Let's Make This More Interesting (eatbigfish - Adam Morgan)

** EPISODES 1 & 2 - TUESDAY 26TH SEPTEMBER **

Do you have moments in your business or personal life when you simply can’t afford to bore your audience? What can we do to hold their undivided attention when it really matters? To find out, Adam Morgan, founder of eatbigfish, speaks to fascinating people who excel at engaging their audience – be they distracted social scrollers, bored schoolchildren or cynical CEOs – and learns from them how we can all be much more interesting.

See what's coming up at: https://thechallengerproject.com/lets-make-this-more-interesting

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this opening episode, Adam discusses a new analysis that reveals the real financial cost to a business of being dull with Marketing Effectiveness expert Peter Field. Exactly how much more expensive is it to run dull communications than engaging ones? And what can we learn from people who can’t afford to bore their audiences? 

Adam and Peter's conversation explores: 

• Why we should be much more intolerant of dull external and internal communication than we are
• A simple test: ‘The six slide rule’
• How we can make dull itself more interesting to those we need to change - by putting a concrete cost on it
• Peter’s new analysis, and what it reveals
• So why is it that so many well-intentioned, smart people are choosing to be dull?
• A look ahead to the future guests on the podcast: people whose job it is to make dull subjects interesting, and the two kinds of things we’ll learn from them
• 3 things you can do tomorrow

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Download Peter's slides on The Cost of Dull here: https://thechallengerproject.com/blog/the-cost-of-dull-with-peter-field

Follow Peter's work here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-field-20110120/

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Adam speaks to reality TV producer Maz Farrelly. Maz has made some of the biggest shows on 3 continents, including Britain’s Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, Big Brother and Celebrity Apprentice – interviewing 12,000 hopefuls along the way. She now works with businesses to help them make themselves more interesting. 

Maz shares her learnings on what it takes to really engage an audience, the three secrets of great content, and how to be interesting enough to get cast in one of her shows. Along the way, we discuss:

• Why, if you’re ambitious, you have to see everything as a ‘production’
• How your dog produces you to get what it wants
• What ‘white noise’ is, and why it matters
• How to interview well enough to get into the Big Brother house 
• Why many of us have become lazy producers, particularly in big companies
• When ‘fine’ isn’t good enough if you want to be the Number 1 Show
• Asking the questions to discover the interesting story in everyone (and how to make a dull person interesting for a TV audience)
• Why you can only last for a week before you ‘leak’
• The power of subverting expectations as a producer
• The recipe for great content on television (and how to play Susan Boyle Bingo)
• The importance of really ‘scratching’ to get to what’s interesting
• Three bits of advice on how to be a great producer and be more interesting
• How to apply this to our business and personal life

Maz is as fascinating as she is funny. We hope you enjoy this wonderfully stimulating conversation with someone who makes everything she does a little more interesting. 

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Find out about Maz's work here: https://www.mazspeaks.com/ 

Follow Maz on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maz-speaks/

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Adam talks to national radio presenter Ross Buchanan (Absolute Radio, Radio X) about what it takes to be interesting for four hours with an audience you never actually see. How much is it about being more interesting in what you say and do, and how much is it about what you share of yourself? And why shouldn’t you talk about biscuits?

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Adam talks with Norman Stiles, for 20 years the Head Writer on Sesame Street, about the pioneering pairing of entertainers and educators that changed the educational life of a generation. And how success lay in a very simple ambition that has fascinating implications for us all. Sesame Street made something possible that people thought couldn’t be done. What can it teach us about the audiences we want to really engage?

Watch the classic Sesame Street scenes that Norman refers to during the conversation:

• Grover really wants us to learn near and far
• Ernie answers the Count's telephone
• Telly tries to help Elmo get over his fear of clowns
• Big Bird learns about 'just because' and says goodbye to Mr Hooper

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can we be interesting enough to stick in our audiences’ long-term memory? In this episode, Adam speaks to Addison Brown, the science teacher who was the star of a recent Department for Education recruitment film. They discuss the four key principles that underpin success in every lesson – from cognitive load to dual coding – and how shorter pupil attention spans and higher expectations have driven a ‘blossoming of imagination within teaching'.

'Every Lesson Shapes a Life': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGd_Rrs-qNY

Brian Cox asks 'what more do you want?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uqa2TMzag4

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a podcast for people who can’t afford to bore their audience. And in this episode we talk to Gemma Parkinson, a Global Marketing and Business Director at Moet Hennessy, about how to elevate a presentation into an irresistible performance when you really need to carry an audience with you. A fresh, energetic and charismatic thinker, Gemma shares her advice about how to elevate the interest when it really matters.

