Simon Staffans' "One Year in Transmedia"

Transmedia designer Simon Staffans created an ebook entitled "One Year in Transmedia," a collection of his own and others' posts, and interviews with transmedia specialists, to present a comprehensive industry snapshot in 2011 and beyond. Simon asked me to give an interview on what I believe is the future of transmedia, and its applications to social change and social innovation. I was honored to have my interview close out the book. 

Here is an excerpt of that interview. (For the full text and for the rest of the book (a worthwhile read), please download the book here.)

Q: A lot of transmedia evolves around fiction, around mythologies and fantasy and suchlike. Youʼre an advocate for transmedia activism; how do you feel transmedia can help when it comes to social issues?
A: [First, there] is a distinct opportunity here in using narrative and a designed experience to guide activists, influencers and members of the general public into your story universe and create engagement and action toward a solution. (When I analyze a story universe for social change, I think first in terms of an ecosystem of issues, social and cultural conditions, communities and solutions-- and not only about the narrative arc of the story.) As a community of storytellers and activists, we can move beyond awareness and outreach to engagement and action. A great example this year was Medecins Sans Frontieres' "Starved for Attention" campaign, which used a variety of media, film, video, objects and photos created by a number of authors and distributed via web, tablet, and real world installations to create a number of advocacy points that targeted a range of stakeholders and moved them in a nearly seamless fashion from story to their desired action...

Second, transmedia strategies, in allowing diverse and multiple authorship, have the potential to create better streams of participation for "local voice"-- i.e, voices coming from an affected community, to tell its own stories and participate in solutions-building.  This year, I'd point [as examples] to 18 Days in Egypt,  3 Generations, [and] The Invisibles...

Third, setting out a transmedia strategy may be an innovative way to create a co-creation network and to build community-centered collaboration.  Creation networks are an interesting way to think about two things: (1) combining community-driven solutions (bottom-up, grassroots) with resources and capacity (top-down, institutional)... 

Fourth, transmedia answers the question, "How do you tell the story of a system?" There's a danger in social change when you tell a story from one perspective or from one node in the system. True social change comes when solutions are systemic, and transmedia itself is a social innovation that allows us to view our ecosystem and create stakeholder engagement around systemic change.  The advantage to transmedia is that it helps us tell the story of a system by presenting multiple voices on a number of stories extending from the core over a number of distribution channels...

Q: How has the transmedia activism industry or movement evolved during the past few years? 
A: When I first started writing about transmedia activism and examining social action projects through its lens in 2008, there was no identifiable community of colleagues investing time, resources or thought into it. Today, it's still a relatively young construct-- it's more of a strategic framework than an industry or a movement yet-- but over the past 18-24 months, a number of creators and institutions have come to recognize the potential that transmedia has when applied to social change, and so there is interest in investing in tools and technologies that advance the field. Philanthropic institutions like the Ford Foundation and the Sundance Institute have started funding transmedia projects, which is cause for celebration. On the other hand, we haven't yet built a field in which there are a set of norms or business models. We have limited capacity globally, in terms of the numbers of strategists or practitioners who have experience in the design principles of a transmedia strategy, or the subject matter expertise in social innovation or social change. We need to build a community of practice if we're going to really create effective partnerships and implement sustainable solutions.

Q: What has been the most exciting or fulfilling or encouraging transmedia experiences youʼve encountered over the past year?

Aside from work I've been doing this year, MSF's Starved for Attention campaign and 18 Days in Egypt excite me for the reasons I stated above. Lance Weiler's "Pandemic"-- which debuted earlier this year and has inspired some interesting collaborations in social change for him--and his recently launched "Robot Stories" are really interesting. I love the work Breakthrough has been developing for their Bell Bajao campaign, which is rather less involved than Lance's work, but highly engaging and sometimes cheeky, always striking the right tone for the very serious subject of ending domestic violence.  GMD Studios' work with the Smithsonian gives me hope that there are going to be more interesting transmedia collaborations between cultural institutions and experience designers. And the launch of the Mobile Media Toolkit (from MobileActive.org, for which which I sit on the Board of Directors) was particularly exciting in providing guidance on local, independent content creation through mobile phones. Finally, I was head over heels for PunchDrunk's "Sleep No More" -- while this is not a "social change" project by any means, it is one of the best immersive, interactive experiences I've ever had in New York City. I'm hoping someone will create a Hitchcock, Fellini or Jean Cocteau transmedia experience, or bring alive more Shakespeare plays, or other classic movie, theater or literary experiences soon.

