Createasphere’s Digital Asset Management Conference
February 22-23, 2012 | The Beverly Hilton | Los Angeles, CA

Exploring the management of digital assets, media assets, marketing resources, content & information lifecycle, and storage, security & preservation.

Take part in two days of focused sessions for professional creatives, marketers, digital librarians, IT specialists, and executives. A robust exhibition of solution providers offers the best opportunity to examine specific products and talk with industry suppliers and experts. Networking mixers and VIP events round out this must attend event covering entertainment, new media, retail, museums, non-profits, and government.

My Panel: Reducing the Digital Friction with Transmedia
Transmedia insiders are striving to break down previously impermeable silos between platforms to develop and produce high-quality experiences with cross-platform properties while still delivering a meaningful message. These panelists will discuss the challenges they face in working across departments and media partners and how they see integration further breaking down these silos.

Discount Code: Use the registration code DAM20 to get a 20% discount.

This is a long overdue post about my adventures at Wyrd Con 2 in 2011.

If any of this sounds interesting, be sure to contact Lauren Scime (lauren at witchfactory dot com) about running a LARP, organizing a workshop, or speaking on a panel at Tri Wryd this June!

I had the pleasure of slipping down to Costa Mesa, CA for part of Wyrd Con 2 on June 10th and 11th, 2011. It was my first time at a convention focused on live action role-playing (LARP), and while there was plenty of LARPing to be had, to say Wyrd Con was just an annual LARP convention is a grave disservice. Wyrd Con is much more than what you typically think of when you hear “LARP.”

In addition to a spectrum of widely varying LARPs, attendees also got to enjoy:

• panels
• workshops
• film screenings
• a dedicated space for merchandise

I was humbled to be asked to co-moderate the “Interactive Storytelling” panel with Kirsten Carthew, and I was a panelist on the “Transmedia and LARP” panel moderated by Angelique Toschi and featuring Lauren Scime, Alistair Jeffs, and Bret Shefter (all members of Transmedia L.A.).

I also checked out a few workshops on making original costume/clothing, crafting weapons for boffing combat, and even basic boffing techniques (not as sexy as it sounds but a lot more fun than you think).

The highlight for me was running the “Spirits of Kita-mura” LARP, an experience set in Runes of Gallidon (a shared world of fiction, art, and more, with its own history and mythos).

It was the first LARP I had ever designed, and my LARPing experience was (at that time) limited to traditional table-top role-playing in the form of D&D. I was nervous about a great many things.

Had I designed enjoyable/playable characters? Was the conceit of the LARP too simplistic? Had I designed the overall experience to be too complex? Would I have enough players to effect a satisfying experience for everyone? Had I crafted the short story setup and character backgrounds in a way that would encourage the best possible narrative ending?

Compounding my concerns was the fact that I purposely used Wyrd Con as a chance to try an experiment. Most LARPs are stand-alone experiences, where the story begins and ends in the LARP itself. In most cases, there are no story elements or experiences for players available before or after the LARP. This makes it somewhat easier for designers, since they are operating within concrete boundaries and are focused only on what happens within the LARP experience itself.

I wanted to see if I could have the LARP begin well before Wyrd Con and continue after the convention was over by using a persistent world setting as the backdrop for the LARP and having the story start before Wyrd Con and continue after the LARP.

So I wrote a short story set in Gallidon and published it on the Runes of Gallidon website. The story introduced some of the main characters and lead up to the opening of the LARP, attempting to make the narrative transition for players a bit more seamless.

The “Spirits of Kita-mura” LARP allowed players to collaboratively and improvisationally tell the next part of the story, which they did wonderfully. Based on the feedback, the players seemed to really enjoy themselves, which was a huge relief.

The next task is for me to take all of the content from the LARP and bring the narrative full-circle back to the Gallidon site.

This “bookend” approach proved to be the most challenging aspect to designing the LARP, as I constantly asked myself not just, “will this be fun for the players?” but also, “if I design it this way, will I be able to easily bring it back into the Gallidon world to close the narrative loop?” Indeed, it’s months later, and I still haven’t decided how to bring the story full-circle. Fictionalize the LARP (if so, how much gets included and how much “extra” story do I add)? Edit the audio and post it? Now that the LARP is behind me, I’m reconsidering some of my earlier ideas.

