Notes on Feednet: Self Sufficient Storytelling

Feednet is a quarterly-ish news roundup on technology, community organizing, and this month, YouTube. Read old versions here.

Feednet 12: Self Sufficient Storytelling

Happy new decade.

At the end of December I had 3 different calls with people “interested in exploring communications and narrative work.” At the top of my pre-notes for one of those calls was “is it worth it? maybe!”

Luckily, every one of those conversations gave me good perspective. I’m really grateful for all of them (if one of those conversations was with you, seriously, thank you!).

After 6 months, some funding constraints, and more than a few existential crises, 5 Minute Speech Coach is launching in March!

I learned a lot through this process: I learned that even when I don’t intend to, I design my trainings, worksheets, and tools with community organizers, electoral campaigners, member based grassroots organizations, independent media, and the occasional artistic project, in mind.

That’s more practical than altruistic: I think the people doing the most to make a campaign happen are almost always the ones who are best at telling the story of that campaign.

But making tools that help organizers be self sufficient in their storytelling work is different from doing storytelling work for its own sake, and brings up different questions about training, sustainability, and outcomes.

So over the next few months as 5MSC comes out, I'll be playing with different ways to create storytelling tools that work, whether through a library of short videos, worksheets, etc, doing more 'DIY communication plan' workshops and trainings, or diving deeper into case studies about what works.

Look out for 5MSC’s launch in March, along with a more regularly scheduled Feednet, and potentially a few other tools and trainings.

We’re also looking for a few more beta testers: If you’re interested in listening to the rough audio and giving feedback, checking out the worksheets, or review some of the other tools in the communications library during February, let me know here (if you’ve already indicated interest in beta testing 5MSC, look out for another email from me soon).

Hey, why do I keep getting all this sci fi? My hubris (sorry!). Notes on Feednet + the narrative resources, writing, and trainings that go along with it are not going away (if anything, they’re getting a reboot). If you don’t want Working 2050 emails and you feel like you’ve clicked every button trying to tell me so, respond to this email and I’ll make sure you only get emails from me that you want to receive.  If you want sci fi but you want to to be actionable, look to the Animorphs, the leaders of YA guerrilla warfare.

Oh, in the last few months our robot corporate overlords learned to read minds, seized power, and took over space.

Tl;dr -- self sufficient storytelling is still worth it, 5MSC is on its way (before spring, depending upon where you live), + we’ve got a couple of years before AI annihilation, so live it up while you can.

Thanks for reading and being a part of this storytelling work,

• H