18. Geoff Paine on creating interactive experiences for impactful engagement
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Episode show notes
Today's episode is a deep dive with Geoff Paine, senior content curator at BehaviourWorks Australia.
Geoff is an actor and writer who’s entertainment industry experience includes acting on shows like Neighbours and running a studio producing corporate content for major Australian organisations. He now brings his wealth of experience to BehaviourWorks Australia, focusing on creating engaging and impactful content.
In this episode, Geoff shares insights on how to design interactive experiences for impactful engagement. Drawing on his extensive background in storytelling and performance, he discusses the importance of making research communication engaging, interactive, and memorable. Geoff provides practical tips and innovative strategies for researchers to enhance their presentations and public engagements.
Whether you're a researcher, educator, or professional communicator, this episode is packed with valuable insights on using interactivity to drive engagement and impact!
Our conversation covers:
Practical tips for making complex research accessible and engaging
Designing interactive elements to enhance presentations and workshops
Techniques for storytelling and theatrical methods to engage audiences
Practical steps for planning and delivering interactive presentations
The importance of vulnerability in effective communication
Strategies for overcoming public speaking anxiety
Conducting simulation training for behaviour change within organisations
Practical tips from this episode:
Designing your presentation
Start with a question and end with the same question to see the change in the room. At the end, reflect on the change and encourage the audience to do the same.
Design your event by figuring out key messages, personal connections, and the right sequence of content.
Incorporate elements of surprise and curiosity. Use tension and release to keep them engaged.
Use storytelling techniques to create a compelling narrative.
Continuously gather and reflect on feedback to refine your interactive methods.
Interactive techniques to engage your audience:
Encourage reflection to help set the context and deepen understanding.
Involve them in the communication process through thinking, reflecting, voting, or participating in activities.
Use interactive methods like Q&A sessions, voting, or asking them to get on stage.
Use physical activities or role-playing scenarios to make the experience memorable.
Using visuals effectively:
Use multimedia elements, such as videos and animations, to illustrate key points.
Use visuals to provoke thought and change behavior, not just to present information.
Clearly explain the purpose of your visuals and what you want the audience to take away.
Preparation and practice:
Get your “flying hours” in by practicing with friends or delivering the presentation to smaller groups first.
Practice vulnerability to build a connection with your audience. Admitting that you’re nervous is better than pretending not to be.
Credits:
Host & Producer: Chris Pahlow
Guest: Geoff Paine
Edited by: Laura Carolina Corrigan
Consulting Producers: Maia Tarrell, Michelle Joy
Music by: La Boucle and Blue Steel, courtesy of Epidemic Sound
- Public engagement
- Storytelling
- Career development
- Team alignment
- Your pitch
- Making your work relatable
- Talks and presentations
- Strategic comms
- Communicating in different formats/mediums
- Stakeholder/audience mapping
- Listening
- Strategy
- Mentorship
- Collaborating with professional staff
- Comedy
- Failure
- Interdisciplinary collaboration
- Philanthropic funding
- Relationship management
- Community engagement
Quotes:
“The idea was the people watching this don't necessarily want to get the information. You've got to be really creative about getting it across so that you don't bore them, so they don't switch off. And attention, as we know now, is the hardest thing to get from people. We're living in a world where we're swimming in an ocean of information, podcasts, videos, YouTube, all of that sort of stuff. So you have to find techniques to actually get and hold people's for the short amount of time that you have them.“ — Geoff Paine
“There are obviously grim truths about the world and the way people behave towards each other that can't be made entertaining, but there's no reason why it can't be made forceful or engaging. And my response to researchers that say, my job is not to make it entertaining is. Absolutely. That's true. But if you want greater impact, you want that to resonate with people and you want the core truth or insight that your research has brought out to get across to people. That's the key thing. You want people to care. And so there is this dilemma. Scientific writing and academic writing removes the emotion from it. It's about facts and evidence. But in the end, you want that evidence to have an emotional impact.“ — Geoff Paine
“Sometimes you have to let people know that we're not as rational as we think we are… Most people go, no, I understand that about other people, but I'm completely rational. So this is this bias that we have where we think other people are crazy, but I'm normal. And one of the early lessons I've learned working at Behaviour Works Australia is of course, none of us are normal. You are not normal. The researcher that comes up with the experiment has to build it for other people, knowing that that researcher is not the average person.“ — Geoff Paine
