A serial analysis of the quest to rescue 33 miners trapped 2,300 feet underground in a copper mine outside Copiapo, Chile…
Predictably, the ‘Los Mineros’ scene heightened emotionally yesterday, and in a dramatic way. Near the mine entrance, two women spotted each other praying for the safety of the same miner, Yonni Barrios. One of them is his wife. The other is his mistress. Now 32 of the miners are looking forward to getting rescued, one maybe not so much.
Yonni Barrios
A response to Spencer Fry of Carbonmade, who recently posted a blog entry entitled: “Down With Social–Social is Immeasurable and a Waste of Time.”
Spencer, I agree to this extent: The phrase ‘Social Media’ is so amorphous as to be essentially meaningless. In fact, all media are social. It’s like saying Wooden Tree, or Feathered Bird.
The most social medium is sexual intimacy, followed (if we’re talking relevance; preceded if we’re talking chronology) by meaningful face-to-face conversations, scaling out from there, and eventually reaching the nebulous netherworld of thoughtless Likes, meaningless Tweets and snarky YouTube comments. Noise. Cosmetic data with no emotional or meta resonance.
What’s usually ignored in conversations about Social Media platforms is the Science of Narrative. Narrative is the force that makes media meaningful. Narrative may not make the world go round, but it describes for us why and how it does. It provides context for information that would otherwise appear as random. The reason social messaging echos and evaporates is that it’s not connecting with a narrative. (A hashtag or a mention does not a narrative make!)
The most relevant aspect of Social Media will turn out to be the lens it afford us with which to perceive narratives. We are, I believe, at a stage in the history of narratology that parallels where physics was at the turn of the last century, when the science moved from the Newtonian to the Quantum.
Marketers who use social media as you have described it, as a fashion statement, are doomed to keep firing blanks at a target they cannot see. They are using Industrial Aged models to engage in a Networked environment. It’s like trying to split an atom with a pendulum.
Those who use it as a lens on narrative, will be able to direct ‘particles of meaning’ at the quantum narrative made visible by social technologies and capture the massive energy predictably released by these interactions.
A serial analysis of the quest to rescue 33 miners trapped 2,300 feet underground in a copper mine outside Copiapo, Chile…
Levels of Meaning
With the eyes of the news media fixed on one very specific location, everything about the Los Mineros narrative is tightly focused and vividly portrayed. There’s no mystery to it, no hidden agenda (with maybe the exception of a mining company looking to avoid liability, which itself would be no surprise). With the focus so intense right now on the mine itself and the rescue efforts, almost every element of the narrative is visible even to a distant observer like me, who might check the story every day or two on the webs to see how the miners are doing.
It is extremely clear how the narrative is conveyed on three distinct Levels of Meaning.
All communication happens on three levels: Cosmetic (data, information, quantification, surface descriptions, neutral language), Emotional (passion, mood, empathy, attitude, ups, downs) and Meta (symbolism, context, iconography, metaphor, perspective, interpretation, the subconscious connections).
Observe, and learn from, how the Los Mineros narrative is conveyed on these three levels:
Cosmetic: Tons of information here. Plans and backup plans described in detail. The three four-inch pipes that have become their lifeline. The NASA psychologists who’ve arrived to help. The number of calories they’re eating every day (2,000), and how much water they’re supposed to drink every day (5 litres). We know about the ’super drill’ being brought in to bore through the rock. This early in the story, there’s still a lot of cosmetic meaning to be conveyed, an abundance of factual information. Expect that, at some point, this level of meaning will begin to lose steam, and that the tellers of the story will begin to place more emphasis on the other two levels.
Emotional: As always, this is where the most meaning resides, where the story is most potent, and touches us most profoundly. We know that some of Los Mineros have been depressed. We know that they have been able to communicate with their families. They have shared their frustration. We feel their claustrophobia. They have begun to play roles, and these will rouse emotions, too. Who will give the pep talks? Who can get them to smile? Keeping their emotions positive will be key to their mental health during their ordeal, and so, the longer the ordeal goes on, the more crucial the emotional content of the narrative will become.
