Digital intelligence is the future of work and why storytelling is more important that ever in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. – Albert Einstein
The ability to not only collect but to analyze, visualize and weave information together into a compelling story is a powerful skill in today’s information age. This is especially true when displayed and shared on online platforms.
It cannot be overstated how important the ability to clearly and effectively communicate has become. Breaking though the noise of this internet, social media, instant access age is an ever growing and highly prized grouping of skillsets.
But what does this have to do with the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the future of work?
We will get to that.
Digital storytelling
What is digital storytelling?
Digital storytelling is a combination of digital literacy and digital communication. Digital literacy being the ability to find, evaluate, utilize, share and create content as well as competency in computational thinking, while digital communication is the ability to communicate and collaborate with others using digital technologies and media.
Digital Intelligence
Digital storytelling is a demonstration of the emerging field of digital intelligence (DQ) which is defined by the DQ Institute as “the set of social, emotional and cognitive abilities that enable individuals to face the challenges and adapt to the demands of digital life.” DQ is a combination of eight interconnected areas:
- Digital identity
- Digital use
- Digital safety
- Digital security
- Digital emotional intelligence
- Digital communication
- Digital literacy
- Digital rights
These are essential skills in of themselves but are also fundamental to further skills development for the workforce of the future.
Rising above the noise
There are a variety of digital storytelling technologies out there, however, they are all designed to make it easy for you to harness the power of the digital medium to tell YOUR story.
Digital storytelling is therefore a simple yet powerful way to inform, engage, and inspire people in the electronic and information age we live in. Digital storytelling can be made for a wide variety of subjects and is multidisciplinary.
Digital storytelling is therefore a simple yet powerful way to inform, engage, and inspire people in the electronic and information age we live in. Click To TweetDigital storytelling is an emerging area of great prominence in media outlets, governments, in business, etc. Therefore, individuals or organizations that develop this skill set have the ability to distinguish themselves by being able to tell their stories in visually compelling ways.
There are several, free and paid, internet-based applications that let authors combine beautiful visualizations with narrative text, images, videos and social media. The applications are designed to be attractive and usable by anyone, which makes them great for education and outreach, either to the general public or to a specific audience.
8 Digital Storytelling Tools
Here is a list of eight digital storytelling tools that I have used or have had my students use and gotten awesome results and so can you:
- TimelineJS: “is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines.”
- StoryMapJS: “is a free tool to help you tell stories on the web that highlight the locations of a series of events.”
- Apester: “is leading the paradigm shift in digital content, from the text-based web to the post-text, visual-first internet, by offering anyone with a story the most advanced tools for creating, distributing and monetizing visual, interactive content online.”
- Powtoon: “is the world’s leading, most user-friendly and most intuitive animation software.”
- Mobincube: “is a website where ordinary people, just like you, can create compelling mobile Apps without the need of having any idea about software development.”
- Story Maps – ArcGIS: “let you combine authoritative maps with narrative text, images, and multimedia content. They make it easy to harness the power of maps and geography to tell your story.”
- Adobe Spark (Page): “is a free online and mobile graphic design app. Use Page to create a story using text, images, and video. When you’re done we’ll present your story as a responsive web page that can be viewed in any web browser.
- Infogram: “is a data visualization company that helps people create charts, infographics, maps and reports”
