Episode Transcript

Charlie Melcher:

Hi, I'm Charlie Melcher, founder and director of the Future of StoryTelling. And I'm delighted to welcome you to the FoST podcast. How can companies be a force for change through their use of storytelling and technology? This is the question that motivates our guest today, Cristina Jones, the chief engagement officer at Salesforce.org. She started her career 20th Century Fox, where she spent 15 years holding senior roles in the areas of marketing, technology, and franchise distribution. She helped to fundamentally shift the way the company thinks about engaging with their audience online.

Charlie Melcher:

For the past four years at Salesforce and Salesforce.org, Cristina has been focused on elevating the voices and stories of their customers that are working to make positive change in the world. She's launched many successful projects, such as Salesforce's Leading through Change video series with weekly episodes reaching millions of viewers, Inheritance, a journalism project about Black history in partnership with the Atlantic, the Force Multiplier podcast, hosted by Baratunde Thurston, a past FoST presenter, and most recently a partnership with journalist Soledad O'Brien on the unspoken effects of climate change.

Charlie Melcher:

In 2020, Cristina was named to the Ebony Power 100 and was featured in the World Woman Foundation's hashtag She's my Hero campaign. More recently, she won the 2022 Power of Voice award from Girls Leadership. Please join me in extending a warm welcome to Cristina Jones.

Charlie Melcher:

Cristina Jones, welcome to the Future of StoryTelling podcast. Such an honor to have you here.

Cristina Jones:

Thank you for having me. It's one of my favorite topics to talk about.

Charlie Melcher:

So tell me, when did you first discover the power of stories?

Cristina Jones:

When I was younger, my parents traveled a lot. We moved overseas when I was very young, and I'm an only child. So I spent a lot of time with books and really found escape in story world. And I've been a fan ever since. My first real job was in media at Warner Bros., and the rest of my career pretty much, until I joined Salesforce four years ago, has been in media and entertainment. I love creating story worlds for other people to find joy in as well.

Charlie Melcher:

And when did you start to really think of yourself as a storyteller?

Cristina Jones:

I think it was probably when I launched the franchise development department, and we started needing to be able to tell story extensions of these story worlds in partnership with the creators. And if you're familiar with franchises, super fans are not to be messed with. So we needed to be very intentional in working with the content creators to create stories that honor the canon and also the fans.

Cristina Jones:

And that's when I got passionate about fandoms as well. I've always been a people watcher. I'm a trend tracker, if you will. But if you take a second to pay attention to the people who love these worlds, they would tell you what they wanted to see next. And being able to deliver that gave me so much joy, not just for the story, the real film producers and directors and writers, but also for me from my seat, to be able to create extensions so that they could immerse themselves further in the story was really satisfying.

Charlie Melcher:

So let's geek out on this for a minute because I really love doing that too. And we've been very honored over the years to get to work with creators of great shows. Recently, I'm thinking of the Duffer brothers, for example, with Stranger Things.

Cristina Jones:

Love Stranger Things.

Charlie Melcher:

Me too. And so we made this book with them that was as if it had come from the world of the show, and by holding and reading this book, it was like you were... It was almost a portal into that world. And I think so many people get that wrong, the whole world extensions, where they think of it almost more like licensing, where they're taking something out as opposed to really, authentically extending the experience of those characters and that whole world. And anyway, so I'm just curious about how you approached that and what was success for you, when you knew you had done it right.

Cristina Jones:

I think that the best stories in the franchise space are done in partnership with the people who first envisioned the story canon, if you will. I had the pleasure of working with Shawn Levy on Night at the Museum. And one of my first early lessons was with Chuck Saftler. He was head of programming for FX. Night at the Museum I think three was coming out, FX will run movie marathons. And he said something that was really profound that I think people don't think about. I think that content creators sometimes can get so excited about what they want to make, what they think is cool, that they forget that they're making it for an audience. He reminded me that the people who will watch films with commercials in them are super fans. And he said, "Honor them and tell the stories that they want to hear."

Cristina Jones:

And Shawn was incredible. He gave me a full day. We built out a set, and we filmed all of this interstitial programming that ran in between the franchises, the films, and it received massive engagement because we told stories that people didn't know, talked about characters, really what was inside Shawn's head. And that was very rewarding.