Meta: The video feed is an existential lifeline. “I video, therefore I am.” For this reason, its very existence is a hopeful symbol. The handsomer guys are getting more facetime on camera. Stars of the narrative, those who can best hold our attention, will emerge as the Cosmetic flow slows. Bringing in the NASA psychologists to deal with the miners’ prolonged isolation is a recognition of the global significance of the narrative, and it ennobles Los Mineros by equating them with astronauts, Los Astronautas, and to the heroic qualities we ascribe them. This blog post is, itself, meta communication about the rescue effort.
Sometimes uncovering the Meta language requires digging beneath the surface, because beneath the surface is where the Meta meaning works. For example the number of miners, 33, has deep meta significance in the predominantly Catholic country of Chile, because 33 is commonly believed to be Jesus Christ’s age when he died on the cross. When Los Mineros finally walk into the light, the date on the calendar will not matter, they’ll be celebrating Easter in Chile.
Adapted from GameChangers–Improvisation for Business in the Networked World, by Mike Bonifer:
Heighten–To build emotional involvement and energy in a scene
Improv–See ‘Improvisation‘
Improvisation–spontaneous communication designed to generate positive outcomes from unforeseen circumstances; interpersonal and group communication that is instinctive and informed by experience, knowledge, serendipity and respect for environment; improv, as performed in theaters, such as with improv comedy; a conversation with the community; the pedagogy, philosophy and process defined by Viola Spolin in her 1963 book, Improvisation for the Theater; a games-based methodology for generating communication, learning and transformation
Initiation–The first meaningful words or lines spoken during a scene; in this case, ‘meaningful’ refers to anything that directly involves the group’s progress toward achieving the scene’s objective(s).
Interrogation–A performance-related issue, often arising in interviews or employee reviews, that arises when one player only asks questions and never acts on the information revealed by the answers;
Invention–A performance-related issue that occurs when players work with speculative or subjective information instead of the reality of the scene.
Invocation–An exercise that lets players examine a subject from the third-person (”It is”), second-person (”You are”) and first-person (”I am”) perspectives in order to identify themes for a performance.
Issue–Any performance-related problem which can be remedied by better execution of GameChangers business communication techniques.
Judging–A performance-related problem that occurs when a player subjectively assesses a scene while the scene is taking place.
Justifying–A performance-related problem that occurs when a player self-consciously explains his or her (or their team’s) actions in a scene, especially when the behavior does not align with the GameChangers principles.
Liminal–relating to the threshold of perception that players break through by participating in a game; relates to perceptions of one’s own abilities and to what one’s perceptions of what is generally possible; transcending the status quo
Meta Communication/Meaning–A symbolic or allegorical representation of ideas and concerns that exist on a societal, cultural or archetypal scale; the symbolic representation of a macro trend, widely held belief, or aspect of the human condition; (See ‘Cosmetic Communication/Meaning‘ and ‘Emotional Communication/Meaning‘)
Monologue–A speech given by a single player in a scene; a speech shared amongst multiple players in the course of a scene or presentation.
Narrative–A flow of thematically-connected events that can be related after the fact as a story; organizational memory and vision of the future that inform scenes performed in the present; a purposeful alignment of ideas and events, such as for a brand.
Negativity–Traits, ideologies and behaviors that halt a scene’s progress through skepticism and a disagreeable inclination to oppose, deny and/or resist the ideas or involvement of other players; pessimism; the antithesis of the attitude required for productive collaborations.
Network–The communications matrix of an organization, brand or individual; those who are connected by a communications matrix or belong to an organization; defined by John Seely Brown, John Hagel et al as consisting of ‘core’ and ‘edge’
Networked World–The highly communicative, internet-supported global stage on which business gets conducted
Objective–The desired outcome of a scene; the stated purpose of playing a game; the business goal of a scene; one of the four elements that comprise a Game
Opening–An ‘overture’ prior to a scene or series of scenes in which a player or a group develops the themes for an upcoming performance; usually triggered by Suggestions From the Audience
Organization–The manifestation of a business or brand to its audience; the operational structure of a business or brand; a company or group with a shared mission and business objectives (see ‘Network‘)
TO BE CONTINUED…
Adapted from GameChangers–Improvisation for Business in the Networked World, by Mike Bonifer:
Addition–Entering a scene in progress for the purpose of contributing immediately to the team’s performance; contributing to a scene; giving a gift
Agreement, The Agreement Principle–A principle of improvisation, characterized by players’ openness towards each other and an organization or communications network’s openness at its edge; the group consensus around a game or theme that informs a scene
Audience–Those within and outside of an organization whose reactions and opinions will determine the success of a scene or performance
Audience, External–People outside an organization or network, including customers (and potential customers), competitors, bloggers, users, fans, viewers, etc. whose reactions ultimately determine the value of a performance or narrative
Audience, Internal–People inside an organization or network, whose judgment acts as a kind of filter on scenes and narratives before they reach the External Audience
Blocking–A performance-related problem that occurs when players impede the progress of a scene by refusing the gifts offered them by their teammates
Callback–The act of recalling information that was stated by a player earlier in a scene or in a previous scene.