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we talk to Professor Arlene Holmes-Henderson, Professor of Classics Education and Public Policy at Durham University, about her fierce belief in the enduring relevance of classical rhetoric to today’s world, and why its value in helping disadvantaged children find their voice in a more engaging way is fundamental to how schools need to develop oracy, alongside literacy and numeracy. And at the end, she gives a 10-minute masterclass in classical rhetoric that we can all use to make a speech more interesting. 

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Arlene's books Forward with Classics  and Expanding Classics 

The ‘Shy bairns get nowt’ project https://www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/latest-news/2023/05/shy-bairns-get-nowt/

Arlene's work in The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/04/brucey-and-caesar-can-help-children-improve-oracy-says-classic-professor

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Squiggly Careers podcast has been hugely influential and useful for anyone interested in Career Development community. In this episode I talk to Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper, the brilliant pair behind the podcast, the two bestselling books that have come out of it – Squiggly Careers and You Coach You – and the company they have founded, Amazing if.

We discuss:

• How, in looking to throw out the old model of the ‘career ladder’, they arrived at that fascinating idea and language of the ‘squiggle’
• How they’ve found a much more engaging way to talk to people about confidence issues, and why it works
• Why dullness in large organisations is often a kind of conformity
• How to be a ‘helpful rebel’ in big companies if you want to help shake up dull practices

Along the way, they talk about a fascinating idea: ‘the long aha’ – that realisation that comes to you sometime after an engaging moment in a meeting, prompting you to question something you are doing, when you realise how pervasive that practice and issue has been in your life. As fascinating and useful as you would expect from the inimitable Sarah and Helen.

Listen to the Squiggly Careers podcast 

Find out more about Amazing If's work

Helen and Sarah's books:

The Squiggly Career

You Coach You 

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While storytelling isn’t the automatic answer to every kind of ‘dull’, if we’re going to learn how to tell more interesting stories we should learn from the best. John Yorke founded the BBC Studio Writer’s Academy after a career that included being Head of Channel4 Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production, working on and producing some of the world’s most widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama, from EastEnders to Shameless, Life on Mars and Wolf Hall. In this episode, he shares with Adam his learnings about how we can all tell a story that will really engage our audience.

Read John’s book: Into The Woods: How stories work and why we tell them 

John’s company and training services: https://www.johnyorkestory.com/

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the most stimulating speakers in brands and communications, Russell has been thinking about what it means to be interesting for over 20 years. In his new book Do Interesting – Notice. Collect. Share. Russell has codified the practice he’s used to make the world more interesting to him, and to make himself better positioned to bring interest to whatever topic he finds himself working on, inside and outside the world of brands. In this episode he shares how we can do it easily, too.

https://thedobook.co/products/do-interesting-notice-collect-share

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Powerpoint has become the poster child of Dull – can even this most maligned of mediums really be a tool to be more interesting? Russell Davies not only believes it can, but that it’s the third American art form, along with jazz and hip hop – but only if we think of it and use it in a very different way. It seems such a symbolic flip for the cliché of ‘Death by Powerpoint’, that we’ve given it its own short episode. Here Russell shares his very simple rules for really engaging an audience through Powerpoint.

Russell's book: Do Interesting. Notice. Collect. Share.

https://thedobook.co/products/do-interesting-notice-collect-share

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

See what’s coming up on the podcast at The Challenger Project

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Named ‘one of the most 10 influential Brits in Hollywood’ by The Sunday Times, Nick Reed has been a successful Hollywood agent, won an Oscar for a documentary called ‘The Lady in Number 6’, and co-founded the most successful viral content company in the US.

In this episode, Nick discusses with Adam what makes something not just more interesting, but interesting enough to share – along with what it’s like to celebrate winning an Oscar with Bill Murray, how to get cast in a Steven Spielberg film, and how to get a Hollywood studio to buy a writer that nobody wants to buy. And at the heart of Nick’s philosophy is what he calls ‘giving up the gold’: giving value to the other person early, without expecting anything in return. A longer episode that ends this first season, we hope you enjoy it.

Nick's company - Shareability: https://www.shareability.com/

Follow Nick on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-reed-79269731/

Watch Nick's Oscar winning film, The Lady in No. 6, here: http://nickreedent.com/

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode Adam summarises the key themes and learnings across all the guests from the first season, to make it useful and usable for you.

