If work takes up so much of our lives, and so much of work’s output is down to discretionary effort, how do we make work more engaging - as leaders of teams, and as workers ourselves?  

Bruce Daisley has become a world expert on it. Previously the MD of YouTube in the UK, Bruce was the European Head of Twitter when he started exploring the meaning and future of work in a podcast, Eat Sleep Work Repeat. His first book, The Joy of Work, was a Sunday Times number one business bestseller and an FT Book of the Month. He is also the host of the hugely successful podcast ‘Eat Sleep Work Repeat’.  

In this episode Adam and Bruce first discuss how to get rid of the things that suck the joy out of work, and then how to create a positive buzz in our engagement, as an individual and as a team.  

They talk about: 

• What the really big disruption in work has been (and it’s not wfh) 
• The essential foundations for making any impact whatsoever on engagement in a culture 
• The two key indicators of real engagement at work 
• Why idle time is so important  
• The real enemy of productivity in an organisation 
• The power of Positive Affect 
• The surprising importance of laughter  

And why, when so much is known about how to drive up engagement at work, so little of that knowledge makes it into the leadership meetings of big organisations.  

Listen to Eat Sleep Work Repeat:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/eat-sleep-work-repeat/id1190000968

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5KUW5Lu36O4nnfIFqIIUh4

Bruce's books:

The Joy of Work: 30 Ways to Fix Your Work Culture and Fall in Love with Your Job

Fortitude: The Myth of Resilience, and the Secrets of Inner Strength

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Follow 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.

We’re at an inflection point in how we engage people about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, Gail Gallie believes: we now need a completely new model – ‘The gloves are off’. Gail left a successful career in advertising and at the BBC to help set up Project Everyone with campaigner and film director Richard Curtis – their aim: to communicate the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to everyone in the world in one week. 10 years later, she remains a relentless campaigner and innovator around communicating the SDGs, including the podcast she hosts with Loyiso Madinga, ‘An Idiot’s Guide to Saving The World’. 

In this week's episode, Gail and Adam discuss:

• How the combination of a big ambition and a fierce time constraint drove breakthrough solutions for Project Everyone
• The new context: how the whole world has changed, and we need to move on from the old model now
• What this new model of impact campaigning should look like 
• The role of surprise here, and how to get the most value from it
• Why the creative campaigning community now has to go for broke
• What it means to engage people in the conversation where they care when it comes to the SDGs, and in language they can relate to 

And, in Richard Curtis’ words ‘What is the sound of hope we can make against the noise of despair?’

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Follow 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.

Is TikTok the most interesting platform in the world? What’s at the heart of its success – and what does it mean to be more interesting in a post TikTok world, when the audience on TikTok is “10x bigger every day than the Super Bowl”?

In this week’s episode, Adam meets Nick Tran, former Global Head of Marketing at TikTok and advisor to a new generation of Challengers, including tech company Nothing. Nick brings his experience as a marketer, advisor and investor to discuss:

• How TikTok has changed the playing field for a new generation of brands
• How he led ‘Project Cheetah’ to reduce TikTok’s campaign development cycle from 10 weeks to a few days.
• The creativity that financial and time constraints force you to develop
• Why he always looks for win-win-win partnerships 
• Learning how to create a ’must-see’ piece of creative work
• Why he believes in moving creative in-house to speed up social
• The need for a balanced diet of marketing measurement beyond KPIs and ROI

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Connect with Nick on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholastran/

Follow 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.

For 10 years Sara Stark was part of the team helping the founders of Dishoom build their restaurant brand and business – a brand that is as rich, engaging and layered as so many other restaurants are superficial and glib.

It’s a conversation about stories, and curiosity, and inventiveness, and layering, and pushing the idea. About a continual commitment to exploring and digging and experimenting and keeping things fresh. About thinking about what it means to be different, genuinely different and engaging, in a way that seems entirely unlike the rest of the business.

If you are remotely interested in brand building, experience or culture the Dishoom story is an inspiration.

Connect with Sara on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-stark-creative-marketing/

Explore the layers of the Dishoom story at https://www.dishoom.com/

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Follow 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.

Warren Berger began exploring how to ask better questions through a journalistic interest in innovation. He’s come to believe the importance of questions is much broader than that, and has come on to champion the development of better questioning skills in everything from education to our personal relationships.

He has written widely on the topic, including ‘A More Beautiful Question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas’.

In a discussion of some of his central findings and ideas we talk about:

• Why the question can be more important than the answer
• What makes a question dull or interesting
• How a good question shifts things
• The power of ‘Questionstorming’
• How a good question ‘attracts’ answers
• His three part model to asking better questions
• Why businesses should think about having Mission Questions, rather than Mission Statements

And the power for all of us in having three big questions that guide our lives.

Find out about Warren's books on his website: https://warrenberger.com/warren-bergers-books/

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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.

How do you engage an audience in something that really matters in just 90 seconds? Where do you start? How do you overcome the ‘curse’ of everything you know? 

In this episode Adam talks with two former BBC reporters, Louisa Preston and Luisa Baldini, about how they become experts in being compelling in 90 seconds, in careers where they covered everything from the 7/7 bombings and the Amanda Knox trials to interviewing Richard Gere on the red carpet. They now have their own business, Composure Media, that helps executives become brilliantly succinct themselves. 

They discuss:

1. Their model for engaging in 90 seconds: ‘Hook, Line, and Sinker’
2. Why you should always start with your strongest ‘picture’
3. Overcoming the curse of expertise
4. The importance of the story that only you know
5. How to manage a confidence crisis
6. What to do when your Hollywood star goes rogue on live TV

And we close by discussing a big part of their work today: helping female executives develop a more confident elevator pitch and presence.

Find out about Louisa and Luisa's work here: https://www.composure.media/

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.