Laura Evans-Hill, Visual Storyteller (Episode 69)

Episode Transcript
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Laura Evans-Hill (00:00):
We use visuals to help people make ideas
clearer, more memorable, moreunderstandable and more
emotional. You take a sentenceof text and you take the same
information presented as avisual, you are going to process
those words in six seconds.You're going to process the same
information as visual in 13milliseconds. I had ex

(00:21):
colleagues get in touch and sayyou know those stupid little
doodles you used to do when youwere teaching. Can we pay you to
do them?

Sarah McLusky (00:29):
Hello there. I'm Sarah McLusky, and this is
Research Adjacent. Each episode,I talk to amazing research
adjacent professionals aboutwhat they do, why it makes a
difference. Keep listening tofind out why we think the
research adjacent space is wherethe real magic happens.

(00:50):
Hello there. I'm your host,Sarah McLusky, and this is
episode 69 of the ResearchAdjacent podcast today. My guest
is Laura Evans-Hill, a visualstoryteller and chief pencil
wielder at researchcommunications agency, Nifty Fox
Creative. As you might guess,Laura combines visuals, in
particular, hand drawnillustrations with stories to
help researchers get their workout of journals and into the

(01:13):
hands and the hearts of peoplewho can use it. People have been
recommending Laura as a guestsince the podcast started, so
I'm delighted that we've finallybeen able to sit down for a
chat. Laura studied socialresearch and worked for many
years in widening participation,but an extended period of
illness prompted a careeru-turn. Laura started
tentatively as a solo freelancerwhen former colleagues asked if

(01:35):
they could pay her for thedoodles that they had seen her
doing. Fast forward eight yearsand Nifty Fox now has a team of
nine who work with public sectororganizations and universities
across the world. In ourconversation, we talk about why
visual communication can be sopowerful, why it's so important
for researchers to get theirwork beyond academia, the

(01:55):
evolution of our business, someof the projects that she's
worked on, and what AI mightmean for the future of research
communication. Listen on to hearLaura's story.
Welcome along to the podcast,Laura. It's fantastic to have
you with us. I wonder if youcould tell us a bit about what
it is that you do.

Hi, folks. My name is Laura Evans-Hill. I'm an
ex social researcher nowdirector and founder of Nifty
Fox Creative. We're an awardwinning visual storytelling
agency, and we work specificallywith researchers to help them
tell their stories visually sothat audiences listen. We've
been helping people do thatsince 2017 and we've worked with
over 50 universitiesinternationally, 78 public

(02:36):
sector organizations, andgetting on for nearly 4000
researchers now

That is, that's a lot of people, 4000 that's
amazing. So tell us what youmean a bit by visual
storytelling.

Absolutely. So visual storytelling is almost
exactly what it says on the tin.There's a visual side of it and
there's a storytelling side ofit. So for the visual side of
it, we use visuals to helppeople make ideas clearer, more
memorable, more understandableand more emotional, to actually
drive them to act differently ormake a change, and obviously,
for researchers, that's whatgets them up in the morning. But

(03:12):
the storytelling side of it is,how do we combine that power of
pictures with the power ofnarrative, again, to help people
understand what's going on byjuxtaposing it with a story that
they may know or a storystructure they've heard before,
but also get them to care. If wecare about something, we're more
likely to make that policychange, also make that practice
change, or to change the waywe're doing research

(03:34):
fundamentally. So that's what itis, and practically that might
look like something like ainfographic, an animation, a
live scribed image. It could bethe activities we're using in a
co design session withparticipants to get them to
tease out their own stories. Andwe've done crazy things at nifty
like interactive onlineexhibitions through to huge art

(03:56):
installations and murals thatare articulating what health
research is. So it's anythingvisual and telling a story, we
like to give it a go.

Yeah, fantastic. I mean, I think that idea of
doing it in order to make peoplecare, certainly the world that I
come from, the public engagementside of things and research
communications, it's soimportant, isn't it, because so
often when you go out into theworld with, you know, like a
public engagement story orsomething like that. You're
like, yes, let me tell you aboutthis fascinating, you know,

(04:27):
quantum physics, or whatever itmight be. And the first
question, you know, for mostpeople, it's like, well, so
what? So, yeah, yeah. So makingpeople care helps to answer that
so what question doesn't it?

