Skip the Queue

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://www.stephenspencerassociates.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/customerexperiencespecialist/

Stephen Spencer + Associates is a collaborative consulting and training organisation with a simple purpose: to help you extract maximum value from your customers’ experience of you.

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in, or working with, visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. 

In today's episode, I speak with Stephen Spencer, Founder of Stephen Spencer + Associates, a collaborative consulting and training organisation. 

We discuss why customer experience is so important right now, how to maximize interactions to drive value, and what attractions can do to foster a more innovative culture. 

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching, "Skip the Queue".

Kelly Molson: Stephen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, it's really lovely to see you again.

Stephen Spencer: It's an honour and a pleasure, thanks very much, Kelly. 

Kelly Molson: So many people have recommended that we speak to each other. But, as ever, this podcast, we're going to go straight into our icebreaker questions. So, I would like to know, what is the worst job that you have ever had?

Stephen Spencer: Oh, that's easy. One Easter, when I was a student, I worked for an employment agency, so it's a different job every day. And, the worst job was cleaning out the undercarriage of a private jet that belonged to an Arab Sheik. There's a bunch of us put in a van, we had to wear so much protective clothing, and visors, and things over our heads, that you literally couldn't see, and then you had high-pressure hoses. And, you could just glimpse the luxury within the jet through the open door, but we were underneath just spraying out the oil, and grease, and dirt, and god knows what else. It was a horrendous, horrendous day. I sort of thought, "My life is over before it's begun. If this is how I'm going to spend my life..."

Kelly Molson: You were so close to the luxury, you could almost touch it.

Stephen Spencer: It was. You could see it was all very beautifully, ornately designed, in keeping with the culture inside. But, underneath it was just a regular old, filthy old bit of kit. 

Kelly Molson: I feel like that sums us all up, right? Inside, we're all just regular, normal, filthy old people. 

Stephen Spencer: Well, you speak for yourself. I thought we were all looking up to the stars. "We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up to the stars." That's the quote, isn't it?

Kelly Molson: Maybe, I'm trying to keep real, Stephen. I've gone a bit retro with this one, so I'm hoping that you remember this program. Do you remember a program called Stars in Their Eyes? 

Stephen Spencer: I do.

Kelly Molson: Excellent. Okay. So, let's go back. If Stars in Their Eyes was a thing now, who would you perform as?

Stephen Spencer: Oh, it's easy, Elvis. Absolutely. Elvis is my go-to for karaoke. Funnily enough, I've been a massive fan of Elvis since the day he died, because he wasn't obviously relevant in 1977, but the day he died I spent the whole day playing all his music. I just got absolutely hooked. And years later, there's an attractions connection here, I got to meet and work with a heroine of mine, the late Debo, Duchess of Devonshire, at Chatsworth. I discovered that she was a massive Elvis fan. And, what I didn't know, but later read in her autobiography, was that she too became a fan the day he died, because she saw all the programs and heard all the music. Anyway, yes. No contest, I would be Elvis.

Kelly Molson: What song? You said he's your karaoke go-to, what's your karaoke song?

Stephen Spencer: Funnily enough, it's a song that he did I think very well, but not originally his song, it's My Way. Which, kind of also is my personal theme tune. 

Kelly Molson: I love this.

Stephen Spencer: I never do things anybody else's way, it's always my way. But, not in a command and control way, just, "This is my way, and if it facilitates stuff, that's great, if you don't like it, there are lots of other people who will do it your way.

Kelly Molson: Excellent answers, I'm enjoying this very much. Let's move on. I would like to know what your unpopular opinion is.

Stephen Spencer: Well, I think my unpopular opinion is that Line of Duty is increasingly disappearing up its own fundament.

Kelly Molson: Oh, gosh.

Stephen Spencer: ... Or should we say, that Jed Mercurio has believed his own hype. The last series was a sort of ragbag of references to the previous series, a completely flimsy plot. I'm not just saying the ending was disappointing because it was, spoiler alert...

Kelly Molson: You can't do that, what if no one's... 

Stephen Spencer: I said spoiler alert, people could have switched off at that point. The thing that got me slightly suspicious of Jed Mercurio was The Bodyguard, that one-off series that he did. Where, we were expected to believe that a man wearing an explosive vest would be allowed to walk from one end of London to the other to go and visit his wife and children, rather than being taken out before he could put the entire population of Central London at risk. I just thought, "This is ridiculous." So, I spent part of lockdown watching all the previous series of Line of Duty, and the early ones, absolutely brilliant. 

Stephen Spencer: But I tell you a series that's better than Line of Duty, and that's Spooks. There was never a bad episode of Spooks. I think it was nine series, we watched about 100 episodes, and there wasn't a single bad episode. And also, they constantly refreshed the central characters. Whereas we all love Ted, obviously...

Kelly Molson: Who doesn't?

Stephen Spencer: ... And Kate, and Steve, it is inconceivable that that man would still be in that job, considering everything that he's, for the best of intentions, done and got himself mixed up in. It's ridiculous. 

Kelly Molson: Oh my gosh, Stephen.

Stephen Spencer: I'm sorry if that's an unpopular opinion.

Kelly Molson: I think it is an unpopular opinion.

Stephen Spencer: Now we can nearly go back to the pub, or we can go back and sit outside, we need to keep ourselves warm, there's no point in everyone just sitting around saying, "Did you see Line of Duty, it was really good wasn't it?" No, let's actually be real here.