However, I did put together a quick video of highlights from the little bit of time I was at Wyrd Con:

And as preparation gets underway for Tri-Wyrd later this year, anyone who missed Wyrd Con 2 has another chance to check out a bunch of different LARPs, panels, and workshops, as well as meet some very cool and creative folks!

This means advertisers with Google are probably throwing money at the wrong target demographic. The result: irrelevant ads for you, wasted dollars for the advertiser. The only can’t-lose person in this mix is Google.

Curious to know if this is as bad as I think it is, I’m asking you to take literally 3 minutes or less to:

1) Visit Google to see what it thinks your age and sex are

2) Let us know via the poll below how accurate Google is

Please share this on twitter with the hashtag #GoogleDoesNotKnowMe!

And while you’re at Google’s page, you can also opt out of their cookie-enabled marketing system.

NOTE: Google stores a cookie on your machine to help it determine your profile (if you are logged into Google, it already knows who you are). Ideally, log OUT of Google before visiting the site above. And since the cookie is probably different across browsers, you might get different responses depending on which browser you use.

“I know this is meant to be the ‘Shay finds new friends and is happy in Vail’ blog that reassures all my friends in old haunts that all is good, but I’m gonna have to skip that song and dance. Something weird is happening. Or else I’ve just developed out-of-control paranoia.”

Something weird, indeed, was happening. Shay begins documenting the unsettling discoveries he makes at his new home and shares them through a series of Facebook updates, blog posts, and videos. The first video introduces Shay and his new home: his uncle’s mansion. It also contains a clue that Shay’s paranoia isn’t out-of-control.

The reaction of Shay’s friends and followers was immediate and sympathetic. They posted drawings of Shay on his Facebook page, commented on his video posts, and gave words of advice and encouragement. Many offered their own explanations regarding the strange happenings at the mansion.

In response, Shay encouraged his supporters to help him solve the mysteries of the mansion, posted drawings of their Facebook avatars on his own Facebook wall, and continued to reveal more about the unusual world in which he found himself.

While the online interactions were entirely factual, Shay was as fictional as they come: he was a character from an upcoming novel called “Nightshade” by Andrea Cremer and published by Penguin. Working with a marketing firm named Campfire, Cremer and Penguin rolled out a highly interactive, multi-platform marketing campaign to build awareness for “Nightshade,” the first of a trilogy from Cremer.

Unlike traditional marketing approaches, this campaign explicitly sought input from fans and incorporated their feedback into the experience. In a way, the audience became part of the team, working collaboratively with each other, Cremer, Penguin, and the Campfire team to discover some of the puzzles in the “Nightshade” world and learn about one of its characters in a very personal way.

“With ‘Nightshade,’ we wanted to create an interaction and dialog between the audience and the content that went beyond the confines of the book.  We gave the audience the opportunity to play with the story and to actually be a part of the story, rather than just consume it.  We wanted a more meaningful level of involvement.” – Emily Romero, VP Marketing, Penguin Young Readers Group

Additionally, the campaign was meant to guide fans through parts of the “Nightshade” world not contained in the novel. The full vision involved publishing content across multiple platforms in an integrated approach to produce an experience for fans that ultimately walked them right up to the release of “Nightshade.” To achieve this, Cremer, Penguin, and Campfire had to work incredibly closely. They also had to balance the need for coordination and planning with the need to remain flexible as they responded to fans and created content in real time over the course of the campaign.

“We didn’t have a huge budget to surround people with a variety of media so we decided the feeling of immersion into the story we wanted to create would have to come from Shay being quick to respond to people. To do that authentically you need to work closely with the author. Andrea and Brian Cain, Campfire’s creative director on Nightshade, clicked immediately, and I knew we had the right team for this kind of experience.” – Mike Monello, Partner, Campfire.

The genesis for this experience started with an idea to use alternate reality game frameworks for the campaign. This meant Shay would interact with fans in character. According to Romero, this aspect initiated with Mike Kelly from Brand Value Advisors. “[Kelly] originally conceived of the alternative reality gaming approach, and he brought us together with Campfire. Campfire conceived of the campaign and executed it. It was a great collaboration.”