For sure, it's also about making them care on a
human level. I think we forgetthat. We find when working with
our clients, you're so wrappedup in your stuff and your area
of expertise, you forget thatthere is a person that needs to
receive that communication,whose needs experiences problems
are, in that moment ofcommunication, more important

(05:02):
than yours, you need to havethat understanding of, well, why
do they need, you know, whyshould they care, not from my
perspective, but actually fromtheirs? I think that's quite an
interesting shift in mindset fora lot of people we work with,
and also, you know, for me as abusiness owner and and doing all
those marketing at the sametime. It's like, well, why
should they give a monkeys aboutthis in their very busy life?

(05:25):
Why would they stop scrolling togive us the time of day? So I
agree, it's a really interestingpoint.

And it is, it's interesting you say that it is
quite a mindset shift for a lotof researchers to kind of step
out of just doing this research,because it's interesting to me
to thinking about doing thisresearch with the purpose of
changing something in the world,and the steps that you have to

(05:51):
go through to actually make thathappen. So why do you think
visual storytelling can helpwith that shift and getting that
story told.

I think this the science behind why it works
in terms of our neuroscience,but there is also our nature. Is
from a human condition of whywe're attracted that visual
stories together. So from ascientific point of view, why it
works is because the visualprocessing part of our brain is

(06:21):
the biggest part of our brainpower. So when you're trying to
get somebody at the very baselevel to understand something,
and often researchers followthat first hurdle. If I don't
get it, I'm never going to careabout it. Yeah, and we've, we've
heard, we've heard the kind ofthe processing stats of, you
know, visuals can be processed60,000 times quicker than sex.
Now that's a very spurious factthat is very, very contested

(06:43):
across the interwebs now, butthe one I like to use is, if you
take a sentence of text and youtake the same information
presented as a visual, you aregoing to process those words in
six seconds. You're going toprocess the same information as
visual in 13 milliseconds.Massive difference. Yeah,
massive difference. So from avery base level, it works to

(07:07):
make that shift because you'reactually thinking about, how is
the person's brain working thatis sat in front of me, and I'll
help you to understand it morequickly. The second part of that
shift is thinking about, well,how, how can I use the visuals
and the stories and that scienceto make it more memorable. You
know, we all hear interestingthings all the time, but if we
don't remember it, we're nevergoing to act upon it. So if you

(07:31):
use visuals alongside wellchosen words, you're 65% likely
to make your audience rememberit three days later. And also,
when you're creating a visualstory, it's by nature emotive.
You have to think about youraudience in order to craft a
story that feels believable,that feels real, that feels not

(07:52):
written by AI. I'm sure we'lltalk about AI. And actually, in
thinking about what's going toresonate with that person in
front of me? You're not onlyengaging the emotional
processing side of your brain,but also harnessing the visual
and emotional processing at thesame time, because they're based
in the same side of the brain.Don't quiz me on whether it's

(08:13):
right or left. I could neverremember, but I know that
together, so it helps you makethat shift, because you're not
only having to communicate yourresearch even more clearly and
succinctly than you wouldnormally, but you're also having
to do so in ways that are sooutside of the research training
that you have, that is veryinternally focused and less

(08:34):
externally so that you actuallyresonate with your audience. I
feel like I've had a roundaboutanswer that question but I think
I

No we've got there in the end. And yeah, no.
Really interesting stuff. Ididn't know all that stuff about
how we I mean, I thinkinstinctively people know that
you process visual informationdifferently, and then you can
can connect to it, as you say,much more emotionally than you
do with language. But I didn'trealize there was all that
science behind it. So that'sreally interesting. I'm but as

(09:03):
you say, it's this taking thatway of processing information
and applying it to sharingresearch is something that is
relatively new, but definitelygrowing, isn't it? I mean, I've
just seen an explosion in recentyears in terms of, you know,