Kelly Molson: I think this is really going to split our listeners. I do know that there was a lot of people that were really unhappy about the ending. And, if I'm completely honest, I was one of them. However, I have loved every single minute of Line of Duty. And, I did love the final season, if it is the final season, we're not quite sure.

Stephen Spencer: I don't think it will be. Clearly, if they want to do another series, there's more to uncover. Maybe they shouldn't bring it back. Unfortunately, it's a bit like what happened to Doctor Who, which was amazing when it was rebooted with Chris Eccleston. I'm not talking about the latest incarnation of the Doctor, I'm all for that, but it's just the fact that the writing got more and more self-indulgent. And, if you're writing Doctor Who and it's unbelievable, you really should take a look at yourself, I would suggest. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, let's move on. So, Stephen Spencer + Associates, it's a collaborative consulting and training organisation. You've got a simple purpose, and that is, "To help extract maximum value from your customers' experience of you." A few topics that I really want to cover today, but let's start with the biggest one which is, why is customer experience so important right now?

Stephen Spencer: I think right now, clearly, it is really important because it has changed so much, and the changes are going to be with us for the foreseeable future. We've had this dramatic, probably five years of accelerated adoption of online and, as we're doing now, remote meetings and so on, people shopping from home, in a year or less. So, straightaway, businesses don't have that personal contact with customers that previously they could have actually exploited or at least known what was going on. 

Stephen Spencer: Secondly, there's still going to be an element of public health and social distancing, people are going to be nervous. There's going to be a need for businesses to continue to demonstrate that they're providing a safe, healthy environment for customers, which risks creating an experience that's compromised. 

Stephen Spencer: And thirdly, I think, for the foreseeable future, there's probably going to be less customers around. There may well be fewer staff serving them. And, there's probably going to be less money in the system as well. For many attractions, obviously, the international market is going to take, quite possibly, two to three years, if not longer, to recover. That's what all the predictions say. So, it means we've got to do more with less. So, fundamentally, how do we focus in on every customer's experience, and maximize every interaction so that we get maximum value out of it, both for the customer and for the business?

Kelly Molson: Maximizing interactions. And, I guess, it's understanding what elements of the experience drives the most value. How do attractions do this at the moment? What are the steps that they need to go through to look at how they can make that happen? 

Stephen Spencer: Well, I think something that could be done a lot better in many attractions, and I've worked in many attractions and with many attractions, is a much more joined-up approach between marketing and operations, and possibly finance and strategy as well. The challenge with being a Customer Experience Consultant is a lot of what you're saying, sounds like stating the bleeding obvious. But, the reason you have to state it is because it passes a lot of organisations by, for all sorts of reasons, good and not so good. But, really, really understanding who are your customers, breaking them down into recognisable subsets.

Stephen Spencer: I'm a great believer in developing customer personas. And, one of my favourite ways to do this working with organisations is, "If this group, or this couple, or this individual was a celebrity, or a band, or a team, or a character in a soap, who would they be?" You find as soon as they've identified that person, then they can really start to put layer, and layer and a layer of, "How would we treat this person? What would this person want from us? What kind of communication would they appreciate? What would make them go, "Wow"?" 

Stephen Spencer: And, I think what often happens is, the marketing focus tends to be on idealised segments, and the reality on the ground is real people. What really works is when marketing gets out there, and gets stuck in, and talks to the customers, and sees who's coming in, and there's a complete consistency between strategy and execution. Because, at the end of the day, whatever you do, the most powerful thing you can do for a customer is speaking to them and treat them the way they would want to be treated. And, the only way you can do that is if you are able to look and listen, and observe, and take that time to engage, and, again, keep listening, and give that customer the response they're looking for. 

Stephen Spencer: You see it time and time again, the most high-tech attractions, attractions that have incredible properties, whether it's heritage properties or brands brought to life in amazing ways, it's still the human interaction that's the most powerful thing. So, understanding, which is important also, to give your team the confidence to talk to customers in the right way, understanding who they are, is fundamental for me, and that being consistent through the whole organisation. 

Kelly Molson: How does that change? We're recording this, it's the 11th of May today, so next week, the 17th, most indoor attractions will be able to open. We're still looking at capped capacity, we're still looking at a reduction in operation staff, probably front of house staff, for attractions. How do you look to monitor that now? And, how does that change as restrictions start to get relaxed and you get more, and more, and more people through the doors? How does that process change? What can people do? 

Stephen Spencer: I think, given what I've said, the most important thing you can do is to maximize your customer's every interaction. Many people know this, some people won't know this, in customer journey mapping, which is the classic way to think about your customer's experience, you identify all the touchpoints, so all the interactions between the customer and the attraction. Obviously, starting with before they ever visit, so advertising, or the website, or review sites, whatever it is. And, you map all those touchpoints. Then, you identify, what we call, the moments of truth, which are the real make or break touchpoints. So, the points at which you could really deliver on the value proposition or not. 

Stephen Spencer: By doing that, and then matching that customer journey to those customer profiles, you can start to say, "Right"... I think, for example, the work that people like BVA BDRC and Decision House have been doing, in terms of sentiment research, really plays into this as well. Because, they've identified some COVID personas, in terms of where people are at, in terms of their willingness to go back, their nervousness, or confidence about interacting again. So, you build all this in. 

