In Series 3 Episode 2 of the Health Points podcast hosts Ben and Pete chat with Sam Knowles who is the Chief Data Storyteller at Insight Agents and the author of the "Using Data Better" trilogy, which includes "Narrative by Numbers" "How to be Insightful" and "Asking Smarter Questions" to discuss the patient engagement game he developed with Novartis.
Sam's journey into health gamification is as intriguing as his professional background. Starting as a classicist, he transitioned into experimental psychology, where he discovered the power of data and storytelling. His unique blend of classical storytelling techniques and data-driven insights has led him to create impactful gamification projects in the health sector.
The Patient Engagement Game with Novartis
One of the highlights of the episode is Sam's discussion about the patient engagement game he developed with Novartis. This analogue card game is designed to help professionals understand the diverse methodologies available for patient-focused drug design and delivery. The game encourages players to explore various research tools and techniques, fostering deeper discussions and insights into patient engagement.
Key Features of the Game:
- Analogue Format: The physical nature of the game promotes in-person interactions and discussions, making it a valuable tool for team-building and training.
- Scenario-Based Play: Players are given real-world scenarios and must navigate through different stages of drug development, considering budget, timeline, and research methodologies.
- Educational and Fun: The game is designed to be engaging and educational, helping players understand complex concepts in a fun and interactive way.
Why Storytelling Matters in Health Gamification
Sam emphasizes the importance of storytelling in gamification. He explains that humans make decisions emotionally and justify them rationally. By incorporating storytelling into games, professionals can create more impactful and memorable experiences that drive behavior change.
Listening to this episode, you can expect to gain insights into:
1. The Power of Data Storytelling
- Blending Data and Storytelling: Sam emphasizes the importance of combining data with storytelling to create impactful and memorable experiences. This approach helps in making complex data more accessible and engaging.
- Emotional Decision-Making: Humans make decisions emotionally and justify them rationally. By incorporating storytelling into data presentation, professionals can appeal to both the rational and emotional sides of their audience.
2. Innovative Gamification Techniques
- Patient Engagement Game: Sam discusses the development of an analogue card game with Novartis, designed to help professionals understand various methodologies for patient-focused drug design and delivery.
- Scenario-Based Play: The game uses real-world scenarios to simulate different stages of drug development, encouraging players to explore various research tools and techniques.
- Educational and Fun: The game is designed to be both engaging and educational, fostering deeper discussions and insights into patient engagement.
3. Importance of Analogue Games
- In-Person Interactions: The physical nature of the game promotes face-to-face interactions and discussions, making it a valuable tool for team-building and training.
- Safe Space for Discussion: The game provides a safe space for teams to consider different and sometimes difficult scenarios, facilitating open and productive conversations.
4. Best Practices in Patient Engagement
- Diverse Methodologies: The game highlights the importance of using a variety of research tools and methodologies to understand the voice of the patient, rather than relying solely on patient advisory boards.
- Broadening Awareness: By playing the game, professionals can become more familiar with a wider range of tools and methodologies, leading to more informed and effective patient engagement strategies.
5. Impact of Gamification
- Fostering Discussions: The game has been successful in fostering discussions among teams, helping them to better understand and appreciate different research methodologies.
- Long-Term Benefits: While it's too early to measure the long-term impact on budget allocation, the game has already proven to be a valuable tool for raising awareness and encouraging thoughtful discussions.
6. Storytelling in Health Gamification
- Motivating Behavior Change: Good storytelling in games can motivate people to change their thinking, decisions, and behaviors. This is particularly valuable in health gamification, where the goal is often to encourage healthier behaviors.
- Empathy and Humanity: Effective data storytelling requires a deep understanding of the audience and the ability to present data in a human and empathetic way.
You can listen to this episode below:
Episode Transcript:
Ben
Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of Health Points where we talk about anything and everything. Gamification of health. I'm Ben and with me today is my co-host Pete.
Pete
Hi everyone.
Ben
And today we have with us Sam Knowles. Sam is the chief data storyteller at Insight agents and is the author of using Data Better trilogy. Of books, which includes narrative by numbers, how to be insightful and asking smarter questions. Sam is also an Advisory Council member for the Harvard Business Review is Vice president of the Brighton Chamber of Commerce, and to finish off this list, Sam also has a podcast called Data Malarkey. Sam, there's quite a CV I've I've read out there already. It's great to have you on the show. And thank you for making time.
