Last week I attended The Nordic Media Festival and was so lucky to catch Brian Seth Hurst from X Media Lab. Mr. Hurst came to talk to us about cross platform media.

I still get chills and I must admit – a little tear in my eye when I think about The Conspiracy for Good, which X Media Lab is responsible for:

It’s a beautiful story and something I would definitely like to be a part of. I was thinking as Seth presented it that I suppose there was no coincidence that the man who wrote Heroes was also responsible for creating a game that made all participants heroes.  I know I get cheesily sentimental about these things – just can’t help myself.

As I sat there listening to him I kept thinking that this is something I would love to do. Writing something that was broadcast multiplatform would be so much fun and so much something that I would like to do. It has everything that I want to do creating a story world, opening up for collective storytelling, gaming and making some significant difference along the fun way. Mr. Hurst said that all such stories should start off with some fundamental mythology – what an interesting insight. I can see that this is fundamental – the mythology will be the center or the grounding of the story creation.

I foolishly grabbed the microphone at the questions section and started a little discussion about how to start such a story, although I wasn’t very clear and I’m afraid that I came across as a sceptic – which I definitely am not! My thoughts on the success of Conspiracy for Good is the fact that they had Tim Kring creating it. He already has truck loads of fans after his brilliant Heroes and getting people to participate in a game that he created I hesitate in using the word “easy” – but you get my drift. His following and the dedication of his fans helped bring The Conspiracy of Good to life. So – I guess what I’m trying to say is that in order for such cross platform storytelling to work – one needs “believers” from the start. In order for me to start writing something like this I must consider creating a story first, which will create fans that want it to evolve and they want to participate in its evolution.

So – I’ve been thinking about this. I mean – creating a story that will get fans is any writer’s dream?! Right? So – it must be a tall order to create something that great before creating a good ARG, right? So – I’m thinking, maybe we should start with a charity, NGO or a certain cause that needs to be highlighted and has a story that needs to be told. Create media stirr about said cause so that people at least have heard about this and then create a muliplatform story for people to get involved.

And my thoughts go to all the collections we have in the course of a year. I don’t know what it’s like where you live but I feel like there are people with a bucket asking for money for a good cause all year long in Norway. It would be fun if one of these causes could look into something like this. The successful story is already there – the media will be interested in helping and I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to get more involved rather than just giving my money to someone who hardly knows what they’re collecting money for.

Just thinking out loud ….