Learning to tell your story in "plain language" can be really tough for researchers who've spent the last 4-10 years having to write academically. Yet, it's a critical skill if they hope to be able to find funding, jobs or support for their work.
So I teamed up with the Ocean Leaders program at UBC to run 6 x 90-minute sessions to help them drill down into their research to figure out the heart of their stories. At the end of each session, they walked about with a one-minute pitch story they could tell to anyone, anywhere.
For many, it was not just a useful communications exercise; it also helped them clarify their purpose, their goals and what they wanted to do next.