What Makes Digital Content Successful Now, How to Sell Innovative Ideas and The Guardian Bets on Newsletters

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10 stories we've enjoyed this week

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Hi All,
A couple of messages from friends of Storythings. At the start of lockdown, someone mentioned an event they thought I'd love. One Track Minds is like a mash-up of Desert Island Discs, The Moth Radio and TED talks. It takes place at the beautiful Wilton's Music Hall in London. Because of lockdown I never got to go to one. Well, now it's back and this line-up looks superb.

The charity Arts Emergency is looking for a new Chair of the Board as well as a Fundraising Manager. We're big supporters of Arts Emergency and believe the work they do is incredibly important. If you fit either of these roles, apply here or share within your network.

Finally, our friends over at the Art Institute Chicago have a new video format called Playing Favorites in which staff choose their favorite item in the museum. Check out some of their choices.

That's it from us. If you have something you want us to share with all our readers just get in touch.

Have a really great weekend.
Hugh

The Short Story

Music, Memory and My Dad: How Songs Define and Shape Us
(15 min read)

Tell It to a Rubber Duck - an Exercise to Unblock Your Creativity
(1 min read)

What Makes Digital Content Successful in the 2020s
(6 min read)

1 Million Deaths, 13 Last Messages
(8 min read)

48 Ways You Can Do Something About the News
(List)

A One-Word Dictionary That Champions Sisterhood
(1 min read)

Why The Guardian is Betting Big on Newsletters
(4 min read)

How to Professionally Say...
(1 min read)

How An Interview Format Became the Greatest Radio Show Ever
(6 min read)

To Sell Something Surprising Make it Familiar
(4 min read)

How can we help you?

Storythings is a strategy and content company based in Brighton and London. We'd love to help you with some creative and bold ideas.

Here's 3 reasons to get in touch.

1. You want to talk to us about content production: podcasts, videos, animations, illustrations, editorial.

2. You want to talk to us about content strategy or format development.

3. You want to create a brand or an identity that makes it easier to communicate your message.

We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch.

The Full Story

Music, Memory and My Dad: How Songs Define and Shape Us
I'm currently reading Jude Rogers' new book in which she talks through a collection of songs that define her. It's wonderful! It's filled with lovely stories about growing up in Wales and then getting a job as a music journalist. But it's also filled with absolutely fascinating studies about how our brain behaves when we listen to music. In this extract in The Guardian Jude talks about why Only You by The Flying Pickets brings back so many memories of her father.
(15 min read)

Tell It to a Rubber Duck - an Exercise to Unblock Your Creativity
Creative Doing is a new book containing “75 prompts for unblocking creativity” from Herbert Liu. This really short exercise has helped me so many times, which is why I frequently say to my friends "if you ever need a pair of ears to talk at, gimme a call." A lot of the time, they don't even need someone to listen. By saying them out loud they are able to unpack the challenges that have built up in their heads.
(1 min read)

What Makes Digital Content Successful in the 2020s
There was a period in the last decade when everyone's digital content strategy was reduced to one mantra- "feed the beast." The belief was that to capture any kind of valuable attention "more" was always best. Here, the incredibly smart Content Technologist Deborah Carver explodes the myth and outlines what digital content success in the 2020s looks like.
(6 min read)

1 Million Deaths, 13 Last Messages
From the New York Times, this interactive tells the story of a million Covid deaths through 13 final messages in an incredibly powerful way. I'm not going to lie, this is really tough reading. I got through half of it.
(8 min read)

48 Ways You Can Do Something About the News
I really like this format. Three years ago, in response to the daily torrent of negative headlines, Today Do This published its first ‘do-something-about-the-news newsletter.' Each newsletter would feature a simple action that you could do to counter something bad that was happening in the world. For its third birthday, it has published this long list of ways you can do something. Pick one and do it today.
(List)

A One-Word Dictionary That Champions Sisterhood
This campaign from Hershes caught my attention. This beautifully crafted One-Word Dictionary is part of the brand’s Her for She campaign. The idea for the One-Word Dictionary came when their agency discovered that the word “sororidade” (sisterhood) did not exist in Brazilian dictionaries. So they gave the word an entire dictionary all to itself and invited seven female talents in Brazil to discuss what sisterhood means to them.
(1 min read)

Why The Guardian is Betting Big on Newsletters
If you read the link above, "What Makes Digital Content Successful in 2020" this will make complete sense. The Guardian now has over a million unique subscribers across its portfolio of 50 newsletters. Guardian head of newsletters Toby Moses said: "It’s the closest we have in the digital space to a newspaper in that it’s a fixed point in time… It’s not just a constant stream of noise that you get on social media feed is a specific thing that you’re interested in and you’ve asked for.”
(4 min read)

How to Professionally Say...
If you need to know how to say "That sounds like a horrible idea" or "Stop wasting my time" or "We do not need to have a meeting about this" in a professional way bookmark this.
(1 min read)

How An Interview Format Became the Greatest Radio Show Ever
In this week's Formats Unpacked I take a close look at what it is that makes Desert Island Discs such a powerful format: "The show’s five hosts have all been brilliant interviewers, but none would have got the gold we’ve enjoyed over the years without the music doing the heavy lifting... In retrospect, the first five minutes of the George Michael episode are quite remarkable, given what we now know. After choosing his first song George says to Kirsty 'I’ve never said any of this before. It’s odd. I’m just ready to say these things.'"
(6 min read)

To Sell Something Surprising Make it Familiar
Why did the original lightbulb burn at 13W and why did Jony Iver use so much skeuomorphism in early iOS design? Richard Shotton looks at how great innovators have made new products feel familiar in order to avoid frightening off consumers.
(4 min read)

We hope you've enjoyed this week's newsletter. I'm sure some of your friends would love to read it. Sharing it would be really appreciated. If you've received this from a friend you can subscribe here and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading and see you all next week,

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the team at Storythings

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What Makes Digital Content Successful Now, How to Sell Innovative Ideas and The Guardian Bets on Newsletters

10 stories we've enjoyed this week

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