Cast–Players who share the same business objective; also called a Group or Team; can also refer to the employees of an entire division or organization (Disney, for example, refers to all employees as ‘cast members’)
Casting–The process of selecting players who will comprise a business team
Character–Traits that make a player unique as an individual and consistently valuable to his or her team
Close, Del–Credited as one of the originators of longform improvisation, and one of its most influential teachers, Close (1934-1999) created ‘Harold,’ probably the most-performed structure for group improv theater performances; his proteges include Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey; legend has it that he willed his skull to the Goodman Theater in Chicago to be used in future productions of Hamlet, in which he was to be billed as playing the role of Yorick
Coach–A person who casts a team; an objective observer and critic of a team’s performance; one who establishes game-based strategies and standards of preparation and performance in directing a team toward its objectives; manager; director
Cosmetic Communication/Meaning–The surface level of communication within a scene, primarily through spoken dialogue; data; information. (See ‘Emotional Communication/Meaning‘ and ‘Meta Communication/Meaning‘)
Crazy Town–A performance-related problem that occurs when players indulge in fantasies, magical thinking, or egoistic behavior, until the scene becomes un-moored from any actionable reality.
Denying–A form of blocking in which a player repeatedly contradicts or ignores other players, confusing the audience and fellow players; refusing to recognize another player’s reality
Edit–The action of making an entrance for the purpose of shifting the scene’s focus, or to begin a new scene; edits usually occur in concert with other players exiting the scene
Emotional Communication/Meaning–The most dynamic and meaningful level of communication in a scene. conveying its players’ passions and desires, where reactions (both positive and negative), and reinforcements/alienation are strongest
Energy–The pitch at which a player or group performs (and modulates) its performance; an umbrella term for the level of activity and intensity the audience observes in the group, and that players in the group experience in one another
Entrance–A player’s first appearance in a scene
Environment–The setting in which members of team collaborate to achieve their objective; any place where players interact; more expansively, any place where an audience experiences a brand; the overall business climate in which an organization operates, shaped by factors such as regulatory agencies, competitors, geopolitical factors and the desires, attitudes and beliefs of customers
Exit–A player’s departure from a scene
Fantasizing–A performance-related issue that occurs when players build outlandish, or wildly fictitious scenarios that do not acknowledge or act on the real world environment or the businessa; magical thinking; (see ‘Crazy Town‘ and ‘Invention‘)
Flatlining–A performance-related problem that occurs when players show no energy or life, impeding or halting a scene’s progress
Game–Rules, roles, environment and objective(s) defined; an exploration of a theme; a strategy used to achieve a business-related objective; games fall into two broad categories – productive and unproductive
GameChanger–A player who has mastered the art and practical techniques of business improvisation; a manager/coach or player with the ability to identify and support productive games and quickly change or edit unproductive ones
Gift–A move that supports the scene and the players in it; ‘giving gifts’ is one of the most powerful and effective moves a player can make
Grandstanding–A performance-related issue that occurs when a player wastes time and effort trying to contribute something ‘heroic’ to a scene; holding back for effect instead of engaging in the moment; habitually swinging for the fences or reaching for the ‘Wow Factor’; going for a home run when a single would better serve the scene
Group Mind– The tangible web of connectivity between players that achieved through a shared focus on a game and the exploration of a theme; the collective unconscious; not the same as ‘Group Think‘
Group Think–Rubber-stamping; going along to get along; consensus for its own sake; agreement that does not involve a game or theme; behavior that is not intended to achieve the objective, but rather to reinforce status; uncritical or unquestioning support for a political agenda, ideology or hierarchy
TO BE CONTINUED….