Q: Do you see anything within the field of transmedia that you are especially looking forward to in 2012?
A: I was happy Brian Clark addressed the question of business models at Henry Jenkins' site. The founding of StoryCode from Transmedia Meetup NYC is a positive development in this direction, and I'm hoping we as a community delve more deeply into discussions and answers on the evolution of business models and systematically supporting a community of practice.

I'm interested to see how we move forward on personal storytelling as an element of social change campaigns, whose potential is expanding with platforms like Cowbird; and the potential for effective content curation, as Vadim Lavrusik describes in his piece "Curation and amplification will become much more sophisticated in 2012." In my own work in field-building, I want to continue to align concepts of transmedia to social innovation and design. I would like to continue to work with nonprofits and institutions to themselves experiment with and adopt transmedia storytelling in both communications as well as program design.  And I want to build on discussions that I started in collaboration with StoryCode this past fall on the potential of transmedia in emerging markets, for economic development and creative sector capacity, and community-centered solutions-building. We launched a series with Africa, and hopefully will also explore the Indian film industries and Latin America in 2012. 

On the content side, related to that last point, I'm looking forward to working closely with a forthcoming project called "Lakou Mizik," a transmedia platform for musicians in Haiti, and in continuing to build the platform around Who Is Dayani Cristal? 

Q: If you would hazard a guess, where will transmedia be in 2015, and transmedia activism?

A: I think it's the way we'll all be communicating and creating rather regularly, so will we even need the term "transmedia" anymore? At any rate, in three years, I think "narrative design" will become an essential function across a variety of sectors (for-profit and non-profit), and that transmedia storytelling will be leveraged by more of the creative arts fields, like music, dance and theater, and by more cultural institutions. There will be more global efforts and projects, and more investment in
global co-productions in terms of creative content and financial investment.

And I'm hoping we who work in the interstices between the creative and nonprofit sectors will have learned a lesson from the 2011 political revolutions and social movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Greece, India, Mexico, the US and beyond. I hope we invest in the strong convergence between both (perhaps seemingly converse) individual storytelling and collaborative production, and look to
technologies and institutional structures globally that support free and secure expression, a vibrant civil society, and thriving cultural economies.  I hope.

Where Is Your Line? Interview

Where Is Your Line? is a fantastic campaign from Nancy Schwartzman, empowering youth leaders to end sexual violence.  The campaign's blog runs a cheeky and informative section called "Badass Activist Friday."  I'm proud to be included in the Badass club.

After reading this post, read about the campaign's latest success, the "Circle of 6" app.

Here's a repost of my interview with the campaign:

Lina Srivastava: Badass Activist Friday

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire cultural change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

Today’s badass is Lina Srivastava. Lina studied law at New York University and now has her own consulting firm for transmedia activism. As a consultant, she has been involved in the production of documentaries such as Born into Brothels and The Devil Came on Horseback. Currently, she is the organizational strategist for VODO and 3Generations, and member of the Board of Directors for MobileActive and Global Grassroots.

And here is what she had to say to us!


Your background is in law. Can you tell us about how you came from there to activism, and this specific form of it? Did you go to law school with activism as your ultimate intent, or did this career develop somewhere along the way?

I didn’t go the law school with a specific goal of activism in mind, no. In high school, I had developed strong passions for the arts and culture, and  for human rights activism. As I moved through college and then law school, I did have a vision to work in the public interest field, but I wasn’t sure what form that would take. I had majored in biology in college and had done coursework in philosophy and bioethics, so when I went to New York University School of Law, my thought was to eventually dedicate my work to global public health policy. But because I had a science background, I got sidetracked into intellectual property law.

