Writing Tools, Innovation Writing, Kubrick of Confetti

Hey all,

Just one quick thing from us. Storythings director Anjali Ramachandran will be talking about how you turn comms into culture at the Communicate Conference next week. If you’re there make sure you say hello!

Enjoy this week’s newsletter and remember, if you need help with content strategy, format development or telling stories people subscribe to, get in touch. We’d love to help with your thinking.

Have a fantastic weekend,

Hugh

Revisiting ‘Six Spaces of Social Media’ 15 Years Later (7 min read)

Baz Luhrmann Knows He’s the Stanley Kubrick of Confetti (12 min read)Why Popularizers and Explainers Can Be Just As Important As Inventors (4 min watch)Why Did We All Have the Same Childhood (7 min read)Formats Unpacked: Ça Commence Aujourd’hui (5 min read)How to Improve Your Marketing Efforts With Audience Research (6 min read)Writing Tools I Use All the Time (8 min read)The Beatles Get Two New Animated Videos (4 min read)I Read the News Today, Oh Boy – How to Use Humour in Difficult Times (6 min read)

How To Give Banal Ideas An Aura Of Ancient Wisdom (1 min read)

How can we help you?

Storythings is a strategy and production company based in Brighton and London. We'd love to help you with some creative and bold ideas. Here are 3 reasons to get in touch. 

1. You want to talk to us about content production: podcasts, videos, animations, illustrations, editorial. 2. You want to talk to us about audience research, content strategy or format development.3. You want to create a brand or an identity that makes it easier to communicate your message.We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch. 

Revisiting ‘Six Spaces of Social Media’ 15 Years LaterWhen our very own Matt Locke was at Channel 4 commissioning cross-platform projects for teens, he wrote a blog post about the six spaces of social media. I remember reading it at the time, appreciating how succinctly he’d managed to capture the complexities of user behaviours around this growing new space. It now looks like we’re at the beginning of the end of that era with young people abandoning some of the established networks, and many opting for more private spaces. We’re already seeing signs of Matt’s optimistic prediction in research that we are doing around the maturing behaviours of how people are engaging with stories. (7 min read)

Baz Luhrmann Knows He’s the Stanley Kubrick of ConfettiFor fans of the director or his most recent film, Elvis, this is worth a read. It’s full of nice quotes about his approach, his style and his techniques: “I’ll tell you something. Stanley, Wes Anderson, me, Quentin Tarantino — we all have our own language. And you don’t have a language unless you know how to write in it.” Thanks to Ben Dietz for sharing this. (12 min read)Why Popularizers and Explainers Can Be Just As Important As InventorsSteven Johnson on the importance of the marriage between innovation and good writing: “If you’re trying to create an organization that has a culture of innovation, almost by definition you need two kinds of people: people who will generate new ideas and new inventions, and people who can make those ideas and inventions intelligible to other people, particularly when they’re in an early, nebulous state.”(4 min read)Why Did We All Have the Same ChildhoodThis is a lovely read from the Atlantic on how children have a folklore all of their own, and the games, rhymes, trends, and legends that catch on and spread to many kids across time and space: “And so, as we come of age, we may lose an understanding of something we once knew in our very bones: that typing 8-0-0-8-5 on a calculator is not just naughty and fun, but important. The rebellious thrill, the intense comradery, the urge to pass the knowledge along (and pretend you came up with it yourself)—all of these things fade with time. But that’s okay. The kids will keep the tradition alive.”(7 min read)Formats Unpacked: Ça Commence Aujourd’huiOne of the reasons I started Formats Unpacked was because I knew it would help me get better at developing formats for Storythings and our clients. Getting to the heart of what makes great formats successful would only sharpen my sense of what works and what doesn’t. So it’s a real joy when someone comes to me with a format in a foreign language. Patricia Yaker Ekall’s unpacking of this French chatshow is a reminder that there are brilliant formats waiting to be discovered in the non-English speaking media. (5 min read)How to Improve Your Marketing Efforts With Audience ResearchRecent research reports that only 36% of those marketers viewed “getting to know audiences better” as a key area of investment. So many marketing efforts are sunk by a campaign that isn’t rooted in true audience needs – that’s where upfront audience research is essential. Here’s a quick guide on a handful of ways to get to know your audience better. At this point, I should mention that we’ll be releasing the results of a big piece of audience research we’ve been doing at the end of this month. More on this soon. (6 min read)Writing Tools I Use All the TimeClive Thompson shares his go-to tools for reporting, researching and writing. If you like this kind of resource you will love Uses This. (8 min read)The Beatles Get Two New Animated VideosThese gorgeous videos have been made to mark the release of a new expanded edition of The Beatles’ Revolver. “Taxman” is from illustrator, artist and filmmaker Danny Sangra, using an energetic use of typography. Meanwhile, Em Cooper – a live-action filmmaker who creates rotoscoped animations with oil paintings – delivers a music video for “I’m Only Sleeping”.(4 min read)I Read the News Today, Oh Boy – How to Use Humour in Difficult TimesOne of my favourite Substacks Brands and Humour takes a look at how Private Eye delicately managed to still be funny around the time of the queen’s death knowing that the feelings towards the event were nuanced. (6 min read)

How To Give Banal Ideas An Aura Of Ancient Wisdom“Ikigai joins a long list of Japanese words that have been repurposed to lend an aura of ancient wisdom to banal ideas”(1 min read)

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

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