GEOPOLITICAL & SOCIAL GOOD

Starlight Runner Entertainment has created a new communications methodology called Transmedia Population Activation, which has been shown to successfully leverage social media and any number of media platforms to generate compelling messaging. This narrative-based approach is designed and built within an interactive structure, educating and promoting dialog, even as it reflects the stories, aspirations and concerns of the people it is engaging.

Designed and implemented in concert with targeted social services, these activations are capable of inspiring people, calling them to take action, and empowering them to affect change. This model has now been tested several times in regions around the world, and the empirical results have been striking.

World Vision Canada: Narrative Innovation

World Vision Canada: Narrative Innovation (2017)

Goal: As dramatic changes in the sociopolitical climate have made Canadians suspicious of charities, even as they become more secular in their giving, a new narrative approach must be devised to engage millions of potential donors.

Background: World Vision Canada engaged Starlight Runner to analyze, assess, and innovate all aspects of the organization’s communications in order to address the many new challenges of multiplatform media, the hazards and potential of social media, and the sensibilities of savvy and suspicious millennial donors and their college age children. Also examined would be tools such as World Vision’s Child Sponsorship model, and the organization’s relationship with Christians and the organized church.

Results: World Vision Canada is now implementing an entirely new narrative approach—equally engaging and unifying donors, the organization itself, and those being helped overseas—leveraging Starlight Runner’s transmedia techniques and Collective Journey narrative toolset.

Curtin University: First Year Student Experience

First-Year Student Experience: A Narrative-Based Solution — Curtin University, Perth, Australia (2016)

Goal: To address the crisis of Indigenous and low-income students’ inability to complete their higher learning and participate as successful equals in Australian society.

Background: Student retention in higher learning for Low Socio-Economic Status, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and Regional and Remote backgrounds has dwindled to crisis proportions across Australia. Curtin University has engaged Starlight Runner to study the problem and use transmedia population activation techniques to improve the student experience and promote retention of thousands of students in this cohort through their critical first year, dramatically increasing their chances to graduate.

Results: Pilot is now in progress, impacting thousands of students in Western Australia.

Student takes bite out of the Big Apple with media opportunity
http://news.curtin.edu.au/media-releases/student-takes-bite-out-of-the-big-apple-with-media-opportunity/

Colombia Youth Crisis: A Narrative-Based Solution

Colombia Youth Crisis — Bogota, Colombia (2014 – Present)

Goal: To activate the nation’s population of young adults to take on a spirit of entrepreneurialism, rebuilding Colombia and making it competitive with the rest of the world in the wake of violent and destructive decades-long civil unrest.

Results: Endorsement by President Juan Manuel Santos; consultation on the Colombian government’s peace process toward the signing of the FARC Peace Treaty; Activating National Youth Leadership & Entrepreneurship: A Transmedia Strategy (iNNpulsa); Heroes Festival promoting education, innovation, science & technology, and entrepreneurialism; full transmedia implementation under way.

Heroes Fest: Jeff Gomez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfhGbeQ3KOA&t=1763s

In My Lifetime: Nuclear Proliferation Project

In My Lifetime: Nuclear Proliferation Project (2012 – 2014)

Goal: To engage the world’s youth in a dialog over the necessity of continued reduction of nuclear warhead stockpiles amongst the world’s super powers.

Results: In My Lifetime documentary film; The Nuclear World Project multi-platform implementation; college tour; alliance with United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs; web portal; organization clearinghouse.

The Nuclear World Project
http://www.thenuclearworld.org/

Aspen Institute: Forum on Communications & Society

The Aspen Institute: Forum on Communications & Society (2012)

Goal: Understanding technological problems and solutions for Transparency, Efficiency, and Participation in the Government.

Results: Road to Government 2.0

Mexico Crisis: A Narrative-Based Solution

Mexico Crisis — Monterrey, Mexico (2010 – 2014)

Goal: To inspire local populations to reconnect with aspirational values and to empower citizens toward the tipping point of embracing lawfulness and fully rejecting the crime and corruption that has dragged their nation into a morass of violence and apathy.

Results: Employing a Narrative-Based Strategy: A Concept for Mexico (USSOCOM); Historias Vivas de Monterrey (FEMSA); Hagamos Lo Bien (FEMSA); narrative formats for television and mobile.

Grappling with the Collective Journey
https://simonstaffans.com/2017/01/23/grappling-with-the-collective-journey/