Laura Evans-Hill, Visual Storyteller (Episode 69) | Laura is turning illustrations into impact
For this episode of the Research Adjacent podcast Sarah is talking to Laura Evans-Hill. Laura is a visual storyteller and director of research communications agency Nifty-Fox Creative. Laura and her team use visual storytelling, in particular hand-drawn illustrations, to help researchers get their work out of journals and into the hands and the hearts of people who can use it.
Laura studied social research and worked for many years in widening participation, but an extended period of illness prompted a career u-turn. Laura started tentatively as a solo freelancer when former colleagues asked if they could pay her for her ‘doodles’. Fast forward eight years and Nifty Fox now has a team of nine who work with public sector organizations and universities across the world.
Sarah and Laura talk about
- Why combining visuals and storytelling can be such a powerful communication tool
- How she works with researchers to turn illustrations into impact
- Her journey from accidental freelancer to agency director
- What AI might mean for the future of research communication
Find out more
- Connect to Laura on LinkedIn
- Find out more about Nifty Fox Creative on their website, LinkedIn or BlueSky
- Check out the More Than Medals online exhibition
Theme music by Lemon Music Studios from Pixabay
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Episode Transcript
Laura Evans-Hill 00:00
We use visuals to help people make ideas clearer, more memorable, more understandable and more emotional. You take a sentence of text and you take the same information presented as a visual, you are going to process those words in six seconds. You’re going to process the same information as visual in 13 milliseconds. I had ex colleagues get in touch and say you know those stupid little doodles you used to do when you were 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 about what they do, why it makes a difference. Keep listening to find out why we think the research adjacent space is where the real magic happens.
Sarah McLusky 00:50
Hello there. I’m your host, Sarah McLusky, and this is episode 69 of the Research Adjacent podcast today. My guest is Laura Evans-Hill, a visual storyteller and chief pencil wielder at research communications agency, Nifty Fox Creative. As you might guess, Laura combines visuals, in particular, hand drawn illustrations with stories to help researchers get their work out of journals and into the hands and the hearts of people who can use it. People have been recommending Laura as a guest since the podcast started, so I’m delighted that we’ve finally been able to sit down for a chat. Laura studied social research and worked for many years in widening participation, but an extended period of illness prompted a career u-turn. Laura started tentatively as a solo freelancer when former colleagues asked if they could pay her for the doodles that they had seen her doing. Fast forward eight years and Nifty Fox now has a team of nine who work with public sector organizations and universities across the world. In our conversation, we talk about why visual communication can be so powerful, why it’s so important for researchers to get their work beyond academia, the evolution of our business, some of the projects that she’s worked on, and what AI might mean for the future of research communication. Listen on to hear Laura’s story.
Sarah McLusky 02:06
Welcome along to the podcast, Laura. It’s fantastic to have you with us. I wonder if you could tell us a bit about what it is that you do.
Laura Evans-Hill 02:14
Hi, folks. My name is Laura Evans-Hill. I’m an ex social researcher now director and founder of Nifty Fox Creative. We’re an award winning visual storytelling agency, and we work specifically with researchers to help them tell their stories visually so that audiences listen. We’ve been helping people do that since 2017 and we’ve worked with over 50 universities internationally, 78 public sector organizations, and getting on for nearly 4000 researchers now
Sarah McLusky 02:40
That is, that’s a lot of people, 4000 that’s amazing. So tell us what you mean a bit by visual storytelling.
Laura Evans-Hill 02:50
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 of it. So for the visual side of it, we use visuals to help people make ideas clearer, more memorable, more understandable and more emotional, to actually drive them to act differently or make a change, and obviously, for researchers, that’s what gets them up in the morning. But the storytelling side of it is, how do we combine that power of pictures with the power of narrative, again, to help people understand what’s going on by juxtaposing it with a story that they may know or a story structure they’ve heard before, but also get them to care. If we care about something, we’re more likely to make that policy change, also make that practice change, or to change the way we’re doing research fundamentally. So that’s what it is, and practically that might look like something like a infographic, an animation, a live scribed image. It could be the activities we’re using in a co design session with participants to get them to tease out their own stories. And we’ve done crazy things at nifty like interactive online exhibitions through to huge art installations and murals that are articulating what health research is. So it’s anything visual and telling a story, we like to give it a go.