Cristina Jones:

And the other one, sometimes when you're working with content creators, there's not enough time for everything to be told in a film. And Wes Ball wanted to tell a different story of Maze Runner than what was being marketed. He believed it was like Hunger Games meets Lord of the Flies, but we believed in marketing it was YA film more. And so, but how could we really pay homage to the fans of Maze Runner? Well, we did it by partnering with Boom Comics, and we did the prequel of Maze Runner, which was exactly how did they really end up here? What started it? That prequel, which was only available for fans at Comic-Con, was in such demand that we then put it in the DVD, and then we made extra chapters, and then Boom Comics came back and turned it into a graphic novel. And the reason I've giving you this long story is because story is expansive, but you need to be intentional in the way that you tell it and honor the canon it comes from. I think people get upset when you make a hard left and they're disoriented.

Charlie Melcher:

But I also just love that you're raising that you have to honor what the fans want, that yes in a way, the extension of that world is a co-creation.

Cristina Jones:

1000%.

Charlie Melcher:

Yeah. That you're doing with them. And when you do this right, you're building a closer intimacy and connection with them and trust.

Cristina Jones:

Exactly. You build trust, and you can do cool things. There's a lot of different ways that you can engage with fandoms intentionally, without spoon feeding and making assumptions that they maybe don't understand the story as well as you do. That would be a huge mistake.

Charlie Melcher:

Now you got your bonafides as a storyteller there. Now how about your introduction to technology? Where did you start to acquire those skills?

Cristina Jones:

Well, once I was in the franchise space, I was at 20th Century Fox, and we were not Disney then. We did not have the game, the theme parks. We didn't have the robust consumer products, and we did not have a lot of the animated series or TV series extensions back then. So where were our fans in the interim, in between the film and the DVD release and then the release on cable and then broadcast TV? Well, they were in the digital space and social.

Cristina Jones:

This meant that we had to have a... Really reimagine how to engage with our fans in the in between time. Facebook, we would use it to spam people. I think Ice Age had 11 million followers, but we would be promoting whatever it was that we wanted to. And for 11 million followers, that page had very low engagement. But when we took a step back and looked at who was actually in the page, we understood that the people who were lovers of Ice Age were of an age that they were also lovers of Lord of the Rings. And when we posted something simply... I'm a fan of organic reach, and we posted Scrat holding his acorn. And it just said, "My precious," and it got 100,000 likes in 24 hours.

Charlie Melcher:

So smart.

Cristina Jones:

Right? There's just an audience there. Honor your audience. Anyway, I ended up continuing to go down my path in technology. But while I was doing that, I started hearing a little murmur. People were starting to really talk about AI, but also talking about the fact that there was no diversity in the people who were building these smart systems of the future, which gave me pause. And so I started wondering, well, how do we change that? How can we start having conversations that create a more equitable path for people to see themselves in technology? And they recruited me to join Salesforce. And I don't like when people say humanize technology, because technology is what technology does, but rather to humanize the conversation around technology so people could see themselves in the solution, assisted by technology, as opposed to erased by technology.

Charlie Melcher:

We use this word technology, but that means so many things. Or nothing.

Cristina Jones:

Yes. Correct.

Charlie Melcher:

What I hear you saying is the ability to have a two-way conversation on a mass scale, the part of technology that's maybe related to social media and an online conversation. And we know as experienced storytellers that the best storytellers are also acutely attuned to their audience. They're listening as much as they're telling.

Cristina Jones:

You start with the audience. Correct.

Charlie Melcher:

So what I'm hearing is that you've brought the great insights of true storytelling, and powered by technologies that allow for conversations and listening and learning, to create new types of authentic communication in order to be able to talk to... And I love this term. I didn't come up with it, but the people formally known as the audience.

Cristina Jones:

Exactly. That's funny. That's funny. That is funny.

Charlie Melcher:

It's such a good one.

Cristina Jones:

First of all, I've got to bring you with me all the time when I talk about what I do.

Charlie Melcher:

Done, I'm in.

Cristina Jones:

Yeah. I was like, I like that. But I think what I bring to the conversation and technology is the fact that when you come from media, we have been fighting a war for attention for decades. The brands recently, well, within the last five to six years, have entered the ring. But what people need to remember is that you're not competing against your competitor. You're competing against every other entertainment option that someone has in front of them, to disrupt and take their attention away from you in any given moment. And so, there's this glut of content that's out there, that you need to cut through. And you don't cut through the clutter by producing more clutter. The way that you cut through the clutter is by being relevant and understanding your audience. What do they want to hear about? And if you're in this space where you're telling stories through your customers, well, what do they want to say? And where is it important for them to have a share of voice? The best storytellers, I believe to your point, are great listeners as well.