Making this kind of experience work required faith and support by Penguin as well as the right kind of author. Lisa Kelly, Assistant Director of Trade Marketing at Penguin, saw Cremer as the right fit for this kind of experience:

“Andrea was completely integral to this campaign and was an enthusiastic contributor. She volunteered to write up a ‘Bible’ of the world of Nightshade, a lengthy synopsis of the story arc of her trilogy with detailed descriptions of the main players in her world. This enabled Campfire to create a fully realized character to become the face of the campaign.”

Furthermore, Cremer’s ability to write quickly, coupled with her background, made the campaign possible. As a professor of history, Cremer sees many similarities between solving mysteries and her professional field of interest. Additionally, she’s a self-described gamer girl who was raised on Dungeons & Dragons and plays World of Warcraft.

“I like interactive world-building experiences, and it was a natural step to go from loving mysteries, role-playing games, and video games to working on an alternate reality game as an author,” Cremer said. “Penguin approached me and asked if I would be willing to work with a unique marketing firm [Campfire] to create original content in real time for a campaign.”

Cremer met with Campfire to share her vision of the “Nightshade” world and its characters. Based on what she shared, Campfire proposed using Shay as the face of the campaign and suggested structuring the campaign to help fans understand what led Shay to the circumstances he found himself in at the beginning of the novel. Interestingly, Shay isn’t the central protagonist of the novel.

According to Monello, “Shay was the best character to use as the center of the prequel because he enters the story as a newcomer to the Nightshade universe, putting him at the same level of knowledge as new fans entering the experience.”

Cremer soon found herself writing content for Shay’s Facebook Wall, the weekly video series, and “Shadow Days,” the prequel for “Nightshade.” The prequel explains how Shay ended up at his uncle’s mansion, as well as includes references to people who participated in the campaign. Amazingly, Cremer wrote the prequel during the campaign. While this proved challenging at times, it also gave Cremer the ability to tightly integrate and cross-reference content across mediums and platforms. The result proved to be a success (the second novel in the trilogy, “Wolfbane,” was released in 2011, and the final installment, “Bloodrose,” was just released).

But how, exactly, did Cremer, Penguin, and Campfire create an enthusiastic community of fans weeks before the release of “Nightshade?”

Ultimately, there were several components to the campaign proposed by Campfire, the company hired to work with Cremer and Penguin on the marketing campaign. Campfire’s Mike Monello explains why certain platforms were chosen for the campaign:

“Given the intended audience of “Nightshade,” we knew we needed to be on Facebook, but Facebook is not a great platform for serialized storytelling. Shay’s blog and the webisodes were intended to make it easier to join in while the campaign was in progress and give it a long afterlife. The physical objects are something we at Campfire incorporate into almost everything we do. When our digital and physical worlds collide in surprising and unexpected ways, it creates a strong emotional connection to the story. It’s very powerful when done well, and it’s unique to transmedia storytelling.”

How did these various platforms and content mediums work together to create an immersive experience for consumers?

First, there was the social media component: Shay Doran’s Facebook page and the Shay Doran website. These platforms allowed fans to comment on Shay’s exploration of the secrets hidden in the mansion. Conversely, Shay was able to respond in real time, giving the experience a sense of extended verisimilitude. Not only did fans post their original art of Shay on his Facebook page, fans found their own Facebook avatars turned into works of art that Shay posted in return. While it’s unlikely most of the fans took Shay to be a real person, their suspension of disbelief allowed them to interact directly with a fictional character in much the same way they interact daily with their own friends and family.

Second, there was the puzzle presented to fans in the form of some mysterious books Shay found in the mansion’s library. These books had intricate designs and patterns that Shay felt held the key to understanding the unusual occurrences he encountered in the mansion. A few lucky fans received these books in the mail and, after spending some time deciphering them, posted their findings on Facebook for the rest of the fan community to see.

Third, Campfire and Cremer worked closely together to write and produce the series of blog videos for Shay Doran’s website. Cremer would write the scripts each week in order to be able to reference fan activity on Facebook (e.g., finding clues in the books, responding to particular posts, mentioning certain fans by name). This increased the sense that fans were participating in a meaningful way.

Next, fans could text Shay at a particular number, though legal restrictions prevented Shay from texting back in character. Instead, Shay would often respond to texts on his Facebook wall.