(09:25):
infographics and these kind of,you know, illustrations of
meetings and things like that.So, yeah, so how's that changed
for you over since you you gotinvolved with it? What did you
say? 2017, yeah,

Yeah, it's definitely evolved. And I'll be
honest, I didn't set out to makeNifty into the research comms
agency it is now. I left highereducation arena back in 2015,
16, so I got super burnt out,and needed to take some time out
to work out how how I was goingto fix myself again and make
something a life that felt likeit aligned my academic research

(10:04):
passions with the creativitythat was slightly beaten out of
me in the institution. So thereason that I got into it was
because I had ex colleagues getin touch and say, you know those
stupid little doodles you usedto do when you were teaching.
Can we pay you to do them? Wethink there's value in them. So
I never set out to do this. Ithappened organically, because

(10:28):
sketch noting and communicatingvisually was how I always did my
presentations. BecausePowerPoint for me, was never a
tool that I felt like I couldget behind or communicate well
with, it didn't enable me toconnect with my audience. So it
started by accident in that way.But also, I've seen a shift from
people almost doing thisexperimentally in 2017 to go,

(10:51):
we've got we've got someadditional funding that we
haven't accounted for, let'sgive this a go, to now it being
a fundamental part of fundingapplications, and actually
something that funders arelooking for, not just because
it's pretty and, you know, itwill tick that PPI box, that
public engagement box, butactually it's a fundamental part

(11:13):
of the method that will driveroutes to impact that will
enable us to work with people inpolicy, in practice, decision
makers across the world. And theother thing that we're quite
excited about at Nifty is notonly getting involved at the end
of the research process, whichis definitely where we were
maybe in the first few years ofour existence, but actually now

(11:37):
being baked in from the very,very beginning. So we become co
design partners within aresearch project. So I guess the
shift in some has been frompretty output to meaningful
method that actually drivesroutes to impact.

It's fantastic to hear that that is that you've
seen that shift as well, becauseI've certainly seen it in some
of the work that I do aroundengagement and communications
and public involvement and, youknow, partnerships and things
like that, this sense of, youknow, 10 years ago, it was
something that was tagged on atthe end, and then this

(12:13):
acknowledgement that it needs tobe not just, and then it sort of
crept back in the process, youknow, not just during it, but
now, even right up there withthe research design, you know,
before you put in the fundingapplication, actually thinking
what is the process going to be,and how can we embed these more
effective methods in there tohelp us to have that impact that

(12:36):
we want to have in the world?

Yeah and I think it makes research culture
and the research we create moreinclusive, more equitable, more
aligned to real world problems.And that for me as a social
researcher, I usually, usuallyuse the word ex, but you never
stop being a social researcher.Is so empowering, exciting,
morally, the right thing to do,but also economically the right

(13:02):
thing to do. Because as fundingapplications get more
competitive, especially in ourcurrent environment, I don't
know when people will listen tothis podcast, but Trump's just
ruined the world economy. Itit's more important than ever to
not only be doing the rightthing, but also be doing to be
doing the economic, economicallyexpedient thing to ensure that

(13:24):
we've got research that'sactually embedded in in real
world application that will makea tangible difference, the
policy society, the economy,healthcare and the things that
will enable our planet to besustained. Yeah, and that that's
such an exciting shift, and touse visual storytelling as a
vehicle to be part of that iswhat gets me up in the morning.

Yeah, oh fantastic that you've, you've
found that channel, and that wayto to use all of the experience
and things that you've got. Sotell us a bit about you've
you've said there, you'vementioned a bit about you were a
social researcher. So tell us abit about what you used to do.
And you know you've said how yougot into doing what you do now,
but, but that's shift, and howyou found that

Absolutely so I trained as a social researcher
and then worked for universityfor 10 years in widening
participation. That wassomething that was really
interesting to me, being one ofthe first in my family to go to
university and not having thesame kind of support that the
other people around me at myuniversity did, really kind of
stuck in my head as something Iwanted to change. So I trained