“I would say that all performers are actually turned up versions of themselves. All of us have the capacity when we need to, to perform, to suddenly forget the world around us and to shout out, for instance. So if you saw a kid was about to back into the traffic and be hit, you would shout at a volume that you would not normally hear. So we all have that capacity in us. Performers are just given permission to practice and keep repeating that sort of thing. So, for researchers, I would say it's about practice, flying hours as they call it. Just, explain this to your colleagues, to smaller and smaller classes to the point where you can get up and explain what you do to hundreds of people.“ — Geoff Paine
“It would be crunching the story down to, the story, the narrative, , the lecture, the presentation. What is the key message or key messages you want to transmit while you're there? And that is partly the log line or the one page or something that just says, here's the key information I want people to walk away with.“ — Geoff Paine
“I do believe the old axiom of tell people what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. The repetition in different ways. That lets it sink in. And then, like any large chunk of anything, you break it into manageable parts, bite sized pieces of information.“ — Geoff Paine
“You've got the key messages, you've broken it into bite sized pieces, and then I think it's arranging those pieces so that you have, and again, this is kind of a story arc thing. Where do you want to start? Where do you want to finish? Is there a deep, dark part of your research that you want to go to, but not leave the audience there. You know, it's the mood. How do you want the audience to feel at the end? Hopeful? Shocked? Disturbed, but motivated to do something about this? You know, this is where you construct the story about how you want the audience to feel and what you want them to do at the end. And, like with most communications, is this to alert people to something? Is it a call to action? Do you simply want to start a conversation? There are plenty of worthwhile researchers and research that doesn't actually have a neat answer, but that's fine. You're starting a conversation.“ — Geoff Paine
“Do you want them to share something anonymously? That's the beauty of a poll, for instance, you can get a snapshot where people don't feel they have to personally share it's anonymised. So, often people will be much more honest in that sort of sequence. And the other thing about that is, do you share real time results or do you say, I'm going to get you to vote and we won't see the results until I flick the screen on. And that will change the response of the audience. They will be led by other people's responses.“ — Geoff Paine
“If you are going to show a graph, explain what it is you want the audience to see. It's not an IQ test.” — Geoff Paine
“It strikes me that when you're picking activities to do, there's the pedagogical outcome you're looking for, or the behaviour change outcome, but you're also going to think about the energy levels, right?“ — Chris Pahlow
“Tension and intrigue are all about privileged information. I'm not going to give you the answer until we’re ready. And of course you have to decide how long are you going to stretch that out to the point where you frustrate people. It becomes like a pub trivia, the excitement is I've come up with an answer. Now I want to know the answer, so tell me what you think the truth is. So this builds a little bit of tension and keeps people engaged because you've put something out there and then you're going to give the answer in the end.“ — Geoff Paine
“I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but if you want to get someone's attention, start by saying, I probably shouldn't be telling you this.“ — Geoff Paine
“If i'm a researcher and I need to present publicly, I could start with something as simple as getting people to vote and building a bit of tension and revealing the answer. Once you've stretched that rubber band a little bit, it could be something as simple as asking them a question for them to just briefly reflect on, to set the context of what you're about to say next. They don't have to go out and tap dance straight away, right?“ — Chris Pahlow
“You can do a bookending technique, which is ask the question at the start and then at the end, and see if there has been a shift in perception about the way people answer that question. It doesn't have to be a huge shift, but it simply means that you're saying, I'm going to ask you the same question in 50 minutes. And you're framing, you're planting something in the minds of the room. Because then they will have had more information and can think about it and cogitate and that sort of thing.“ — Geoff Paine
“I tell people, vulnerability is a strength. And I know that's counterintuitive. But if you are out there and say, I haven't done this before, I'm a little bit nervous, forgive me. You'll actually relax the room and yourself because you're not pretending anything. And the audience goes, it's okay. We will look after you. you It builds a much stronger sense of trust.“ — Geoff Paine
“The kind of analogy I use is a low key vaccine. A vaccine is a threat that's not real. A vaccine is a fake threat, but your system thinks it's real enough that you develop a defence against it. And in simulation training, what you really want is that impact of, I know it's not real, but it feels just real enough that I'm getting that sensation in my body and I need to know how to get out of it.“ — Geoff Paine
“Look for the accidents, the slide that doesn't quite work, the font that doesn't come out. Have fun with it because the minute you do, you relax the room and people are with you.“ — Geoff Paine
