be strengthened and governments have to build frameworks for this.

  • The educational system has to include the crafts of living well together (empathy, compassion, collaboration) and strengthen the ability for basic live stock management (farming, building, repairing).

  • A mindset shift will emerge, letting us become aware of our deep interdependency with everything on this planet. A transnational identity will emerge while at the same time a radical relocalization has to take place, rooting communities in their locale.

Outro

“We think we tell stories, but stories often tell us, tell us to love or hate, to see or to be blind. Often, too often, stories saddle us, ride us, whip us onward, tell us what to do, and we do it without questioning.
The task of learning to be free requires learning to hear them, to question them, to pause and hear silence, to name them, and then become a story-teller.”

Rebecca Solnit

Looking back at these three sessions I feel hope. Yes, disorder has affected the land (to praphrase the wonderful talk by George Monbiot), but there are stories emerging that could carry our efforts to reset the way we live. To unfreeze us and to make us find a way to speak about and act upon the challenges ahead of us.

Yet, it is tempting to try to maximize our privileges in the current system. We can step into a story in which it is too late for everything. A story, in which we party while the world is burning. Or we can tell ourselves the story of flying to mars and reboot society there. Different planet, same story.

The collective imagination of humanity is a source of creativity – for better or for worse. We are indeed able to story the future in a new way and to find the treasures. We can choose which story we step into, the choice is ours.