Bookfuturists
A few nights ago, the people behind some of my favorite site (Tomorrow Museum, Hilobrow, and Significant Objects) put together an event to discuss the future of books and storytelling. I wrangled together some friends, and we headed sans directions into the frosty night, toward the Microsoft NERD Center (New England Research and Development, real name).
What follows is a brain purge of ideas mixed with my own commentary, incoherence guaranteed: new modes of storytelling (Google’s Parisian Love, Google Maps story); story told through what is missing rather than is there; production of art paralleling the narrative arc; the production blog; Kickstarter and new marketing opportunities, the production process itself as a marketing process; blogging/twittering as performance art; can financial experiments like Sig Objects, Concord Free Press, and McSweeney’s newspaper scale up to something larger?; how does a story become significant?; terms of service for the Book.
I’m sorry if you read the previous paragraph — it was just some mental scribbles that probably made no sense to anyone else.
The other thing of note is that the NERD center is a nice space, a real perk of working for corporations. We availed ourselves to coffee and hot chocolate from their fancy machines and played with the Microsoft Surface in the lobby. It’s easy to forget, but one of the of the utmost pleasures in life is meeting someone new with whom you simply get along with.
