How we wrote, How to Use Economics for Good Global Citizenship, SXSW 2023

A huge thank you to the humans behind #sxsw2023 in Austin Texas for the stage-time yesterday. We have some great feedback on the session, in that it was a new lens on economics and global citizenship and in an engaging and inspiring format. A number of creatives and marketers were in the room, and conversations overnight exploring on how the session was formed, so I thought I’d unpack in this post, before the charms of SX, music and departing flights carry us all off home:

Design Principles

We started with a billion ideas, and that ideation phase was a blend of home office wall, bedroom mirror whiteboard, refrigerator door, scattering of notebooks, WhatsApp voicemails and Excel spreadsheets.

Initially the ideation was overwhelming but luckily, a fellow creative and coach, musician and director/producer suggested something simple:

Why don't you consolidate these ideas into the outcomes and organising principles?

These are the initial ones we came up with, for my side of the talk:

The three outcomes were:

1/ Speaking about this topic at SX will engage and arm individuals to activate and contribute to Global Citizenship or to Positive Change in a SMART way

2/ Speaking about this topic at SX will apply pressure or weigh on a "lever of change" that can create a positive outcome for a minority or disadvantaged group

3/ When the individual walks out of the room, they will have experienced a change within themselves, a small or large, powerful takeaway that moves them towards effective Global Citizenship

The two organising principles were:

Principle 1

1/ This topic can be told like this:

Ethos Ego Validation (10) +

Logos Data Metrics Proof (20) +

Patros Emotional Story (60)

(I learnt this from a few places, a fellow professional/coach; a thought-leadership program I once attended; the book, "Hero with a Thousand faces" and another book, Talk like Ted)

Principle 2

2/ This topic clearly demonstrates a micro or macroecononmic principal with plain-English in a way that anyone can understand

Backlog of Ideas

From here, these ideas were ranked like an agile backlog, prioritizing the ones that scored higher on the outcomes.

Story Board

Next, they were pulled across into a Story Board. A note on Story arcs: A few years ago in a contract for the Byron Writers Festival, we were gathering data in workshops on how children aged 8-12 developed empathy and efficacy through creative writing. As part of this contract we sat in a series of creative writing workshops for kids by childrens authors. I learnt a lot from these bestseller Authors and it was a great gig, learning + working.

One Author teaching her Story Arc to the kids like this … “Start your Character on the Edge of a Cliff.” Another teacher or story arcs says something like, “Paint your character into a corner, then show your audience how they get themselves out” and lastly, the Hero with a Thousand Faces, also came to mind when thinking about story, in that how could we get the people in the room, to relate to a story, inclusive of all backgrounds, to meet them where they are at … at the point in their lives,?

When the Storyboard was laid out it became apparent that the Story Arc also looked like ADKAR, the Change Management model … so worked with that and added that to embody the Outcomes we were seeking… we played with different story arcs in the smaller stories. We considered crafting a character for this piece, but in the end, we wanted to really bring it back to personal, emotive stories, about ourselves and the people in the room, to support meeting people where they were at - they were at SXSW (thus the stories about SXSW), they were likely there because of their profession or work place (thus our stories of what we had seen along our professional journeys, which may have resonated with your own), and most of all, they were all human (thus bringing it back to, what does it mean to be a global citizen).?

Embody the Message

Embodying the message you are trying to get across was important. We decided not to Sell in this session, one because it wasn't our intention and two it doesn’t embody one of the messages we were trying to get across, and that is, do we want to treat people like Consumers, or do we want to treat them like Citizens? Treating people like Consumers can be a conscious choice, and living and acting by your values is a choice too.

Collaboration

Enter the collaborative writing process, where co-speaker continues to build upon and develop the depth of the talk. Howard has his own guiding narrative objectives, which provided that juxtaposition of style from the characters and story, to the classical economics. His were similar to, “Is it relevant?” .. "What's the action" which prompted and evolution of the presentation, and a healthy challenging between peers. It was interesting to unpack each of our own foundational beliefs and work with them to develop a strong presentation. We did this also on the Miro board, which extended to then offer deeper levels of the presentation.

On Stage Theatre

Enter the “theatre”, which to be honest we did not know existed until we started in-person rehearsals, and played with the conversation and dynamic. I quite enjoyed this process. Neither of us were into “theatre sports” as kids but as we get old and our presenting becomes as comfortable as a conversation across the kitchen table, I found this lots of fun.??

Iteration

We started working on this session way back when applications opened for talk sessions. At this time I put forward 5 proposals, and those 5 came from and ideation process much similar to the above. Although it’s content is 100% unique creative creation, specifically for this event, this particular session would be one of thousands done prior across workplaces, and one of hundreds delivered on stages or in rooms of this number or more, both for me and for Howard.?

Rehearsal and Pre-Rehearsal

We had a series of sessions working through content over a 4 month period, and started running live videos to learn and practice in other topic areas.

MVP

I first started writing, when I could pick up a pen. I wrote leters, I worked as a journalist for print newspapers, as a cadet in a country newspaper in Gippsland. I subbed for ACP magazines, I was published in The Age, Fairfax newspapers ... I wrote for the ABC, I had a cover on BRW Business Review Weekly on How Technology was Saving Show Business ... I had a weekly column in street-press on music for young people, I was a features writer and columnist for Surfing World magazine ... hundreds of online ... I've written large and manuscripts and had a viral post of over 7.5 million views in 6 months. No matter how much writing I do, I have learnt over and over again, that sometimes, you just have to run with MVP... Minimum Viable Product. The ideas and how you articulate them may not meet your standards of perfection, imperfections and mistakes are human, but if done authentically and unapologetically as yourself, they will meet their intention, the design principles you have crafted behind them. Be clear on the outcome, do your best, and see what floats to the surface :)

Safe travels home SX xx See you next year in Austin