Sarah McLusky 04:04
Yeah, fantastic. I mean, I think that idea of doing it in order to make people care, certainly the world that I come from, the public engagement side of things and research communications, it’s so important, isn’t it, because so often when you go out into the world with, you know, like a public engagement story or something like that. You’re like, yes, let me tell you about this fascinating, you know, quantum physics, or whatever it might be. And the first question, you know, for most people, it’s like, well, so what? So, yeah, yeah. So making people care helps to answer that so what question doesn’t it?
Laura Evans-Hill 04:40
For sure, it’s also about making them care on a human level. I think we forget that. We find when working with our clients, you’re so wrapped up in your stuff and your area of expertise, you forget that there is a person that needs to receive that communication, whose needs experiences problems are, in that moment of communication, more important than yours, you need to have that understanding of, well, why do they need, you know, why should they care, not from my perspective, but actually from theirs? I think that’s quite an interesting shift in mindset for a lot of people we work with, and also, you know, for me as a business owner and and doing all those marketing at the same time. It’s like, well, why should they give a monkeys about this in their very busy life? Why would they stop scrolling to give us the time of day? So I agree, it’s a really interesting point.
Sarah McLusky 05:31
And it is, it’s interesting you say that it is quite a mindset shift for a lot of researchers to kind of step out of just doing this research, because it’s interesting to me to thinking about doing this research with the purpose of changing something in the world, and the steps that you have to go through to actually make that happen. So why do you think visual storytelling can help with that shift and getting that story told.
Laura Evans-Hill 06:01
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 why we’re attracted that visual stories together. So from a scientific point of view, why it works is because the visual processing part of our brain is the biggest part of our brain power. So when you’re trying to get somebody at the very base level to understand something, and often researchers follow that first hurdle. If I don’t get it, I’m never going to care about it. Yeah, and we’ve, we’ve heard, we’ve heard the kind of the processing stats of, you know, visuals can be processed 60,000 times quicker than sex. Now that’s a very spurious fact that is very, very contested across the interwebs now, but the one I like to use is, if you take a sentence of text and you take the same information presented as a visual, you are going to process those words in six seconds. You’re going to process the same information as visual in 13 milliseconds. Massive difference. Yeah, massive difference. So from a very base level, it works to make that shift because you’re actually thinking about, how is the person’s brain working that is sat in front of me, and I’ll help you to understand it more quickly. The second part of that shift is thinking about, well, how, how can I use the visuals and the stories and that science to make it more memorable. You know, we all hear interesting things all the time, but if we don’t remember it, we’re never going to act upon it. So if you use visuals alongside well chosen words, you’re 65% likely to make your audience remember it three days later. And also, when you’re creating a visual story, it’s by nature emotive. You have to think about your audience in order to craft a story that feels believable, that feels real, that feels not written by AI. I’m sure we’ll talk about AI. And actually, in thinking about what’s going to resonate with that person in front of me? You’re not only engaging the emotional processing side of your brain, but also harnessing the visual and emotional processing at the same time, because they’re based in the same side of the brain. Don’t quiz me on whether it’s right or left. I could never remember, but I know that together, so it helps you make that shift, because you’re not only having to communicate your research even more clearly and succinctly than you would normally, but you’re also having to do so in ways that are so outside of the research training that you have, that is very internally focused and less externally so that you actually resonate with your audience. I feel like I’ve had a roundabout answer that question but I think I
Sarah McLusky 08:40
No we’ve got there in the end. And yeah, no. Really interesting stuff. I didn’t know all that stuff about how we I mean, I think instinctively people know that you process visual information differently, and then you can can connect to it, as you say, much more emotionally than you do with language. But I didn’t realize there was all that science behind it. So that’s really interesting. I’m but as you say, it’s this taking that way of processing information and applying it to sharing research is something that is relatively new, but definitely growing, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve just seen an explosion in recent years in terms of, you know, 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 got involved with it? What did you say? 2017, yeah,
Laura Evans-Hill 09:41
Yeah, it’s definitely evolved. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t set out to make Nifty into the research comms agency it is now. I left higher education 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 going to fix myself again and make something a life that felt like it aligned my academic research passions with the creativity that was slightly beaten out of me in the institution. So the reason that I got into it was because I had ex colleagues get in touch and say, you know those stupid little doodles you used to do when you were teaching. Can we pay you to do them? We think there’s value in them. So I never set out to do this. It happened organically, because sketch noting and communicating visually was how I always did my presentations. Because PowerPoint for me, was never a tool that I felt like I could get behind or communicate well with, it didn’t enable me to connect with my audience. So it started by accident in that way. But also, I’ve seen a shift from people almost doing this experimentally in 2017 to go, we’ve got we’ve got some additional funding that we haven’t accounted for, let’s give this a go, to now it being a fundamental part of funding applications, and actually something that funders are looking for, not just because it’s pretty and, you know, it will tick that PPI box, that public engagement box, but actually it’s a fundamental part of the method that will drive routes to impact that will enable us to work with people in policy, in practice, decision makers across the world. And the other thing that we’re quite excited about at Nifty is not only getting involved at the end of the research process, which is definitely where we were maybe in the first few years of our existence, but actually now being baked in from the very, very beginning. So we become co design partners within a research project. So I guess the shift in some has been from pretty output to meaningful method that actually drives routes to impact.
