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

Q&A with Barry Poltermann, Questions 5 and 6:

Q: How important is it to you and your work to function within the framework of a particular definition of “story?” (i.e., What is a story?) What definition do you espouse?

A: At AboutFace, we very much function within the paradigm of a story with a hero, the hero’s goal, obstacles, and the hero’s journey to attain the goal. From around the world, early in storytelling, Odysseus to Gilgamesh, to the most recent Bourne movies or an episode of Top Chef, it’s about heroes, goals, and obstacles.

Q: The culture is abuzz about Web 2.0 and social media. To what extent do you participate in social media (such as through LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Second Life, blogs, etc.)? To what extent and in what ways do you feel these venues are storytelling media?

A: We are all over social media. All over it. First of all, these venues are incredible for storytelling in that they give you the power to distribute your story to potentially millions of people. And they have the major advantage of allowing you to not only tell your story but engage in a conversation with your audience about your story, their story, other stories, whatever. Whereas the paradigm used to be about mass communications going out one way to the intended audience, now you can micro-communicate and really, actually communicate with your audience — a two-way street — which engages your audience way more than if you’re just yelling down at them with your bullhorn from the rooftop. That two-way street of communication is beneficial to the storyteller and the audience. We love social media. We live in it. But aside from just using it to reach out to your audience, in many ways social media is HOW we tell our stories. I learned this when I worked in my last venture, under the guidance of the brilliant people at 42 Entertainment… People see the videos, but the story is also told in every tweet, in every post, in every interaction. Marshall McLuhan has never been more prescient… today, truly, the message is the medium.