Hey all,

Next Thursday sees the return of Proper Fancy, our company show and tell that’s open to everyone. Would you like to co-host it with me? All you need to do is bring a bunch of links you’d like to share and have something to say. Get in touch if you fancy it. And if you want to attend yourself, just register here. We’ve found these sessions really inspiring. They’ve also connected us with creative talent that we’ve gone on to work with. It’s a great space for hiring and being hired.

Our very own Anjali Ramachandran spoke to Pass It On about storytelling, standing out and doing no harm. Check out the interview.

Finally, we’ve developed a Content Audit Workshop to help organisations whose content isn’t getting the results they’d hoped for. Hit the button below to find out more and enquire about a FREE 30-minute consultation.

OK! The weekend has officially landed. Here are a bunch of great stories for you to read over the next couple of days. Have a good one.

Hugh

Sphere and Loathing in Las Vegas (12 min read)

7 Ways Storytelling is Like Magic (12 min read)

Interactive Story: How Space Debris Threatens Modern Life (8 min read)

Formats Unpacked: Boiler Room (6 min read)

The Post Viral Vapour Web (5 min read)

Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older (3 min read)

V&A Object or AI Image? (2 min play)

Robbie Williams on Responsibility (3 min read)

Could Creativity Be the Perfect Antidote to ‘Internet Brain’? (3 min read)

JD Sports Bag For Life Christmas Advert (90 second watch)

How we can help you

Storythings is the content marketing agency of choice for some of the world’s most forward-thinking B2B brands and organisations. If your content isn’t getting the results you need, let us help you understand why. Here are 3 reasons to get in touch. 

1. Audience Research – We help B2B brands understand modern attention patterns and how they can get more engagement with content.2. Content Strategy – We use our bespoke process to develop unique content formats that hold audience attention, build community, and increase brand salience.3. Content Production – We craft beautiful and diverse stories of impact that capture and hold attention using podcasts, videos, editorial, and newsletters. We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch for a FREE 30 minute consultation. 

Sphere and Loathing in Las VegasThis is such a great read. And what a title! It touches on quite a few themes. U2’s stage designer, who was against the idea of the band playing the Sphere to begin with, describes the challenges of designing for a building that hadn’t yet been built and the difficulty of creating visuals for the Sphere’s 16k resolution. It was his thoughts on the subject of phones at gigs that really grabbed me: “Williams told me he came to embrace the phones-up experience. ‘The vast repository of the record of my work is shot by people I don’t know,’ he said. ‘And so not only do they become participants but also collaborators and curators of my work.’ He described the Sphere residency as perhaps an extreme version of what live music has evolved toward: A ‘gigantic group project to archive these shows, one where we are collaborating with the audience and building a body of evidence.’”(12 min read)

7 Ways Storytelling is Like MagicI got sucked back into the world of magic this week for a bunch of reasons. I listened to a brilliant conversation with Apollo Robins and Tim Ferriss. Then a friend asked me about the origin of a favourite Penn and Teller quote. Whilst looking through my archive of links I came across this from the writer of the article. It’s a script from a talk in which he takes Penn and Teller’s principles of magic and applies them to storytelling. It’s very good. BTW. The quote I mentioned is “Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” It’s become a bit of a mantra at Storythings. (12 min read)

Interactive Story: How Space Debris Threatens Modern LifeFor a long time the worlds of interactive/visual/data storytelling were blighted by digital experiences that traded story and clarity for flashy eye-grabbing gimmicks. Thankfully, those publishers who committed to experimenting and refining are the ones now leading the way. In particular, the FT have been using interactive and data stories to brilliant effect. Here’s something from last year that caught my attention. It combines craft, clarity and storytelling perfectly. The subject matter really helps. (8 min read)

Formats Unpacked: Boiler RoomYou don’t have to be a fan of dance music to enjoy this week’s Formats Unpacked which features online broadcasters Boiler Room. It’s a great lesson in what happens when you commit to something. It doesn’t take forever to build something that defines you in a sector. In just a couple of years, they managed to create an unmatched archive in the realm of dance music, transforming them into what we now refer to as Sector Superstars. (6 min read)

The Post Viral Vapour WebA great piece by Ryan Broderick on how the internet doesn’t make sense in aggregate anymore and trying to view it as a monolith no longer works. Dying platforms and declining media institutions have created a state of amorphousness online: “I’m going to call our current moment the Vapor Web. Because there is actually more internet with more happening on it — and with bigger geopolitical stakes — than ever before. And yet, it’s nearly impossible to grab ahold of it because none of it adds up into anything coherent. Simply put, we’re post-viral now.” (5 min read)

Nick Cave on the Art of Growing OlderI’ve recently discovered Midlifer, a Substack newsletter by Chris Ward. Midlifer is for those in midlife who have no intention of slowing down, taking a cruise or joining Saga. It contains news and info to help readers live the midlife they want. Chris shared this lovely piece from Nick Cave about getting old. (3 min read)

V&A Object or AI Image?I love this really simple, smart and playful tool the V&A have developed for young people to enjoy and learn more about their collections. (2 min play)

Robbie Williams on ResponsibilityI watched the Robbie Williams documentary on Netflix this week. I really wanted to come away feeling exactly how the artist and the filmmaker wanted me to. I think the Beckham doc did that very well. But with Robbie, every time I found empathy it quickly evaporated. Having said that, this bit highlighted by Phil Adams really stuck with me. It reminded me of a podcast I made years ago about YouTube influencers, who went from someone wanting a bit of fame, to having to manage a team of employees and business demands that they weren’t equipped for. (3 min read)

Could Creativity Be the Perfect Antidote to ‘Internet Brain’?If you need a nudge to make you start on that creative thing you’ve been promising yourself for ages, then read this. It’s estimated adults spend nearly seven hours each day online, which is literally affecting our brain structure, cognition and mental health. When we’re online we’re in the focus network of our brain – the part responsible for our attention, focus and linear thought. But to feel our best, we need to actively spend time in our imagination network, or in neuroscience terms, the ‘default mode network’: “This intricate group of regions in our brain was once thought to be doing nothing special, but now we know it’s responsible for our creativity, curiosity and mental rejuvenation. So the antidote to internet brain isn’t just putting your phone down, it’s about sparking your creativity to feel more energised, fulfilled and alive.” (3 min read)

JD Sports Bag For Life Christmas AdvertJust wonderful! (90 second watch)

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Thanks for reading. We’ll see you all next week.

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the whole team at Storythings.