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To me, that’s just another way of saying we are storytellers – trying on characters and living out plots that have something to teach us. Some, if not most, of those roles are assigned, unconscious, or so deeply ingrained that they are accepted as fact. Gender is a perfect example. Until I took a Women’s Studies class in college, it never occurred to me to question the social, economic, sexual, and political issues inherent in being female. The notion that I could have a hand in defining and refining what it means to be a woman was both empowering and disconcerting.

Likewise, I was in for quite a shock when I took a job working for a major corporation in Japan. After two years I was pulled aside and told the company was letting me go. The reason? The qualities I’d worked so hard to cultivate back in my Women’s Studies courses (assertiveness, direct and honest communication, and the ability to state my opinions clearly) were perceived as rude and unprofessional by my Japanese colleagues. Or as my Japanese supervisor put it, “You have a bad personality for a woman.”

I had to laugh. The message was clear. Who I am is not defined by my race, nationality, gender, job description or even the role I am currently playing. There is an “I” that transcends and informs any role I adopt.

Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that all roles should be discarded or that some lessons shouldn’t take a lifetime. For example, I am still deeply engaged in the challenges of being the daughter of an aging parent. However, I do believe that the more we are aware of the roles and lessons we are trying to learn, the quicker we will get them and the more fulfilling our lives can become.

Which brings me to what is so exciting about trying on characters and living out stories as avatars in 3D virtual space. While it is certainly true that you are still your “self,” no matter what kind of avatar you choose, how others respond to you varies greatly based on the look and feel of that avatar. And of course how others perceive and react to you will help determine what kind of virtual life you lead. I’ve lost track, for example, of the number of men who have told me they thought it would be fun to don a female avatar, only to discover they hated how they were treated.

I like to say that my first avatar empowered me to be fully me. I chose everything about Jenaia – from her rather sweet beauty and love of poetry to her desire to help others – to reflect what I like most about my “self.” It was only when that self was betrayed that it occurred to me to “try on” another role.

The character I chose for my second avatar was meant to be my protector. With her bitingly blunt wit she was quick to discourage social games – something Jenaia tolerated because she didn’t like confrontation – and was more than willing to be rude to make a point. The name I chose for this new expression of “me” means little lioness, and I gave her wild, curly hair and sharp verbal claws to back it up.

The people this second avatar attracted were a completely different sort from those who call Jenaia friend, and the two avatars led distinctly different lives. Over time, however, I found that some of the lion’s forthright honesty found its way back to Jenaia, and that it wasn’t always necessary to keep my virtual claws sharpened to defend myself. The six months I spent as a lion also gave me time to heal – to reflect on my lessons and come back to Jenaia with a renewed sense of purpose and strength.

There are those, I know, who believe that being an avatar is a way to avoid or hide from “real” life. I would argue that all lives are “real,” whether they are lived in physical or virtual space. Each avatar’s life is improvisational theater – a chance to adopt a role, delve into, act out, and thoroughly come to terms with some aspect of being human. The fact that we can now share and co-create our stories in virtual space only makes the possibilities more intriguing.

So what does Nielsen (the ratings company) say about all this 40 years later?

“…22 percent of Internet time is social, messaging, commenting, blogging, sharing and ‘liking’ now fill up 22 percent of all time spent online each month…”

“…people spend one in every four and a half minutes of their online time on a social network or blog. In the aggregate, Web users spend a total of 110 billion minutes on social Web sites and blogs each month…”

“…this is the first time social networks or blogs are ‘visited by three-quarters of global consumers who go online.’ This number has also increased 24 percent since the same time last year. In addition, Web users spent almost six hours during the month of April on social sites, versus three hours, 30 minutes during April of last year…”

“Last week, comScore reported that Web users were watching 13 billion videos on YouTube a month. Facebook also said that its users were watching 2 billion videos each month.”

So extrapolate these numbers, adjust for how many of households have high speed Internet service, and you find that people are spending 22% of their social/leisure time with Transmedia – telling their own stories, listening to one another’s stories, sharing, commenting – one hundred million narrative threads, one hundred million networks.

Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros. produce for one media platform at a time. Startled Cat Studio will use Narrative Architecture™ to tell stories on top of and across many media platforms simultaneously – stories for humans not robots; stories with characters, story arcs, humor, drama, tragedy; stories that create an emotional response, empathy, and passion. Stories that matter!

The driver for Startled Cat projects will be story, not phrases and key words targeted to spiders. People, not bots, are our audience, and it is people who are on the Internet hungry for things that live and breathe, for “aha” moments that have facets and nuance…story, story and story.