A fifth component, was the behind-the-scenes efforts by Cremer to finish “Shadow Days,” a prequel novella that incorporated some of the “Nightshade” campaign fans who were very active. Cremer wrote the novella during the campaign, so it had a live, somewhat improvisational nature. The novella was released for free just before “Nightshade” went on sale.

By the time the novel was finally available for sale, not only did fans already know about the world behind the book, they had established a connection with one of the main characters in the novel. Some even got to see themselves as a character in the novella.

How well did the marketing experience work?

As of October 1, 2011, the official “Nightshade” Facebook page had over 3,000 likes, and the series of videos posted in late 2010 garnered thousands of views (and continues to gain more). According to Cremer, she regularly hears from new fans who just discovered the videos, prequel, or blog posts from the campaign. The content created for “Nightshade” continues to act as marketing for the series, even though the campaign is no longer active [note: since my interview with Cremer last summer, the content originally created for Shay’s personal website, http://shaydoran.com, is no longer available].

Penguin, Cremer, and Campfire are all pleased with the success of the campaign, though it didn’t completely work out as hoped.

“We learned it’s hard to generate pre-orders on a debut author’s book. One of the goals we set with Campfire was to achieve a certain number of pre-orders and we did not meet that goal. Even though we had plenty of engaged fans online talking about buying the book, many of them waited till they could touch and feel the finished book in person before placing their orders.” – Erin Dempsey, Executive Director of Trade Marketing – Penguin

However, the success of “Nightshade” positioned “Wolfsbane” to perform well. Six-week sales of the second installment were 250% ahead of its predecessor, and pre-orders were dramatically higher for “Wolfsbane,” according to Dempsey.

And Cremer notes the campaign is still doing its job.

“There are people just now finding the webisodes and are desperate because they want the puzzle books. The people who received the books and helped Shay solve the mystery had an extraordinary experience.”

With the recent release of “Bloodrose,” it would appear that Penguin’s willingness to try a non-conventional approach to marketing – by inviting consumers to be part of the experience through participation and contribution – proved to be the right call. The effectiveness of the “Nightshade” campaign positioned the series for greater success.

What separates this experience from traditional marketing is the explicit nature of the invitation for fans to participate (“Please help me!” is, after all, an arresting call to action). Rather than just produce free, static content for passive consumption – think teaser trailers, art, a short story – Cremer, Penguin, and Campfire designed the experience to include open doors for fans to walk through. Once inside, fans became part of the creative team: solving puzzles, providing content which was integrated into the official campaign experience, etc. And they were rewarded for their efforts by being named and/or recognized in the “Shadow Days” prequel (i.e., a parity of value exchange, something I’ve talked about before).

Can this model be replicated by other publishers? Absolutely, but it will require finding the right mix of internal resources willing to commit to this kind of experience, an author with a willingness and ability to engage with fans online, the right team to design the campaign, and a compelling story rich enough to support a robust world.

That’s not as daunting as it sounds, and I’m hoping to see more examples of this kind of value co-creation between authors, publishers, and audiences.

“How I spent my weekend”

I spent last weekend producing a LARP experience for the Steampunk Symposium, a steampunk-themed convention held on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. My contribution ended up being a lot of narrative work and experience design, plus a minor role as an NPC (David Bainbridge of Sotheby’s).

The Queen Mary

For details of the LARP, Lauren Scime (who played one of the lead NPCs) has provided a great summary of the LARP, Angelique Toschi published a lovely collection of photos, and April Arrglington (Transmedia L.A.’s Content Curation Director) provided more coverage of the event.

This was my second time behind the design table of a LARP (the first was a Runes of Gallidon-based LARP I ran for Wyrd Con 2), and it was unique in a couple of ways.

First, it was layered on top of the Steampunk Symposium, so we tried to create intersections between our LARP and the overall theme of the convention, which was that Victoria II, Queen of Steam, was taking her annual birthday celebration cruise. I wanted to make sure anyone playing in our LARP could easily carry the story with them into other LARPs being run at the convention without disrupting the other experiences. This meant crafting our LARP and its NPCs to be coherent even when its participants stepped outside the LARP to pursue other activities (e.g., shopping at the dealer’s area, attending performances, dancing at the masquerade ball, etc.). The upside of this was that players and NPCs could also recruit new players for our NPC and do so totally in character.