Stephen Spencer: So, what I'm saying is, bring your team together and say, "Let us work through the experience that we're going to give to our visitors when they come back when we're able to reopen. I hope that attractions have already been thinking about how they add something extra, really make visitors feel, not just welcomed back, but that there's something extra special that's been laid on to welcome them back. And again, that doesn't have to be something very expensive, it doesn't have to be something high-tech, but it just has to be something that is appropriate to the brand and relevant to the customer. Bearing in mind, obviously that we're talking, for most attractions for the foreseeable future, it's the local/staycation market, rather than international. So again, just a great opportunity to say to the team, "Everything's changed. Everything's new. Isn't it exciting? We're opening up again, maybe we've done some work behind the scenes, a new exhibition, new information that we've had the chance to research about our site that we can share. Whatever it is. Let's now plan the reopening or the next stage of reopening, almost as if we're planning a family Christmas or a celebration. And, think what we can do." Just get everybody involved, and everybody shares the excitement. 

Stephen Spencer: We know that there are challenges for teams coming back who've been maybe furloughed, or new staff being recruited in a lot of cases as well who have never had the experience of working at the attraction before. And now suddenly We're reopening, it's a big deal. But, some of us weren't here before, some of us are nervous about being back. It's all a bit strange. Some of us have been here the whole time and we're knackered. So actually, that is another reason to bring people together, not just for, what I call, pre-opening training, which is almost like going through the motions, but to make it really, really special.

Stephen Spencer: We've been recently working with a museum that actually was closed already before the pandemic for a major refurbishment, and also rebrands, and a repositioning of the museum. And, we created, first of all, with a workshop that we ran for all teams across all departments, a fact-finding workshop. And then, translating that into pre-opening training that was much more about exactly what I've been talking about, "What are we going to do? How do we take this great new shiny vision that we've got and turn it into customer interactions? Who are our customers? What do we know about them? What do we need to do? What would we do if it was our granny, or our brother, or our friend coming, what would we do?" And, just turning it into a mission that is translatable to everybody's role and everybody's capabilities.

Kelly Molson: I love that idea, that you position it as a real celebratory event. It's such a nice way of looking at it. And, what does that mean to people? Like you say, for attractions, you've got such a different range of people that will visit, what does that celebration mean to them? How do you apply it to that individual person? I think that's such a nice way of framing it. Also, one of the things that attractions have been really good at as they've been talking about reopening and that process of how they do that, is most attractions haven't been talking about reopening and going back to normal. They've actually been embracing the idea that they don't have to go back and do the things that they used to do, they can embrace something different. And, like you say, they might have a new attraction, they might have a new collection, they might have something new that they've got to celebrate. But, even if you don't, you still can improve that customer experience by shifting the way that you do things. 

Kelly Molson: And, that's the next thing that I want to talk about. How do attractions reimagine what they've been doing and be a bit more innovative moving forward from being able to open again?

Stephen Spencer: For just the reasons that you said, I've always been slightly wary of the expression, "Build back better" because, superficially, great. But actually, I think it implies that we're trying to get back to what we were doing before but just a little bit better. Well, I don't know about you, but before the pandemic and before I knew there was going to be a pandemic, I had this feeling, and I think a lot of people did, that we couldn't go on the way we were going. Whether it was overtourism, obviously there was a lot of inequality and division in the world, we were literally on course to destroy the planet. And, it just felt like this isn't great. And then, we had that period of reflection in the first lockdown when if you had a garden, if you had access to green space, you had time on your hands, it was just wonderful to be able to reflect on, "Wouldn't it be great actually if the birds every year we're able to be born into a world that was that much cleaner? Or if the canals in Venice, bring it back to tourism, ran clear all the time, rather than views of Venice being dominated by these enormous ships?"

Stephen Spencer: So, I've really tried to talk about building forward better, because I think it is about this process of true innovation, which is actually creating something new and different. So, to do that I think you have to be really, really clear on, what is your purpose? What is your reason for being? What is your vision? Organisations and consultants use smoke and mirrors to talk about purpose, and mission, and vision. But, when I talk about mission, I'm really referring to why we're in business, what we're trying to achieve. It's different for the public sector, and private sector, and third sector organisations. For the private sector, it may be about share price, or it may even be about selling the business at some point in the future. For museums and charities, it's about a very long-term project.

Stephen Spencer: And then, vision, I say, "Why is that of interest to the customer, the visitor, the person that you're aiming that experience at?" And, within purpose is also values, and I think it's a great time to revisit mission vision values and say, "This is what we believe. This is the difference that we want to make in the world. Now, how do we go about it?" An example of that, back in 2012 I was helping to launch the Emirates Air Line cable car, in the run-up to the London Olympics and Paralympics. It had a very complex structure because it was ultimately owned by Transport for London, TFL, and then Docklands Light Railway, DLR, and then it was operated by the cable car company Doppelmayr. The front of house team was Continuum, which I was working for. The sponsor was Emirates. There was a security company and a cleaning company. I think there were about eight different stakeholders. 