Sarah McLusky 11:52
It’s fantastic to hear that that is that you’ve seen that shift as well, because I’ve certainly seen it in some of the work that I do around engagement and communications and public involvement and, you know, partnerships and things like that, this sense of, you know, 10 years ago, it was something that was tagged on at the end, and then this acknowledgement that it needs to be not just, and then it sort of crept back in the process, you know, not just during it, but now, even right up there with the research design, you know, before you put in the funding application, actually thinking what is the process going to be, and how can we embed these more effective methods in there to help us to have that impact that we want to have in the world?
Laura Evans-Hill 12:39
Yeah and I think it makes research culture and the research we create more inclusive, more equitable, more aligned to real world problems. And that for me as a social researcher, I usually, usually use 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 thing to do. Because as funding applications get more competitive, especially in our current environment, I don’t know when people will listen to this podcast, but Trump’s just ruined the world economy. It it’s more important than ever to not only be doing the right thing, but also be doing to be doing the economic, economically expedient thing to ensure that we’ve got research that’s actually embedded in in real world application that will make a tangible difference, the policy society, the economy, healthcare and the things that will enable our planet to be sustained. Yeah, and that that’s such an exciting shift, and to use visual storytelling as a vehicle to be part of that is what gets me up in the morning.
Sarah McLusky 13:47
Yeah, oh fantastic that you’ve, you’ve found that channel, and that way to to use all of the experience and things that you’ve got. So tell us a bit about you’ve you’ve said there, you’ve mentioned a bit about you were a social researcher. So tell us a bit about what you used to do. And you know you’ve said how you got into doing what you do now, but, but that’s shift, and how you found that
Laura Evans-Hill 14:10
Absolutely so I trained as a social researcher and then worked for university for 10 years in widening participation. That was something that was really interesting to me, being one of the first in my family to go to university and not having the same kind of support that the other people around me at my university did, really kind of stuck in my head as something I wanted to change. So I trained at Warwick, and then I worked for Coventry, Warwick, Sheffield and Leeds within outreach and WP teams. I loved it. It was where I learned the power of communicating differently so that different audiences can engage in the ivory tower. There is nothing more humbling than standing in front of a group of inner city 14 year olds in Coventry who wish you weren’t there. Have no interest in what you have to say, and you’re going this PowerPoint that I’ve been given is not going to cut it. So I’m really thankful for those experiences, because they showed me the power of research when you communicate it well to change individual lives. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing, you know, meeting a 14 year old, and then seeing them six years later at the university, doing something that they never thought possible. But equally, as I alluded to, I became a manager very, very young. There was a lot for me going on personally at the time, and I got really, really unwell. I got glandular fever and chronic fatigue syndrome, and within six months, went from being a very active cross-fitting like 20 year old to not being able to get out of bed for 12 months. And when I when I say that, I don’t mean that by exaggeration, I did not leave the house for 12 months, and it was both the best and the worst thing that could ever happen, because it made me look at clearly my body has given me a signal that whatever I’m doing, both in my professional and personal life isn’t working, and so I took that time to go, Well, what do I really want to do? And actually, it was finding that new purpose that helped me get better. I consider myself a recover, a recovered person now, and not everybody does, but that’s because you have to look at every facet of your life and go, What do I actually want? Not what does society want? So, I started Nifty, you know, I started Nifty, working one day a week, simply because ex colleagues got in touch and said, as I said, Can you do this thing? You know, where are you in your recovery journey? Can you do this? And so, from, yeah, one day a week to then, now, too many days a week, but starting from, you know, from you know, from one and I started doing, you know, live illustration for researchers