VicHealth: A formula for telling systems change stories with heart
Good things grow good things...
The team at VicHealth do an incredible job. They advocate for changes in our food systems to set up healthier environments and build skills, community and resources.
Some amazing minds and hearts are drawn to this kind of work. As much as we can get incensed by the unfairness of our systems, they get up every day knowing their efforts are trying to counter the effects of media, marketing, tech-led convenience culture. efficinecy and isolation.
I have been running creative sprints and making films with this remarkable team for the past couple of years, gathering up the complexity and finding ways to tell the genuine stories of impact.
What began as a creative coachng session, soon expanded into a collaboration where I found myself facilitating our creative sprints, shaping the stories, directing the films with DOP Damien Raggatt and creating innovative workflows to streamline our pre and post production.
In our sprint sessions, there were mentions of community champions, those who were naturally talented, passionate, able to pick up skills and knowledge and transfer that into action, and more importantly transfer what they know to others.
Through developing this process, we came up with a name for these vital people, “Changemakers”.
Changemakers are the most important in any system or organisation.
They are not the people in charge, they are the people on the tools and the ground. They are constantly moving and have incredible capability and naturally ability to absorb the talents of others.
In zooming in on these stories, the broader goals of the programs naturally fell out of the interviews and interactions.
It followed a simple strategic formula that helped us find the best stories.
Good programs, grow good leaders, grow good examples for their emerging peers, grow peers who learn how to take action around their wellbeing.
Or to simplify it further:
Good things grow good things, grow good things.
Hone in on any area in a complex system, find your “Changemaker” and you’ll find your impact story.
The Human Centred Storytelling process cut through the complexity of producing these stories and comms.
• A 90 MINUTE online sprint process gathering the narratives, programs we needed from key stakeholders.
• ZERO MEETINGS live pre-production documents allowed us to rapidly connect and co-ordinate our shoots and content.
• RAPID PAPER EDIT post production workflows used transcripts and Ai to capture and speed up the edit and selects process, without having to compromise on depth and quality of interviews. Creating a rich resource of extending the content, and a searchable text record that serves as qual research resource, and assists in understanding nuances of the programs and its people.
