Читать книгу Seamless - Sorman-Nilsson Anders - Страница 10

After setting out on what has become a three-year quest to explore the idea of seamlessness, and in my sense-making efforts and reflections on the trials and tribulations of guiding digital adaptation and human transformation in an age of digital disruption, I began to see certain patterns. Phases began to emerge. Shapes started taking shape. And structures started to surface. My journey started to echo the adventures, space odysseys and myths that I had grown up with. In my odyssey as a futurephile to expand minds and inspire a change of heart, I could see analogues with the mythical greats of my childhood. I saw how the heroes and mentors of my youth – Luke Skywalker, Yoda, Han Solo, Frodo, Gandalf, Willow, Madmartigan, Raziel – had all set out on similar adventures into the future. And the phases of my journey started looking eerily similar.

As early as the 1940s, Joseph Campbell codified the structure – the monomyth – of some of the great tales of human imagination, religion and myth. Later on this structure became known as Joseph Campbell's ‘hero's journey'. The Wizard of Oz, Frozen, Cinderella, Finding Nemo, Harry Potter, Moby Dick, and Catcher in the Rye are all tales that follow this structure of the hero's journey – that is, of adaptation and transformation, moving between the ordinary worlds of status quo and special, or extraordinary, worlds of future possibilities.

The twelve steps identified by Campbell that form the hero's journey consist of inner journeys and outer journeys (which lead to character transformation), and switches between ordinary worlds and extraordinary worlds. As laid out by website Movie Outline (in the article ‘The Hero's Journey – Mythic Structure of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth') the twelve steps of the inner and outer journeys are as follows:

1. Inner: ordinary world, status quo; outer: limited awareness of a problem.

2. Inner: call to adventure; outer: increased awareness.

3. Inner: refusal of the call; outer: reluctance to change.

4. Inner: meeting with the mentor; outer: overcoming reluctance.

5. Inner: crossing the threshold; outer: committing to change.

6. Inner: tests, allies and enemies; outer: experimenting with first change.

7. Inner: approach the inmost cave; outer: preparing for a big change.

8. Inner: ordeal; outer: attempting a big change.

9. Inner: reward (seizing the sword); outer: consequences of the attempt (improvements and setbacks).

10. Inner: road back; outer: rededication to change.

11. Inner: resurrection; outer: final attempt at big change.

12 Inner: return with the elixir; outer: final mastery of the problem.

This cycle is also shown in figure I.1.

Figure I.1 : the Hero's journey is a 12-step continuing cycle

Now, while I haven't literally had to fight off Death Stars, partner up with Wookies and slay garbage snakes in my quest for seamlessness, I have witnessed how change, transformation and adaptation follow similar patterns, challenges and rhythms, exhibiting similar cadences to the hero's journeys I was glued to as a child. Again, I realised the quest I was on, and the quest I was hoping to inspire others to embark on, was the seamless journey between the ordinary – in this case, analogue – world and special, extraordinary – digital – worlds. Just please don't assume that I was the hero in the story that you are about to immerse yourself in. (More on this later.)

As a futurist and strategist, I get to invite people into something that isn't yet; to ask the question, ‘What if?', and to imagine distant adventures and metamorphosis. ‘What is' gets contrasted with ‘what could be'. And I encourage the people I meet to embark on their own hero's journeys and odysseys into the unknown, just like I have been doing over the last few years. Perhaps not surprisingly, given Digilogue was partly inspired by the enduring human love for analogue watches and horology, this book maps the structure of the hero's journey onto an analogue clock face, using the twelve steps to explore the journey to the destination of the planet of ‘Seamlessness', moving from 1 o'clock to midnight (at which stage I hope this book doesn't turn into a Cinderellan pumpkin). We will also see, however, that digital adaptation and human transformation cannot be truncated quite as neatly as a two-hour Hollywood epic, and that moments of friction can derail adventures, even for some of my biggest heroes. And we will explore the uncertainties of what might happen in situations where the journey takes you off-path and where ‘good' doesn't necessarily destroy ‘evil'. The inherent tension and friction of making each paradigm shift will also be discussed and highlighted, with the ambition that you will be able to curate your own hero's journey away from this friction and toward seamlessness – that magical place where successful leaders and brands of the future reside.

To concretise this methodology of the hero's journey, let's take an executive summary look at how it played out for Frodo in the Lord of the Rings movies:

1. Ordinary world: Frodo and his best friend, Sam, and his two cousins Merry and Pippin live happily in a small village in the Shire.

2. Call to adventure: Gandalf calls upon Frodo to set out on a quest to destroy ‘the one ring to rule them all'.

3. Refusal of the call: Frodo is initially reluctant to leave his cosy life in the Shire, but changes his mind when he realises that his and his friends' lives will always be at risk as long as the ring exists.