The practice of law never sat well with me, though, from the very beginning. I’m very glad I have a law degree– frankly, it gives me facility with legal constructs and strategic frameworks (my science background and legal education have given me the foundation for the strategy consulting work I do now) and gives me a sense of confidence as a woman running my own consultancy.  But the subject matter, the endless hours of working, and the lifestyle all put me off. The most significant reason that I left, though, was the feeling that I wasn’t contributing to a larger social justice movement, to something for the benefit of disadvantaged communities. I’ve always felt obligated and driven to apply my experience and knowledge to create a more just, livable and fulfilling society. And I wasn’t doing that in the law firm. 

So I resigned and took a year off to travel, write poetry, dance Flamenco — to reconnect with everything dear to me personally– and to think about what mattered most to me, and where I felt I could apply my skills most effectively to “change the world.” It was during that year that I connected back to the dual missions of culture and of human rights that I had developed in high school.  The question now was how to combine those two. 

The answer came three years after having quit the law.  I had gone through an “apprenticeship” of sorts with Michaela Walsh, the Founder of Women’s World Banking and a doyenne of microfinance, and then my first Executive Director position of a Spanish foundation contributing to development work and access to education issues in India.  I was subsequently  hired as the Executive Director of Kids with Cameras, which was started alongside the documentary about it, “Born into Brothels.” Suddenly, the combination of the arts, media, and storytelling with rights, aid and development all fell into place.  

That experience led me to understand the power of cross-platform content creation and distribution in social change. Cultural identity and cultural expression are too often overlooked as essential elements of social transformation, and so I eventually started working in transmedia storytelling, social innovation and design, examining how those constructs could help me best apply cultural assets to systemic change.  

Can you explain to us what transmedia activism is and how it works? What is its specific approach and what do you hope to achieve by using this approach? What sets it apart from other forms of activism?

“Transmedia Activism” is a framework I conceived in 2008-2009 and have been refining since (with help from a number of great thinkers in the field).  It is a construct for social impact through storytelling by a number of authors who create content for distribution across multiple forms of media, to raise awareness and influence action around a particular core narrative and set of solutions to a social challenge.  A transmedia universe around a social issue creates a number of entry points for activists, influencers, policymakers and members of the general public to participate in dialogue, create shifts in perception or culture, and engage in direct action.  The specific approach to creating a transmedia universe has to be customized to each social challenge — essentially, you have to start with the question, “What are we trying to change?” and then “Where does this fit into the larger movement or campaign?” 

The advantage to transmedia activism (and more broadly, transmedia for social good) is that it helps us tell the story of a system.  True social change comes when solutions are systemic, and transmedia itself is a social innovation that allows us to view our ecosystem and create stakeholder engagement around systemic change.  

The other advantages to transmedia — and what I hope personally to achieve– is that because it’s a participatory co-creation framework, we are able to create avenues to source local voice and highlight locally relevant and resonant culture.  The more perspectives to a story, the more human the story is, the easier solutions are to uncover.  Second, it lets us use narrative more effectively as a tool in aid and development, human rights, and community livability.

Where do movements for feminism and social justice intersect with the different platforms for storytelling and creative expression? How do they engage with and benefit from one another?

All social movements throughout history, at their base, live and die on their stories. You need to bring a movement to its basic components: What is the challenge? Who is being affected? How do we create empathy? How do we posit and act on solutions? And where the feminism and social justice movements intersect with storytelling and creative expression is where they have been most able to bring people into direct action. This is true regardless of the media used or the platform over which the media travels. But we now have access to amazing and rapidly evolving advances in technology and communications platforms, and so we have the ability to spread messages, stories, and calls to action with speed and reach. So the movements need to get creative with how they talk about the “ecology” of their challenges and solutions, because people all along the spectrum of involvement and influence want to engage, want to contribute, and want to be part of the conversation. That’s what gets commitment.  And that’s why The Line’s campaign, and particularly the “Circle of 6″ app, is so exciting.

Have you had to deal with any stereotypes or cliches when it comes to employing this mode of working? Transmedia story telling was made popular by, and is still mainly used in the context of computer games and comics. Have you had to break down any walls when it comes to using transmedia narratives in such a radically different way?