Sam
Thank you very much indeed, Ben. Thank you, Pete very much. Looking forward to our discussion.
Ben
Right. So shall we start? Do you wanna give us a bit of a background? Kind of like how you got into what you do the the breadth of what you've achieved and your interest in health and gamification?
Sam
Certainly. So I started life as a classicist, first time at the end of school and first time running university. I studied classics. I mean, partly that's because I was badly taught mathematics at school in a in a state grammar school in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire in the early mid 80s, and so I studied what I could, which was Latin and Greek, and that's what I studied for my first. Degree and fell in love with story and storytelling and story structure, particularly what we can learn from the great playwrights and epic poets, softies, and Homer, and so on. I'm very. Much of A. Greek classicist, rather than the Roman classicists and also what Aristotle tells us about story and story structure that still obtains for box. Pets and and superhero movies and really great powerful communication in the world of healthcare and and indeed all of kind of corporate brand communication. And I worked in communications agencies for a dozen years or so and then towards the end of the the last century, I got what? Some of my colleagues described as pre millennial tension or PMT, and I thought there has to be more to life than 11 variants of flora, margarine and Barbie, which were my clients at the time. So I went to the educational psychologists who said Ohh, you're interested in psychology, which I was and I was surprised actually that in communications agencies, certainly the ones. Worked in there was not really much into interest in psychology and yet you know, effective communication motivating people to change their behaviours that will come onto for sure is kind of really important. So I went back to school, I I live in Lewis, East Sussex and I went, I recently moved down here. And I went back to do initially a masters and then a doctorate in experimental psychology. And imagine my surprise, horror, shock and awe having given up a well paid job in the West End, moved to the sticks of Sussex to discover the first two hours of my new life were a statistics lecture. However, I had brilliant statistics teachers who taught me that data statistics were just another way of looking at the world of of telling stories. And so I went on to do a doctorate and experimental psychology, got students drunk and showed them scary dodgy pictures and saw what happened in their memory. That's another story. But when I came back out into the world of consulting in. 2004 five. Save data was beginning to be important. Facebook had been born. Twitter was coming along understanding of consumer behaviour through what they did and said was beginning to be important. But in comms agencies, particularly PR agencies, a world I still inhabited, there was a terror. Well. Of data and I could do data so they Chuck me the data they said. Here's a paper. Go and read that. Make sense of this. What does this mean? And so about a dozen years ago, I created my own data storytelling consultancy, bringing together the the, the, you know, these worlds of data and story and narrative and numbers. For many still to this day, ungrateful, they are anathema. They are fire and ice. They don't blend together. Yet for me they're just two parts of the same. Way of approaching things and they allow us to appeal to the rational and to the emotional side of things. So I've blended those. I've I've created a consultancy in the last. It's been going, yeah, since 2013. In the last five years we've done a huge amount of work with pharma initially kind of accidentally and then it's become a real. Specialism and work working with the likes of Novartis and AstraZeneca and Pfizer and Nova Nordisk. A whole variety of different different businesses in the pharma area. Particularly in the patient engagement, patient advocacy voice of the patient space. So that's how I've got to hear. I'm not sure you know like like like the old adage, if you if you say to a a farmer leaning on a fence in Ireland, how do you get to Dublin and say, well, I wouldn't start. From here, you know I've made sense of that narrative, but only in retrospect.
Ben
That was a journey that saying that was a answer of a journey in his own right. Right. So one of the reasons and one of the key reasons we wanted to come on to health points is to talk about the patient engagement game that you've been developing with Novartis. It'd be great to know about how that came about and kind of how data and storytelling. LinkedIn to the to the patient engagement game of Novartis.
Sam
For sure. And it's it's an incredibly analogue game. There's no, there's no kind of whizzy levelling up here. I mean, there's kind of, you know, there's levelling up aha there we see engage the, the the game of patient engagement. So in the patient engagement, patient advocacy, voice of the patient, different pharma businesses, we'll call it different things. Function there is not only the desire but the requirement to to involve the voice of the patient, the patient reality in patient. For as as the FDA would call it, patient focused drug design development. And delivery. If you can't evidence as a business bringing novel medications or therapies or whatever. If you can't evidence that patients have been involved in development, then you ain't gonna get your drug approved. And I was at a meeting September 22 with clients including the the global head of patient. Engagement at Novartis and they said we've got a challenge, there are lots and lots and lots of different ways of understanding the voice of the patient and that can be primary market research, social media listening, all sorts of advisory boards or focus groups or patient advisory boards in particular digital ethnographies, so many different ways of doing things. We've got 20 categories and vendors in each one of those categories. At every single time, our almost every single time our excellent patient engagement colleagues will choose one and that and they will go for the Patient Advisory Board because nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM. Nobody ever got fired for getting group of patients together and getting them to advise us. And yet those who are able to spend their time being on patient advisory boards for pharma businesses. Can become professional patient Advisory Board members, but also they will tend to be and this is no disrespect, white middle class, middle-aged housewives because they have the time, the capacity and the ability. And yet the disease may or the condition may not affect them, it may affect their relative but so how can we how on Earth? Can we get people to realise that quantitative research, those desk research, those group? Basically how can we get them to realise and appreciate the the the whole gamut of of tools and methodologies that. ******.
