The Do Village

Why Story Telling is one of the Biggest Trends On The Internet?

Pre-Google, Pre-internet, Pre-books even, we used to rely on stories to educate us. The spoken word was gospel. We would gather round camp-fires, and the story tellers of the day would impart their wisdom. What made these people stars was not just what they had to say, but how they said it. The delivery matters (It always does) The best of them would inform, frighten and inspire us all in one sitting.

The internet, with the onset of cheap or free access to broadband has brought the power of story telling back to the modern world. And it’s a phenomenon. Replace the camp-fire and put a laptop in its place and you have where man was a few million years ago.

The unknown boffins, scientist, environmentalists who can tell their stories amazingly well are spreading their ideas, their views, their insights more quickly and to more people than they could have dreamt of.

Yes, books can tell a story but the spoken word can bring it to life. You can hear the passion, the anger, you can see the honesty in the eyes of the speaker. You can even see their spit fly across the stage.

But in these broadband connected days, rather than just a few hundred people seeing a great talk, the whole world can access it whenever it likes.

So why are stories so important? Well, over time we have become comfortable with this way of getting information. We like the format. It works for us. We know how to decipher them.

Indeed stories are how we used to learn but will also be very much how we learn in the future. In its simplest form they pass knowledge on. They explain things we don’t fully understand. They inspire us. With each great story comes life’s important lessons. About their determination, about what drove them, about trying to find a better way of doing something, about the struggles they met along the way.

Stories are also important because they are about doing things. Stories need verbs. It’s the verb in the stories that gives it the action. The ‘Do’ bit. And importantly, people don’t forget stories, especially when told brilliantly. But they often forget facts, even if told in unique way.

These stories in terms of learning are important; they show us the way. They demonstrate what is possible. They give us hope. They act as a guide just like cat’s eyes in the road.

The rise of this global camp-fire has been largely led by The Ted Lectures. It has 500 talks that are provided for free viewing online. As of April 2009, talks had been viewed over 100 million times. It is an incredible success that has been guided by Chris Anderson who acts as its curator.

Here in the UK, The Do Lectures is a small event that takes place annually in West Wales ((September 16th-19th). An eclectic gathering of Doers from around the world covering everything from business to food, to environment to sport, to learning to design.

It was recently voted in the top ten contemporary conferences in the world. It mixes great music with an amazing location at Fforest along the Teifi River, down to earth workshops, the freshest local food and it even boasts its own pub. Combine all of that with 22 amazing talks (most of the speakers stay for the 4 days) and you can begin to understand why its winning plaudits from around the world.

The Do Lectures mantra is to create a platform for these people to speak and then to give the talks away for free. It believes that great ideas can change things for the better.

Last year, with no publicity, the talks had a half a million views. This year it’s conservatively aiming for 1 million views.

The Do Lectures doesn’t pay the speakers to attend. It points to the audience that they can bring to the speakers. And how that can help with book sales or just to getting your ideas out there to a wider audience.

Attendees are not allowed to attend two years in a row. There are only 90 places so it’s important that the audience keeps changing. And being able to afford the £1,000 for a ticket doesn’t guarantee you a place. Potential attendees have to fill in an application form and then go through a vetting process.

The Do Lectures is a not for profit company and any profits that are made are put forward to next year’s events to create more talks. The talks are free to the world to see online. The event pays for the talks to happen.

We live in interesting times. And changing times. But maybe, the internet that has promised to change the world will simply take us back to one that we came from. A global campfire, with people telling their stories around it.

David