There are quite a few, yes, but the one factor I’ll talk about here is where platforms and technologies are seen as solutions themselves to social ills, not the vehicles or catalysts of social change. In the realm of transmedia activism, it doesnt make sense to fall too deeply in love with the technology before the solution; in other words, if your planned app doesn’t contribute to the solution for the community, don’t build it.  It’s more important to look to the affected community than to the community of transmedia creators and their needs when you’re engaging in activism.  Of course, creators need tools to do their job effectively, and new tool of media creation and production are essential to that, so we need to invest in field-building through those tools, as well as support and training for creators. But solutions for the affected community– hopefully articulated by the community itself– should take priority when thinking about the elements of a transmedia platform.


What project are you currently working on?

I’m working on a few at the moment. In the realm of transmedia and social change specifically, I’m the strategist for two start-up nonprofits, BYkids and 3 Generations, and am helping produce or providing strategic guidance for three projects; the first concerns systemic poverty and human rights along the US-Mexico border and in Central America; the second is about child homelessness and arts education in the US; and the third is about culture-based regeneration in Haiti with Haitian musicians.  What I look for when I say yes to working with a project are: (a) Having at its core the use of local voice, in direct partnership with the platform creators; (2) Using the platform to move beyond awareness, to connect audiences and change agents to commit to a particular worldview, advocacy or action, by using these local stories and art; and (3) The potential to cross borders or silos using a number of platforms to foster transformation. I have a really great job and I hope this field continues to thrive. 

Transmedia in Emerging Markets: Spotlight on Africa: Business, Film and Activism

I recently have had the privilege to work with the new organization Storycode to create a panel series called Transmedia in Emerging Markets, to catalyze discussions around the potential role of transmedia storytelling to build vibrant cultural sectors and leverage local voice in developing economies, as well as current trends in investments, business, civil society programs and media production that may allow for transmedia business models to flourish in emerging markets.

We launched the series with a "Spotlight on Africa: Business, Film and Activism," which I curated and led at Storycode's presenting partner, the Film Society of Lincoln Center.  Joining me for the evening were G. Kofi Annan, Hugo Soskin of 18 Days in Egypt, Franco Sacchi of the Nollywood Workshops, and Layna Fisher of the Sierra Leone International Film Festival. An important connective thread among all the presentations is the harnessing of local voice and local storytelling, and the tremendous economic and cultural possibilities arising from this.

The videos of the event are below.  The program starts at 5:00 in the first video, so please click through to there.  My introduction and discussion with Kofi starts at 8:00 minutes in the first video.  Kofi brings us through a thorough discussion of the consumer base in Africa, and current activity in the technology, media and business sectors, as well as the role of local storytelling in presenting the diversity of images and stories in Africa.

Watch live streaming video from transmedianewyorkcity at livestream.com

Videos from Layna and Franco start at 9:20 in the second video. Layna speaks about filmmaking, distribution and the potential for transmedia to broaden the reach of the Sierra Leone International Film Festival, and interviews media creator Vicki Remoe about the state of digital filmmaking.  Franco presents the history and richness of the Nollywood film industry, the second largest in the world.  [Note: Since the audio quality of Layna's video is poor, her standalone video is embedded at the end of this post.]

A brief presentation of additional projects relating to storytelling and to transmedia activism concerning Africa starts at 45:00 of the second video.  My discussion with Hugo begins at 49:30, and covers 18 Days in Egypt, the forthcoming transmedia activism project harnessing local storytelling from citizens and activists in Cairo during the Egyptian revolution, as well as technological innovations in group storytelling.

Watch live streaming video from transmedianewyorkcity at livestream.com

[Layna's video from the evening]:

Lina Srivastava Presents Transmedia Spotlight on Africa

Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 7:00 PM

Film Society Lincoln Center

144 West 65th Street, New York, NY (map)

Join us for an exciting *first ever* discussion of Transmedia in Emerging Markets. Lina Srivastava leads a fireside chat with producers actively working in that space, including Hugo Soskin of 18 Days in Egypt, G. Kofi Annan of Annansi LLC, Layna Fisher of the Sierra Leone International Film Festival, and Franco Sacchi of the Nollywood Workshops.  Focusing on transmedia/integrated media strategy and the potential for its use in business, film and activism, Lina and the speakers will present case studies from Africa. For more information, click here.

