Category Archives: ARTICLES

103) Democrats, Messaging and Monty Python

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“Right, our polls show the public doesn’t want candidates who pay too much attention to the polls. So let’s do a poll to see what they do want.” The Democrats are in such a quagmire. Here’s an article this morning in The Hill that confirms Democrats aren’t gonna win with no message. In “Houston, We Have A Narrative,” there are narrative tools that can help with structuring a message, but the problem is they can’t work if there is no message to start with. Everyone should get comfortable with the Republicans for a long road ahead. Narrative is everything. The Democrats, at present, have nothing, aside from “we hate that guy” which polls show isn’t enough.

How the Romans didn’t get voted out of office.

How the Romans didn’t get voted out of office.


NO MEANS NO

It’s official — you aren’t going to get elected through hate alone. Here’s a simple article this morning reporting polls that basically show that the “We Hate That Guy” message is not enough to take over leadership of the nation.

It didn’t work for the last candidate. It won’t work for the next.

You gotta have a positive, constructive message. The ABT can help tremendously once someone knows the message. The Dobzhansky Template can actually find the message. But until the Democrats get more analytical about narrative and realize there’s more to it than just gut feelings, nothing will change. THEREFORE … everyone might as well get comfortable with the behemoth that the Republican party has become.

And in the meanwhile, they need to take to heart this quote from a New York Times editorial on January 17 that still holds true:

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#102) Winner of “The Moth” Storytelling Competition Gives Textbook Demonstration of the ABT Dynamic

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Listen to this story from last year’s winner of The Moth storytelling competition. It’s a beautiful story that she tells AND I hate to ruin it by suggesting you analyze it (like a bunch of scientists — and keep in mind this is coming from the guy who wrote the book “Don’t Be Such A Scientist”), BUT … it really is a textbook example of how the ABT works, THEREFORE … 



To HEAR STORY scroll down to button that says 'Listen Now'


AS SIMPLE AS ABT

Mary Kate Flanagan is from Ireland and is a former student of Frank Daniel, the screenwriting guru who in the 1980’s first pointed out the And, But, Therefore (ABT) dynamic. Last year she won “The Moth” storytelling competition with this perfectly delivered story about her father’s funeral.

If you listen close in the first 1.5 minutes you’ll hear the ABT structure plain as day. She says AND 7 times, she says BUT 6 times, she says SO (the more common equivalent of THEREFORE) 4 times. That’s a LOT of structure. I have developed the Narrative Index (the BUT/AND ratio) in the past. A value of 30 for the N.I. is exceptional. Her ratio for that first minute and a half is 86.

These things matter.

Furthermore, if you consider her overall structure, you see she follows the MONOMYTH to a tee. She begins by introducing her theme — that there are 6 strong sisters who together can do anything. The Ordinary World is set up (that the father dies and they’re all set to bury him with the sisters carrying the coffin), BUT THEN the funeral director says they’re not strong enough which takes us into the Special World and off on the journey.

The problem is eventually solved, then notice where she concludes the story — full circle, back to what she said at the start with her THEME (that the parents gave them all they ever needed in the world — six strong sisters).

Not surprisingly she teaches screenwriting and is a member of The Frank Daniel Institute. Kind of helps with the understanding the power of the ABT when you see it so effectively on display like this.

Here’s her very impressive website: http://www.adramaticimprovement.com

#100) The Atlantic demonstrates the ABT

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It’s here, it’s there, it’s everywhere you look. Like this article in this month’s issue of The Atlantic. As Aaron Huertas says, it’s like the arrow in the Fedex logo — once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

ABTsville. Plain and simple — two opening clauses which could be connected with an “AND” (though would sound clunky), then the BUT, and SO which conveys the same force of consequence as THEREFORE.

ABTsville. Plain and simple — two opening clauses which could be connected with an “AND” (though would sound clunky), then the BUT, and SO which conveys the same force of consequence as THEREFORE.



YES, IT IS THAT SIMPLE AND COMMON

I continue to wage war against all the old farts who say “it’s not that simple.” Yes it is.

We’re definitely making progress. We’ve now run or are running 26 Story Circles. Yesterday we had an “ABT Build Session” with about 20 USDA veterans of Story Circles. It was 90 minutes of discussing and editing about 10 ABTs of the participants. It’s a standard aspect of Story Circles training which is both interesting and productive for everyone involved.