and university contacts, and then a little bit of branding here and there for research projects as it could manage around my energy. And then, as I got better, the business started to get bigger COVID hit. And we, live illustration was a massive part of what we were doing at that point. I say we it was me and my admin, avenger, Lizzie at the time. And actually, COVID was a blessing in disguise, because it shifted how we could support people and the entire research landscape and event landscape and public sector landscape, realizing in the switch to online, how on earth are we going to engage people and keep them within our community, keep them trained, keep them engaged. So that’s when we started to do other parts. So more studio work, so infographics, animations, e-learning is something we started in COVID, and I do an awful lot of now. So that really, that global pandemic actually helped us reframe our offering to better support researchers, and then we’ve grown from there, as I’ve alluded to, we’re now much more into that co-design space, training is a big part of of what we do now. We’re a team of about to be nine of us going all over the world doing it so that that shift is, you know, I’d like to say something really pithy and inspiring, and it was this grand epiphany. It was I put myself in a space where I was open to the opportunities that were given, and listen to the needs of the of my audience, and listen to the needs of what researchers needed. But because I had those contacts in in unis already and that sector knowledge, I could see where the gap was, and then exploited it. But that’s the journey from from zero to now.
Sarah McLusky 18:25
That really is, I mean, that’s, it’s a remarkable journey, but also that’s incredible growth in just five years to go from just, you know, one, one and a half of you, whatever it was, to a team of nine. Um, so how’s that expansion process been? I imagine you’ve had to step in, step into quite a different role.
Laura Evans-Hill 18:48
Yeah, it’s the most rewarding, terrifying, soul wrenching adventure I’ve been on. I would say the, well, first of all, it shows you’re doing something right, and that the market needs that. It also challenges you as a person, because you start something by being a doer, and actually liken this to the process of going through a research team. So starting as a research assistant and then eventually ending up as a PI. You’re you get very good at the doing, and then you your role completely changes, and you have to let go of the doing when that’s the thing you started the business to do. So it’s it’s been a personal journey, but it’s been so rewarding to watch the team grow and the team buy in to what we’re achieving. You know, our mission is to do visual storytelling for social good, that we can make knowledge more accessible, equitable, inclusive for everyone, and that to have a, you know, a gang of eight of the people that believe in that as much as you do, and the market is also on your side and wants that too, has been incredible. But, it’s yeah, the honest answer is that the growth has been relentless, exciting, and as I said, you have to grow, not only as a team, but also as individuals, to scale that growth and also to react to and be 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’s how you offer that value as something that has to be included in that financial forecasting, rather than a nice to have. And that’s how we’ve shaped Nifty, very much aligned to our values, to make it stand out from all of the other design agencies that don’t have the same niche that we do, yeah. So make us a competitive option over anybody else that can do design, because we don’t just make things look pretty. We do it through co-production with a deep understanding of the sector. And actually, you can exploit our network, you know, 4000 researchers doing probably similar things to you. So that’s been a joy
Sarah McLusky 21:02
Yes, oh, but as you say, a lot I can imagine,
Laura Evans-Hill 21:06
Yeah, quite a lot, yeah.
Sarah McLusky 21:07
But um, but as you say that that is a real niche, definitely to be doing the design work, but also to really understand the sector, because that is when I’ve been in roles and worked with, when I’ve been in roles and universities and places like that, and tried to work with designers and so often, just found that they just don’t get it. They don’t, you know, they think that you can just make something look nice, but it’s like, Oh, does it have to be exactly like this? Can’t it just like 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, whatever it is, that there isn’t that scope for flexibility and and that it’s more measured, slightly more measured approach sometimes to, you know, language and things like that, which other design agencies don’t always get.