TEDxTransmedia Talk

Video from my TEDxTransmedia talk at the MAXXI Foundation in Rome, 30 September 2011.

Announcing the SVA DSI Masters' Program, Fall 2012

Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts is the first MFA program for designers and graduates in other disciplines who want to harness the power of design to create positive change and impact.

An inaugural cohort of 25 diverse, extraordinary students will become leaders in solving real world challenges, beginning in the fall of 2012. 

Happy to be on faculty next year.  See http://dsi.sva.edu for more.

Applications due January 15th, 2012

Transmedia Activism: Presentation at SilverDocs/TFI Transmedia Lab

Transmedia Activism_SilverDocs presentation

View more presentations from lksriv

The End of Atrocity: A Manifesto

This Manifesto is a fluid document, which we have begun to draft and will continue to refine throughout this project, with the participation of many. It is an organic process: all are invited to participate.
______________________________________________

“Never Again.”

These two words have become the most uttered and the least meaningful in a world that still witnesses genocide, crimes against humanity and atrocities. These two words were first said in the context of mass genocide, after the Holocaust in 1948, when the United Nations General Assembly passed the Genocide Convention. And we as a world said we would never let something like that happen again on our watch. We had a set of guidelines, a commitment, a promise.

And yet it happened, over and over again.

Throughout the history of our species, we have created divisions among people, based on region, religion, belief, economic advantage and political expediency. We have devised ways of creating a sense of “otherness” -- of peoples who don’t look like us or believe as we do -- that has made us capable of seeing the “other” as less than human. This has resulted in injustice, inequality, and in the worst cases, in premeditated massacre and ethnic and cultural cleansing.

What can possibly stop this?

The time has come to build a vision for a world without atrocity. Leaders as diverse as The Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King have shown us the need for vision to build a path to lasting peace and progress. But, to date, we don’t have a collective vision for a world free from atrocity. We’ve had conventions, treaties, sanctions, military interventions, technological interventions, social movements, cultural artifacts and discussions. But If we as a global community don’t have a vision of a better future, how will we really create one?

This Manifesto represents the collective thoughts of visionaries around the world on a promise and a path to build a vision for a world without genocide, atrocity or crimes against humanity.

FIRST: There is no “other.” We are all one, irreversibly connected.

SECOND: Human beings are members of a global community, and we are connected. If atrocity can happen to one group, it can happen to any other, because when it happens to one of us, it happens to humanity.

THIRD: We must achieve universal respect for each other. Each generation must find ways to explicitly affirm and reaffirm its commitment -- through ritual, story, technology or practice-- that each individual will accept responsibility for the well-being of each other individual in the world, regardless of who or where that individual is, and that each of the billions of the global masses is accountable to all the others for safety, security and life.

FOURTH: We have always been connected, but technology and communication now connects us directly in ways that reduce the “otherness” of people. Access to the tools of technology and communication must be used to help us grow our collection of stories of being human and will put a human face on that which we used to view as “other.”

FIFTH: There are always patterns and warning signs before an atrocity. Ensuring universal access to tools of technology and communication will help us collectively disseminate and listen to cries for help. We will pay attention to these patterns and signs and keep watching for them, to stem the possibility of devolution into violence.

SIXTH: We acknowledged there will always be hostilities, conflict, and perhaps even war. We must work toward building, supporting and enriching our growing culture of human rights-- through rational means of technology and networks, strong cross-border civil society interventions, institutional and governmental treaties and efforts, but also through cultural means, through humanism, emotion and sentimentalism, reflected in narrative, stories, art and media.

SEVENTH: We aim to create a new “soul” for humanity, one that is infused in a new path away from what we have been to each other and toward one that gives us the means to not inflict undue harm on innocent bystanders. We should aim to foster the creative in humans, and to encourage achievements that add to universal livability, prosperity and satisfaction, and we must invest in universal accountability and mass empathy to do so.

