See a photo of Gregg, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, and Part 2.

Q&A with Gregg Morris, Question 3:

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: This question fascinates me, and I could talk your ear off about it for quite some time. I think that the movement toward storytelling has been gaining momentum since the mid 1990s. Digital technologies were beginning to bear on a global disruption that we are still in the middle of. There was a lot of “high tech, high touch” talk at the start of that time period and what is more high touch than the emotional connection of a great story? (As an aside here, I haven’t researched this, and have no data to support it, but based on the last few, it would seem that the end of one century and the beginning of the next have a habit of shaking things up quite a bit.)

The technology drive that was led by the integrated circuit and then ethernet and then the Internet and World Wide Web have totally disrupted a publishing world put in place by Gutenberg in the mid 1600s. It has given all of us the chance to be publishers if we wish (social media), and it has wrecked havoc with the economies of distribution of content (stories).

Take a moment to go back and look at the influence of Gutenberg on society and on storytelling. Up until the invention of the mechanical press, story was “the” delivery mechanism. We wrote, and we drew, of course, but those were very time-consuming tasks, and we didn’t rely on those for “reach.” We told stories to teach, to deliver messages, to entertain and as anthropologists have told us, to make sense of our world. Gutenberg’s invention turned all of that upside down.

Printing and then audio and then video became the delivery mechanisms of our world. And it was damned expensive to produce and deliver stories. As a result of that, large corporations, who could afford the delivery technologies, grew to be our trusted media and content (stories) sources. All the while, technology continued its march forward, and while it’s interesting to note that a lot of people lay the blame for our feelings of alienation and connection at the feet of that technology, and thus contributing to the rise of interest in story, that very same technology is what has enabled us to connect on a global scale, has upset the distribution applecart, has enabled us each to become publishers and has pretty much shattered our trust in institutions and redirected it towards processes and people.

In that, I believe, lies the explosive growth of storytelling. As individuals we need to tell stories to connect to our emotional worlds and to each other. We need to tell stories to make sense of this ever challenging, ever changing world. As businesses, we need stories to be able to connect to our customers and to give our customers the chance to connect with us. The old distribution mechanisms of packaging messages and propositions have been replaced by conversations and social media. It was very difficult, if not impossible, to tell a story or start a conversation in a 30 second slot. As we move beyond that, story has room to spread its wings and fly.