Change 2019

CEO - Strategic Social Marketing

Professor Jeff French 

The Peasants Are Revolting!

People around the world are pushing back against what they see as political and technocratic elites who are not responsive to their needs. Social Marketing is much more than tools. Incorporating Social Marketing into the policy making, strategic and operational fabric is a new approach to the creation and delivery of social policy and social good.

Social Marketing represents a commitment to create value through a process of respectful engagement and reciprocity with citizens and stakeholders from across the not-for-profit and for-profit sectors. Key questions covered in this presentation are; How do we do this? and What constitutes good practice in Social Marketing?

Team Leader, Pacific Comms - The World Bank

Tom Perry

The ‘ultimate empathy machine?’ Using VR storytelling to reach global decision makers.

360-degree Virtual Reality has been declared ‘The Ultimate Empathy Machine’. Facebook, Google, Samsung and others are investing many millions into it; the UN has even established a dedicated VR production division. Yet what potential does it have for engaging audiences and advocating for change-related work and causes?

Tom Perry has led six different VR productions for the World Bank in recent years, including Our Home, Our People – a climate change co-production with the Fijian Government that has been seen by more than one million people, including a host of world leaders online and at festivals and events worldwide.

Learn about the process of planning and shooting a narrative-focused VR series, and recommendations for changemakers hoping to achieve communications cut-through with VR.

Managing Director & Co-Founder - The Story Boxes

Sarah Mak

Driving Change through Real Stories

In a recent moment, the producer's of an unlikely Netflix documentary on menstruation stigma accepted the entertainment industry's highest honour - an Academy Award. The media landscape is amidst a fundamental shift. In a world of bite-sized content, reality TV and vloggers posing as thought leaders, viewers have access to more content, stories and perspectives than ever before. As views, likes and comments become the new media currency we as viewers also now a greater influence on which stories matter to us and what action we can do. If what we watch today will determine our viewing choices of tomorrow, what responsibility do content creators have to their viewers?

In this keynote, Sarah will take you on a journey through a growing segment of the media industry that has gained rapid momentum in recent years. Driven by a belief that the power of entertainment and media can be used as a force for good, there is a new generation of creators using impactful storytelling and savvy digital distribution to reach new audiences who will challenge thinking, provoke beliefs and drive meaningful change.

Assoc., Comms & Stakeholder Engagement - Aurecon

Dr Robert Holmes

Behaviour Change at the Population Level

People drive much of the observable outcomes of our programs, policies and the use of public assets, spaces and the environment. As the Philosopher Winwood-Reade famously observed and was quoted by Sherlock Holmes, “While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty”. We don’t know why that particular driver made that mistake, but we can discover why people in cumulative, make repeated mistakes in a certain place. Once we understand the choices people make consciously and (mostly) unconsciously, we can engineer behavioural change and improve experience through research and piloted interventions.

We will explore the practical applications of the science of Behavioural insights. Whether we are trying to increase healthy food choice and exercise, promote the contact level at a support service or reduce truck accidents in the city - broadscale changes can be undertaken for broadscale commercial, social and personal outcomes.

Program Manager, InnovationXchange - DFAT

Elizabeth Palu

Sipping coconuts and pot holes: implementing behaviour change programs in the Pacific

The last decade has seen a resurgence in the behavioural sciences, especially with the popularisation of the 'Nudge' concept by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's book 'Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness'. The heightened interest is confirmation that traditional models of delivery, across fields such as health, are being challenged to consider human agency (the deep psychological roots of behaviour) and how it affects program implementation and delivery. With the global community seeking to deliver against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030, there is an even greater demand to relook at current tools and models; rethinking approaches to incorporate behavioural insights. Delivering against these goals, are a major challenge, especially in the Pacific Island Countries, where both structural and capability constraints can thwart good intentions and well laid plans.

Come along to hear real-life field experience (the good, the bad and the ugly) on delivering a successful behaviour change campaign in Tonga over 3-4 years and perspectives on managing behaviourally focused regional programs from Canberra in the past year or so under DFAT's InnovationXchange (iXc).

Co-Founder - Flinch Marketing

Steve Menzies

Scaling Up Behaviour Change to Achieve Global Conservation and Climate Protection Goals

How can we use social marketing to preserve biodiversity and protect critical ecosystems to limit impacts from climate change? In Samoa, partners are working urgently to save its critically endangered national bird – the Manumea - otherwise known as the ‘Little Dodo’. This tooth-billed pigeon is the closest remaining relative of the famously extinct Dodo and it uses its large beak to feed on large seeds that cannot be eaten by other birds – acting as critical seed disperser, replanting and maintaining the forest. How can we utilize social marketing techniques to simultaneously strengthen enforcement of illegal hunting, reduce demand for illegal wildlife products and create viable economic alternatives for developing communities? Learn how campaigners are combining community-based social marketing techniques with metric driven digital media campaigns to shift the cultural norms and supporting systems needed to reduce the hunting, trade and consumption of the this globally iconic species.