(14:33):
at Warwick, and then I workedfor Coventry, Warwick, Sheffield
and Leeds within outreach and WPteams. I loved it. It was where
I learned the power ofcommunicating differently so
that different audiences canengage in the ivory tower. There
is nothing more humbling thanstanding in front of a group of

(14:54):
inner city 14 year olds inCoventry who wish you weren't
there. Have no interest in whatyou have to say, and you're
going this PowerPoint that I'vebeen given is not going to cut
it. So I'm really thankful forthose experiences, because they
showed me the power of researchwhen you communicate it well to

(15:16):
change individual lives. There'snothing more rewarding than
seeing, you know, meeting a 14year old, and then seeing them
six years later at theuniversity, doing something that
they never thought possible. Butequally, as I alluded to, I
became a manager very, veryyoung. There was a lot for me
going on personally at the time,and I got really, really unwell.
I got glandular fever andchronic fatigue syndrome, and

(15:37):
within six months, went frombeing a very active
cross-fitting like 20 year oldto not being able to get out of
bed for 12 months. And when Iwhen I say that, I don't mean
that by exaggeration, I did notleave the house for 12 months,
and it was both the best and theworst thing that could ever
happen, because it made me lookat clearly my body has given me

(15:58):
a signal that whatever I'mdoing, both in my professional
and personal life isn't working,and so I took that time to go,
Well, what do I really want todo? And actually, it was finding
that new purpose that helped meget better. I consider myself a
recover, a recovered person now,and not everybody does, but
that's because you have to lookat every facet of your life and
go, What do I actually want? Notwhat does society want? So, I

(16:23):
started Nifty, you know, Istarted Nifty, working one day a
week, simply because excolleagues got in touch and
said, as I said, Can you do thisthing? You know, where are you
in your recovery journey? Canyou do this? And so, from, yeah,
one day a week to then, now, toomany days a week, but starting
from, you know, from you know,from one and I started doing,
you know, live illustration forresearchers and university

(16:44):
contacts, and then a little bitof branding here and there for
research projects as it couldmanage around my energy. And
then, as I got better, thebusiness started to get bigger
COVID hit. And we, liveillustration was a massive part
of what we were doing at thatpoint. I say we it was me and my
admin, avenger, Lizzie at thetime. And actually, COVID was a

(17:06):
blessing in disguise, because itshifted how we could support
people and the entire researchlandscape and event landscape
and public sector landscape,realizing in the switch to
online, how on earth are wegoing to engage people and keep
them within our community, keepthem trained, keep them engaged.
So that's when we started to doother parts. So more studio

(17:27):
work, so infographics,animations, e-learning is
something we started in COVID,and I do an awful lot of now. So
that really, that globalpandemic actually helped us
reframe our offering to bettersupport researchers, and then
we've grown from there, as I'vealluded to, we're now much more
into that co-design space,training is a big part of of

(17:49):
what we do now. We're a team ofabout to be nine of us going all
over the world doing it so thatthat shift is, you know, I'd
like to say something reallypithy and inspiring, and it was
this grand epiphany. It was Iput myself in a space where I
was open to the opportunitiesthat were given, and listen to
the needs of the of my audience,and listen to the needs of what

(18:12):
researchers needed. But becauseI had those contacts in in unis
already and that sectorknowledge, I could see where the
gap was, and then exploited it.But that's the journey from from
zero to now.

That really is, I mean, that's, it's a remarkable
journey, but also that'sincredible growth in just five
years to go from just, you know,one, one and a half of you,
whatever it was, to a team ofnine. Um, so how's that
expansion process been? Iimagine you've had to step in,
step into quite a differentrole.

