Three more reasons why improvisation is a more potent strategy than a scripted narrative for building brands and organizations in the Networked World:
1) A NETWORKED ORGANIZATION IS A GAME PLATFORM
Organizations and brands designed to operate in the Networked World are, in effect, game platforms. They establish an environment, rules and tools, and encourage players to exercise their potential to its fullest. They build context so that players can create content. The wealth of these organizations will be generated by a generation of employees for whom gaming is second nature. These employees understand that playing the game productively requires improvisation.
Think about the narrative experience of a movie or TV show versus the experience of playing networked games like Second City or Final Fantasy and you’ll begin to see the difference between a brand that hews to the script and one that encourages improvisation.
Narrative is passive. It is created by other people. A game is active. It cannot exist without our participation.
With narrative, the players and the audience are separated by ‘The Fourth Wall’ such as a screen, a page, a proscenium. In a game, the players are the audience. Improvisational brands, adept at listening to and collaborating with their audiences, are in the business of breaking down The Fourth Wall and building bridges between themselves and their customers.
In a narrative, players act according to rigidly defined roles that limit their range of behaviors. In a game, players have the freedom to define their roles and pursue the objective in any way they choose.
In a scripted narrative, spontaneity usually screws things up for your fellow players. In a game, spontaneity and innovation are applauded and rewarded.
A narrative usually involves a relatively small number of players. Games — like networked organizations — can be designed to accommodate players in unlimited numbers.
In narratives, the standards of performance are dictated by the storytellers. In games, standards of performance are determined by players.
Narratives are linear and finite. They consist of a single storyline with multiple subplots that unfold within a set period of time or number of pages. Games are non-linear and open-ended. They have the capacity to generate unlimited numbers of storylines that are unconstrained by time or page count.
Don’t get me wrong. I love stories. Love telling them. Reading them. Listening to them. Watching them unfold. But when it comes to business, stories are more limiting than liberating. Games, by contrast, are invitations for players to expand the possibilities. Like brands and organizations designed to operate in the Networked World, games (and the improvisation required to play them well) encourage immersion in the experience, audience participation and innovative behavior.
2) NARRATIVE CALLS FOR SETBACKS
Along the hero’s journey, there are always obstacles to overcome — dragons to slay, flying monkeys to dodge, tentacled villains to disarm — to create a resolution that’s satisfying to the audience. This is simply the nature of the narrative form.
Business, by comparison, is the practice of producing positive results time after time. What manager in his or her right mind would map a negative outcome to a business scene? This is another powerful argument against scripting a narrative for your brand or scene. Subsconscious though it may be, you’re charting a course that invites negative outcomes, that puts obstacles between you and your objectives.
Improvisation gives us the means to see why scenes go awry and make the fast adjustments required to turn those scenes around and make them productive.
The choice between scripting your narrative and improvising it into existence is the choice between seeing setbacks as inevitable and greeting them, when they do occur, as an opportunity to learn and turn. It is the choice between burdening yourself with the expectations of others and liberating your capacity for heroic action.
3) ENERVATION VS. ENERGY
Don’t practice what you preach. Preach what you practice.
Brands chained to the narrative form can exhaust themselves getting players to stick to the script and audiences enthused enough to buy what they are selling.
Those who improvise experience the buoyancy and authenticity of living their story spontaneously in the moment, and are free to make the most productive choices in every situation. By inviting their audience to play along, they infuse their performance with energy that reverberates through the marketplace. How can customers not love what they have helped to create?
Tags: Branding, Energy, Final Fantasy, Games, Improvisation, Narrative, Networked World, Second Life