SXSW 2024 Takeaways: Part 1

Topline: Storytelling should help people be the change they want to see.?

Tell me more: The importance of giving people a sense of agency in storytelling was emphasized by speakers from all manner of industries at SXSW.?

At Fast Company Grill, I listened to a panel featuring Raffi Krikorian , Chief Technology Officer and Managing Director, Emerson Collective ; Blaise Aguera y Arcas , AI Researcher and Author; Jamie Beard , Founder and Executive Director, Project InnerSpace ; and Wawa Gatheru , Founder and Executive Director, Black Girl Environmentalist .?

Jamie Beard mentioned the need for agency in storytelling: people need to feel there is something they can do, no matter how complex an issue is (and this panel was talking about issues like geothermal energy, climate change, immigration, race and equity, gun violence reduction - pretty chunky subjects by any measure). The more you make people feel agency, the more likely the message will resonate.?

I always find it interesting when smart people’s voices seem to echo each other at a similar time, but in completely different places - a play on multiple discovery in a marketing context, if you will. My friend Anab Jain RDI , who co-founded Superflux, recently mentioned their company’s perspective on the counterfactual, future-leaning storytelling work they do in this conversation with the RSA:?

“When we tell counterfactual stories, when we show alternatives, people gain a sense of agency. That can be done by experimenting, by prototyping. Ultimately, stories are the way we make the world. We need to be able to tell different stories that percolate in people’s minds. I believe that can renew their agency to make change.”

That word ‘agency’ - helping people not feel helpless, repeated itself since I heard it at SXSW, and the meaning stood out more clearly.?

If you work in marketing and churn out campaign after campaign, creating or building fictional worlds, take a pause to think about how you’re bringing people into your world. Are you taking the time to give people the chance to participate or contribute in some way? Are you telling them how they can change things for the better? Give them that sense of agency, and see how that changes things for you - and them.