Yeah, it's the most rewarding, terrifying, soul
wrenching adventure I've beenon. I would say the, well, first
of all, it shows you're doingsomething right, and that the
market needs that. It alsochallenges you as a person,

(19:09):
because you start something bybeing a doer, and actually liken
this to the process of goingthrough a research team. So
starting as a research assistantand then eventually ending up as
a PI. You're you get very goodat the doing, and then you your
role completely changes, and youhave to let go of the doing when
that's the thing you started thebusiness to do. So it's it's

(19:30):
been a personal journey, butit's been so rewarding to watch
the team grow and the team buyin to what we're achieving. You
know, our mission is to dovisual storytelling for social
good, that we can make knowledgemore accessible, equitable,
inclusive for everyone, and thatto have a, you know, a gang of

(19:51):
eight of the people that believein that as much as you do, and
the market is also on your sideand wants that too, has been
incredible. But, it's yeah, thehonest answer is that the growth
has been relentless, exciting,and as I said, you have to grow,
not only as a team, but also asindividuals, to scale that

(20:13):
growth and also to react to andbe proactive in seeing what
happens in the market.Obviously, you know, we have
research funding cuts.Universities are going through a
tough spot financially, so it'show you offer that value as
something that has to beincluded in that financial
forecasting, rather than a niceto have. And that's how we've

(20:34):
shaped Nifty, very much alignedto our values, to make it stand
out from all of the other designagencies that don't have the
same niche that we do, yeah. Somake us a competitive option
over anybody else that can dodesign, because we don't just
make things look pretty. We doit through co-production with a
deep understanding of thesector. And actually, you can

(20:55):
exploit our network, you know,4000 researchers doing probably
similar things to you. So that'sbeen a joy

Yes, oh, but as you say, a lot I can imagine,

Yeah, quite a lot, yeah.

But um, but as you say that that is a real
niche, definitely to be doingthe design work, but also to
really understand the sector,because that is when I've been
in roles and worked with, whenI've been in roles and
universities and places likethat, and tried to work with

(21:29):
designers and so often, justfound that they just don't get
it. They don't, you know, theythink that you can just make
something look nice, but it'slike, Oh, does it have to be
exactly like this? Can't it justlike because this would be
nicer? And you're like, No,yeah, it has to be this. It has
to be spelt this way. You know,look this way. You know,

(21:53):
whatever it is, that there isn'tthat scope for flexibility and
and that it's more measured,slightly more measured approach
sometimes to, you know, languageand things like that, which
other design agencies don'talways get.

And something that we do well at Nifty is all
of that upfront work with theclient to deeply understand
their research project and whatthey're trying to achieve. So
our first our first priority asa company is to represent that
research well, and theneverything else is in service of
that vision. So we actuallysupport our clients to be

(22:32):
writing the content. We don'tjust take content and make
something pretty we are raftingthat together because you're as
an academic, you're not trainedhow to do that. How we couldn't
expect you to write an animationscript that tells a story that's
engaging and that appeals toyour audience for a specific
purpose. When you've never beentrained how to do that, that's
madness. So the biggest part ofour project is always up front,

(22:55):
working together with ourclients to actually craft the
strategy for what we're creatingso that it, as I said, just
doesn't just look beautiful, itactually achieves the purpose
and serves the research projectand its impact aims, and all of
the measuring that we need to doin the background to make sure
that happens.

Yeah, now, well, it's clearly giving people the
results that they're after,because, as you say, with the
growth that you've had and yourreputation goes before you. You
know, so many people hadmentioned you to me before our
paths had crossed. So yeah, andso thinking then maybe about
some of the specifics of thesort of things you've done,

(23:35):
maybe you could give us a coupleof really kind of specific
examples of things that you'vedone that you're really proud
of, whether that's some of theinteresting, unusual things you
said, you've done, or justthings that had a really big
impact. Tell us your choice.Tell us about what.

Well, our brain loves three so I'll give
you three examples. I'm going togo for the crazy, disn't know
quite how we were going to dothis, but ended up being
incredible project first. Soshout out to Steph Cohen at
University of Nottingham. SoSteph and the team were working
with female athletes, retiredfemale athletes, and reframing

(24:16):
how we look at environments insport. So the challenge there is
that sports injury is often seendue to physiological factors,
and that men will have differentinjuries simply because they
have a different physiology towomen and vice versa. Steph's
research actually looks at thegendered environments, so the

(24:36):
norms, environments,relationships, power structures
within sports and how thatactually shapes injury risk. So
looking specifically at therewas one on ACL injury, and what
it was just so fascinating tosee that there is more than
physiology at play as to howfemale athletes are supported