And I was, you know, I get get on well with these guys. And and I said to my client well obviously you need to gamify it. And they said, well, that sounds good. And then about six weeks later, they said, so how are you coming along with the gamification proposal? I said what gamification proposal. And. And then about six weeks later, they said, right. So it's in the budget. What are we gonna do? Is it a board game? Is it a card game? Is it a video game? I'm. I'm not a total chancer. I mean, you know, Pete, you probably think that we've known each other for many years without partial chancer, but I I was convinced that this would be the approach one of the. One of my bits of Christmas reading was Marcus the satolas around the world in 80 games and I thought right, but I read that over Christmas and I mean in that there's there is quite a lot about gamification in there, but in that there was a a decent amount of hints and tips about what makes a great game and this tells the story of the world, this book. What's the story of the world in games? I mean, there's a lot on go. Go is go is very front of my mind. The moment, but there's a lot on go. Different types of board games, and then I remembered obviously having having attended workshops, Pete that you gave in Sussex years ago. I was then kind of, you know, got hold of different bits and pieces and and began to take it very much more seriously. Partly there was a budget. Partly there was a need and worked with a design partner who happened to be. The also an absolute aficionado of dozens of dozens of card games, and we developed. We developed a card game. It's, I don't know, it's a mash up of exploding kittens, and I mean rummy is it's a collecting card game. There are suits, there are suits and these suits are the different types of research that one can do. But there's some pit and some Scrabble and some 31. And and if this is not safe. Of this podcast? Excuse me. ****.
But a lot of different games, a lot of different games where you are given a scenario, a scenario that had been written by the patient engagement function, very pithy kind of 50 word scenario. You're given a scenario, you're told what stage you're you you are in, in, in drug development, you're told what the budget is, you're told what the timeline. Is and then you're given a a collecting task and you you swap cards and you pick cards and. There are. There are plenty of wild cards involved in there as well, and in order to complete your scenario you need to collect the right types of cards, but also you need on budget. Now of course this is an analogue of the patient engagement professionals. Job. The real the real kind of acid test of this is 1 can we open the minds of this community of several 100 people within this this business to the whole gamut of of different tools and methodologies that one can use but two, can we get them talking about it? Can we get them actually? Not just saying. I'll tell you what. Let's just put three patient advisory boards into the budget for next year. Let's get them to actually talk about it. And that was absolutely the acid test. And I know you'll ask me about impact, but that was absolutely the acid test. So it's a, it's a, it's a, it's simple, deeply frustrating. Often when when suddenly you get a wild card, that means you have to change your scenario, you've gone over budget or you change all of your tools. But you know, work can be like that. And so we wanted to create something that would that that would foster discussion and improve knowledge and awareness of what they could do rather than the thing that they would need.
Ben
That is a deep explanation that you've already gone through, so you answered some of my questions that formed in my head while you were speaking, which is fantastic. Why? I want to dig into. I understand what the problem now into what you're working to solve for Novartis. How did you end? How did you land on the type of card game that you ended up with? What was your process of designing that game? I'm also was fantastic. We very rarely have analogue versions of gamification on on health points, so it's brilliant and it's different. Approaching it from an analogue rather than digital perspective so. And where did you how did you approach the card game in terms of the designing it, the mechanics you built into it? What was your process in doing?