4. Meeting with the mentor: Frodo meets again with Gandalf and then with the rest of the Fellowship, a group of trusted allies of Gandalf's who have sworn to help Frodo in his odyssey to destroy the ring. The Fellowship consists of Frodo's hobbit companions; two men, Aragorn and Boromir; Gandalf; the dwarf Gimli; and the elf Legolas.

5. Crossing the threshold: With the aid of the Fellowship, Frodo begins his quest – his long journey to the volcano Mount Doom, the only place where the ring can be destroyed.

6. Tests, allies and enemies: Frodo encounters many obstacles, allies and enemies on his odyssey. He journeys over the mountain pass, barely escapes the wrath of Balrog, becomes allies with the elves, is almost captured by the forces of Saruman, is attacked by Gollum and nearly eaten by a carnivorous spider (Shelob).

7. Approach the inmost cave: As he moves through stage 6, Frodo also has to separate from the Fellowship, alone with Sam, to continue his long journey to the fires of Mount Doom. The Fellowship meanwhile cannot continue with Frodo, because they must help defeat the forces of Sauron that are growing more powerful with each passing day. Frodo and Sam use Gollum as a guide to travel the secret back paths to reach the entrance of Mount Doom.

8. Ordeal: Frodo must achieve his goal of reaching Mount Doom to destroy the ring, while the Fellowship and its allies must defeat Sauron's forces contemporaneously.

9. Reward (seizing the sword): Frodo destroys the ring in Mount Doom, while the Fellowship and its allies overcome the forces of Sauron.

10. The road back: Frodo falls unconscious from exhaustion and Sam and Frodo are rescued by Gandalf and his eagles.

11. Resurrection: Several weeks after losing consciousness Frodo awakens in time to witness Aragon's marriage to his long-time love Arwen, and Aragon's ascent to the throne. Simultaneously all the members of the Fellowship (with exception of Gandalf) are knighted by Aragon.

12. Return with the elixir: Frodo returns to the Shire enervated by his epic journey and the Fellowship of the Ring (and eventually, Frodo journeys to the Undying Lands to live peacefully for the rest of eternity).

Sorry if I ruined the ending for you. However, even if you now know the structure behind this epic, and feel like you have just seen the process behind the magician JRR Tolkien's tricks, these tricks are hardly his alone. This type of mythical structure is deeply embedded and in rapport with our subconscious souls, and has always been part and parcel of that most fundamental of human skills – the art of storytelling. Indeed, throughout this book, I use the hero's journey contained within another epic – Star Wars IV: A New Hope — to more fully illustrate this type of narrative arc, and the similarities contained within the story arc of my own, closer to home, hero. Through this journey, you will learn how to design and guide your partners, clients and collaborators in quests that lead to true adaptation and transformation.

For as long as stories have been told, the most engaging and connected of human stories are those of transformation, change and adaptation – which is perhaps why I, as a futurist and science fiction geek, was so strongly drawn to support my hero on their transformational journey, so that they could one day return home with the elixir to their business problems. (And good story also holds something back. We'll get to this hero in chapter 1.)

The narrative arc that I have just described stands in stark contrast to the idea of seamlessness. If you think of Frodo's journey, for example, nothing about it was seamless. Rather, the whole experience was filled with seams, friction, obstacles and paradigm shifts. Moving from one stage to another was neither easy nor without interruptions or problems, and Frodo and his fellowship didn't perform perfectly and certainly not without any flaws or errors. Few of us do. However a dream, a destination, a vision, a strategy was always part of these epic journeys. And, at the end, there was a sense of relief, of calm, of a beautiful life, of peace, of perfection.

So I want to uphold ‘seamless' as a kind of ‘end of the rainbow' state – a utopia, Holy Grail, and paradisiacal, mythical place. It is a special world that we can all imagine. Because it is brands, leaders and organisations that are able to design journeys – customer journeys, talent quests, change projects and transformational odysseys – empathetically and in such a way as to guide their stakeholders from a status quo of living an ordinary, boring life in the Shire, through a special world of dragons, demons and disruptions, to return fully transformed, that will excel in our near-horizon future.

The hero's journey is one of both inner and outer transformation, and of movement between ordinary worlds and special worlds. And again, the transitions between inner and outer transformation, and between different worlds, can be either frictive or seamless (see figure I.2).

Figure I.2 : the journey between what is (the status quo) and what could be

And this moves us to the second of Arthur C Clarke's laws – that ‘The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible'. This book is designed to take you into the magical world that is the future – of current im-possibilities. Please let me co-design an extraordinary one with you. And as I say to my clients and friends, you better start preparing for the future today, because it is where you will spend the rest of your life.

With this in mind, fellow futurephile hero, join me on a space odyssey, sign-posted by the following twelve steps, equally the chapters in this book:

1. Ordinary world/status quo

2. Call to adventure

3. Refusal of the call

4. Meeting with the mentor

5. Crossing the threshold

6. Tests, allies and enemies

7. Approaching the inmost cave

8. Ordeal

9. Reward (seizing the sword)

10. Road back

11. Resurrection

12. Return with the elixir