(24:58):
through their career. Yeah. SoSteph had a wealth of
qualitative data, so things likepoems, recordings, art from the
female athletes, and wanted tocreate something that showed the
emotional impact of theseenvironments, whilst also
creating a toolkit for peoplerunning those environments. So

(25:21):
people like the SportsInstitute, I'm going to get that
wrong begins with UK. I'll findthat afterwards big sports
people. So people areresponsible for Olympic teams
and athletes. So how can wemake, you know, make the emotive
stuff work with the practicalthis is what we need to do. So
Steph came to us with the idea,I want to make an online

(25:43):
interactive exhibition that canalso be used in person and
experienced collectively. And itneeds to be beautifully
illustrated, super accessible,include audio visual. Oh, and by
the way, it needs to have all ofthis exhibition, more
traditional exhibition stuffaround it, so we can take it on
tour. Yeah. And I said to Steph,count us in no idea how we're

(26:05):
going to do this, and it'sturned into more than medals. So
we worked with them on thenaming More Than Medals. We
worked with them on the brandaround it, how the exhibition
was created, how it wasstructured online, how that
would work in person. Wecollaborated with their tech
team at Nottingham to create abadge of how people interacted

(26:26):
with the exhibition. So thatcreated like a live piece of art
at the same time, and that hasnow been funded again to create
the toolkit, element of it toactually support sports leaders
to create more equitablegendered environments, and is
now also being showcased at theBritish Academy summer event as
an incredible example of publicengagement and impact work, and

(26:49):
has actually been taken up bymasses of sports around the
country training our nextOlympic athletes as a new way
for us to get the edge, becauseit's not just about physiology.
So that's one

that's fantastic does that exists somewhere on
the internet

morethanmedals.co.uk. Yeah, I'll link to Steph as
well, and also Joe Parsons atUniversity of Manitoba. It's a
huge global collaboration. Andthere's something that's come
out of that called the Edge Lab,which is the environments,
gendered environments, in sportlab, that are now doing things
worldwide. So that was, thatwas, yeah, both really

(27:23):
impactful, but also reallyrewarding, because we really got
to know the team and are workingon other stuff as a result. So
that's one. Number two would bea more general aspect of what we
do, which is co-design. So wework a lot with people who have
had cancer or experiencingdementia, as well as their

(27:44):
families. We're currentlyworking on something with
University of Leeds on peoplewith long term neurological
conditions, so us as a wholeteam, whenever we get to spend
time with real life peopleexperiencing real life stuff, it
makes a difference to your jobsatisfaction, but also knowing
that that thing you createdisn't just going to say, look

(28:05):
pretty that seems to be my quoteof the day. It's actually going
to meaningfully make adifference in somebody's life.
So an example there, we workedwith Bradford University and the
Bradford Health Institute to cocreate a Managing My Medicines
toolkit for people withdementia, so that they could
manage their medicines better athome. And what was really
heartwarming about those codesign sessions were that these

(28:29):
people have never really beenasked what they thought before
or spoken to as equals, aspeople with lived experience
that really matters. So that'scurrently at clinical trial, and
I need to check in with the crewover at Bradford, to see where
we are with that now, butactually to see and be part of
the translation of theexperience of patients and

(28:50):
people with dementia or peoplewith autism or or people who
have lived experience ofdomestic abuse, actually
translating that experience intosomething that's tangible and
out there and helping people isjust the piece the resistance of
what we do at Nifty. And thethird one is something we're
doing with the NIHR at themoment, which is actually a

(29:12):
completely different side of theresearch process. And it's how
do we build capacity withinlocal authorities to access all
of this health research and findthe evidence they need to back
up their decisions more thanthey do now. So that's called
KNOW-PH, and we'll link to thattoo. That's with University of
Sheffield, Nottingham, and I'msure lots of other universities

(29:33):
are completely forgotten in themoment, but we're part of that
as a long term design partner tohelp them find different ways to
help local authorities not onlyjust read loads of research
evidence, but actually feel it,experience it, understand the
public health issues that are,access that their communities
are experiencing, and find waysto make that evidence

(29:54):
digestible, accessible andusable, to actually make a
difference to our public healthsystem. So that's. Something
we're currently working onthat's very exciting.