Sam
As I say, I was really, really lucky to have a visual design partner and I I hope you'll agree it's a it's a beautifully produced, very lucky to have as the design and concept partner. He wasn't just he was not just the designer, good and loyal collaborator Guy called Jim Edgerton. Very lucky to have him, not least. Because he and his family are assiduous players of card games now, we didn't land on the card game because, Gem said we gotta do a card game. But in this, so initially I had sort of a board game. And I listen, I, I've you know, I've. I've invented the odd card game before I I enjoy playing board games, but we thought of a board game and then as we started to map it out, what that might look like, you know, something like something like a an update on careers for example, that classic 60s. Him as a footnote. As a footnote. My, my, my dad was a great designer or or Bowdler riser of games and once introduced into the game of Korea's crime from any one. Of the different any one of the different careers you went into where you could get fabulously wealthy, but you could have a religious conversion and not be able to collect anything but happiness. So you could anyway that's that's another story. But we so board game we we I'll tell you why we wanted it to be analogue and then so we wanted to be analogue because we wanted something that when somebody knew joined a team in a particular therapeutic area. They could be inducted into it. It would be fun. It would. It would be something over the table where you know you. I mean, we've got encouragement to create it digitally, but actually there doesn't seem to be much appetite for that to move forward because the physicality of this means that you can have the conversations. Across the tables between new team members and and so when we realised that board game and and you know tooling we're only making we're only making a couple of hundred of these tooling you know Cluedo type figures or boards or it was gonna be prohibitively expensive. So there was the expense thing there was the practicality thing. But also there are lots of good. I mean, I mentioned rummy and or whist you know, collecting card games. If you're set a scenario. In in traditional card games, you'll set scenario of get the number of tricks that you want to get but but but your set a scenario that has things that you need to collect. It then seemed to it was a pretty quick jump for us to say, do you know what this has got to be a? This has got to be a a card game. We wanted something. Physical we wanted something engaging with, hence the name. The the exclamation mark at the end is is a sort of Easter egg to to to the design team who, yeah, there we go, exclamation mark. You may remember Jeff Goldblum in the fall. Guy was in or or the in the the movie The Fall Guy. Elephant exclamation mark was the musical of the of the. Elephant Man. That's the only reason there's no emotion Mark there. Don't tell anyone. But you know we wanted to. We wanted to, to, to be, to be, to be fun as well. But it became pretty clear pretty quickly that board game was gonna be a nightmare beyond our capabilities. We're not entering board game competitions to win with Catan. We know we're not. We're not like that. But we did realise one with the car playing expertise, 2 with the tactile nature, and three we wanted, we wanted there to be rounds. We wanted there to be quick rounds, quick fire rounds so people would have different scenarios in different therapeutic areas. With different budgets and so on. And then at the end you know with enshrined in the rules of this game or the the encouragement of the rules is at the end of each round, discuss what your scenario was. Your scenarios are always face up. Discuss what your scenario was, what your strategy was and what frustrations you faced. And then that brings it closer to the analogue of of the real life job. I mean, you know, it's not like the real life job. There's a wild card that says chaos ensues. Elon Musk buys the company, everyone gets three points, but you change your scenario and change your tool cards. I mean, you know. That's not like. Actually. Well, I suppose anything's likely to happen with with the head of X, but that's not likely to happen. But some of the the the some of the the the real frustrations. Now you've gone over budget, you haven't got regulatory approval the the drugs been fast tracked. All of these things happen in real life. And if you can, if you can encapsulate it that in 15 minutes and then get a discussion, that's amazing. When we've launched it and we've launched it in three, we've had three launch events, one in, in, in, in the in the kind of the global hubs, one in Basel in Switzerland, one in New Jersey and one in in in India where different teams. Based. The difficulty, if any, has been stopping people talking about the experiences they've had and and that's the whole point of it. We want people to to, to, to discuss that, but we want can we play another round? Hang on, we're still talking about the different approaches that we take. So in terms of a conversation starter, you know, and and and I suppose you know. This car I've I've done my homework, I've listened to many of your episodes, but this comes up time and again. You actually want people to, to you. You know you want people to be disrupted. You know the great joy of gamification, the. You're you're doing things in a way that in corporate life, it ain't done very often or not done nearly often enough. I mean, people, you know, people, people like you, guys who who are actively involved in this, you know, you, you know, all the time, you know, that this is the way to to do it, to disrupt, to get people to have a pattern, interrupt to, to get people to think and behave in different ways. Suddenly it can it. It can do that and it's and it's definitely doing.
Pete
I'm going to interrupt then. One of the things that's always interesting to audience and to me is what are the differences between cultures. So here we've got a physical game in English.
Speaker
Which?
Pete
What did you see in terms of differences in terms of how people play, what their reactions were to it across those three different regions?