Stephen Spencer: And, we had to design what the passenger experience would look like. And, we created, what we call, a passenger charter, which is basically everything you need to know as a new employee, and they're all new employees, and they're all coming from Newham in Greenwich. Most of the recruitment had already happened in Newham in Greenwich for the Olympics. So, we were sort of hoovering up what was left in a way. And, I mean that actually very positively, because what we got was a whole load of people who'd never worked in customer-facing roles before. Some of them had really interesting and quite often harrowing backstories about how they came to even be in London. And, there were 40 ethnic backgrounds across 100 initial recruits. And then, as I say, all these different brands. 

Stephen Spencer: So, how did you bring it all together? We came up with the very simple, what we called our vision statement, "Inspiring Journeys", and so everything had to be measured against inspiring journeys. So, the uniforms, they looked, rather than TFL uniforms, they looked like airline uniforms. But, when it came down to more mundane things like selling a ticket, issuing a refund, handling a lost property inquiry, we did not use the TFL standard procedures, which were, to put it mildly, bureaucratic and not very customer-friendly, because it wasn't inspiring journeys. We talked earlier about pre-opening training, when we ran pre-opening training on the passenger experience and presented each of the new recruits with their passenger charter, they were whopping, and cheering, and yelling, and stamping their feet at the end of these workshops. I've never had a reaction like it.

Stephen Spencer: I had people asking me to autograph the charter for them because they felt it was such a special thing that they were doing. And within three months... Bearing in mind, we opened literally... It was such a steep learning curve. We had 30,000 passengers a day, almost from week two. We were moving ropes and stanchions around. I had to move 1000 people while they were all standing in these ropes and stanchions because it wasn't working, the queuing system. Again, that goes back to every interaction. You don't just look at a load of cattle in a pen and say, "Okay, that's the guest." You think about, "Hmm, the way they're queuing, it's not right, it's not working." The end of that story is that we came top of the TFL passenger survey for London within three months. From a standing start, never had a cable car before, these people had never worked in customer-facing roles before, but they all got what we were trying to deliver.

Stephen Spencer: So, for attractions, obviously, not everyone can open a cable car, but you can go back to, "What is your essence?" This museum I was talking about earlier, they were founded in the 19th century and had quite a set offering, and they have re-imagined it for the 21st century in a way that makes it accessible to everybody. It's totally accessible. There's no one who can't actually find an angle for this to be relevant to them. So, I think it starts with that. We've created, not just for COVID, but for the long term, what we call our innovation toolkit, which facilitates this process. And, the middle part of the process is the fun part, because it's the brainstorming, it's the innovation facilitation. Where we say, "You've clarified your purpose. You've clarified your vision. You've also identified your assets. Because you've got some challenges, you've got some burning issues you have to deal with, whether it's financial or other issues that you have to deal with right now because otherwise, you'll be out of business. But, beyond that, you've identified what are your core assets. Now, we need to think about who are the potential audiences for those assets. And, of course, some of them, who were there before, are not there for the foreseeable future, or they've changed. So, we look at trends as well as segments. 

Stephen Spencer: Then, we look at all the different business models, all the different revenue models that you could... It doesn't have to be purely revenue, but because we're very much about sustainability and recovery, I think it's important that we identify every revenue opportunity. And we say, "If you take your asset where you're particularly strong, and you apply it to these audiences where it really resonates, and you've got these potential business models that you could..." I'm talking for attractions, it could be anything from a virtual curator tour to a new family play area, to a new petting zoo, it could be anything. Virtual, physical, or a combination of the two. 

Stephen Spencer: And then, you do some evaluation based on effort vs reward. There's a simple matrix that just allows you to prioritise your long list down to a shortlist, and now you can start to work out, "Which of those ideas can we turn into reality?" Some of them we can probably do very quickly, some of them are medium-term, others are longer-term aspirations. But, what should come out of that is something completely new. Because, you didn't start with, "This is what we do now, how can we make it a bit better?" You started with, "Why do we exist? We don't exist in a vacuum, so for whom does that matter? And what could we do?"

Kelly Molson: One of the things that you talked about earlier was about getting the whole team involved, from marketing to operations, to front of house, in that whole customer experience journey. How do you do that from an innovation perspective? What can attractions do to foster a more innovative culture within their organisation so that people feel that they're part of that process, they can input to it? 

Stephen Spencer: I think one of the exciting things that definitely happened in the last year was that organisations had to become less siloed. 

Kelly Molson: Definitely.

Stephen Spencer: You see lots and lots of organisations for all sorts of reasons, some of it historical over very long periods of years, but others quite new. When we had the cable car, we found that there was a different culture on the north side to the south side. The team members started saying, "Can we work on the south side today?" And when you probed and said, "Why?", "Oh, it's like being on holiday over there, it's lovely." And, part of the reason was because the management team was on the north side, so there was a bit more scrutiny, a bit more structure. And, we were like, "Crikey", that shows how quickly culture forms because that was within three months that happened. 

Stephen Spencer: So, not being siloed is a really difficult thing. But, because of COVID, so many organisations had to think across all departments, across all of those touchpoints, because they had to plan safe and also viable visitor experiences, visitor journeys. I think it's really important to keep that going. It's really important that departments all work together. The organisation and it surprises people when I say this, that I've worked in that was the least siloed was actually The Royal Collection. I'm very old, so I was lucky enough, one of the perks of age, to be around when Buckingham Palace first opened to the public, so I got to do the shop. We had a single mission at that time, which was to raise £37 million to restore Windsor Castle after the fire of 1992. I realise for many of your listeners it will be a revelation that Windsor burned in 1992 because they probably weren't even born, but look it up in the history books, it happened. And, it was really important that we raised this money, because the Government had tried initially to say the Government would pay, and there'd been a public outcry, and so it was declared that the Royal Household would raise the money itself. And so, opening Buckingham Palace to the public was one of the ways that it did this. 