President & Executive Creative Director - Rescue

Jeff Jordan

Developing Trauma-Informed and Human-Centric Programs

People don't live in a bubble waiting for your program to come and change their lives. They are living complex lives that interact with the behavioral decision your program is attempting to change. Sometimes, past trauma has led their lives in a certain direction and the undesirable behavior may be helping them cope. Other times, their lifestyle, social group, and/or culture may reinforce the undesired behavior, making you seem like an out-of-touch outsider for trying to change it. While life complicates the decisions that lead to behavior change, programs can be more effective by considering these lifestyle variables.

Trauma-informed programs deliver behavior change solutions that are sensitive to past life experiences, while human-centric approaches focus our attention on understanding and replicating the benefits of the undesired behavior. By creating programs that are informed by the lives of our audiences, we can change behaviour.

Research Fellow | Lecturer

Dr Patricia David & Dr Jason Pallant

It’s all about behaviour Change!

Societies all over the world face social issues – food waste, obesity, environmental degradation are just some of the challenges we face today. Behaviour change programs aim to create positive shifts in the behaviour of individuals or communities. Our current evaluation practices focus assessments on behaviour, and not behaviour change.Through applied examples, Patricia and Jason will help you to understand what behaviour change really means, demonstrating the dangers of focusing your evaluation practice on behaviour. We will give you practical suggestions showing you how behaviour change can be better understood and evaluated. After all what gets measured, gets done!!

Snr Lecturer Marketing - Charles Sturt University

Dr Michael Mehmet

Harnessing Social Media to Listen to Community

Social media use is ubiquitous capturing people from all walks of life. Many use social media to convey attitudes, opinions and preferences. Michael will unpack social listening showing you how you can get in touch with the communities you serve and show you how the insights can be put into action. This talk will give practical examples showcasing how listening to the community has created change through campaigns, policy actions and more.

Chief Experience Officer - Bondi Labs

Dr Josh Hall

Humans + Machines, greater than the automated dream

Organisations may not admit it but one of their most significant risks to efficiency and quality is human error. In an age of rapid automation, many business leaders argue we should just replace these humans who are so prone to error with machines. However, our more optimistic world view is based on humans + machines rather than humans vs machines. This perspective requires developing tools that effectively improve and augment human skills. Billions are spent on training programs to reduce human error that tick all the right boxes when it comes to traditional compliance requirements but do they truly work? How can technology be utilised to improve workforce productivity and enhance human capability?

Josh will discuss his experiences as a start-up using innovative technologies to enhance human decision making on the job, targeting human error. As well as challenges faced and strategies’ implemented for the betterment of behaviour change within organisations.

Education futurist

Tony Ryan

Optimistic Futures

Ever heard the one about the future being an awful place? If that’s your opinion, then you’ve perhaps been watching too many horror sci-fi movies (or the nightly news). While the world is hardly perfect right now, it’s measurably the best time in human history… and this is likely to be even more evident up ahead. Already, we are collectively wealthier, healthier and safer than at any previous time in the world’s existence. In this provocative keynote, you will hear why our future is likely to be extraordinary. You also will be offered some guiding steps on how your life and organisation can benefit from this exponential time up ahead.

Managing Director, Australia & Asia-Pacific - BIT

Dr Rory Gallagher

Nudging for Change: An Introduction to Behavioural Insights

Human behaviour is complex. People face countless choices every day, and without an in-depth understanding of what influences these decisions, it’s hard to create lasting change. By using Behavioural Insights (BI), we can gather empirical evidence of the factors behind peoples’ decisions, and achieve better outcomes – we can make changes for good.

But accessing the potential of BI means having an accurate understanding of what this discipline is, its limitations, and how it best works in practice. Drawing on fundamental principles and the Behavioural Insight Team’s EAST framework, Dr Rory Gallagher unpacks the basics of BI, empowering you to discover the impact it can have on your work for social impact and change.