He breaks his conclusions into five sections: 

1. The Cost of Dull and the Value of Interesting 

2. The Four Kinds of Dull

3. Finding the right way to be interesting for you

4. Common themes and key ideas across all the guests

5. How to use it

Read the full transcript of the episode at The Challenger Project.

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Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

With thanks to our editor Ruth and producer Ross.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A year into the project, what have we learnt about the real price of being dull? Adam opens Season 2 with one of the core collaborators on The Extraordinary Cost of Dull, marketing effectiveness expert Peter Field.  

Peter and Adam share how the Extraordinary Cost of Dull has grown from an idea that kickstarted our last season to a 3-year research project with multiple contributors. One that has been sparking a vital conversation within the marketing and communications community over the last year. 

Starting with their reflections on the response to the project so far, they discuss new developments including: 

Data from the DMA that reveals what dull is costing us not just in TV, but through the whole funnel 

Upcoming work from Dr Karen Nelson-Field, another core collaborator, on the real cost of choosing lower attention media platforms and channels 

Peter’s latest findings on the business effects of dull, and its impact on brand trust 

The development of the practical strategic tools to help marketers avoid dull from the start 

They finish with a look at their ambitions for The Extraordinary Cost of Dull in the year head.  

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The Extraordinary Cost of Dull Project is open to contributors. Do you have a data set to share with the project? Get in touch at hello@eatbigfish.com 

Follow the project: https://www.eatbigfish.com/the-cost-of-dull 

Follow Peter's work here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-field-20110120/

Connect with Adam on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/ 

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Adam talks to Heather McGill, Head of Spectator Experience at London 2012 and previously Tour Manager for the Spice Girls, about how to create more interesting shared experiences. 

Heather shares lessons about how to create more engaging spectator experiences for live tours and ‘global mega events’ such as the Olympics and Paralympics, large industry expos like Dubai 2020, and her current project, the Harry Potter Forbidden Forest, which has sold over a million tickets.  

In a wide-ranging conversation that spans her career Heather reveals insights on: 

• The real competition when you are designing experiences 
• How to structure the development of an experience 
• The importance of the lull, as well as the high 
• What exponentially changing audience expectations really means for being more interesting in experience today 
• Sir Jonny Ive’s one piece of advice on designing the London 2012 experience 
• The three ways to tackle a problem in the experience 
• The value of creating common ownership 
• How constraints make the experience better 
• How to build wonder 

…Oh, and why the third spider drop makes all the difference. 

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Find out more about Heather’s work: https://www.unifyexp.com/ 

The Harry Potter Forbidden Forest Exerience: https://hpforbiddenforestexperience.com/ 

Connect with Adam on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/ 

Follow eatbigfish on Linkedin and Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Adam meets award-winning improviser and director of the iconic Assassin’s Creed video games Simon Peacock to explore how the element of surprise makes his work and life more interesting. 

Beginning with Simon’s early success as a professional improviser in Montreal, they discuss the 10 commandments of good improvisation, why routine and repetition ruin a performance, and what happens when you apply improv principles to your own wedding. 

In the second half, Simon shares what it takes to give a more interesting audition, his experience as a director in the world of video games, and why audiences crave surprise.

We find out what preparation it takes to direct 2,000 lines of dialogue in one day, why it’s always a good idea to deliver a unique take in an audition (even if it doesn’t land you the job), and the terrible fate of a canvas sack called Bob. 

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Connect with Adam on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/ 

Let's Make This More Interesting is a podcast from eatbigfish. Thanks to our editor Ruth and our producers at Tiny Podcasts.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is our business leaving money on the table by being too serious? In this episode, Adam speaks to Bridget Angear, legendary strategic planner and co-founder of Craig + Bridget, about her recent research “The Business Case for Humour in Advertising”. 

Adam and Bridget explore the evidence for the business effects of humour as revealed in the IPA database, and the different values that different types of humour can have for us if we’re looking to be more engaging. 

They look at why marketing and communications might be less entertaining now than it used to be, and they consider why agencies and clients seriously need to have a bit more fun. 

Because, despite the business case for humour, have we all become just too scared to be funny? 

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Connect with Adam on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/ 

Watch Bridget deliver “The Business Case for Humour in Advertising” here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=r91B08Xebtg 

Bridget's books -

• The insiders' guide to advertising: How the business of advertising really works
• Creative problem solving.: A useful little strategy book by craig+bridget
• Revolt: A movement owner's manual

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Let's Make This More Interesting is a podcast from eatbigfish. Thanks to our editor Ruth, our producer Travis, and to Tiny Podcasts.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week’s episode made the business case for humour - but how do we start to find our funny? This week Adam Morgan meets standup comedy writing and speaking coach Chris Head for a comedy masterclass. 