Laura Evans-Hill 22:10
And something that we do well at Nifty is all of that upfront work with the client to deeply understand their research project and what they’re trying to achieve. So our first our first priority as a company is to represent that research well, and then everything else is in service of that vision. So we actually support our clients to be writing the content. We don’t just take content and make something pretty we are rafting that together because you’re as an academic, you’re not trained how to do that. How we couldn’t expect you to write an animation script that tells a story that’s engaging and that appeals to your audience for a specific purpose. When you’ve never been trained how to do that, that’s madness. So the biggest part of our project is always up front, working together with our clients to actually craft the strategy for what we’re creating so that it, as I said, just doesn’t just look beautiful, it actually achieves the purpose and serves the research project and its impact aims, and all of the measuring that we need to do in the background to make sure that happens.
Sarah McLusky 23:13
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 your reputation goes before you. You know, so many people had mentioned you to me before our paths had crossed. So yeah, and so thinking then maybe about some of the specifics of the sort of things you’ve done, maybe you could give us a couple of really kind of specific examples of things that you’ve done that you’re really proud of, whether that’s some of the interesting, unusual things you said, you’ve done, or just things that had a really big impact. Tell us your choice. Tell us about what.
Laura Evans-Hill 23:52
Well, our brain loves three so I’ll give you three examples. I’m going to go for the crazy, disn’t know quite how we were going to do this, but ended up being incredible project first. So shout out to Steph Cohen at University of Nottingham. So Steph and the team were working with female athletes, retired female athletes, and reframing how we look at environments in sport. So the challenge there is that sports injury is often seen due to physiological factors, and that men will have different injuries simply because they have a different physiology to women and vice versa. Steph’s research actually looks at the gendered environments, so the norms, environments, relationships, power structures within sports and how that actually shapes injury risk. So looking specifically at there was one on ACL injury, and what it was just so fascinating to see that there is more than physiology at play as to how female athletes are supported through their career. Yeah. So Steph had a wealth of qualitative data, so things like poems, recordings, art from the female athletes, and wanted to create something that showed the emotional impact of these environments, whilst also creating a toolkit for people running those environments. So people like the Sports Institute, I’m going to get that wrong begins with UK. I’ll find that afterwards big sports people. So people are responsible for Olympic teams and athletes. So how can we make, you know, make the emotive stuff work with the practical this is what we need to do. So Steph came to us with the idea, I want to make an online interactive exhibition that can also be used in person and experienced collectively. And it needs to be beautifully illustrated, super accessible, include audio visual. Oh, and by the way, it needs to have all of this exhibition, more traditional exhibition stuff around it, so we can take it on tour. Yeah. And I said to Steph, count us in no idea how we’re going to do this, and it’s turned into more than medals. So we worked with them on the naming More Than Medals. We worked with them on the brand around it, how the exhibition was created, how it was structured online, how that would work in person. We collaborated with their tech team at Nottingham to create a badge of how people interacted with the exhibition. So that created like a live piece of art at the same time, and that has now been funded again to create the toolkit, element of it to actually support sports leaders to create more equitable gendered environments, and is now also being showcased at the British Academy summer event as an incredible example of public engagement and impact work, and has actually been taken up by masses of sports around the country training our next Olympic athletes as a new way for us to get the edge, because it’s not just about physiology. So that’s one
Sarah McLusky 26:59
that’s fantastic does that exists somewhere on the internet
Laura Evans-Hill 27:03
morethanmedals.co.uk. Yeah, I’ll link to Steph as well, and also Joe Parsons at University of Manitoba. It’s a huge global collaboration. And there’s something that’s come out of that called the Edge Lab, which is the environments, gendered environments, in sport lab, that are now doing things worldwide. So that was, that was, yeah, both really impactful, but also really rewarding, because we really got to know the team and are working on other stuff as a result. So that’s one. Number two would be a more general aspect of what we do, which is co-design. So we work a lot with people who have had cancer or experiencing dementia, as well as their families. We’re currently working on something with University of Leeds on people with long term neurological conditions, so us as a whole team, whenever we get to spend time with real life people experiencing real life stuff, it makes a difference to your job satisfaction, but also knowing that that thing you created isn’t just going to say, look pretty that seems to be my quote of the day. It’s actually going to meaningfully make a difference in somebody’s life. So an example there, we worked with Bradford University and the Bradford Health Institute to co create a Managing My Medicines toolkit for people with dementia, so that they could manage their medicines better at home. And what was really heartwarming about those co design sessions were that these people have never really been asked what they thought before or spoken to as equals, as people with lived experience that really matters. So that’s currently at clinical trial, and I need to check in with the crew over at Bradford, to see where we are with that now, but actually to see and be part of the translation of the experience of patients and people with dementia or people with autism or or people who have lived experience of domestic abuse, actually translating that experience into something that’s tangible and out there and helping people is just the piece the resistance of what we do at Nifty. And the third one is something we’re doing with the NIHR at the moment, which is actually a completely different side of the research process. And it’s how do we build capacity within local authorities to access all of this health research and find the evidence they need to back up their decisions more than they do now. So that’s called KNOW-PH, and we’ll link to that too. That’s with University of Sheffield, Nottingham, and I’m sure lots of other universities are completely forgotten in the moment, but we’re part of that as a long term design partner to help them find different ways to help local authorities not only just 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 ways to make that evidence digestible, accessible and usable, to actually make a difference to our public health system. So that’s. Something we’re currently working on that’s very exciting.
