Why Multimedia Storytelling Matters

Regular readers of this blog know I've been totally sold on the just launched social entrepreneurship incubator program the Unreasonable Institute for a long time. Still, the first edition of their "Unreasonable Series" Reality TV-style program shows how much power well-produced multimedia story telling has to grab new audiences and deepen bonds with the old.

For those who haven't read about it, the Unreasonable Institute is a 10-week summer program in Boulder, CO in which 25 social entrepreneurs, each with a project that aims to impact a million lives or more, spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week living with and earning from one another, as well as from a host of mentors across change disciplines. The group will allocate amongst themselves $150,000 in seed funding from First Light Ventures, and regularly pitch outside investors for more.

Unreasonable.tv is the just-launched media portal for the program, and so far includes elevator pitches, mini interviews with the entrepreneurs, and most importantly, the Unreasonable Series program.

The program is a ten minute look into what is happening during that week, with the first episode focused on the build up to the program and the arrival of the fellows. It's meant to give the viewers an insight not only into what the program is like, but how this generation of entrepreneurs -- who come from literally every corner of the earth at Unreasonable -- understands themselves and their role in the world.

I thought the first episode was brilliant. In a space where the media that is exhaled veers on the one hand towards patronizing and dehumanizing for the sake of the guilt trip buck, to, on the other, arrogant and self-infatuated, I thought that this episode did a great job of introducing the Unreasonable entrepreneurs as what they are: a bunch of deep-hearted, wicked smart kids who have committed themselves to working to change the world and are now in the thick of figuring out how to do it.

It works so well because...here's a secret: no one has complete mastery in the field of trying to make the world a better place. To greater or lesser extent, every single one of us is learning, trying, and experimenting to make things work. That doesn't mean there aren't incredibly accomplished experts who are doing amazing things, but simply that we are all ultimately in a state of perpetual learning.

Although the TV era is rapidly changing, I think that we're at the beginning of something of a renaissance for video media like this. Unreasonable isn't the first incubator to do the reality TV thing; their Boulder buddies TechStars has a show called "The Founders" which is equally worth your time. Even more, we're seeing tons of Internet TV spring up, aggregators like Clicker that make it easier than ever to discover that content, and the rapid emergence of not only HD video cameras on our phones, but video editing tools built right in.

Ultimately, these are simply tools to tell the stories that matter. I'm glad to see Unreasonable continue to add personality to our field like this, and I'll definitely be thing the rest of the episodes.

Photo credit: Unreasonable Institute

Episode 1 of Unreasonable TV - Unreasonable Beginnings from Unreasonable Institute on Vimeo.