Chris shares practical experience and techniques he uses when working with comedians, how he helped stand-up Stepfania Licari push her personal stories for the biggest payoff and coached Richard Lindesay to become a headliner (and TikTok star), all while punching up Adam’s jokes along the way, 

They discuss: 

• The power of comedy to help engage people with serious and challenging subjects 
• Simple techniques to build humour and surprise into anything from a story to an internal announcement  
• The importance of making an immediate connection with the audience to break the tension  
• The craft involved to go from a joke-shaped thought into a bigger, funnier routine 
• The power of misdirection (but not the magic kind) 

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Contact Chris (or sign up to a course): https://www.chrishead.com/  

Chris’s books: 

Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage and Screen 

 A Director's Guide to the Art of Stand-up 

The Complete Comedy Script Toolkit 

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Connect with Adam on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/ 

Let's Make This More Interesting is a podcast from eatbigfish. Thanks to our editor Ruth, our producer Travis, and to Tiny Podcasts. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

That’s enough about humour and the lighter side of interesting.  

It’s time to step into the dark.   

This week Adam meets researcher Mathias Clasen, co-founder of the ‘Recreational Fear Lab’ and author of Why Horror Seduces and A Very Nervous Person's Guide to Horror Movies, to talk about what he’s learned from haunted houses and horror movies, and how to find the ‘sweet spot’ of scary.  

Adam and Mathias discuss:  

• The definition of ‘recreational fear’, and why it’s not just for horror film fans  
• The evidence that shows why fear is good for us. Why children need more ‘risky play’ for their development than we are giving them, and the surprising results of Mathias’ research into fear on our immune systems  
• The physiological and cognitive relationship between fear and enjoyment  
• Why we should all make friends with Mr Piggy 

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Read Mathias's books:

Why Horror Seduces

A Very Nervous Person's Guide to Horror Movies

Watch Mathias's TedX talk: Lessons from a terrified horror researcher

Connect with Adam on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/  

Let's Make This More Interesting is a podcast from eatbigfish. Thanks to our editor Ruth, our producer Travis, and to Tiny Podcasts. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Faris Yakob believes that attention is not merely the first step to engagement with something, but a fundamental shaper of who we are: if ‘we are what we eat’, then what we pay attention to comes to define us. 

The author of ‘Paid Attention’ and co-founder of Genius Steals, he and his wife Rosie have spent the last ten years as modern nomads, consulting, speaking and writing. In this episode Adam and Faris discuss:

• How Faris’ diverse career and nomadic life has been ‘a quest for interesting’
• Why attention is part of the substance of our existence
• Why it is impossible to buy attention today …
• …And yet everyone is still competing for our attention all the time
• Strategies for earning attention in a saturated media age
• Why the ‘most interestingness’ comes in the connection of domains that are not obviously connected

Follow Faris on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farisyakob/

Subscribe to Faris and Rosie's substack 'Strands of Genius': https://geniussteals.substack.com/

Connect with Adam on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/  

Let's Make This More Interesting is a podcast from eatbigfish. Thanks to our editor Ruth, our producer Travis, and to Tiny Podcasts. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Adam talks to renowned planners David Nottoli and Jeffre Jackson about their research into ‘interestingness’ in advertising.

Drawing from their experience David and Jeffre share their definition of the five key components of interesting:

• How incongruity reinforces memory
• Why Don Draper might be wrong about emotions
• The significance of fish sticks
• Why authenticity isn’t just a buzzword
• Why the details really matter, even if 99% of people don’t notice them

We also learn why we should avoid chasing empty spectacle in the battle for attention, why Nike’s legendary work with athletes can’t be replicated by just any sports brand, what the classic Cadbury’s Gorilla ad teaches us about mystery, and the risk of being sucked into the ‘boreplex’.

Watch Jeffre’s 2006 video on Interestingness: how interesting ads work differently, and what value Interestingness delivers for marketers.

Nike x Charles Barkley “I am not a role model”

Nike x Tiger Woods "I Am Tiger Woods"

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Connect with Adam on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-morgan-3a473a/ 

Let's Make This More Interesting is a podcast from eatbigfish. Thanks to our editor Ruth, our producer Travis, and to Tiny Podcasts.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.