Chief Behavioural Scientist - Behaviour Innovation

Dr John Pickering

“Go Big or Go Home”: How to Change Behaviour at Scale

Creating behavioural change is a complex task at the best of times. The task is further complicated when there are many behaviours that need to concurrently change across a diverse group of people encompassing a wide geographic expanse.
This presentation will draw out some of the key considerations when designing a population-level behaviour change program for complex challenges. A feature of the presentation will be drawing on current large-scale behaviour change projects in Queensland including Project Cane Changer, one of Australia’s largest agricultural behaviour change projects, and the ‘Be a Mate’ campaign which is geared towards reducing the prevalence of rear-end crashes in Queensland.
The presentation will focus on techniques for analysing group behaviour at scale and how to identify barriers to behavioural change. This presentation will also lay the foundation for Friday’s workshop which will delve deeper into the practical application of psychological science to bring about behavioural change.

Founder - The Behaviour Change Collaborative

Luke van der Beeke

The Problem with Paradigms

As change agents we share a common desire to deliver positive outcomes for individuals and the communities we serve. We know that to succeed, change programs should be evidence-based, and ideally informed by that which moves and motivates our audiences.

Because of this, regardless of the tools we use, or the discipline we practice, our focus is typically fixed on those whose behaviours we seek to influence. As it should be… right?

In this presentation, Luke will argue that to give ourselves the best chance of success, behaviour change practitioners need to be more mindful of our own behaviours, biases and the environment within which we operate.

He will highlight ‘destructive’ paradigms that detract from efforts to deliver successful change programs, particularly at scale. He will also provide examples of ‘constructive’ paradigms which can be harnessed and used to our advantage.

Within this context, he’ll conclude by suggesting strategies and behaviours which we can chose to adopt to truly become catalysts for, and agents of, Change.

Senior Mgr - Community for Bendigo & Adelaide Bank

Kate Wakeling

Banking on Shared Value

Bendigo’s Community Bank® model was founded over 20 years ago on the belief that successful customers and successful communities create a successful bank - in that order. This phrase is key, because it returns us to the philosophy on which banking itself was founded - that the bank feeds into prosperity, not off it. Simply put, you can't run a successful company in a poor community, so it makes sense to invest in helping to create sustainable, more cohesive and inclusive communities.

Community Banking works as a shared value model, it creates economic value at the same time it helps communities address their needs and challenges.

Shared Value is a concept now gaining global momentum, although it has been central to the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank strategy for its entire 160 year history. Bendigo has been recognized as a global leader by FORTUNE magazine in the 2017 ‘Change the World’ list, which highlights the work of corporations including social benefit as a core part of their business.

Learn how innovative and sustainable business models continue to evolve within the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Group with Community Sector Banking, Alliance Bank® and the new University Community Bank® servicing niche sectors and communities across Australia.

Founder - Grace + Grit Social Enterprise

Dr Abi Badejo

From Formative Research to Practice: The Case of Grace + Grit Social Enterprise

In this keynote, Dr Abi Badejo will take you through her journey to combat human trafficking using formative research insights from her multi-stream social marketing study into the causes and enablers of human trafficking in the Global South context of Nigeria.

Abi will share her approach to translating her formative research findings into a comprehensive program of action that is currently working to empower vulnerable individuals and communities, governments and NGOs with skills, resources and capacity to drive sustained behaviour change.

Psychologist & Director - Marumali Consultations

Clinton Schultz

Regaining my Spirit from the Spirits

Australia has a very unhealthy relationship with Alcohol and our systems allow if not actually encourage this. In a society where substance use is, unfortunately, more than norm than the exception, it can be difficult to find a reason to abstain from drinking, smoking, gambling or taking drugs. It is difficult to identify these for what they are, negative coping strategies. Sometimes we are negatively coping with things from our pasts, sometimes it’s our current situations and sometimes it’s fear of what’s to come. Alcohol poses a particularly challenging situation. It is not just socially and systematically accepted, it is often promoted and associated as “ a part of Australian social life”. Sobah, for which I am the director and owner was born from my own struggles with alcohol and my frustrations with the lack of sophisticated “adult” beverage options available for those choosing not to drink for whatever reason. Sobah has allowed for my passions for culture, flavour, education and social justice to be actioned while also filling a void in the Australian Market.

CEO - Asthma Australia

Michele Goldman & Julia Ovens

Are those you aim to serve really at the heart of your organisation?

Asthma Australia is the leading organisation for people with asthma and has been supporting the community for over 50 years. Consumer surveys, focus groups, feedback mechanisms are some approaches we have used to identify and meet the needs of this cohort.

Are these approaches tokenistic? Do we really understand the many challenges experienced by those we seek to serve? Do we know what the ideal world looks like for them? What their aspirations and goals are with regards to their health? Do we know how we can best support them to get there? What does support look like to consumers & how do they want to receive it?

Asthma Australia is working hard to collaborate with their consumers. We will share the journey we have been on to ensure people with asthma are truly informing and shaping how we deploy our talent and invest our resources to solve their problems and deliver real value (or measurable outcomes?)