Happy Friday!

It’s been a bit of a week for all of us at Storythings, winning a couple of really interesting new bits of work, and building momentum for a fascinating project we’re working on for a major UK Charity. I also found time to start our new Attention Matters series on B2B prototyping, which is already getting some great feedback. So if you’re not a subscriber to Attention Matters, come over and join in.

And if you want us to help you build a prototyping culture at your company, hit the button below and we’ll be in touch asap!

Right. Now on to the links!

Matt

1 Astronaut, Many Cameras, and 220 Days of Amazing Images from Space (Photo and video gallery)

What Would Good AI Look Like? (3-min read)

Legal Structures for Creative People (Downloadable Zine)

Amelia Dimoldenberg’s 3 Tips For Making It As a Creator (3-min read)

An AI Assistant For All The Calls You Don’t Want To Make (Dystopian Future)

The Creative Power of Walking (8-min read)

18 Questions For Your Next Creative Review (Good list)

Why Books Are The Hottest Thing In Fashion Advertising (4-min read)

How YouTube Redrew The TV Map (5-min read)

SHIFTY - Adam Curtis’ New BBC Series (3-min trailer)

Don’t become a B2B zombie. STAY HUMAN.

Storythings is the content marketing agency that helps you STAY HUMAN in a sea of marketing slop. If you think you’re at risk of becoming a B2B zombie, we’ve got the antidote. Click the button below for your free guide.

1 Astronaut, Many Cameras, and 220 Days of Amazing Images from Space (Photo and video gallery)
I’m an absolute sucker for a good space photograph, and as you can see above, these photos and videos from Don Petit, taken aboard the ISS, are just incredible. Open these up on the biggest and best screen you have.

What Would Good AI Look Like? (3-min read)
Anil Dash has been a brilliantly insightful technologist and writer since the early days of Web 2.0. So I loved his take that there are lots of people criticizing AI, but not enough suggestions of how we could get it right. As he says, this is not just a thought experiment: “if we are going to have better AI in the future, we are going to have get lots of people to understand that such a thing is possible.”

Legal Structures for Creative People (Downloadable Zine)
Thanks to Steve Bryant for sending this great zine to us. Creativity is all about collaboration, but too many creative people feel uncomfortable talking about the legal and financial structures that support their collaboration. Don’t worry - this easy to read and beautifully designed zine has got your back.

Amelia Dimoldenberg’s 3 Tips For Making It As a Creator (3-min read)
If you don’t like Chicken Shop Dates, we’re not going to get on. So I loved these three tips for budding creators. Of course I’d agree with “It’s all about storytelling”, but “Own it” is just as important, as you’d know if you’d read the zine in the link above.

An AI Assistant For All The Calls You Don’t Want To Make (Dystopian Future)
I’ve put this here because it’s something I find equally fascinating and a bit ick. We all know companies are increasingly using bots for customer service, but now you can fight back! Pine AI will handle those calls for you. So we can let the bots talk to each other whilst we go and do something more human instead.

The Creative Power of Walking (8-min read)
Talking of which, if you’ve never read Craig Mod writing about creativity, you need to remedy that right now. This is a great places to start - an insightful and poetic meditation on how being in the world, with humans, drives your creativity: “When I’m not talking, just walking (which is most of the time), I try to cultivate the most bored state of mind imaginable. A total void of stimulation beyond the immediate environment. My rules: No news, no social media, no podcasts, no music.”

18 Questions For Your Next Creative Review (Good list)
This is a great set of questions to challenge you and your teams when you’re developing your next project. What I love about them is they’re not just about the idea, but the context - why would people care about it? Could your competitors do exactly the same thing?

Why Books Are The Hottest Thing In Fashion Advertising (4-min read)
Books are always the hottest thing. That’s just fact. Still, it’s nice to see that the fashion industry is catching up, with J Crew and others leaning into book events and book shelves as this seasons’ hot thing. At last, my huge to-be-read piles are on trend!

How YouTube Redrew The TV Map (5-min read)
The BBC said this week that they expect to switch off the broadcast schedule by 2034, which seemed unthinkable when I was at the BBC in the 2000s (although some of us were thinking about it then). So this great data-led story from Digiday mapping the new world of TV is very timely.

SHIFTY - Adam Curtis’ New BBC Series (3-min trailer)
BREAK OUT THE BOLD ARIAL FONTS! Everyone’s favourite lyrical documentary maker Adam Curtis is back with a new series on iPlayer. This one is about how Britain changed in the 1980s, which is bit close to the bone for me, as that was the era I grew up in. Remember kids - one day your lives now will look as weird and old as the 80s does in this trailer. We all become fodder for Adam Curtis in the end.

Hey! If you’ve read this far, you officially have my permission to go out into the sun and get a drink. But before you do, hit reply and let me know - what is the thing we do now that will look really strange in 30 years, when a future Adam Curtis makes a film about now? There’s just one rule - no Trump references allowed!

Have a lovely sunny weekend!

Matt, Anjali, Hugh and the rest of Team Storythings