Sam
The experiences were remarkably similar. Now that could be because we're we're within the culture of the company and that's the way the company operates that. That here are evidence based and evidence based serious business and we are and we are working within a it's a big function but within a with within a single function of patient engagement and often in patient engagement you will get people who either themselves. Have history or track record of working in that therapeutic area outside as a nurse or a doctor or or or in a in in an advocacy organisation beforehand. And so, you know, it's we, you know, we haven't played this for example with commercial teams. We haven't played this. We've played it with inside analytics professionals, people who are interested in the different data sources that that feature in the game. And use them and Commission them, I would say with, without, without trying to to to make it sound too bland, because it was largely the same function within the same business where there is its own sub. Culture. It went down in a remarkably similar way the the, I mean the the European launching, I think inviting about 45 people from. I mean, English is a lingua lingua franca, obviously. Well obviously, but it is English is the it's a, it's a, you know, it's a it's a jointly headquartered in the US and in Europe English is the link lingua franca. But I think in in in Basel we probably had. Out of 45 people, we maybe had 12/13/14 nationalities, there was, there was more laughter in India. There was more. There was more sense of there that would be about the only difference. But but what was great I think is the is the tearing down walls between. Levels of hierarchy because we've got some, we've got the global head playing as well as the as well as the new recruit. One of the one of the brilliant qualitative bits of feedback was from a pretty senior person who'd been in the business six months and and they said and we and we the the launch event was 3 hours. Well ran well into lunch. So and I ran, ran into lunch. The senior person. And said, you know, I've been, I've been in this business for six months and I've learned more about tools and methodologies for, for research in the last three hours. And I have in six months, that's no, you know, that's no, that's no criticism of what I've learned in the past six months, but I'm suddenly aware of the different options that my colleagues have got. So more after in India, but not by much.
Ben
When you were describing it just now, Sam around the value of analogue, the value of in person conversations, it really reminds me of Andy Yeoman that we interviewed. I think in series two well camera series, One series, 2 from focus, great games and how actually board games around NHS staff training. And the beauty of having it in person and this tactile game is that it enabled not just training and learning, but what could be emotionally and and morally challenging conversations, but to come at in from a game perspective. So you could detach yourself from and create these hypothetical scenarios to explore. Which Ave could could be could you could go down as a decision as decision tree. So I think that is the what you. There are so many parallels that I see between what engage does but also what focused game has achieved by having what can be very emotionally charged conversations and decisions but being able to take a step back to think it from the game and I think that's that's a real beauty to it so. We've touched a little bit around impact there. So if we can go deeper in terms of what has been the impact and what do you think the impact will be?
Sam
I think the impact has been it's provided a really safe space for teams across different therapeutic areas, working particularly in this area of patient engagement. But it's also now being being expanded and rolled out to to go into to patient advocacy too. It's provided a really safe space to. To consider a number of different and sometimes difficult and fraught scenarios that professionals in this area will face. So it's they're they're all all of the scenarios are based on real scenarios we had, you know, patient engagement, colleagues in the centre of excellence, bring these together from different associates who. Who have ended up playing the game, so we sometimes it's read as these some. Times. It's sometimes it's absolutely, you know, kind of blockbuster mass market which brings with it, you know, different different challenges of how much money you may or may not have. Is it a priority molecule, is it a or not. So you've got big and small budget, you've got tiny amount of time, massive amount of time. Different different therapeutic areas. It feels real because you know each of the therapeutic areas are the the divisions of the corporation. So it kind of feels real, but it's a safe space. Because even if somebody there has been involved in something very similar, it's unlikely they've been involved in exactly that scenario. There's no, I mean, we we didn't, we didn't want it to go off. We want it to have an enduring shelf life so that when you join this come when if there are reorganisations and and