And then this morning I open this month’s issue of The Atlantic and there it is, plain as day — the ABT in the form of the little teaser at the start of an article about a psychiatrist written by David Dobbs who obviously has good narrative intuition.

It’s everywhere you find good communication. Yes, it is that simple.

#99)  The Great Barrier Reef:  If only “most people” were thoughtful

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It’s the old Adlai Stevenson line from his 1952 Presidential candidacy.  A woman shouted to him, “All the thinking people are with you.”  He replied, “I’m afraid that won’t do — I need a majority.”  A tour operator in Australia says he’d like to think “most people” would like to know the truth about the decline of the Great Barrier Reef.  I’m afraid my experiences with the Florida Keys and elsewhere goes against that.  As our President would say, “Sad!”

NOT JON BRODIE.  Sorry, NPR, you might want to get your photo ID’s straight.  This is Terry Hughes.

NOT JON BRODIE.  Sorry, NPR, you might want to get your photo ID’s straight.  This is Terry Hughes.



GIVE ‘EM WHAT THEY WANT


Here’s yet another tragic article about the staggering levels of climate-induced coral death on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.  The news rips at my heart given the number of years I spent studying the reef back when coral bleaching was just a curiosity almost never seen on a broad scale.  Those days are long gone.

In this article a tourism operator offers this final, sadly idealistic comment:  “If you’ve got a fantastic product, but there’s a negative aspect of it, how do you deal with that negative aspect?” Edmondson asks. “It’s best, I think, to explain it because most people are understanding.”

Sorry.  “Most people” actually aren’t understanding.  I’m afraid any publicist worth their salt would say, “DON’T SAY A WORD ABOUT THE NEGATIVE ASPECT!!!”

FLORIDA’S CORAL REEF FACADE


I saw this principle up close and personal in 2005 when a group in Florida brought me in to possibly run a “shifting baselines” campaign for the Florida Keys.  The idea would have been a public relations effort in which we would try to instruct the public on how beautiful the coral reefs of the Keys used to be, how impoverished they are today, and how we need their help to get them back to the old days (the baseline conditions).

I spent a week driving up and down the Keys talking to everyone on both sides of the conservation dynamic.  What I learned was that the Tourism Development Council (TDC) of the Florida Keys had a $10 million budget to produce brochures and TV commercials showing the most beautiful, healthy and colorful images of coral reefs … even if the materials had to come from the Bahamas or back in the 1960’s (because you can’t see those sights in the Keys today).

Literally.  That’s what one of the TDC commissioners confided to me.  He also said, “You’re not planning to show ‘the old black and whites’ are you?”

What he meant was the old black and white trophy photos of the 1920’s showing massive game fish on the docks of sizes that have not been seen in the area for decades.  He assured me they would run me out of town if I did.  (Loren McClenachan published this great example of the problem)

I left there telling my hosts who had invited me that unless they had a comparable budget (which they didn’t — their budget wouldn’t have been even one percent of TDC) it was hopeless.  It’s nice to dream of viral videos and communications miracles, but the truth is you mostly get what you pay for in communication (which is the biggest reason why science, being such cheapstakes with communications budgets, sucks at communication).

NOBODY WANTS TO WATCH DEAD CORAL REEF FOOTAGE


Combine that with what we heard in 2002 at our Round Table Evening in Santa Monica for Shifting Baselines.  We had two underwater cinematographers who talked about sending in their coral reef documentaries to Discovery Channel and National Geographic and having the producers chop off their part at the end where they show dead coral reefs and kvetch about the declining state of reefs.

Nobody wants to watch dead coral reefs on TV.  Actually, a few very smart people do — but they’re the same ones that Stevenson said aren’t enough of a resource to win with.  It’s a huge, sad dilemma.

Disneyland and Superheroes win in the end.  And as Bill Maher pointed out earlier this year in a brilliant monologue, when you have a nation that’s addicted to the fantasy nonsense of super heroes, you end up with a President like the one we now have.

And yet, the situation is not hopeless, it just needs greater focus on communication and marketing than the science and environmental worlds are willing to give.  And more importantly, it needs a deeper understanding by all of the eternal power of narrative.  End of story.