It’s easy enough to see that in a selling scene, a Customer is your Audience. You, in your role as Seller (and make no mistake about it, everyone in this world sells something) need the customer/audience to support you at the boxoffice, the gift shop, the showroom, the supermarket, the website, or anywhere else you can translate their ‘applause’ into revenue. This has been true since studly village smithies were putting on a good show by hammering out horseshoes under the spreading chestnut tree. A good performance gets rewarded by the audience. Selling doesn’t get any simpler than this.
It does, however, get a lot more complex, and in a hurry. Here’s why:
In selling scenes, the customer plays two roles: Audience and Scene Partner. You, as a seller, co-create your selling scene with your customer as your scene partner. He or she will then, stepping into the role of your audience, pass judgment on your performance. Thumbs up or thumbs down? Worth the price of admission or not? Good collaboration or rocky relationship? Will you generate positive word of mouth or negative reviews? Your earnings depend on how your performance is received.
There’s no script for these scenes–at least not one your customer is going to be memorizing and reciting verbatim anytime soon. You’re going to be improvising. And this is a fact: The best salespeople are the best improvisers.
Here are some ways in which good salespeople collaborate with customers on scenes that get a thumbs-up from those same customers:
They keep their scenes lively. They keep the dialogue moving along at a productive tempo. They yes-and promptly. They heighten by upping the tempo, the emotional pitch, or both. They add useful information. They perform with the awareness that a ‘dead spot’ in the scene now will be judged harshly by the customer-as-audience later.
They make their customer the hero of the scene. An improvisational salesperson is a Sherpa to the customer with some kind of allegorical mountain to climb. The sales Sherpa has useful knowledge. Charts a practical course to the summit. Reads the weather. Calculates the odds. Comes well-equipped. The sales Sherpa gives the gift of support, and in doing so, makes the customer look good. The role of the sales Sherpa is not the same as playing a second-banana, a sidekick, a best friend, a wing man, a femme fatale or a fall guy. These are Hollywood movie roles. The sales Sherpa is exactly what the name defines: a Sherpa. It’s a Himalayan thing.
They listen. Wow, do improvisers listen. They hear things the casual listener doesn’t. They remember the nuances, and use the throw-aways. They know that the most important conversation of the day may happen on an elevator ride between the first and sixth floors before a sales presentation begins. They listen with more than their ears. They observe with all the senses. And then, maybe then…they speak. They understand that being silent and being mute are two completely different things, and that sometimes one sees more with one’s eyes closed than with them open.
They respect environment. In selling scenes, you, the seller, are usually a visiting performer in someone else’s theater. In many ways, the ‘theater’ of a customer’s company is like any other theater. Theaters have traditions and history that must be respected. They are influenced by politics and patronage and star players with competing agendas. They are invariably facing some kind of financial threat. They are only as good as their last hit, and they have ridiculously high hopes for the next project. They can be half-looney with romantic intrigue. The improvisational salesperson sees and respects the arena in which the customer operates. When performing at the Apollo, touch the Tree of Hope. When visiting Ireland, kiss the Blarney Stone.
They build relationships. Relationships are the basis of all improvisation. The relationships between players, between players and environment, and between players and audience, are all intertwined. The best way to move toward a sale, to generate positive outcomes regardless of the circumstances, is to build and nurture these relationships. Relationships will see you through the kinds of adversity, and capitalize on the opportunities, that no scripted sales program can predict or anticipate.
In selling scenes, the networked customer is a more potent player than ever. He or she often knows as much about your product as you do. Relationships with customers are frequently more sensitive, more fluid and more demanding than they were in the Industrial Age. Customers use social media to converse frequently amongst themselves in scenes to which you, the seller, are not invited. You can no longer impose your narrative on the customer, you’ve got to earn an invitation to participate in the customer’s narrative.
So be a Sherpa. Know the mountain, and your customer will see that the climb is impossible without you.
Rasul Sha’ir, and his brand strategy group, Cnvrgnc, are rolling it up bigtime in D.C. with a number of projects in the works that deal in narrative as the key to community. Sha’ir and his partner in Cnvrgnc, Jamal Williams, begin their process by looking at the stories a community tells itself, and how those stories can be improved and shared. Whether it’s an online group connected by a common interest, users of a social media platform, a city in the physical world, or some hybrid of the three, communities are held together by the stories they share.