and and and we wanted it not to say this is about drug X for the, for, for. For the US launch the the scenarios are more general to that, so provides a safe space. Definitely, definitely. And and in the launch events. And then when it's used by by teams, there are internal online polling mechanism. So so we're able to every time it's used. Actually, we can't guarantee if you know people take it home and play it with their kids or you know what fun it has happened. It has happened. We can't monitor with absolute precision every time it's used for sure, but it, you know. But. But but it says it's are are are encouraged to to record their experiences. UM and the primary twin objectives of getting associates more familiar with a wider range of tools and methodologies of getting the voice of the patient into patient focused drug design and delivery. Tick absolutely does that. Oh. Oh, we could. We could use public stakeholder meetings. We could digital of did I? I haven't heard of it. What is digital ethnography now? There are internal resources clearly and training and and and and expertise where somebody will have done a lot of digital ethnography and they will be the designated person. Go to personal or team. To do that, but in in terms of broadening awareness and understanding of different tools and methodologies, brilliant. In terms of getting people to understand with those different tools and techniques, there are timing issues. There are budget issues, there are there are suitability issues. Is it gonna be even relevant to do this kind of thing in this therapeutic area or or not? Absolutely. And and in terms of fostering those discussions amongst teams. But also fostering those discussions, particularly amongst new joiners, you know, fluid like, you know, like all industries, fluid industry coming out of pandemic, lots of people moving, changing jobs and so on and so on and so on as providing a different way of doing that again. Ticks has it led to a change in the the allocation of budgets across the business to the different tools and methodologies? I would say it's too soon to say. Often these research projects will be will, you know, you'll be aware we'll take. 6918 months. Three years. To to roll out the team looks at, you know, the totality of of spend and they will definitely be looking at that as we continue to support it and it and what's great is that it's now kind of embedded in the tool, it's in the in the armoury even though it's something physical. We've got the you know we that. That they are in the right places now, they are physically in the hands of all associates and exist in the toolkit. So and and. And because it's fun. I mean, you know this, this is not a not a learning for for you guys or for less regulars for this podcast. But because it's fun and because it's not filling out a spreadsheet or having another teams meeting, the analogue nature of it and because it physically exists and is. Attractive and sits on everybody's desk. It it it, it tends to get kind of picked up and played again. So hard metrics of of meaning that there are fewer patient advisory boards and more digital ethnographies. I can't give you that. But in terms of getting people raising awareness and having those discussions. Absolutely.
Pete
I think that's really powerful that people pick it up and play it again. I've been to a number of corporates around the world and they've got Lego serious play lying around and they might have used it once, but. It's. It does seem to very rarely get used again. So there's something about it being so targeted and obvious, I guess and.
Sam
I would definitely would describe myself as an adult, not because I've got because I have anything against as an adult fan of Lego. But my son is now 21 and we still get and we maybe we don't get the big Lego sets anymore, but we still our cat always buys a Lego set for for me and my son to make together sometime during Christmas and New Year. Listen, if I'd have been corporation. That had at Lego Serious play, I can guarantee you it would be reused and reused and reused time and time again, but no, I appreciate that. And listen we, I mean we, you know, the first launch was the third first launch was June last year. So there may be dust gathering by net by June 26. But so far the indications are good. And the indications are that that this is not. Because because it's a perennial challenge. How do we get the voice of the patient involved? What tools and methodologies should be used? And because this is now an established part of the the the the toolkit, the armoury that is promoted within that community, then you know it appears that it has a longer shelf life than 3 launches.
Ben
It'd be great. Now, Sam, the second part of this episode to go a bit deeper into to your bread and butter in storytelling. So we've had so many guests on podcasts over the last couple of years and narrative and storytelling within the game has been, I say, the biggest USP to some of the products and games. That we've had involved. Why is storytelling so important and given your expertise, what should good games or good games for health be considering when involving stories?