Stephen Spencer: What I found was, we worked in an office where it didn't matter which department you were in, curators, curatorial people, marketing, commercial people, we were quite a small team, but we literally worked all cheek by jowl. So, you could pop into the office of the keeper of Queen's pictures and say, "I want to crop this picture to put on a range of stationery. I can't quite decide which bit to crop." In a lot of organisations, I know the curator would say, "You can't crop it. Don't put it on a range of stationery, it's not appropriate." Whereas, in an organisation where you might think that would be the reaction, it would just, "Yeah, I'd take that bit, because that's really fun if you do that. Look at the expression on that woman's face, that will really capture people." They loved helping. 

Stephen Spencer: Part of the reason was because we had a single objective, "We've got to raise £37 million, everything we do has to be commensurate with who we represent." Sorry, I always get a bit... It was such a powerful mission that we're all on. We didn't have big budgets. I was talking about the Duchess of Devonshire earlier, she was one of our trustees, and back before the current Queen's Gallery, the old Queen's Gallery was a real Heath Robinson affair. The shop was awful, it was a brightly lit Formica unit, harsh, totally unsuitable environment for what we were trying to do. Back in the day it turned over about £400,000 a year, even however bad it was. But, the Duchess kept saying, "This shop is a disgrace. It absolutely is a disgrace. Something needs to be done." We didn't have a big budget, but we had to do something because we had Debo on our case. So, we were given 25 grand, and it was about 1500 square feet of shop, and it needed everything doing, so it wasn't a lot of money.

Stephen Spencer: We managed to get an off-cut of a carpet that was being woven as part of the restoration of the castle, which literally an off-cut carpeted the entire space. We borrowed some antique furniture. We found a fantastic designer called George Carter, who can make things look amazing with paint, and just great design, and great lighting. We transformed the shop, and the following year it took one and a half million pounds. The point was, we did not have a big budget. We had to use our ingenuity to find somebody who could do something on a very small budget, relative. We had to really translate what we thought a shop that was attached to Buckingham Palace should look and feel like, so that we could showcase products that people would want to buy. Because, they clearly couldn't get them anywhere else, and because they felt they were almost buying literally a product from the Royal Palace. That's what actually is important, that people are excited, people are emotionally stimulated. 

Stephen Spencer: On that customer journey, there is... Somebody I really admire called Colin Shaw, who is a bit of a guru of customer experience, and he talks about the peak and the end experience being the two most important for the overall creation of emotion and memory. And, of course, creating the right emotions, the right memories, is so important because so much now is dependent on word-of-mouth, and recommendation, and of course loyalty as well. So, the peak experience, if you go to The Tower of London, visiting the Crown Jewels. Is that a fantastic experience, or is it absolutely awful because you had to queue for an hour and there was no entertainment or cover, and it was raining, and you were shoved through, and everyone was rude to you, it just felt like it was a blur? Or, was that experience facilitated because there was entertainment for the queue, maybe Henry VII's jester was wandering up and down, and when you got inside you were allowed the time to interact with the exhibits, and you came out saying, "Wow, that was incredible"? Obviously, straight into the shop. 

Stephen Spencer: And then, the end experience, which of course for different attractions might mean different things. It might be the toilets. Really important, Duchess of Devonshire took us into her toilets, the gents toilets at The Orangery Restaurant at Chatsworth, to show us the mint and hand-painted tiles. And, told us, "The toilets are the most important part of the experience", and I've never forgotten that. But, it might be whether somebody says, "Thank you", or wishes you a safe journey, or crouches down to the children's level to talk to the children to find out what they thought of the experience. It's that that sends you off... We always talk about first impressions last, but last impressions are incredibly important. It's like when you have a lovely meal in a restaurant and you build up a rapport with the waiter or the waitress, and at the end, somebody else brings you a bill, and it's like, "Oh". It's like you're having dinner in a friends house and suddenly a complete stranger came to bring you your coats, and you didn't get to say goodbye to your friends. So, it's really powerful, but yet actually really quite simple. 

Stephen Spencer: Going back to what we started with, you go back to, "Who are my customers? What do they want? What's that emotional journey, as well as that physical journey? How well does it deliver on the brand promise, the value proposition? What are those memories that we're creating, and those emotions?"

Kelly Molson: It feels like, from that story that you just shared as well, that the one thread that runs all the way through this, from all of the things that we've covered today, is about everybody in that team having one shared vision. 

Stephen Spencer: Yes.

Kelly Molson: That everybody has that one shared vision. And, that is the core that runs through everything that you do from a customer experience.

Stephen Spencer: Yeah. I was incredibly fortunate in my career to go and study at the Disney Institute. The Disney Institute, they don't currently, but they did run programs in the UK, and I know quite a few colleagues who've been on them. They weren't as good, because you weren't at Disney. Going to the Disney Institute is a totally immersive experience. But, the point is, the person in the laundry, the cleaner, it doesn't matter who you talk to, they have the same vision. And, that's how it always was from when Walt was around. They went through a wobble after Walt and then his brother Roy died. There's a really interesting book by Michael Eisner, who now runs Portsmouth Football Club, but he turned Disney around in the 90s about that. It is that idea that everyone has the same vision. Everyone knows and has the same vision of who the customers are. Everyone knows what we should be doing for them.