In a couple of recent blog posts, one about a campaign in Greece for a Kraft Foods-owned chocolate brand called Lacta, the other observations about storytelling made by creative exec Lee Clow and Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Rasul, looks at the role customers (a.k.a. ‘citizens of the community’) play in creating narratives. Rasul makes this important observation: brands are in the business of producing their narratives in collaboration with their customers. The campaign for Lacta, “Love in Action,” enabled by OgilvyOne Worldwide, was based on this observation. The theme of love connects chocolate and the people who share it. By giving customers the ’stage’ on which to profess their love–for chocolate and one anoher–the campaign transcended anything Ogilvy or Lacta could have possible produced on their own, in-house. By sharing the narrative with their customers, Lacta generated positive unforeseen outcomes for its brand.
Give customers the tools and the rules and they will build it. And if they build it, you don’t have to get them to go anywhere, because they’ll already be home.
Painting by Bill Schenck www.schencksouthwest.com
“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this IS the Hour. And there are things to be considered: Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation?
“Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
“There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.
“And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history we are to take nothing personally, least of all, ourselves. For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
“The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for.”
Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time!”
There is a terrible rip in the fabric of the planet. The Earth has buckled under Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead, suffering, homeless, hungry, helpless in the streets. The alarm ripples across networks in waves of emotion produced by a billion links and images knitted together by tens of thousands of stories. The global disaster relief game is on. We will play it brilliantly.
We will give money via mobile phones. We will send medical help and heavy equipment and food and tents and fuel. Some of us will catch a plane or a boat there ourselves. We will take time off from helping in New Orleans to give Haiti a hand. We will triage this awful wound that anyone who is truly attuned cannot help but feel. It is nature of networks that when people anywhere are hurting, we hurt, too. And so in helping the people of Port-au-Prince, we are also helping ourselves.
Disasters bring out the best in us. Neighborliness. Empathy. Selflessness. Soul. We will be focused and energetic. We will be purposeful. We will honor our instincts. Our differences will vanish, our collaborative natures take over, our shared destiny will be made, for a time, more clear.
And after the rubble no longer echoes with the cries of those it has buried alive, after those who have been hurt have been treated and those who are hungry have been fed and those on the streets have been sheltered…after the aid and energy we’ve sent toward the stricken parts have exhausted themselves and the survivors have settled into a freshly impoverished routine…we must remember this:
Our brilliance is always with us, and does not require a disaster like this one to make its presence known.
The end of the year, the decade, passed fitfully, at times stressfully, with no pause for reflection, and no Resolution for the New Year except the fairly vague intention of being more Resolute. What to be resolute about? That was still the question.
And then this article by Errol Morris in the New York Times came across the network this morning, the hook being a quote from Walt Disney (”I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing — that It Was All Started By A Mouse.“) as its headline. I’d already seen the link a couple of times when Howard Green from Disney Studios called to invite me to a tribute for Walt’s recently-departed nephew, Roy Disney, on Sunday at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. Suddenly the universe was in my ear bigtime, whispering that I had to click on the link to the Morris article. Something was there to be discovered….
The article itself is a photo essay and dialogue with photojournalist Ben Curtis about the forensics of war photography, the context of image vs. imagemaker, the technological challenges and dangers that come with altering photos to create propaganda or enhance a certain point of view. The kind of stuff in which Morris specializes. After I got the context, I began skimming. But I kept coming back to a photo by Curtis that led off the article:
In seeing the photo, I found what had been missing over the holidays. I might have decided to be resolute, I was still waffling on a theme, what, exactly I’d be resolute about. This photo resolved that. I wrote the following Comment on the Morris piece:
Errol
As our old friend Onosko, who worked at the House of Mouse for many years, might have said, you’re making it more complicated than it is. Focusing on the cosmetic level of communication–the toy itself, the shards of glass, the smoke, the interaction between imagemaker and image–is a fascinating narrative, and yields neverending complexity, but this complexity obscures meaning instead of bringing it to light. How Mickey got there is not nearly as important as the meta and emotional levels of the communication: War’s awfulest tragedies are its children.
Until we begin thinking of children first–begin with the Mice!, that what Walt would’ve done–War will be an adult theme park where children get crippled, grow old and perish before their time.
And so, finally, thanks to Howard and Errol and Ben, I have it — my New Year’s theme — the thing I can be Resolute about: Be Nice to the Mice.
Hit it, Kid!
