Be Creative

How do you make good ideas stick?

I've recently been a patient partner at two sets of strategy meetings with senior leaders. This question about making good ideas and research results stick came up over and over again.

Some call this knowledge translation or knowledge mobilization or implementation science. Yes, definitely, the answer does have to do with having dedicated resources and funding to create a project to make a good idea come to life, or for research findings to be applied in practice.

But nobody is going to know about your awesome project unless you tell them about it. That's where promotion comes in. Publicly-funded institutions in Canada are wary of promotion. It sounds like selling to them, and it is considered un-Canadian to promote your own work. But promotion is critical.

When my first book was being published, I heard an interview with author Lisa Genova. After she wrote and self-published her first book Still Alice, she had a choice. She could either promote the book herself, or put it in a drawer and forget she ever wrote it. Filing her book away felt like a disservice to all the people with Alzheimers and their families that she had interviewed for her book. So she piled boxes of Still Alice in the trunk of her car and literally drove around to bookstores to convince them to sell her book.

That's promotion. I used to say everybody has to promote unless you are a Karadashian, but then if you think about it, Kardashians are a promotion machine. They promote all the time.

Back to health care projects. If your idea is lucky enough to become a project, why do so many ideas die on the vine? Great ideas become short term projects that get cancelled. That's exactly why health journalist André Picard calls Canada the land of the pilot projects.

It is hard to get things to stick.

You have to tell people about the good work that you do in order for it to have staying power. The best way to do that is through engagement and creativity.

Now I have both my Bird Comm partner AND my patient engagement preacher hats on.

An effective way to keep your project going is to actually involve the audience you are creating the project for in its promotion. Don't just give it to them at the end to rubber-stamp - that's tokenism. If you don't fully understand your audience's needs - for research or education or communication or whatever it is you are promoting - then your great idea will be dead in the water. In fact, working together with your audience to come up with the great idea is the best first step. That's meaningful engagement.

Here's my creative communications pitch: Developing something together with your audience can be both a team-building exercise and a way to hit the mark. Building something creative could actually be - dare I say it - fun! Goodness knows that the poor beleaguered health care sector could use a bit of fun right now.

Here are examples of successful projects and KT/KM in health care that both involved the people (the end-users) in its creation and promotion.

1. It Doesn't Have to Hurt - this classic campaign is not mine! It was led by Dr. Christine Chambers and I reference it all the time. Dr. Chambers took the results from research about how to mitigate needle pain in children and partnered with Erica Em, a well-known Canadian who ran a website for moms. The result? The research moved from the ivory tower to the hands of the people who needed it - moms who took their kids for vaccinations. Brilliant.

2. Queering Cancer - Bird was involved at the beginning of this project with three researchers in the 2SLGBTQI+ cancer world. Importantly, Queering Cancer involved patient partner Mary Morgan right at the beginning - to set strategy, come up with the name and contribute to the logo development. Queering Cancer is the success it is today because it was built on the foundation of the wisdom of the people it serves.

3. The Bird Comm demo reel, pictured above, is proof that creativity gets your attention. Animation, live-action video, documentaries and print materials can touch hearts and change minds. Importantly, the process of creating these materials can be a fantastic exercise to engage both staff and patients. We recently hosted an in-person sound recording session for an animation (to be released soon) with a team from all over British Columbia. This creative animation translates a long report about a serious subject in a way that the audience will both consume and understand. Staff came together to record the voice-overs - we provided the studio, voice coaching and food and drink (very important).

   
   

Promote your project or research. Partner with your audience early on. Lean on creativity.

This is the secret sauce to make your good work stick.