For me, the coolest part of our LARP was having the Queen of Steam herself, accompanied by her entire entourage, knight two of the players in the LARP for services deemed worthy of the crown’s attention. The icing on the cake was then having one of the knighted players play “Happy Birthday” for the Queen via his musical hat (a hat with a music box that would “play” strips of hole-punched paper, much like a player piano).

Player showing Queen of Steam his musical hat

Playing "Happy Birthday" for the Queen of Steam

This kind of unplanned, serendipitous encounter is a perfect example of why LARPing can be so rewarding.That player would likely never have had the chance to play his tribute to the Queen in character (she was only available for limited times during the convention, and most of that was filled with pre-scheduled obligations), and being able to show of his creativity in character was simply a fabulous way to wrap up the LARP.

The second difference between this LARP and my Runes of Gallidon one is that this LARP spanned three days, which included three set/scheduled events plus activities for players to pursue in-between the events if they liked. Instead of trying to fill a two-hour timeslot, we had to fill multiple-hour time slots Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday, plus string them together in a way that allowed us to accordion the rollout of the story based on how fast (or slowly) players were moving through it.

Lastly, I was working with a team of creatives instead of going solo. We had a diverse group of talent to draw from, and roles were assigned based on skillset, interest, and availability: producing or procuring props, handling social media components, playing NPC characters, writing the story, designing the experience, etc. This allowed us to do some pretty cool things a one-person show could never have achieved. A bonus was that many of the team members I already knew through Transmedia L.A.: Aaron Vanek, Lauren Scime, Phil Gable, and Angelique Toschi.

As I suspected, working on this LARP was almost entirely a different experience from the Runes of Gallidon one, but it was just as rewarding.

Aside from having a blast, I learned first-hand some of the challenges (and solutions!) to designing a multi-day, multi-event experience that ran parallel and intersected with another persistent experience. I’m still getting my head around LARPs, but I’m finding them to be great sandboxes for playing with narrative, testing design ideas, and exploring the possibilities of collaborative, improvisational storytelling. And what I’m learning from LARPs is influencing my ideas about telling stories in other formats and mediums.

Stripped down, LARPs can be fairly short (less than a half-hour), they don’t require props of any kind, and you can focus just on story if you have limited time/resources. If you’re at all interested in playing with story, I highly recommend trying your hand at designing a LARP if you have the time!

before reading my response below, and be sure to check out

Carrie Young’s expanded thoughts on the topic!

Earlier this year at the StoryWorld Conference, Andrea Phillips approached me and proclaimed, “You know, I really, really, really hate the term, ‘value co-creation!’” It was not the first time a female had approached me unsolicited and delivered a scathing remark, but it was the first time anyone had directly attacked this phrase.

A phrase I’ve taken to use a lot in the last two years (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

I know Andrea and her work. I like her, and I respect her creative instincts. Hearing her trash a term I’ve embraced and promoted for two years was a bit of a shock. Bruised my ego a bit, even. Why did she hate the phrase so much?

I replied, “Well, you know, I’m really, really, really going to keep using it, but I’d love to know why you think I shouldn’t!”

We had a quick chat about our different opinions on the term but ran out of time. Then I suggested we take the conversation to the streets (and by streets, I mean the Interwebz), as I thought it would actually be a constructive experience worth sharing with others. Might even encourage other creatives to weigh in.

As I told Andrea, I’m working with the best models and vocabulary I can, and I’ve spent a long time searching for the just the right phrase and just the right words (as proof of how far I’ve come I submit the following abandoned phrases: “renewable entertainment properties,” “collaborative property model,” and “evergreen entertainment models”). I don’t claim “value co-creation” is ideal in every case, but it’s the best I’ve come across so far.

Andrea was kind enough to take up my challenge, and she wrote an eloquent, thoughtful post about her objections to the term.

I still disagree with her conclusions, but she raises valid points about the issues surrounding frameworks where fans, UGC, and money mix. In fact, I acknowledged this thorny situation in a post earlier this year at Shared Story Worlds.

So where, precisely, do we disagree?

Andrea’s post takes aim at two things. The first is the phrase, “value co-creation,” and the second is the question of whether you can allow fans to profit from their UGC without creating an unpleasant community culture.

First, the phrase.