Sam
Great, great questions. So I mean, you know, stories, storytelling, stories, structures, the way that we all navigate the world. And stories told in a human and an empathetic way. I mean, you know, my particular interest is in, in data storytelling. You know, my curious path here of having done many degrees. Some in classics and some in psychology notwithstanding, as I said when I gave my first rather too long answer, I blended those two things together because it's for me. It was just a it was just a statement of the obvious. One of the one of my touchstones is Daniel Kahneman. And Mr thinking, fast and slow. And the work that he and his long term collaborator, Emos Tversky did that won them the Nobel Prize for economics. But for behavioural economics back in 2002, the predictable mistakes or cognitive shortcuts that we make and take in order to be able to process all of the data in the world. I I think their body of work and and and and many others. You know, Richard Thaler, nudge and so on. We make as as creatures we make our decisions emotionally. You know we we make our decisions emotionally based on the the kind of quick and dirty evolutionarily ancient. Limbic reptilian brain that we share with mammals and birds and reptiles and so on. So that's how we make our we we make our decisions based on nothing to do with data, information, fact words LOL. Magic. But because we're cognitive creatures, we go on to justify them rationally, and we do that very quickly. You know that it it feels I I think it it feels to us because we're this this special cognitive creature. It feels to us as though we have made our decision rationally. And you know some people, some people will. Some people are more rational than others and they will. Draw up a spreadsheet about about what Cologne they're going to be buying this week, or or, you know, it's some people will say. But the reason that that Millett genes are the best is durability and. Price and other people might say, yeah, but you don't look very cool. So we make our decisions emotionally. We got to justify them rationally. So if that's if that's the scenario in which we exist, then you know my lens of data storytelling, most of the time, most of the coaching, training, mentoring that I gave in, in many sectors in pharma, in healthcare. Media. Here in finance, most of the work that I do is is around talking about the the humanity and empathy with which we need to deploy data and distilled versions of data. The humanity and empathy and understanding of the data, tolerance of the audience that you're looking to move to action. Now, that doesn't mean I'm remotely anti data, but it does mean that I'm I'm anti, you know, giving an absolute shed load of data. But you know people, people will switch off. The the Harvard psychologist Steve Pinker. He's not the first person to talk about this, but he summarised it very well. He wrote a lovely book in about 2014, I think called the Sense of style. The thinking person's guide to to writing in the 21st century and and in that chapter 3 whole chapter on the curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge, you know, being the difficulty in understanding what it's like not to know something that you know. And when you are knee deep in data, let's say you know you are, you're the patient engagement lead for. Cardiovascular and renal medicine and you've got your teams to do this analysis of this. You're, you know, you're just so much more expert than the head of commercial who's asked you to to to do this analysis. And if you come back and you give them 300 charts, you know, slides 1 to a. 160. They're just gonna say. Yeah, but but what are the data mean and what should I do as a result? You know, Chip and Dan Heath from the Stanford D School design School Authors co-authors of that brothers co-authors of that book made. Stick. You know their with their, with their, with their masters and doctoral students every year they do an exercise in storytelling and they have the this lovely, surprisingly precise bit of data that says that after after a meeting, 63% of people will remember. Stories and just 5% will remember any statistics me carnan then the Heath brothers. We're not. We're not anti data. But but I. I think understanding how people make decisions and what they remember is is really, really important because that will dictate what you say and and how you say it. The other thing to say I think is around motivation and behaviour and I was bemoaning in the answer to my first question. The fact that in comms agencies, PR agencies that I worked in, nobody was interested in psychology, but I think you know the work of Carmen and and Thaler and and others in recent years has got us to understand that giving people information, telling them that, telling them the. Acts ain't enough if you want to motivate people's if you want to motivate behaviour change, you need at least three things. You need information. Yes, that does matter. You need motivation. Why should I do this? And you need the behavioural skills that you may not otherwise have had. And I think that that. You know, I'm really keen to do more. Games, not necessarily in the healthcare space. I mean, I'm talking to one of the big ad agencies about creating a similar type of game about what media channels should I use. You know, all of the, you know what, what digital media channels are gonna be effective creating scenarios, having different tools that you get? But again the but giving people the behavioural skills, the motivation, information, information, motivation and behavioural skills really, really vital. Does that answer either of your questions?
Ben
Yes, to a level of depth.
Pete
I was just gonna say you're absolutely right about transfer. During this to other industries like ads and choosing your channels like I can imagine the cards already, you know President, Councils, TikTok, that sort of stuff saves it whatever and how you build that in. Now. What I was wondering was. Where do you think the strengths of data storytelling could also be applied in health like there? Is there anything else that you you see where there's too much? Data so people are data blind or whatever you want to call that where the games can bring that out and be. Useful.
