As a subscriber to the school of life. What has shown up consistently in my journey is I'm someone who learns mostly through two things: story and doing. My professional experience has exposed me to the fact that I am not alone.
As leaders, our approach to providing value has evolved, with a renewed focus on what value truly means to individuals, society, and various causes. A key challenge we face is enabling the right people to access the right information at the right time. This access is essential for garnering support for our causes and finding solutions to the problems our organisations are committed to solving.
To overcome this challenge, we must transition from merely having our audiences passively receive our messages to encouraging them to actively engage in problem-solving. This means not just presenting problems and solutions but empowering them to explore potential solutions. Our goal is to empower our audience to not only consume information but also to contribute, shape, and interact with it, making them co-owners of the content and the process.
To truly make an impact, consider these three pillars when thinking about creating a campaign that has an educational element.
Purpose: What's the end goal? Do we want learners to walk away with knowledge, a novel experience, or perhaps something else entirely?
Co-Produce: The tangible results matter. Will learners co-produce media, artwork, or other forms? Engaging them actively enhances retention. Cognitive studies (there are many, however this is a well cited one “Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom”, co-authored by Harvard scholars in 2019) suggest significantly higher engagement when learners build or contribute directly. Reflect on this: what would your audience love to create? How can their creation amplify the impact and instill pride?
Delivery: How will this educational experience be served? Online, offline, hybrid? Supported or self-guided? The mode can dramatically influence engagement. It's the crescendo in the educational symphony – how the information is presented and how the audience interacts with it.
Rethinking the way we present and create information is essential to build sustaining movements and brands. Shifting our frame of focus from passive content to active content and by doing so we can enable our target audiences to have safe space to become active problem solvers. Joining a movement rather then consuming one. With thoughtful design and deep user understanding, the potential impact is immense.
In today's world, there's a pressing need for courageous innovators. We need connections, meaningful interactions, and most importantly, moments that empower individuals to make informed decisions and become active member of a problem that would like to help solve.
Wishing you insight and innovation in your journeys to make the impact you want to see in this world. Go well, Patrick
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