EIGHTH: Our history books and cultural narratives are a succession of leaders who led us to glory in war and subjugation-- and we’ve accepted it as the norm. We need to move away from that, to histories and narrative about the caring and nurturing of families and communities, of culture, art, commerce and design-- those things that bind a community to itself and create communities across borders.

NINTH: We must create and sustain balance among the genders, in roles of power and decision-making, and in true equality and respect. We must protect and integrate as equals those members of society we perceive as weaker, less successful, less worthy or capable, or living slower, simpler or lives connected to ideals that may differ with ours. We must invest in the economic prosperity of all, and acknowledge that any of our economic and political systems that create inequality in turn create instability and vulnerability.

TENTH, AND LAST: We aim to create and grow a global community that exists and works across national and regional borders, one that is at once bottom-up and top-down, that invests in commerce and institutions, as well as grassroots efforts and individual expression, and that embeds in subsequent generations a collective ethical code based on individual speech, shared and heard voice and reformed institutional leadership that moves toward end of atrocities.


[This Manifesto is part of the 3 Generations project, "The End of Atrocity."]

3 Generations is building a global vision on the end of atrocity

Since the Holocaust and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, civil society has promised "never again" -- and still genocide and appalling atrocities have continued into the 21st century. We don't have a collective vision for how to build a world free from atrocity. And if we don't have a vision of a better future can we really create one? We need one. The End of Atrocity is a project from 3 Generations that is beginning to create a collective vision.

To launch, 3 Generations has filmed 14 world luminaries who are on the front lines of advocacy and asked for their individual visions. Visit the site to see the videos and share the work of creating a global collective vision for a world without atrocity.
The release schedule for the videos is:

April 14:
Peter Gabriel: Co-Founder, WITNESS and The Elders
Carolyn Forche: Poet and Professor, Georgetown University

April 15:
Alex Stark: Consultant and Teacher
Rachel Lloyd: Founder and President, GEMS
Scilla Elworthy: Founder, Peace Direct

April 18:
James Smith: Co-Founder and Chief Executive, Aegis Trust
Freddy Mutanguha: Director, Kigali Memorial Centre

April 19:
Stephen Smith: Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation
Brian Steidle: Frmr Captain, USMC; Consultant, Humanitarian Affairs and International Development
Jerry Fowler: Open Society Policy Foundation

April 20:
Ann Curry: Journalist, NBC
Kathy Freston: Author + Host, Oprah Winfrey Network

April 21:
John Prendergast: Co-Founder, Enough
Luis Moreno Ocampo: Prosecutor, International Criminal Court

April 22:
Manifesto: The beginning of our vision on ending atrocity.

How you can participate:

* Watch the stories at the website.
* Help share these visions: Send them to your friends via email. Share on Facebook. Post to Twitter: "3 Generations is Building a Vision for a World Without Atrocity: http://3generations.org/vision.aspx #genprev"
* Share your own vision: What does a world without atrocity look like to you? Send comments on
* Facebook
* Twitter
* 3 Generations' blog (via “Submit”)
* Your own blog (send a link to info@3generations.org)



[Note: Client relationship.]

Envision 2011

IFP and the United Nation’s Department of Public Information have for the past three years partnered to present ENVISION: Addressing Global Issues through Documentaries. This year's conference focuses on the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, and all the screenings and panels -- featuring speakers ranging from UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Harry Belafonte to City Harvest's Jill Stevens-- will center on underlying issues such as food security, the role of women, and the role of film and documentaries.

In my role as a member of the Board of Directors of Global Grassroots, I am excited to participate on the conference's final panel, focusing on the role of women in alleviating poverty. The other panelists are Rebeca Grynspan, Under-Secretary-General, Associate Administrator, UN Development Program; Kennedy Odede, Founder and CEO of Shining Hope for Communities; Lynne Patterson, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Director, Pro Mujer; and Zainab Salbi, Founder and CEO of Women for Women International. I'm looking forward to a spirited discussion that explores community-centered, bottom-up efforts, local agency and systemic change, and one that also teases out the balance between efforts that create a silo for women's issues against those that create investment in women.

To learn more about the conference and other panels, please look here. Hope to see you there.