Sarah McLusky 30:01
I think then those things, it’s just so important, isn’t it, because that’s one of this. It’s a very similar area that I’ve always worked in, but the this, all this information that’s out there, all the papers that are out there. I remember once some an academic I worked with, saying, we don’t even read each other’s papers, you know, just like, No, there’s all this stuff’s out there and nobody’s reading it. And the value that is in there that I know isn’t there, isn’t being drawn out and actually being given to people who could use it, finding these ways of doing that and shifting that focus from just churning out papers for the sake of churning out papers, because that’s what gets the tick boxes, you know, on, on whatever metric system, to actually papers research that’s usable to me, that’s just so important. So, yeah, fantastic
Laura Evans-Hill 30:57
It’s that old adage, isn’t it like you have to publish or perish. And we’re like, no, you have to be visible so you don’t vanish. That’s a shift, and papers have an absolute place in the academic landscape. Like that is where you do your thinking, where you can demonstrate your academic rigor. And for the people that need it, you need that level of detail sometimes to make change, especially in things like healthcare or science and engineering, but the vast majority of people you know, 90% of your audience, only need 10% of that information to make change. Yeah, and that you know, when your whole reason for being as an academic is to publish and to demonstrate your worth that way, it can be a real mindset shift to go actually, maybe my publications aren’t quite as important for real world impact as I as I thought, I’m absolutely not disputing their impact academically, but if they’re not even reading each other, then, why bother
Sarah McLusky 31:51
Yeah definitely. Well, I mean, that is certainly one of the challenges of this world that you work in making things available, and you’ve talked about some of your personal challenges and things, I think you touched on AI earlier. Should we have a think about what, what AI is doing to the situation, to, you know, the kind of work that you do? How are you finding it?
Laura Evans-Hill 32:13
Yeah, sure. I think I’m probably, I probably have a different view to a lot of other creatives. I’m a researcher, first creative second. So AI as a tool to help people execute quickly. I don’t have a problem with especially when things like finding summaries of research articles, some fantastic research made, you know, made by researchers for research and software out there. So Size Space is an example. Napkin AI helps turn your research into beautiful like theoretical models. So I think it’s we need to get on board with it, because it’s happening creatively. I think IP is a real interesting domain to get into. What big data will do with all of our data is very interesting, and some of you know my team and I were talking about this yesterday, actually, and some of them feel quite threatened by it, but I would always argue that the AI thing that’s created is only ever as good as a human inputting the prompt, and you can’t replace human thought and human creativity, and finding all of those connections between things that might seem very disparate. For example, creating a D and D game of how to engage policy makers, something I was also talking about yesterday. AI will only ever churn out the same crap it’s seen elsewhere on the internet, right? And that’s just becomes an echo chamber of sameness. So I think it’s a great tool, but it will never replace human thinking for creatives. I understand the fear, especially around IP and around you know, what is true art, and you know, how is that potentially replacing jobs? But it’s about how you position yourself as using AI to improve your process, but not being so threatened by it, or having or not having the confidence in your own creative thought process to be, yeah, off put by it. I think so. Yeah, there’s a it’s a whole minefield.
Sarah McLusky 33:53
It is a minefield, and I have to admit one that I am not engaging with a huge amount.
