Every month at Echo, we come up with what we’ve loved and shared this month. This month it was as high-tech as Snapchat and as lo-fi as the great outdoors. Here’s what we loved this August…
…stumbling across brilliant Instagram storytelling.
Zoe Sees is a Vancouver-based lawyer (who does all her artwork in her spare time). Her autobiographical Instagram feed is visual storytelling at its finest.
…getting schooled on NPR storytelling through a Snapchat story.
The folks at NPR are incredible storytellers, so a peek behind the curtain at how a story comes together is always a draw. Particularly intriguing to us was their choice of medium: Snapchat, a mobile app that lets users send pics and videos designed to self-destruct after a few seconds. Great insight into how Snapchat might be used by brands.
…being reminded to work less.
In the wake of a recent story published in the New York Times about working conditions at Amazon, the subject of work – and how much of it we do – is top of mind. This New Yorker article’s title sums up a good number of the stories we’ve heard at dinner parties and around the water cooler: You Really Don’t Need to Work So Much. Will the stories, we wonder, prompt change?
…remembering that a love of the outdoors needs to be passed on to the next generation.
Natural foods company Nature Valley has released a video asking parents and grandparents to recall the joy they found in playing outside as young children – and then asking the same question of their youngest generation. Each of the kids names video games, Youtube and texting as their main sources of joy and relaxation. It’s a powerful call to put down the smartphone and get outside with our families.
…enjoying the story of how one person can change the world.
We’ve found Jonas Jonasson’s The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden to be one engrossing summer read.
…learning about the great tech story of the ballpoint pen.
Before the computer came along, the ballpoint pen marked a giant step forward in writing technology (hilarious as that is to remember). This article in the Atlantic recalls how introducing the ballpoint changed writing forever, and invites us to consider how typing is changing our writing style.
…celebrating the book bin.
In late August, the city of Indianapolis elevated book bins to a new level with The Public Collection. The two-year project – part public art, part literacy activism – asked nine local artists to design fresh takes on free libraries that whimsically deliver an ever-cycling collection of books curated by the Indianapolis Public Library. (So it’s not just Len Deighton novels and slow-cooker recipe books.) The network of interactive dispensers is a welcome evolution of the Little Free Library concept, which set up book kiosks in cities around the world. May this innovative program inspire jurisdictions around the world to share books with the glee they deserve!
Photo credit for The Public Collection: Cool Books, Food for Thought by Tom Torluemke at the Indianapolis Museum of Art