Awakening the Storyteller In Each of Us To Meet the Challenges of A New Frontier
Startled Cat Studio to Help Companies, Communities and Causes

Create Deep Customer Engagement Based on Immersive, Interactive Stories

Toronto (June 1, 2010) – Real-world change made possible through immersive storytelling – that’s the goal of Startled Cat, a new production company established this week by leaders in virtual world development, broadcast and film production, education, and branding. With the launch of Startled Cat, the company is setting out to be a global leader in fostering talent and creating immersive stories that facilitate positive change.

Startled Cat, dubbed a “Studio for Immersive Storytelling,” will immediately launch with a portfolio of turn-key products, tools and programming for immersive environments. The goal is to provide brands, enterprise and cause marketers with vehicles for creating deep engagements with customers and stakeholders, and to use the power of story to facilitate lasting change.

Power of Storytelling
“Startled Cat was established with the goal of combining the magic of story with the unique properties of immersive environments – a sense of presence and community – in order to crystallize change,” said Jena Ball, co-founder of the joint venture. “Change is crystallized – meaning focused and clarified – when the creative energies of individuals and their communities are tapped and enabled by story.”

For example, it is possible for individuals represented as avatars in a virtual world to “walk in the shoes” of a returning vet, someone who is schizophrenic or HIV/AIDS positive. Likewise they can engage with others from around the world, learn new skills, and actively participate in and contribute to stories. In this way individuals can become the agents of real change.

Startled Cat
The Startled Cat Studio, headquartered in Toronto, was formed by Remedy Communications and The Virtual Worlds Story Project whose executives share extensive experience in the interactive, broadcasting, education and branding industries.

“The potential for immersive environments to benefit real-world brands, companies, communities and causes is gaining momentum. Our mission is to bring the power of immersive stories and branded story quests to clients and sponsors,” said Doug Thompson, CEO of Remedy Communications, a marketing firm that works with Fortune 500 companies and clients in the government, military and educational sectors.

While television used to provide people with an alternate reality, it is a passive medium and no longer sufficient. Virtual worlds enable people through the use of avatars to engage in a drama in which they are not mere audience but characters and creators.

“This is the kind of active engagement that can attract new customers and deepen their relationships with a brand or cause over time,” said Marty Keltz, one of the co-founders who brings a 30-year history of producing award-winning programming to the studio. “We believe the new media frontier is 3D immersive environments and their power comes from storytellers. We expect that Startled Cat will quickly attract the world’s top talent in immersive storytelling to match the goals of our sponsors and clients.”

About Startled Cat
The Startled Cat Studio for Immersive Storytelling leverages immersive, interactive environments to deliver the power of story and to create opportunities of learning and change. Founded by Remedy Communications/Toronto and The Virtual World Story Project/USA, Startled Cat provides brands, enterprise customers and cause marketers with tools, programming and services that help to create deep engagements with employees, customers and other stakeholders.

About Remedy
Remedy Communications is a marketing company with offices in Canada and the US whose mission is to improve the health and wellness of communities. Remedy is a global leader in social, mobile and immersive media. Remedy owns Metanomics, the world’s leading source of insight into the serious uses of virtual world technologies. CEO Doug Thompson blogs at Dusan Writer’s Metaverse. Remedy has operated for 12 years and has a full in-house creative
team that includes interactive designers and programmers, event managers, editors and writers, and account and project managers.

About The Virtual Worlds Story Project
The Virtual Worlds Story Project (TVWSP) is a company devoted to harnessing the power of storytelling. Born of a vision shared by writer Jena Ball and Emmy-award winning producer Marty Keltz, TVWSP specializes in creating one-of-a-kind Story Quests, which take participants into and invite them to collaborate on immersive narratives in virtual realities. TVWSP is perhaps best known for the “Uncle D Story Quest,” which is designed to de-stigmatize
HIV/AIDS while educating about prevention. TVWSP sees virtual environments as more than tool/technology platforms. Its goal is to use the immersive and engaging qualities of these environments to spark imaginative thinking and learning, encourage collaboration, and build communities defined by diversity and individual creativity.

Immersive storytelling can help us to engage, entertain, and create the context for change in powerful new ways.

But how do you translate a problem into the solution of immersive story?

Startled Cat wants to help, of course. To work with you to take what might seem like intractable problems and, through story, to create experiences that can play an important part in solving them.

But we also want to hear from other storytellers. To share insights, tools, approaches – and to build a shared narrative as the craft of immersive story continues to evolve.

So? What’s YOUR story?

Then there’s the stigma associated with being HIV-positive. Fear, ignorance, and negative assumptions mean that those who are living with HIV are often judged and ostracized. As a result, many people are afraid to ask for information about prevention and treatment. Ironically, this puts them at greater risk of contracting the disease.

