It’s hard to put into words just how honored and thrilled I am to bring you my 20th Q&A — with Annette Simmons, one of the legends of applied storytelling, and certainly a huge influence on me. I read her The Story Factor early in my dissertation research and also was entertained and informed by her presentation during the 2005 Smithsonian storytelling weekend; indeed, she is one of the best presenters I’ve ever heard. Despite her busy schedule and many commitments, Annette has been consistently kind and responsive to the many questions and requests I’ve sent her over the years.

A funny thing happened on the way to publishing Annette’s Q&A. She actually submitted it a long time ago — during the summer of 2008 — but somehow I never got it. You’ll therefore see that one of her responses deals with the 2008 presidential election — before the outcome was determined. While I regret not being able to publish that response before the election, it’s fun to see it with the election outcome in mind.

The Q&A with Annette will appear over the next four days.

Bio of Annette Simmons can be found here.

Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?

A: I think that our feelings of alienation from core human experiences arise from too much “virtual” reality and not enough real reality: TV, radio, texting, cellphones, restaurants, gyms…all are substitutes for personal experiences like face to face interaction, growing and cooking food, hiking, experiencing labor that results in value (chopping wood), personal intimacy (stuck without TV forced to talk to family)…all of these conveniences have created a shallow experience of being human. People crave depth. In business this shallow attachment (It isn’t personal) was drilled into us so we could make decisions that were inhumane (downsizing at Christmas) without having to FEEL inhumane. So….we got what we wanted - limited intimacy increased convenience with life so that we don’t have to feel beholden, overwhelmed, or overly responsible. Unfortunately when we limit negative emotions we also limit positive feelings of trust, belonging, emotional safety. The back-end costs of reducing emotional inconvenience and increasing speed now leaves us craving depth, even a little hard work, or risked vulnerability so we can feel human again.

Story reintroduces intimacy and emotions to communications between people. It is a co-created acknowledgment that we (I, thou) are humans who feel, taste, touch, see, and hear in ways that make facts less important than who and what we love. Story gives us permission to take life personally again. Story reintroduces permission to care about what happens to others. Story allows our imperfections to be set in a context that shows we are still good people.

The business interest in storytelling is riding this “crave wave” as well as a parallel realization that designing messages that create emotions like desire, craving, and/or trust towards a product requires that the message tells a story. Nothing is important or unimportant to someone except for the story they tell themselves about it. You want your product to be important to a consumer? Inspire them to tell themselves a story about it that makes it personally relevant.