Sam
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean the hard commercial edge of pharma, let's say, in the commercial teams, the commercial teams are motivated to find the next blockbuster. That's what that's, you know, is what we've got in phase two trials going to get us what we need in terms of a billion dollar drug, is it, you know, is this the next Unicorn now? In terms of investment and things need to work, they need to be safe. But along that journey along that journey from here's a promising molecule that used to do this and and now it seems through that, you know, let's think of the example of of Pfizer and then actually being outflanked by Cialis. In terms of erectile dysfunction, finding a drug that that did one thing, and I mean that's that's that's a particular one. But along that journey from going to promising molecule that might do this, yes it does do that. And then actually kind of commercialising. That there are many, many, many data-driven decision points along the way and I and as I say when we started our business, when I when I started our our consultancy as our agents, we did start actually off with with some some some work working with pharma but then spent a long time working in media and in transportation. You know, data, storytelling and finance and bhakti analytics areas where there are lots of data. But I think that I think that for obvious reasons of safety and efficacy of tolerance and compliance in the in in pharma. There isn't an industry that rests on data for more vital reasons. You know that the drugs need to work, they need to be safe. They need to not make your hair fall out. Or if they do make your hair fall out, then they need to, you know, give you. They they there needs to be a be a a rationale for that. And so. What leaders want to know is So what? What does the data mean now what? What should we do as a result? And I am absolutely convinced. You know, in its tiny in its tiny way, I think engage does that in terms of patient focused drug design, delivery in terms of helping people to understand what they might be able to do by absolutely convinced that the approach of gamification can help. Can really really help in in understanding what. In understanding how to make data-driven decisions, data-driven decision making is really difficult. We we we we map it out in of course we do. We're a consultancy. We of course we got a two by two matrix. Everyone knows that right and and and that's in. How good are you at moving from data to insight and from insight to action? As as an organisation and we've got, we've got different diagnostic tools that that, that we that you know we ask some simple questions, but we got they're pretty robust diagnostic tools that will enable you to see you know are you stuck in the data. Hard or or are you really? You know some some organisations, some cultures are really bad at moving from from dates to inside this. Do we just just one more piece of information. Just we'll just do another and you know often farmers like that often farmers like that. Because of the, the stakes are so high. Maybe consumer goods and B2B businesses are slightly less slightly sort of more cavalier there, but others are really bad at moving from inside to action once. And once you get to that elusive, you know insight is is difficult. It's an abstract concept. You don't know how to do it, but once you get to inside, sometimes once that that's there. Organisations can run and fly, others are really, really, really reluctant to do that. So I think those those are two key elements of data-driven decision making for which a gamified approach can really help. I haven't cracked it, I haven't liked it. I haven't turned it into games. But you've you've got my mind fizzing about about 1. The generic approach, but two specific clients that we go to with with that kind of idea.
Pete
I mean, I think you're actually right, cause the best games highlight the important decisions you need to take. So they take all the background data and say move this unit. This is the one next one that's going to have an impact. And that makes it fun choosing what to do so like turning that data into decisions is the story you're building with the person. Who's playing? Yeah, I think there's a lot. Of possibilities.
Sam
Through accident, through being recommended, the novel the playground just through a whole variety of different things. I've just started playing go for the first time in about 45 years. I spent a little bit with my dad, haven't played for ages and ages and ages. And just this the the sort of the immersion of, I mean I'm probably being a fool to be to be starting to play on on a 19 by 19 board, but I'm I've got a a friend. Just similarly sort of go naive and but just all of these different things happening at the same time and have and little skirmish going. On over here and suddenly there's. Old City over here. And so, yeah, I I think data-driven decision making is is what everybody wants to do but. Actually giving them simple ways of being able to think about it is that's the skill, isn't it? Of the brilliant consultant. But it's also this I I think the use of gamification to to empower that is is is under capitalised in what I've seen certain.
Ben
Completely agree.
Pete
It's been great to catch up and I'm the lucky 1 because I have a copy. Of the game as well. I'm looking forward to playing that with. I'm trying to work out who the. Most relevant people to play it with locally. Would be see.
Sam
Well, it's it's interesting. When we were developing it with Jen, my partner from Liquid Studio and nobody knew anything about patient engagement, what we wanted to do, what we wanted to do was not get distracted by that. What we wanted to do with with the dummy players. Was to get people to get a playable game. We wanted something that could have that that would had didn't have so many wild cards that went on for three hours. It wasn't so easy that you won it in 2 minutes, so it was really good having very naive, very farmer naive players in the in the initial development.
Pete
Brilliant.
Ben
Thanks. I'm excited, Sam. It's been great to having the show today and to explore the game you've created with Novartis to provide professionals with a fun way to explore the options of patient focused drug design and delivery rather than just following the industry default of another patient involvement panel. The value of and of physicality in analogue games to create in person, connections and conversion. Actions and how games can provide safe spaces for teams. Then consider a number of different and sometimes difficult scenarios that professionals and patient engagement will face, and just finally the importance of storytelling in game because data-driven decision making is challenging. And as humans, we make decisions emotionally because we often take cognitive shortcuts and people, as you mentioned, remember stories more than stats. And as a result, so telling people the facts isn't enough. But through good storytelling in games, this is the potential that can motivate people through changing their thinking, decisions and ultimately behaviours.
Sam
Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure.