Simply the Best Use of Tina Turner in a Climate Presentation
Anyone who manages to combine climate communications with Tina Turner is a hero in my book...
... so hat’s off to strategist, creative and filmmaker Matt Golding for his brilliant presentation about storytelling at #Content Rising in Wakehurst.
Matt understands the power of stories.
Some key takeaways from his presentation for you:
- Preaching about climate change does not offer a vision
- Sharing positive stories, solutions and alternatives embraces the emotion of storytelling
- “We need stories about how we want the world to be”
- In your community or campaigning, ask yourself two questions:
- What do we want?
- What’s the one thing we could do?
- Energy = Don’t ask: Just do (“Collective action is the most powerful lever for most people”)
- “Community power, networked can change the world” (don’t believe your community stories are boring or impact is small).
- Quote: “ All stories are training” – Marshall Gantz
Lessons from Matt’s viral filmmaking experiments with Rubber Republic and using the Antidote platform:
- Respect – If you speak in ways that are appealing, useful and respectful, your audience will share your message for you.
- Impact does NOT equal Scale – Small groups of amazing people can achieve great things. You don’t always need scale to create change.
- Trust your instincts – When rules don’t exist (or are outdated) listening to your gut and experimenting is the best guide.
And the Tina Turner reference?
The theme of Matt’s presentation was a play on Tina Turner’s song ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)’. Matt’s talk was “We don’t need another hero’s journey”, a reference to the classic storytelling framework.
Matt argues that we don’t need more stories about an individual hero, an external foe and good vs bad.
Instead, let’s explore The Heroine’s Journey, creating stories about building allies, internal foes and avoiding binary. A new framework for storytelling, which Matt is actively testing and refining with help from the University of Bristol.
Testing through sharing stories like those featured in the presentation slide below.
Matt shared a quote from Marshall Gantz which summed it up nicely:
“Hope resides not somewhere in a distant future but in the sense of possibility in a pathway to action.”
What are we all waiting for?
Photo by Gary Spinks: Image shows a presentation slide with an image of Tina Turner plus words about what Tina might sing about what we really need today, which reads...
"... a new more collective, visionary, just, honest global narrative that respects our inherent superpowers of creativity, collaboration and compassion for each other and the natural world and allows us to thrive in harmony with each other, the more than human world, and the cosmos."
QUESTIONS from Matt for you to ponder:
. How do the stories we share shape the culture?
. Why do some stories get shared more than others?
ACTION POINTS:
1. SHARE - What stories do you have about community action projects, ACTionism or Citizens? (Let me know so we can get more people knowing about positive projects across the globe)
2. EXPRESS - What would you like to see in your community to make it a better place for everyone?
3. ACT- What could you start or help with, to make your community better?