I think then those things, it's just so
important, isn't it, becausethat's one of this. It's a very
similar area that I've alwaysworked in, but the this, all
this information that's outthere, all the papers that are
out there. I remember once somean academic I worked with,
saying, we don't even read eachother's papers, you know, just

(30:22):
like, No, there's all thisstuff's out there and nobody's
reading it. And the value thatis in there that I know isn't
there, isn't being drawn out andactually being given to people
who could use it, finding theseways of doing that and shifting
that focus from just churningout papers for the sake of

(30:43):
churning out papers, becausethat's what gets the tick boxes,
you know, on, on whatever metricsystem, to actually papers
research that's usable to me,that's just so important. So,
yeah, fantastic

It's that old adage, isn't it like you have to
publish or perish. And we'relike, no, you have to be visible
so you don't vanish. That's ashift, and papers have an
absolute place in the academiclandscape. Like that is where
you do your thinking, where youcan demonstrate your academic
rigor. And for the people thatneed it, you need that level of
detail sometimes to make change,especially in things like

(31:19):
healthcare or science andengineering, but the vast
majority of people you know, 90%of your audience, only need 10%
of that information to makechange. Yeah, and that you know,
when your whole reason for beingas an academic is to publish and
to demonstrate your worth thatway, it can be a real mindset
shift to go actually, maybe mypublications aren't quite as

(31:40):
important for real world impactas I as I thought, I'm
absolutely not disputing theirimpact academically, but if
they're not even reading eachother, then, why bother

Yeah definitely. Well, I mean, that is certainly
one of the challenges of thisworld that you work in making
things available, and you'vetalked about some of your
personal challenges and things,I think you touched on AI
earlier. Should we have a thinkabout what, what AI is doing to
the situation, to, you know, thekind of work that you do? How

(32:13):
are you finding it?

Yeah, sure. I think I'm probably, I probably
have a different view to a lotof other creatives. I'm a
researcher, first creativesecond. So AI as a tool to help
people execute quickly. I don'thave a problem with especially
when things like findingsummaries of research articles,
some fantastic research made,you know, made by researchers

(32:36):
for research and software outthere. So Size Space is an
example. Napkin AI helps turnyour research into beautiful
like theoretical models. So Ithink it's we need to get on
board with it, because it'shappening creatively. I think IP
is a real interesting domain toget into. What big data will do

(32:57):
with all of our data is veryinteresting, and some of you
know my team and I were talkingabout this yesterday, actually,
and some of them feel quitethreatened by it, but I would
always argue that the AI thingthat's created is only ever as
good as a human inputting theprompt, and you can't replace

(33:18):
human thought and humancreativity, and finding all of
those connections between thingsthat might seem very disparate.
For example, creating a D and Dgame of how to engage policy
makers, something I was alsotalking about yesterday. AI will
only ever churn out the samecrap it's seen elsewhere on the

(33:39):
internet, right? And that's justbecomes an echo chamber of
sameness. So I think it's agreat tool, but it will never
replace human thinking forcreatives. I understand the
fear, especially around IP andaround you know, what is true

It is a minefield, and I have to admit
art, and you know, how is thatpotentially replacing jobs? But
it's about how you positionyourself as using AI to improve
your process, but not being sothreatened by it, or having or
not having the confidence inyour own creative thought
process to be, yeah, off put byit. I think so. Yeah, there's a

(34:16):
it's a whole minefield.
one that I am not engaging witha huge amount.