Andrea says value co-creation “glosses over what it actually is, and worse…misleadingly implies an equitable balance of power where there is none.” She suggests either of the following as better alternatives:

• Fan-curated profit-sharing
• Creator-curated audience collaboration

I disagree that the first option accurately describes what I mean when I say “value co-creation,” as it implies fans are doing all of the curation, which is not the case. Furthermore, it explicitly includes the phrase profit-sharing, which is not a requirement for all value co-creation scenarios (some do not involve money changing hands or are non-commercial – see my post here).

I reject the second one because it’s clunky and not much more accurate. As I read it, “creator-curated audience collaboration” doesn’t explain the role the creative has, and it doesn’t differentiate whether the audience is collaborating together or with the creative. Besides, others have been using value co-creation for a while (C.K. Prahalad wrote an entire book on the topic), and it nicely conveys what I mean when I use the term. I could have called it “super awesome audience play time” and defined it how I preferred, but I thought it best to build on an existing term.

As for value co-creation implying an equitable balance of power, well, that’s Andrea’s opinion, not an objective fact.

“Co” doesn’t mean or imply “equal.” Together, jointly, mutually – yes. But it doesn’t imply equal (if it did, why would we need the word “coequal?”).

I still don’t see a compelling case to abandon “value co-creation,” though Andrea is making me aware that I maybe haven’t done a good job of defining the phrase.

Fans are perfectly capable and willing of co-creating value. They already have the power to do so, and they exercise it every day. Each fanfic story, each fan art piece on Deviantart.com, each mashup, video, etc. based on someone else’s IP *is* value co-creation, whether the intellectual property (IP) owners acknowledges it or not.

Said actions do not, however, translate to commercial rights (ever had your YouTube-hosted video remix taken down via a DMCA notice?).

I see the concept of value co-creation as recognition that fans can create things of value based on others’ IP. The shared story world model I advocate builds a bridge between fans and IP owners, with value co-creation being a cornerstone of that model. It acknowledges the critical role fans play in commercial entertainment, and it offers a non-traditional way for fans to contribute to commercial entertainment (by recognizing certain UGC as official/canonical work and/or monetarily compensating fans for their UGC).

But we can quibble over terminology ad nauseum. Vocabulary alone is rarely the final stumbling block, and it isn’t Andrea’s underlying contention.

Andrea’s post reveals her true concern to be this: introducing a framework where fans can make money from someone else’s commercial IP and where the IP owner retains full commercial control over the IP will automatically result in an “unpleasant community culture” that becomes “toxic to the fan culture overall” (the implication being this kind of culture will have a fatal effect on the success of the IP).

Andrea then offers two solutions to avoid this situation: (1) never invite fans to contribute, but if you do select UGC for inclusion, do not pay fans for it; and (2) remove the IP owner as commercial gatekeeper (essentially stripping the owner of all rights to limit others’ commercial exploitation of the IP).

I agree with Andrea that these two options would limit what she calls “a community of freelancers all doing spec work in direct competition with one another.”

I disagree with her view that value co-creation models where fans are paid for their work (i.e., commercial shared story worlds) automatically create a toxic community which will necessarily lead to the failure of the IP.

Could it happen? Sure, just ask the people behind Fanlib’s spectacular demise. It’s sooooo easy to screw over your fanbase and reap the rewards of eternal derision and mistrust. So easy.

But not inevitable.

The kind of train wreck Andrea warns about isn’t a foregone conclusion due to some inherent flaw in the value co-creation concept for commercial shared story worlds. I just haven’t seen that to be the case. In fact, with the exception of Fanlib, I haven’t seen a fractured fan community destroy a value co-creation entertainment IP (and Fanlib’s failure is arguably a result of their disrespectful and tasteless handling of their target audience).

Andrea applauds the co-creation concept but hates the idea of seeing it fail due to terminology. I fear failure, too, though I suspect it takes a very different form.

Failure of value co-creation in a shared story world model is more likely to be a result of poor execution (mediocre storytelling, bad world design, ineffective marketing, missing legal components, etc.) or inappropriate community outreach. To paraphrase Whitman, “fandom is large, fandom contains multitudes.” Creatives should, indeed, tread lightly when dealing with large multitudes.

