Thursday 9 March 2006

Experience

In terms of how experience is being told, I talked about "first person", "second person" and "third person" experiences. During the process of experiencing an event, you are in "first person" mode. Later you tell your story and your audience can feel your experience in second hand, as "second person" experience. Most of the cases, we tell stories about experience we have not lived through. That's third person experience to the audience.

from Antenna:

All experiences can be measured along three scales: Social, Intellectual, and Visceral (or Heart, Head, and Hands if you want something catchy). For example:

Reading a book:
Social: low (unless read out loud)
Visceral: low
Intellectual: high


I were not in New York on 9/11 when the two planes crashed onto the towers. I have been exposed to many second and third person experiences on that event through the media. I can now imagine what would it be if *I* were at that place at that particular moment. In order to do that I will fill in many missing details by my imagination. If I were a painter, I might be able to paint about that scene.

During the painting process, or the imaginative journey through the event, I would be experiencing something else. It is an exercise of imagination and creativity. It is an exercise of trying to feel as if I were there. It is a solo creative experience. Again, this is a first person experience. According to the scale from Antenna, it might rate like this:
Social: low
Visceral: high
Intellectual: high

My audience looking at my painting would go through a third person experience, "feeling" as told by my painting. A significant and powerful event such as 9/11 definitely projects a powerful experience to the audience, if I were a good painter.

Many painters and story teller also excel in identifying common events/experiences and convey the story in a particular way which projects great impact on the audience too and generates great retention.

From a practical angle, if we want to give scale to experiences, I think we should add another scale which indicates the impact of the experience in the subsequent outlook of the person. We want through many experience daily. The great impact experience will be memorable and life-changing.

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