A Call to Pencils
Introducing our Storyteller-in-Residence because real stories can only come from real reporting. Image: Barbara Cadorna.
This week I spoke with an industry friend who used ChatGPT to create a marketing email. “What do you think?” they asked. I said it’s good if you want it to sound like a robotic marketing email.
My bent has always been towards acting and sounding like a human.
I am a storyteller. I learned the craft in New York City by going out and talking to people, spending time with these captivating characters, and capturing the traits that these larger-than-life personalities didn’t even see in themselves. I am not opposed to using the latest technology, but I do recognize that, if I have access to a certain tool, such as Google search results or SEO keywords or now ChatGPT, so does everyone else. The tech alone won’t be the key differentiator. Humans will.
Over the past 18 years, I’ve told important stories that propelled businesses, including Fast Company, ESPN, Adobe, and Industry Dive’s studioID. The scenery has changed, but what has remained true is the fundamentals of great storytelling. You can have the best-looking deck, the world’s most advanced funnel, and the hottest tech, but if you don’t have characters, conflict, and conclusion in your piece you will fail over the long run.
“You can’t have real stories without real life!”
The best storytellers know that you can’t find or share great stories from staid video chats and recycled slide decks. You can’t have real stories without real life! In an era of ChatGPT and AI-generated pontifications, our team at Creative Factor prefers original shoe-leather reporting. In-the-field interviews help people get to know each other in their natural habitats. That’s why we’re zigging as everyone else zags.
For our new Storyteller-in-Residence program for brands and organizations, we spend weeks with our clients. We come into their environments with a fresh lens, editorial eye, and ability to spot great stories in unexpected places. We interview them on site, observe their workplace, and capture the vibe of their business that is so hard to see day in and out. (There is a reason biographies are better than autobiographies.) It’s the human touchpoints that allow us to uncover the distinctive narrative of our clients.
“To take risks is human.”
We believe our clients’ creativity is at the center of their stories, and we work alongside them to help them find and share it. We take all of that intensive research and use it to help clients advance the most important conversations for their business, not add to the noise.
Robots are great at a lot of things, like transcribing audio interviews, calculating long division, and lifting really heavy things. But they don’t have the sense of purpose and consciousness that humans bring to something as meaningful as telling stories. Robots are limited to a box. People think outside of it and have the ability to take risks and explore new environments. To take risks is human.
So I’ll keep using robots to help me with long division (I definitely need it), but I’ll continue to pick up my pencil to tell stories. If I’ve got that, my notebook, my curiosity that keeps me pushing for details and the willingness to write to the wire, I will feel good about what we deliver for clients.
Let us tell your story. Here's how.
If you’d like to read more from Creative Factor, start here.