I guess my glasses are a bit rosier than Andrea’s when it comes to value co-creation and shared story worlds. I see shared story worlds surfacing in increasing frequency over the next few years, and no single phrase or injection of money into the mix is going to stem this tide. My optimism is buoyed by new projects like Angry Robot Books’ Worldbuilder project, where fans will be compensated for their creations.

How did the fans react to this news? Well, if the comments are any indication, the fans find the concept anything but toxic.

And notice how Angry Robot doesn’t mention shared story worlds or value co-creation? They don’t label it at all, actually. Just like when a new ARG is launched, it’s not plastered or marketed as an ARG? The people playing in these spaces don’t care that the rabbit hole they fell in to is an ARG any more than fans care about whether their favorite transmedia property is explicitly marketed as a “transmedia” experience. They just want to have fun.

We can have the internal debate over value co-creation just like we’ve been having for transmedia (and hasn’t that turned out wonderfully?), but our efforts really ought to be channeled towards creating cool, fun experiences for audiences. I doubt Andrea would disagree on that point.

So, yeah, I’m damn optimistic on value co-creation and shared story worlds. Color this typing monkey very optimistic, indeed.

The culprit for my discontent?

An increasing dismissal of audience contributions (i.e., user-generated content) to commercial entertainment as unfit for inclusion in professional entertainment experiences. The most common argument I hear against including UGC in any entertainment property fail is, “UGC is awful,” which reduces the value of UGC to a single vector: the subjective metric of “quality.”

At best, this single litmus test of value confuses UGC with other forms of participation (e.g., collaborative storytelling). At worst, this narrow view summarily dismisses UGC and the other benefits its offers.

I’ve already explored why collaborative storytelling is completely different from participatory storytelling and collaborative worldbuilding, so this short post is going to focus on the issue of the quality of UGC.

Here’s the single take-away: if you’re inviting audiences to participate with the sole expectation that you’ll get professional-level, high-quality content, then you are completely misunderstanding the larger reasons and logic behind participatory entertainment (for the record, that is not the same as saying that all UGC is non-professional or poor quality).

The bigger value inherent in audience participation is the different kind of connection this kind of participation encourages. Importantly, the demographic subset of consumers most likely to create UGC based on your commercial entertainment property are (wait for it)…also the most passionate about that property.

As was mentioned recently at a Transmedia L.A. meetup by the guest speaker, “your competitor in entertainment is porn.” In other words, fans of your entertainment property have chosen to spend their finite money and time buying and consuming your media. Instead of going out to dinner. Instead of sleeping. Instead of playing with their kids. Instead of having sex.

So before you summarily dismiss UGC as having no business in your entertainment business, I would suggest you turn the situation around and ask yourself why you’re ignoring your biggest fans. Why you aren’t actively finding ways for them to connect with you. Why you can’t see the value in inviting them to share a story, build a world, and have a conversation with you.

Now if your answer is, “because I don’t want to,” then great. That’s an honest answer – a good answer – and I have no issues with that at all. The one objection I can’t and won’t accept is, “UGC sucks,” because it misses the true value audience participation offers.

I’m thrilled to be working with some heavy-hitting LARP veterans like Aaron Vanek and Raymond Lavoie (especially as Raymond did an amazing job playing a key character in the Runes of Gallidon LARP I ran at Wyrd Con2 earlier this year!). Even better, a couple of Transmedia L.A. members are also on the team, Angelique Toschi and Lauren Scime.

The convention should be an awesome time to begin with, but running the LARP is going to add a new dimension of fun. I can’t give away too many details just yet, but our vision is to layer our LARP onto the the ongoing experience of the larger convention (which has its own theme/narrative). Often LARPs are run in isolation and for a few hours at most. Ours will span much of the convention and intersect with it at various points.

There’s less than 2 weeks left to register, so if you’re interested, be sure to sign up now!

Still, the exercise of bringing together some of the things I’ve discussed in isolation about SSWs was extremely helpful, and I was humbled by the reaction of the audience and the great questions they posed. If I can make the time, perhaps I’ll do what a few of them suggested and write a book…!

In addition to the presentation, I handed out copies of the design questions to help people follow along and perhaps even make notes. Below is the presentation and a link to download the .pdf of design questions.

StoryWorld brought together some of the leading global practitioners in transmedia storytelling and experience design, as well as provided the backdrop for an informal “meetup of transmedia meetups” from around the world. I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference!