He wants to combat exclusion by promoting dialogue

Innovator of the month: Seth Selleck
Innovation: More Than One Story card game

With the help of 50 different questions, you will have the chance to deepen new and old relationships. More Than One Story enables you to get to know new aspects of another person through the simple act of listening.

Seth Selleck works as a youth coordinator in Simrishamn with issues related to intercultural understanding and integration. He is originally from the USA but has also lived in France, Italy and now Sweden. He describes his own upbringing as multicultural and notes that more people would benefit from spending time in such environments. Seth's personal experiences as an immigrant have raised awareness of what exclusion is and how it affects you as a person.

Want to create more stories

The card game More Than One Story is about building bridges between people of different ages, backgrounds, and cultures. This is because the card game invites people to share their personal stories with the aim of increasing understanding and combating prejudice. The idea came to Seth when he listened to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's lecture - The danger of a single story, which explained the problems surrounding integration, racism and exclusion. She described the consequences of people hearing only one type of story about a group or an individual and thus the importance of creating multiple stories and narratives.

- After I had watched the lecture, I woke up in the middle of the night with the concept for More Than One Story, says Seth.

 

Seth collected 50 different questions that deepen the conversation and give participants a chance to open up and share their experiences. It was very important to find a variety of questions that would lead to deeper conversations. Thanks to the nature of the project, Seth was able to develop the card game during working hours, as it was something that could later be used within the organisation. The process took six months. Some of the original questions were used while others were scrapped.

 
- One of the challenges was to identify what the product actually was. What is the message? The text on the back of the deck took three months to create. The logo process also took a long time.

Once the product was completed and all the details were in place, the reactions from those around were positive. They quickly had to print more decks than they had originally anticipated.

 

- It was the first time a project just flew, says Seth.

 

The new initiative

The game is used today by schools, associations, municipalities but also by private individuals at social events such as parties and dinners. Despite the wide distribution, a new version of the deck will not be created. However, there is already a new initiative closely linked to More Than One Story. The initiative is called Face to Face and encourages conversations between people of different ages, backgrounds, and cultures. The symbol for Face to Face is a speech bubble, the idea being that speech opens the doors to a conversation between two strangers. The hope is that the symbol will spread organically and in the long term contribute to a more open and inclusive society.

Seth's advice to other innovators:

  Take your idea seriously! It's easy to kill an idea before it's even started.
  Talk to other people about your idea and be open to feedback. Learn from their reactions.
  Don't let money limit the idea. Find stakeholders and partners first, investors can come at a later stage.