• The Gathering of the Tribes – Interactivists Meet Up

Virtual relationships are rarely enough to propel a movement upwards, even in this era of highly engaged social networking. Face time is better.

Which is why I’m kind of jazzed about the pace of live events that will bring together leading multi-platform storytellers, the so-called “transmedia” movement.

So, get ready for a deep dive into the transmedia storytelling communities as I participate and then think about two upcoming events, DIY Days and Story World.

DIY Days is the brainchild of Lance Weiler, and has been around for a few years. Twice a year he gathers like-minded folk from content and tech communities with a decidedly grassroots bent, this edition on the campus of UCLA. 

Several hackathons are underway right now that focus upon actually building projects that have been in planning for months, leading up to a series of presentations, case studies, and demos on Friday. Check out the schedule. Friday night will also include a party for the wonderful DIY indie film book, Selling Your Film without Selling Your Soul, which I wrote about in September. 

Story World is a new conference next week in San Fransisco from FW Media, a publishing enterprise that has run the Digital Book World event. The company tapped Alison Norrington as program chair, who’s done a bang-up job of assembling a line-up of presenters in virtually every category of cross-media production and strategy. This thing has the feel of a "summit" without the hubris of calling itself that.

I’ll be thrilled to hang with the many folks I already know at these two events, more more interested in diving into new work I haven’t yet experienced, and understanding the creative minds behind this revolution in storytelling. (Like these projects, added just yesterday to the Story World line-up of presentations.)

I've already interviewed Alison, and will learn much more on site at both events. So: watch this space (and a few other websites) for my analysis of what these events hold for the future of storytelling.