Stephen Spencer: If you follow that up as far as possible with empowering people to do the right thing, which is probably a whole other podcast, that is very powerful too. Because, if people are on the same page they will know what is the right thing, and it's giving people confidence. We recommend teaching people storytelling techniques and communication techniques, as well as just teaching people about service standards. If you teach people that actually this is a skill, and it's a science, and it's an art... Going back to my earliest days in customer experience, we used to talk about French waiters and the fact that they have this immense pride in being a waiter. It's a profession, it's not a job that you just do while you wait for something better to come along. 

Stephen Spencer: So, if you can convince the people on the front line that they genuinely are as important... I go back to this museum that I was talking about earlier, that's their new approach, is that front of house and back of housework together. Back of house will regularly appear at the front line and talk to visitors. Is one team, because everyone's role is equally important. I don't know many organisations that really, really practice that. A few that might preach it. And, I'm not saying that it's not difficult to do, it's jolly difficult to do. It's jolly difficult, because if you're the leader of the organisation you have other pressures on you that quite often people out in the organisation don't know about or see. But, by the same token, I also learnt that delegation is just the greatest skill to learn, because the more you delegate, if you do it right, the more you empower people, the more you build them up, the more you develop them, the more you allow them to reach their full potential. And then, when the going gets tough, people don't stand back and say, "What are we doing now, Boss? What's your plan?" Everyone just instinctively gets stuck in. As we know, in visitor attractions, you never quite know what's going to happen from day to day. If everyone gets stuck in no matter what, it's more fun, it's definitely more productive, and it's definitely better for the customer. 

Kelly Molson: I think that's a very good note to end our podcast interview on.

Stephen Spencer: I thought so, a little sound bite there.

Kelly Molson: I've got one more question for you before you go, where can people find you? If they want to find out more about what you do and what you offer, where's the best place that they can find you?

Stephen Spencer: Absolutely. The website is stephenspencerassociates.com. On social media, is Positive Stephen. On LinkedIn, we have a company page, and I'm on there as well. Do have a chat. We may have something specifically that we can offer, our Toolkit we're very excited about, and we'll be rolling that out over the next two to three months to show how it can work in different sectors. As you can tell, I just love talking about this stuff. So, if somebody just wants to have, let's say, a discussion about Line of Duty vs Spooks, then call me.

Kelly Molson: Okay. If you want to do that, listeners, we will put all of Stephen's details in the show notes. So, if you missed the website address don't worry, just head to the show notes and they will all be there. 

Kelly Molson: We always end the podcast by asking if you have a book that you would recommend, so something that you love, or something that's helped shape your career in some way? Whatever you like. 

Stephen Spencer: Absolutely, I'll show it to you, although the listeners won't be able to see it. It's a book called The Pursuit of Wow! By Tom Peters. I didn't know who Tom Peters was, in 1997 I was very lucky to go on a five-star fam trip to Atlanta to find out about the merchandise mark there, and the facilities for retail buyers. But also, we were shown the very best of Atlanta from Martin Luther King's church, to the Jimmy Carter Library, to CNN, Coca-Cola. We had breakfast with Tom Peters. 

Stephen Spencer: For those who don't know, Tom Peters wrote the first business bestseller called In Search of Excellence, in 1982, which identified, "What are the traits that make companies successful over the long term?" They're still the traits that we would talk about today. Tom's still going strong. He blew me away with the power of his message and his delivery. It was very much about, We need to get back to, and he still talks about this today, people being the most important raison d'être for any organisation. The little things being the big things, so the details being the really crucial things that make or break experiences, make or break the business. He's passionate about women, as he says, "Women buy all the stuff, they make all the decisions, they're far better leaders than men." He's been saying that for about 30 years.

Stephen Spencer: The Pursuit of Wow!, which is a book I went to buy when I'd heard him speak, I was just like, "Wow, I need to know more", is literally about how you can take any experience, however small, whatever size your budget, whatever sector you're in, and you can turn it into a, "Wow!" Experience. In other words, "Why should anyone be excited by this?" How many meetings have we sat in where we've planned things that, quite frankly, we're not excited about, so why should anybody else be excited about it? So, although it was written 20, 25 years ago, it is still my favourite book of Tom's. 

Stephen Spencer: His brand new book, which is just out, is called Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism, so you can tell he's still talking about the same things, and this is his post-COVID. He's 78 now. I've met him a couple of times, I've interacted with him on social media. And, I said to him, "I can no more believe that you're 78 than I can that Captain Kirk is 90." I got some smiley faces in response. 

Stephen Spencer: He's basically saying what I'm saying, which is it comes downs to customers interacting with people, and everything else is the luxury that you're afforded by either the fact that you have a site that is already set up, or you have big budgets. But, it will stand or fall on that human interaction. So, that's a message for everyone.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. I very much like the sound of Tom. 

Stephen Spencer: You'd love him, honestly, he's brilliant. 

Kelly Molson: I'm going to go and follow him.

