How to Be Less Wrong, Unpacking The Rewatchables and Why Movies Are So Long

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10 stories we've enjoyed this week

Animation of a unicorn breathing pink and blue bubbles out of its mouth. The unicorn has a purple mane, gold horn and a daisy chain around its neck. The background is purple.

Animation by Headexplodie - Work with her

Hi All,
We're just about to kick off a big piece of audience research looking at how we find, use and share stories, now. We want to find out how these behaviours have changed since the pandemic and what this means for organisation's content strategies. It's something we've been looking at closely for some time. Now we're going to dig a lot deeper. We're looking for commercial and non-profit partners. Find out more about the project and how you can get involved.

Another reminder that we're hiring! Are you obsessed with audience behaviours? Come and join our team! We're hiring a new audience researcher to help with this and other research projects. Apply or share widely.

Thanks and enjoy this week's stories.
Hugh

The Short Story

How to Break the Vicious Cycle of More Content
(4 min read)

50 Things I Have Learned in Ad Agencies
(list)

Pay Careful Attention to Your First Ideas
(1 min read)

Formats Unpacked: The Rewatchables
(5 min read)

Adam Grant's 6 Ways to Be Less Wrong
(4 min read)

The Pudding: What Makes Writing More Readable
(9 min interactive read)

How a Book Is Made
(5 min read)

David Byrne Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions
(12 min watch)

Why Are Movies So Long Now
(9 min read)

Productivity Cards Guaranteed to Get You Producing
(1 min read)

A set of buttons and dials on an old machine used for binding books. The Machine is painted blue and the dials are orange or grey. The buttons are gathered in two areas. One area is for gathering. The other is for binding.

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

How to Break the Vicious Cycle of More Content
A new report from Parse.ly about how content teams are driving growth with content reveals that most organisations want more content but only half know if the content they are currently making is working. If you're trapped in a content production cycle, here are six steps that will help you break it.
(4 min read)

50 Things I Have Learned in Ad Agencies
Tom Callard from BBH shares his learnings from his time spent in ad agencies. Things like: "Trust your gut, but also try to prove it wrong. The consumer might not give you the answer, but spend a day talking to them and you’ll probably figure it out. Simple beats smart every time. Being good and nice is easy when things are going well - the challenge is to do it when things are rough."
(list)

Pay Careful Attention to Your First Ideas
Great advice on copywriting from John Stingly's In The Copy Book: "Understand what the perceptions of your product are now. The current attitude of your consumer is the starting point and the desired attitude is the finish line. Often clients are reticent to admit what the current attitude towards them is. You have to make them understand. You can't start a race in the middle."
(1 min read)

Formats Unpacked: The Rewatchables
If you ever need to host a roundtable conversation, there's a lot you can learn from The Rewatchables about giving these conversations focus without stripping them of free-flowing nature.
(5 min read)

Adam Grant's 6 Ways to Be Less Wrong
Last year, Adam Grant invited people from around the world to compete in a tournament to predict the outcome of a bunch of future events. Over seven months, more than 2,000 participants registered over 20,000 predictions. Here are the six principles that helped the winner and runners-up predict more accurately than anyone else.
(4 min read)

The Pudding: What Makes Writing More Readable
Good writing is easy to read. But a lot of writing is hard to read. Some people can’t read hard writing. Plain language fixes this problem. It makes writing easy to read for more people. Our favourite interactive storyteller, The Pudding, looks at how you can make your writing more accessible to a broader range of people.
(9 min interactive read)

How a Book Is Made
This lovely interactive photo essay from the New York Times walks you through all the stages of how a book becomes a book.
(5 min read)

David Byrne Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions
I love this format from Wired. The Talking Heads frontman answers the Google autocomplete questions that users have been asking. Sure, it's gimmicky, but it's a great way to get a guest to answer the questions people really want to ask.
(12 min watch)

Why Are Movies So Long Now
Whilst this doesn't really answer the question posed in the title, it's a good read on the history of film lengths and contains a couple of interesting facts. Including this: "When directors initially sign on to a major studio movie, they have a contractual obligation to deliver it at two hours. It’s almost unspoken that nobody pays attention to the rule, but it protects studios should a filmmaker deliver a movie with a truly egregious length."
(9 min read)

Productivity Cards Guaranteed to Get You Producing
A bit like Eno's Oblique Strategies but in no way oblique and there's only one strategy.
(1 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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How to Be Less Wrong, Unpacking The Rewatchables and Why Movies Are So Long

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