See a photo of Trey, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, and Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Trey Pennington, Question 5:

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: On my blog and in recent speeches, I’ve speculated that storytelling will be one of the two big trends for 2011 (the other being a perpetual cry to “get back to the basics”). There is a danger of storytelling becoming yet another throw-away buzzword of commercial communicators in search of the next hot thing. I shudder when I see or hear someone getting excited about storytelling as a way to “sell more” or “get my point across.” I can’t imagine Jay O’Callahan ever uttering such thoughts.

Both trends (storytelling and getting back to basics) are fueled by a sense of being overwhelmed and of being frustrated. Over the past five years we’ve experienced an explosion in media creation and distribution options. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blog are now commonplace words. Human beings just can’t handle it all, so we all return to the simple things — like stories — to help us make sense of it all. Indeed, Annette Simmons says “we don’t need more information; we need someone to help us make sense of it all”.

It may also be that, in a world shrilly shilling the suffocating silliness of the shiny new thing, story is the familiar, safe, simple thing — we were comforted, amazed, enthralled by story as children and we secretly long for those feelings once again.