Charlie Melcher:

I'm very interested in this idea that companies can start to have these stories or conversations with people. You and I have been using the word audience, but we could also just interchange that with customer, right?

Cristina Jones:

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Charlie Melcher:

We do that all the time.

Cristina Jones:

Yes.

Charlie Melcher:

But it's true that companies have traditionally thought of themselves as the center of the story. They're always like, "Hey, look at me or look at my product." Or "Hey, it's fast or it's cheap," or whatever the thing is they're trying to say about it. And I always go back to that Joseph Campbell, the hero's journey-

Cristina Jones:

Hero's journey. Yep.

Charlie Melcher:

Circle, right? Where the role, I think, in storytelling for companies is that it's the role of the mentor, and that the hero is the customer or the audience member. Instead of the mistake that they make, which is always the opposite, which they think that they and their products are the heroes. But if they can play that role of a mentor to actually help empower their customer or their audience member on their journey and have their life be more successful and defeat their demons and come back to a transformed world, that product is going to be what Joseph Campbell would call maybe the magic gift.

Cristina Jones:

Yes.

Charlie Melcher:

That enables them on their journey.

Cristina Jones:

Technology is not saving people. People are saving themselves using technology. Your customer, your audience is the hero, not your latest product update. There's room for that, but you can't lead with that because if you lead with your product and the update and the functionality of your product, what if I don't even know that I need your product, but I could use your product. But if I don't understand it, why would I ever stop scrolling to engage with your content?

Charlie Melcher:

When you talk about technology now or the last few minutes, you're talking about it as the product because you work for a tech company-

Cristina Jones:

I do.

Charlie Melcher:

Salesforce's product is a technology product.

Cristina Jones:

Correct.

Charlie Melcher:

We've had the honor of working with a number of tech companies over the years, and what we see often is that the mindset of the company is often driven by the engineers because they're the ones creating the product, often the ones start who started the company. And you have a lot of focus on the building and the iterating of the product. And then they bring in marketing with the intention of trying to get them to just sell the product. In many cases, even with the marketing people reporting to senior engineering people, whose focus is really still on how fast, how cheap, how-

Cristina Jones:

The functions. Yep.

Charlie Melcher:

The functions. And we all know that people don't really respond to data. They respond to emotion, to stories. I just run into that a lot, where there's an effort to create some culture shift, because if it's a bunch of engineers talking about features and specs, then you're not really going to resonate with that customer. And so when I hear you say humanize the technology, what I actually really, or tell me if this is right, but it's almost more shift the culture of the company to talk about it in a way that resonates in a human way for people.

Cristina Jones:

Yes. First I would say not humanize the technology, but humanize the story of the technology. I would argue that if you're an engineer or an architect at Salesforce, that we can all agree that you're an intelligent person. But what I would like to remind you is what my friend Hart Hanson, who created Judging Amy and Bones told me, when he would pitch a story, if his grandma didn't get it, he wouldn't make it.

Cristina Jones:

Who are you talking to? If you're talking to your peers, you can use buzzword, bingo, acronyms, all these things, and you can be the smartest person in the room. But if you're trying to reach a new audience, people who don't know you, people are not going to engage with you if they don't understand what you're saying. Some of it is almost a foreign language. And it frustrates me because there's three areas that people really need to understand, and there's three areas that people are usually too embarrassed to raise their hand and say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I actually don't know what you're talking about." It's healthcare, it's finances, and it's technology.

Charlie Melcher:

Now I do want to take a second and point out that on the surface, what looks like an irony, which is a company that makes tools for sales people, and the classic image of a salesperson's like, "Hey, I got something for you. You want to buy a watch?" That is not the person that you generally think of as, A, changing the world for the better, B, creating authentic human connection. The last thing I ever want to do is go to a used car dealership. That's what you think of when you think salesperson, right? This is a long way of saying, do you ever feel like there's a little bit of irony or disconnect between that mission and a company that makes tools for sales people?

Cristina Jones:

No, because our technology is accelerating the change that they're driving. I do work in an enterprise software company, and I am using my platform of storytelling to remind people that everyone can be an action leader. I hate thought leadership. I'm tired of people talking about we need to do things, someone needs to do things. Enough already. I am intentional with the stories that I highlight. I'm intentional with the people that we choose to highlight. I want to put a spotlight on people who are driving change in the hopes that hey Charlie, if you wake up tomorrow, you're like, "I'm too tired to start my own nonprofit," maybe you will hear one of these stories and want to join them in their quest to make the better world, whatever that may be.