Laura Evans-Hill 34:23
I respect that
Sarah McLusky 34:24
But yeah, but yeah, I think that, as you see, it’s certainly some of the things that people have said that really struck with stuck with me is what you say about it can’t replace that human creativity and that kind of one of my previous guests said, and human weirdness, the like, you know, it’s just our brains can do just weird stuff that an AI just never think of. And there’s also the fact as well that a lot of the stuff I’ve seen that AI generated isn’t very good. Like, it’s pretty. I mean, I’m sure it’ll get better, but it’s, it’s pretty. I’m at the moment, it’s pretty clear. It’s pretty obvious when it’s AI generated. So I feel like that’s not going to replace anything. And then also, I think the other thing is that it’s it’s going to encourage a return towards valuing real craft and real skill and and real human connection. And I think, actually, that’s something that’s been really missing in recent years. I’m my kind of dream is that it would bring us together more as human beings, rather than because that just, there’ll just be so much stuff out there that the only thing you can really trust is that human human connection.
Laura Evans-Hill 35:41
Yeah, and there’s a book, actually, it’s called the Revenge of Analogue, which came out probably, yeah, nearly 10 years ago. That says exactly that, and we can see it in the other trends in our life. You know, return to people buying vinyl records, to using iPods and buying music, to rejecting Kindle, because now you can’t take your books off Kindle. You don’t what, what is ownership? I think we will always be drawn to things that feel real, and yes, AI sometimes is incredibly real, and you can’t tell. But there’s also something about a feeling that you get from seeing a scratchy doodle being done in front of you, that that’s why I do what I do, and I really love what you said about you will always crave human connection. The reason I draw, the reason I draw with people, and to present people with drawing, is because it strips away all of that pretense of a slide deck or something super flash and slick to actually the raw human connection that we can make with our audience. And you feel more authentic that way. And I think authenticity is something that AI, I’d love it if I get quoted on this, but I don’t think AI can replace authenticity, which you can naturally feel if somebody’s being authentic or not. Yeah, and that that yeah, I’m maybe famous last words. I’m not worried. I’m excited by the possibilities of how it improves productivity and things from a business angle, but I’m not threatened by what it could do to human thought or to real human creator. There’s human weirdness. I like the way, yeah,
Sarah McLusky 37:15
Well, have to give credit to previous guest, Sam Steele for that one. So yes, human weirdness. Well, to think about wrapping up our conversation, I always like to ask my guests, if they had a magic wand, what’s something they would change about the world that they work in? So money and time were no object.
Laura Evans-Hill 37:36
Wow, that is such a big question. And other than remove Donald Trump, I’m trying to think I would, here’s what I would shape in our arena. I would add storytelling and visual communication training to every doctoral training partnership researcher training curriculum across the world. And I know people buy it in, but I would make it a fundamental built in from the very beginning, delivered by that institution as an integral part of the researcher training, to create an academic that not only is rigorous, but also communicates well and is actually embedded in the communities that they’re trying to change. That would be my magic wand.
Sarah McLusky 38:17
I think that would be fantastic. So a wonderful wish to leave it on there. So if people want to find out more about you, about Nifty Fox, where would you have them go and look.
Laura Evans-Hill 38:30
Fabulous. So for everything Nifty we are @niftyfoxcreative on LinkedIn, BlueSky. We are on X but don’t actively post on there because everybody’s had a mass exodus. And we will also have a YouTube channel up and running in the next few months too. So @niftyfoxcreative, on everything. Niftyfoxcreative.com for all of our resources and information there. For me, personally, I’m going hard on LinkedIn at the moment because I feel like that’s the most meaningful and connected place to be. So that’s just Laura Evans-Hill there. You can also find me on X @EvansNifty. I don’t post regularly on there, but that’s also interesting, too.
Sarah McLusky 39:05
Fantastic. Thank you very much. We’ll get all those links as well and put them in the show notes. So thank you so much for coming and telling me all about what you do
Laura Evans-Hill 39:14
Thank you so much. Take care.
Sarah McLusky 39:20
Thanks for listening to Research Adjacent. If you’re listening on a podcast app, please check your subscribed and then use the links in the episode description to find full show notes and follow the podcast on LinkedIn or Instagram. You can also find all the links and other episodes at www.researchadjacent.com. Research Adjacent is presented and produced by Sarah McLusky, and the theme music is by Lemon Music Studios on Pixabay. And you, yes you, get a big gold star for listening right to the end, see you next time.