I learned this the hard way when I took over as Coordinator of Karuna, the island devoted to HIV/AIDS education and prevention in Second Life (SL). The mandates of the grant* that funded Karuna required that we create a resource library, employ a consumer health librarian, and offer educational workshops. I assumed, as did the authors of the grant, that this kind of resource would be welcomed and embraced by the SL community. So it came as quite a shock to discover that almost no one was interested in the resource we had created.

Fortunately, another part of my job was to collect and share the stories of those dealing with HIV/AIDS. As a writer, educator, and storyteller in my first life I knew that stories have the power to shape and change attitudes, and my experiences in SL taught me virtual reality can be compelling and engaging. Would it be possible, I wondered, to use an immersive, interactive story to allay fears, generate empathy, and debunk some of the stereotypes associated with HIV/AIDS?

The results of our efforts can be seen in the “Life and Times of Uncle D,” an immersive, 3D Story Quest that explores the life of someone who lived with HIV. Participants walk into and experience Uncle D’s life – read his journal, listen to his phone messages, watch his TV, and visit his office. They are invited to share their reactions and submit their own stories using a variety of multi-media tools. These submissions are read and incorporated into the Quest whenever possible, making it an ever evolving and collaborative endeavor that is responsive to the community it serves.

Reactions from both the Second Life and global community have been overwhelmingly positive and encouraging. Hundreds of educators from around the world have toured the Quest and brought their students through. Moreover, a variety of groups, organizations, universities doing HIV/AIDS work have expressed interest in finding ways to contribute to the Quest and other projects at Karuna, such as the 3D AIDS Quilt.

It is clear that the Story Quest model is effective not only for education, but for sparking creativity, encouraging integrative thinking, and building community. At Karuna, the Uncle D Quest has paved the way for an active, diverse and growing group of individuals and organizations that are committed to educating the global community about HIV/AIDS and eradicating it from our lives.

For more information about creating Story Quests for your organization, contact Startled Cat Studio.

To visit the Uncle D Story Quest in Second Life, use this SLURL:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Story%20Quest%20Island/128/128/2

For more information about the Quest itself, see:

1. ISTE Educators: http://archive.treet.tv/media/iste_012_27oct09_169a.mp4
2. The Life and Times of Uncle D Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKCVLwFKxYU&feature=related
3. The Life and Times of Uncle D: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-7ZzR6o9hk
4. Educators Discover the Uncle D Quest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytecGHIP39o&feature=related

^{*Karuna was funded for the first 18 months of its existence by a generous grant from the National Library of Medicine written by Lori Bell of the Alliance Library System.}

Reincarnated yet again as one of three Startled Cats there is one through line….media junkie. My father called me, “The television crazy kid.” At six years old, I sat in a comfy leather chair close enough to the TV set that I could change the channels with my toes, leaving my hands free to eat Kellogg’s Sugar Frosted Flakes by the fistful, directly from the box.

When teaching junior high school, I brought television into the classroom and taught eighth and ninth grade non-readers about drama, comedy, character, plot and setting, and to say out loud, understand the meaning of and pronounce: denouement (day-noo-mon). In his book, Teacher Man and in his classroom Frank McCourt told stories.

At Scholastic Productions, producing The Magic School Bus, Charles In Charge, Goosebumps, and The Indian In The Cupboard, under the tent of the largest children’s publishing company in the world, we told stories.

If you have read Doug Thompson/Dusan Writer’s blog posts, you know that he is a storyteller. If you have been on the Linden Prize-finalist Uncle D Story Quest, then you know that Jena Ball/Jenaia Morane is a storyteller.

Startled Cat is a production studio dedicated to telling interactive and immersive stories. We believe that virtual worlds like Second Life contain a hundred million channels of programming…communities that are also audiences, performers, writers and directors telling stories synchronously and asynchronously. In other words, “appointment viewing” in real time regardless of the time zone or geographical location. These are niche markets, communities of practice and of shared interests. Virtual world residents gather around live, living and breathing content the way Googlers congregate around stored information.

Google is the engine that guides you through a dead storage system and makes it easy to find what you want when you want it. The Second Life viewer is a “set top box,” offering much more than a mere couple of hundred cable channels. “In world” are 100,000,000 (one hundred million) networks, programs and experiences that are alive, dynamic, immersive and engaging.

Virtuality is not about widgets. It is not even about technology. It is about content and stories. People tune in, show up and come in-world for the programming – to watch, create and participate in the show; to tell their stories and listen to stories. Startled Cat Studio is in the business of producing and telling the most compelling stories of all. viagra