Charlie Melcher:

Let's go back to this role of companies. Because a lot of people think, oh hey, big corporations. Their only responsibility is to their shareholders, to maximize return. Can they really be legitimate agents of change? What's your response to that?

Cristina Jones:

I believe that the quickest way for companies to go by the wayside is with that thinking. You have to be in service of your customers and the communities that you serve. Being so myopic that you only care about the bottom dollar... I was in a fortune round table, and one of the CEOs was like, "I'm not comfortable with social media. I feel like I need to stay behind the velvet rope." Yeah, that doesn't work anymore. Look at what happened around the Black Lives Matter movement, when everybody was like, "I stand with Black people," and then Black people were like, "Show us your board, show us what you've done. Show us..." You need to start on your journey because...

Cristina Jones:

I don't like cancel culture because cancel culture doesn't give space for people to change or grow. And it prevents conversation because now people are afraid of getting canceled. I much prefer for you to go look around and say, "I need to do better. And I'm going to start doing better today." When you do decide that you're going to tell stories of diverse communities, people that don't look like you, please make sure that you have an inclusive team or you work with inclusive agencies. When you see stories told that put people in a shameful light, that's not helping advance the conversation. I would like to just challenge anyone who's listening, who's creating content about a challenging situation to take that person's face out of it and cast yourself and see if you would be proud to be represented in that story.

Charlie Melcher:

Good lesson. Good reminder. It touches on this whole area that we both share, which is a belief that there need to be more diverse creators of stories and people holding the proverbial mic. Is that something that you work on actively through Salesforce?

Cristina Jones:

I'm a Black woman. I'm inclusive by nature, right?

Charlie Melcher:

You work on it every day by example.

Cristina Jones:

Yeah. Every day I wake up, I'm Black. But my mom's Jamaican and my dad is Italian. We lived all over. When I worked at 20th Century Fox, I worked in international for 12 years. So I understand culture, but anyone can understand culture. Go a couple of miles outside of your traditional radius and experience culture. Make some new friends, get a passport, get outside of your comfort zone. But I have an inclusive team. I also have inclusive contractors, and I have inclusive agencies. If you're not marketing to an inclusive audience in 2022, what are you doing?

Charlie Melcher:

Yeah. You're missing most, a big chunk of the audience. Yeah.

Cristina Jones:

What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Black people don't only watch Black things and white people don't only watch white things. Let's be inclusive and intentional in the way that we look at the world and the way that we tell these stories, and don't cheat and just cast people that look different. Really look at your leadership team and the people that are inside of your company and who you're working with to tell these stories, because then you won't have to fear when Black history month comes around next year.

Charlie Melcher:

What about other areas of change? What are some of the other priorities for you?

Cristina Jones:

Climate change. We just had our nonprofit summit, and we had Jane Fonda do a panel, who's this force of nature. But you know who else is a force of nature? Daphne Frias and Tori Choy. You should look them up. Our next generation that's coming up are fighting this fight in a way that you have not seen. We need to focus, we talked about it in workforce development. How can we democratize access and create better pipelines so people have more equitable access to work now and tomorrow.

Cristina Jones:

Global health inequity, how can we make sure that everyone has access to the tools and resources they need to be healthy. And I'm including mental health in there. Mental health is health.

Cristina Jones:

And of course, education. Education for everyone. Education should not be something that is reserved for the elite, and everyone should have equal access to great education.

Cristina Jones:

We have a podcast called Force Multiplier that we launched last year, hosted by Baratunde. And we really unpack how solving these problems is not going to be solved by one person. It's really going to take a force multiplier effect. How are people coming together to solve these issues together? All of us can wake up today and make the world a better place. It doesn't matter what your title is, your role. Just simply by waking up Charlie and being like, "Today, I'm going to make the world a better place."

Charlie Melcher:

Are there other ways that you think of creating action leadership, of converting people from listeners or passive consumers to the taking an active role in making change?

Cristina Jones:

I'm with you, Charlie. The way that I do it is stories, telling stories that move you from thought leadership to action leadership. The right story can change mindset. The right story can inspire. That's why I get so frustrated when people don't see the value, and they're just cranking out content that is maybe preventing you from seeing a real story. It doesn't matter if it's my story. There's so much goodness out there. We just don't... It doesn't get reported on enough, which is a shame. I like to remind us that as content creators, that we are all truly culture creators. And so we need to use our platforms mindfully.