Stephen Spencer: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Listeners, if you are interested in winning a copy of that book, as ever, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Stephen's book", then you will be in with a chance of winning it. Stephen, thank you so much for coming on today, I think this was an excellent discussion. I'm intrigued as to what the response will be for your unpopular opinion. 

Kelly Molson: I do hope that people take you up on your offer to have a chat, because I think that there's some really exciting concepts that you talk about there, and I think that they should be at the heart of what attractions are looking to do now they're reopening. So, thanks for coming on and sharing that.

Stephen Spencer: An absolute pleasure, Kelly, thank you so much for having me.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review, it really helps others find us. And, remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

www.designedbyesther.co.uk

www.princes-trust.org.uk

https://www.linkedin.com/in/esther-johnson

Esther Johnson is working with the leading tourist attractions. Creating contemporary illustrations based on extensive research of each subject for commercial use.

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for working in, or working with, visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. 

In today's episode, I speak with Esther Johnson, a freelance designer and illustrator specialising in working with heritage sites. 

We discuss the importance of having niche products in your gift shop, how you can develop these for your attraction, and what you need to think about before taking on the plunge. 

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Esther, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, it's so lovely to see you again.

Esther Johnson: Thank you very much for having me, very flattered. 

Kelly Molson: I love the backdrop that you've got there as well, for everyone that's watching this on YouTube, I can see your beautiful illustrations that we're going to talk about in the background. It's a lot more beautiful than my background. 

Esther Johnson: No, it's authentic. It's authentic working from home. We redid it last year at the start of April and didn't know that it was going to be really useful for having meetings like this. 

Kelly Molson: Who did?

Esther Johnson: [crosstalk 00:01:05]. So, thank you very much.

Kelly Molson: You are welcome. As ever, we're going to start off with some icebreaker questions. So, if money was no limit, what would be your absolute dream holiday?

Esther Johnson: Easy, Nashville. I'm such a big country music fan, absolutely love Nashville, and I would love, love, love to go and listen to the music, and drink the beer and everything. Proper Nashville, want to do it, that is on my bucket list. So, if I had all the money, that's straight where I would go.

Kelly Molson: I love that. There was no hesitation whatsoever in that at all, "I've got this planned already". 

Esther Johnson: Literally, country music... It's all I listen to. During the day, it's all I listen to.

Kelly Molson: Who is your favourite country music artist? 

Esther Johnson: So, a bit of a girl crush on Carrie Underwood. I've seen her I think three times in London. I think she's just such an incredible performer, and I love her outfits, and I love just everything that she's doing. Carrie Underwood. 

Kelly Molson: You've just set the Spotify playlist for me for the rest of the day, I'll have to check her out. 

Esther Johnson: Yeah, [inaudible 00:02:26] playlist, definitely [inaudible 00:02:26]. 

Kelly Molson: What is your food-based guilty pleasure? 

Esther Johnson: Probably After Eight's. I have a few food allergies, so my palette is barely limited at times, so After Eight's are literally my go-to for everything. It's the only chocolate I can have, so it's definitely my guilty pleasure. 

Kelly Molson: The only chocolate you can have? Wow. Do you play the After Eight game when you eat them as well? 

Esther Johnson: No, wastes time, wastes time, straight in. 

Kelly Molson: Messy too, depending on the time. 

Esther Johnson: Of course, yes.

Kelly Molson: This might tie in actually to your dream holiday, if you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life what would it be?

Esther Johnson: Probably Tommy Scott, this is very Scottish, but it's literally my family's favourite tunes and songs. Tommy Scott, he'll do a range of, We Belong to Glasgow, and all these very Scottish things. So, Tommy Scott. I don't know what album, but anything he's done we'll listen to that.

Kelly Molson: Alright, I don't know Tommy Scott, I'm going to have to put him in my playlist. 

Esther Johnson: I'm sure you maybe recognise if you've been to a Burns Night, or [inaudible 00:03:47], or New Year's Eve literally they'll play some of his music. 

Kelly Molson: Esther, it's unpopular opinion time.

Esther Johnson: My unpopular opinion is I really don't like pasta, and I'm sorry. I really don't like pasta. If you've gone out to a restaurant and gone to an Italian, and you have Pizza, why would you choose pasta over pizza? I just don't get it.

Kelly Molson: I get you on that. There is no decision to be made there. 

Esther Johnson: [crosstalk 00:04:20] all the way.

Kelly Molson: But, you don't like pasta at all?

Esther Johnson: At all. I like rice, so I'd rather have rice. If mum and dad are having pasta I will have rice or something else, or potatoes. I don't know if it's the texture, or if it's the taste. I don't know. Just not for me at all.

Kelly Molson: I'll accept your unpopular opinion. 

Esther Johnson: Thank you.

Kelly Molson: I don't agree with it, but I think that there might be a few people that will.

Esther Johnson: I'm very much alone in this house as well. 

Kelly Molson: Let's get on to the serious questions. So, Esther, I think we connected on LinkedIn quite a while ago, and I have to say, I'm really blown away by the illustrative work that you do. I think it's absolutely beautiful. You're a freelance designer, but you specialise in illustrations and products for heritage sites. 

Esther Johnson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Tell me a little bit about how you started your business. 

