USA and Syfy approached FoST for help curating and producing an event that would educate 150 of their digital and marketing employees on best practices and creative ways to tell stories on popular and emerging new technologies. Working closely with the USA/SyFy team, we came up with the idea for an “Innovation Day,” a full day of immersive storytelling workshops, speakers, performers, and Tech Tastings^® of recent state-of-the-art storytelling projects and technologies. 

For this exciting, high-energy event, we called on some of our favorite talents to participate, and each was chosen with USA/Syfy’s goal in mind of helping their employees understand how consumers and brands can harness new technologies to tell their stories. Speakers Kevin Slavin of MIT Media Lab and Michael Ventura, founder of creative agency Sub Rosa, were invited to give keynote talks. We also secured workshop leaders to conduct onsite classes, including Amadeus Stevenson of Decoded (How to Build a Bot), Kristen Lueck of Man Made Music (Unlocking the Secrets of Music), and Anthony Veneziale of improv rap group Freestyle Love Supreme (The Power of Improv). The day was rounded out with performances by spoken-word poets Phil Kaye and Sarah Kay and Freestyle Love Supreme. The result was an event that was enlightening, hands-on, team-building, and above all inspiring for everyone. 

“Bravo to you and the [FoST] team for a spectacular storytelling workshop. From the most jaded to the most enthusiastic, I have received nothing less than unanimous positive feedback, including ‘best ever offsite.’ As promised, the day was filled with heart, humor, empathy, and mind. It was perfectly orchestrated and curated top to bottom. The energy level was even throughout, and I marveled at how engaged the team was, even after a very long day."

—ALEXANDRA SHAPIRO, EVP, Marketing & Digital, USA & Syfy at NBCUniversal Media