Charlie Melcher:

I say that all the time about the role of storytellers, that we have this awesome power that's, if anything, gotten stronger in an age of information overload that we... Because it's the stories, the good stories that really cut through and move people to action. And as people who wield such power, we need to do it with a moral compass. We just have to be very aware of how we use our superpowers.

Cristina Jones:

I am not shy about this space because I know, going all the way back to how we started, how stories affected me.

Charlie Melcher:

Cristina, one of the things that I've always believed at the Future of StoryTelling was that we could judge our success through the interconnectivity of our community.

Cristina Jones:

Yes.

Charlie Melcher:

That almost like the fascia that gets formed, if people were doing things together and making new contacts and friendships and business partners, then we were doing something right.

Cristina Jones:

Community.

Charlie Melcher:

Yeah. It's trickier to tell a communal story. I think there, we're talking it's more like creating a story world for people to have their own adventures in.

Cristina Jones:

There's the way that you say community in the tech space, and then there's the communities or the fandoms that you talk about when you're in film. And at first blush, they're very different, but they're not. It's people who care about the same things and want to experience things in a similar way and share their experiences together in a, at times, vocal way that is of value also to the company, the franchise, the community. So again, people want to hear from their peers. So if you're lucky enough that you have hit a chord where people are in alignment and want to have the conversation, don't send a cease and desist letter.

Charlie Melcher:

Just to finish on this community question, though. I feel like technology is often thought of now as doing the opposite. We have this image of it either polarizing people or young kids spending time alone and losing the ability to have conversations and play with others nicely. How do you feel about that? Is it a tool that can really be used to amplify human connection and community?

Cristina Jones:

I think there's obviously the dark side of everything, and that's where I am hyper focused on the intentionality of storytelling. I don't think that anyone should try to use technology as a replacement for spending time with their friends, their family, their children. There's always the option to pick up a telephone. And I'm a big texter. I'm not a big phone person, but during the pandemic, I made a point to reach out to my friends. I like to think I'm funny. I like memes. It doesn't hurt to send somebody something funny, to just let people know that you're thinking of them. I think that there's always two sides to every coin, but it's sad to see what Facebook turned into, when the opposite was true. But even within that, there are still communities inside Facebook.

Charlie Melcher:

Totally. It's a powerful tool for communities, yeah.

Cristina Jones:

I joined a vegan cooking group just recently. Again, let's not always throw the baby out with the bath water before we can figure out what an alternative solution is. And for the people who have control over these platforms, really being mindful about what is okay on the platform, how it is okay to let your platforms be used. I'm thankful that I'm not in those shoes. Those are really big shoes to fill, but it is your responsibility.

Charlie Melcher:

What are you most excited about in terms of the ability to make change because of the position you have and the company you have behind you?

Cristina Jones:

We have so many things that I can't announce yet, but the opportunity to tell more stories with more partners, to drive more change. Making sure that we're telling globally relatable stories, that we're bringing in our international partners to be a part of this conversation, because much like with Planet of the Apes, these bad things aren't just happening in America. But also, the good stuff is not only happening here. There's a lot of great, incredible change in action leadership that is happening globally. We need to bring these stories over here. They are relatable. They are relatable, and there's incredible storytellers that are everywhere.

Charlie Melcher:

I think it's such an important message because you really are providing a platform that is as good or better than traditional media companies could. It's an interesting idea, to think that big companies have the opportunity to be the amplifier, that in the old days you would've relied on journalism.

Charlie Melcher:

Just so honored to get to spend some time with you. And I just want to say, you've converted me. I'm ready to be an action leader. And I'm just so excited for the work that you do, the insights that you have, the fact that you are an amazing storyteller who understands the power of technology and truly has a moral compass that she's bringing to her work, and let's see what trouble we can get into together.

Cristina Jones:

I would love it. I would love it. Influencing our next generation to also understand the power of their voice and how to use it so that you can have that maximum impact. Every time someone gets it, I swear I get chills because I'm like, "Oh, now you get it."

Charlie Melcher:

My sincere thanks to Cristina Jones for joining me on today's show. You can learn more about her work at Salesforce.org by visiting the links in this episode's description. Thank you for listening to the FoST podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, please leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. And follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Future of StoryTelling. FoST also produces a monthly newsletter filled with valuable information for storytellers of all kinds. You can subscribe for free by visiting the link in this episode subscription or on our website at F-O-S-T.org. The FoST podcast is produced by Melcher Media in collaboration with our talented production partner, Charts & Leisure. I hope we'll see you again soon for another deep dive into the world of storytelling. Until then, please be safe, stay strong, and story on.