As you will be coming to realise, these updates aren’t a sophisticated exercise in Content Marketing, but rather they are my Working Out Loud as I trace the steps to releasing the product next year.
Working Out Loud is one of the 13 Play Skills that are explored in the cards, and it’s been an increasingly important part of my own working practice over the last 15 years or so. The way I think about it is that WOL is talking about what you are doing whilst you are doing it, to radiate your intent and also to seek feedback and support from those around you. When you are working solo, it’s even more important.
On the physical production side, there’s been no significant progress since I last wrote to you. The cards’ designer Ellie is currently finishing up her current work, and so hopefully will have time and headspace for this project later next month.
However, I’m now starting to plan for what sits alongside the cards – online resources to help users of the cards to understand the underlying model, and how to use the cards themselves.
It’s giving me an opportunity to play with another set of cards – Steve Rawling’s Storyteller Tactics. They provide a series of techniques and recipes to drive better storytelling, and there are two key recipes I’m going to be using to write the scripts for explainer videos.
I’m going to produce short motivation-focused stories to sell the overall concept of the cards and the Play Skills model, and then explainer stories to drill down into the details of each of the cards and why the activities on them have come into existence.
It’s making me reflect on the dozens of conversations that I have had in the last eight years that have been the inspiration for the model. From conversations backstage at The Comedy Store with Neil Mullarkey about the nature of improvisation to the chat with an HR leader in the Civil Service whose words “We don’t have time for the luxury of play” have stayed as an inspiration for provocation ever since.
I’m also starting to embrace the sense of imposter as I plan for these short films. Video is a medium that I don’t really understand in the way in which I do audio. I’m going to revisit some of Marcus Brown’s wonderful work in the last few years to help me define a style and setting for how the videos will work.
That’s it for now. Next time there will be updates on the progress of both the videos and the cards. Sign up here if you’d like these updates in your inbox.
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