I respect that

But yeah, but yeah, I think that, as you see,
it's certainly some of thethings that people have said
that really struck with stuckwith me is what you say about it
can't replace that humancreativity and that kind of one
of my previous guests said, andhuman weirdness, the like, you
know, it's just our brains cando just weird stuff that an AI

(34:46):
just never think of. And there'salso the fact as well that a lot
of the stuff I've seen that AIgenerated isn't very good. Like,
it's pretty. I mean, I'm sureit'll get better, but it's, it's
pretty. I'm at the moment, it'spretty clear. It's pretty
obvious when it's AI generated.So I feel like that's not going

(35:07):
to replace anything. And thenalso, I think the other thing is
that it's it's going toencourage a return towards
valuing real craft and realskill and and real human
connection. And I think,actually, that's something
that's been really missing inrecent years. I'm my kind of

(35:28):
dream is that it would bring ustogether more as human beings,
rather than because that just,there'll just be so much stuff
out there that the only thingyou can really trust is that
human human connection.

Yeah, and there's a book, actually, it's
called the Revenge of Analogue,which came out probably, yeah,
nearly 10 years ago. That saysexactly that, and we can see it
in the other trends in our life.You know, return to people
buying vinyl records, to usingiPods and buying music, to
rejecting Kindle, because nowyou can't take your books off
Kindle. You don't what, what isownership? I think we will

(36:03):
always be drawn to things thatfeel real, and yes, AI sometimes
is incredibly real, and youcan't tell. But there's also
something about a feeling thatyou get from seeing a scratchy
doodle being done in front ofyou, that that's why I do what I
do, and I really love what yousaid about you will always crave
human connection. The reason Idraw, the reason I draw with

(36:26):
people, and to present peoplewith drawing, is because it
strips away all of that pretenseof a slide deck or something
super flash and slick toactually the raw human
connection that we can make withour audience. And you feel more
authentic that way. And I thinkauthenticity is something that
AI, I'd love it if I get quotedon this, but I don't think AI

(36:48):
can replace authenticity, whichyou can naturally feel if
somebody's being authentic ornot. Yeah, and that that yeah,
I'm maybe famous last words. I'mnot worried. I'm excited by the
possibilities of how it improvesproductivity and things from a
business angle, but I'm notthreatened by what it could do

(37:10):
to human thought or to realhuman creator. There's human
weirdness. I like the way, yeah,

Well, have to give credit to previous guest,
Sam Steele for that one. So yes,human weirdness. Well, to think
about wrapping up ourconversation, I always like to
ask my guests, if they had amagic wand, what's something
they would change about theworld that they work in? So
money and time were no object.

Wow, that is such a big question. And other
than remove Donald Trump, I'mtrying to think I would, here's
what I would shape in our arena.I would add storytelling and
visual communication training toevery doctoral training
partnership researcher trainingcurriculum across the world. And
I know people buy it in, but Iwould make it a fundamental

(37:59):
built in from the verybeginning, delivered by that
institution as an integral partof the researcher training, to
create an academic that not onlyis rigorous, but also
communicates well and isactually embedded in the
communities that they're tryingto change. That would be my
magic wand.

I think that would be fantastic. So a
wonderful wish to leave it onthere. So if people want to find
out more about you, about NiftyFox, where would you have them
go and look.

Fabulous. So for everything Nifty we are
@niftyfoxcreative on LinkedIn,BlueSky. We are on X but don't
actively post on there becauseeverybody's had a mass exodus.
And we will also have a YouTubechannel up and running in the
next few months too. So@niftyfoxcreative, on
everything. Niftyfoxcreative.comfor all of our resources and
information there. For me,personally, I'm going hard on

(38:51):
LinkedIn at the moment because Ifeel like that's the most
meaningful and connected placeto be. So that's just Laura
Evans-Hill there. You can alsofind me on X @EvansNifty. I
don't post regularly on there,but that's also interesting, too.

Fantastic. Thank you very much. We'll get all
those links as well and put themin the show notes. So thank you
so much for coming and telling

Thank you so much. Take care.

Thanks for listening to Research Adjacent.
If you're listening on a podcastapp, please check your
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at www.researchadjacent.com.Research Adjacent is presented

(39:40):
and produced by Sarah McLusky,and the theme music is by Lemon
Music Studios on Pixabay. Andyou, yes you, get a big gold
star for listening right to theend, see you next time.

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