Esther Johnson: It was back in 2017, I'd just been on the Prince's Trust course. They do an enterprise course and it's a four-day crash course into running a business. So, it does your taxes, your marketing. So, four days of full-on business stuff. And, they were doing pros and cons of being an entrepreneur or being self-employed, and every single one I was like, "Yeah, I really want to be self-employed, I want to make my own day job and routine." So, got partnered with a mentor, and we started talking about what I could do as a business really, so creating that idea. I said, "I really like sketchbooks, and drawing, and things like that, but things that I like drawing are the quirky characters, not characters as in Disney characters, but characteristics of places. 

Esther Johnson: And, there was a program recently that really summed up my mindset into what I, hopefully, what I'm into the business. It was Tony Robinson, and he did this documentary on Cathedrals in England, and he was saying that, "Unless somebody pointed out these little details, you wouldn't know." So, so many people would just walk past, and that's fine because it's all this history. And, it's those kind of quirky things that we was talking about that I really loved and wanted to capture through illustration. 

Esther Johnson: So, there was a video, on Facebook I think it was, and it was all these railings that were really bizarre in London, and they were old World War 2 stretchers, and they'd been recycled into railings. And, it's that kind of idea that I really like drawing. So, we were like, "How can we get that concept?" Because, it's heritage, it's history, and quirky characteristics, "How can we get that concept into a business?" Basically, so, we started thinking of places that were local to me, so in Medway, and Chatham Dockyard came to the list. 

Esther Johnson: So, one day, just basically walked in, I had a couple of designs in a folder, and went, "Can I speak to the retail manager?" Hadn't planned anything, didn't know what I wanted to say. And, he didn't laugh at me at the door, which was really nice. He said, "Come back", he had a look at my designs in the folder, seemed to like them. He said, "Come back with some designs and we'll go from there." So, that was it. I went around the site. Chatham Dockyard I think was the biggest employer for Medway before it closed. But, there are so many different aspects of it. There are the three ships, there's a Victorian Ropery where they filmed Call the Midwife, and there are all these buildings. So, there were so many different aspects that I wanted to capture, that I felt that it couldn't go into one design, I felt like it would go as a collection. 

Esther Johnson: So, I did By the Docks, so focused on the ships and the maritime aspect of Chatham Dockyard, and called it By the Docks. And then, The Long Walk, because of the Victorian Ropery. I'll probably get this wrong, but I think it was a quarter of a mile long building. So, called it The Long Walk, and the colours were brown and earthy in the style that you would see when you go and visit. And then, finally, I wanted to capture all the different buildings, because it was like a little community in the Dockyard. They had a little church, and they had a Commissioner's House, and it's all things that you see passing by. 

Esther Johnson: So, I had the three designs, came back, and he seemed to like them which was really lovely because I had no degree, no experience, absolutely nothing to my name. And, I thought, "No one's going to take me seriously", but I think he saw that I was really interested in the Dockyard in particular and finding out the history of it, and capturing that through illustration. Some of the comments that he said as well was that it was quite unusual that an artist potentially or a designer would go and do some work specific to them. Normally they would either buy in stock or they would buy some designs from a catalogue, kind of thing. And, the fact that I went and wanted to get it bespoke for them was a bit different. And, it was those nuggets of information that built to this idea of what I wanted to do for a business. 

Esther Johnson: Then, we went into a product launch, we had all these products. And, having my name on these actual labels, and there would be barcodes, and everything so professional, it was like, "Wow". Lit the fire for what I wanted to do.

Kelly Molson: That must have been such an amazing feeling, to be able to go into a shop and pick up something that you have designed or you've illustrated, and it's there, it's a physical thing. 

Esther Johnson: Yeah, I've definitely been in there a few times just to take pictures and just be like, "This is so bizarre". It really sparked that idea that heritage is definitely the market that I want to go in and do it for other places. There are so many other museums in Medway and in Kent. So, that's where it started really.

Kelly Molson: It's a brilliant story. I love that you were supported by Prince's Trust as well, I think they're such an incredible organisation, what they do for young people, really fantastic. 

Esther Johnson: Yeah, they still are.

Kelly Molson: You're a mentor for them as well, aren't you?

Esther Johnson: I'm a young ambassador for them. 

Kelly Molson: Ambassador.

Esther Johnson: Over lockdown, there's been so many enterprise courses that I've been running. And, on the week you get... They call it an inspirational speaker, it's strange to be called that. I go in and tell my story about how I run the business and how the Prince's Trust has helped. So, I did eight of those over lockdown. So, the demand for small businesses and people setting up their own business has definitely been on the increase. Prince's Trust, still keeps in contact with my mentors and in contact with the South East and London region, which is incredible. I've never met a bunch of people that are just so willing for you to do well. Across the board, everyone is so happy and so excited about what you're doing. It's really encouraging. 

Kelly Molson: It's amazing. I love the progression that you've made in what you've achieved so far. The reason that I got you on the podcast today is there's a few things that you mentioned, as you were telling your story about how you set up, that tie in really lovely with a past episode that we've had on the podcast. Back in November time, we had Simon Jones from Digital Visitor on, and at that point we were talking a lot about the fact that attractions have been closed for a huge amount of 2020. As they were starting to reopen again, they needed to look at different ways of engaging with the visitor when they came. And, not just when they come, but when they're buying from them online, or when they're buying from them on the gift shop on-site. 

Kelly Molson: And, Simon and I both very much talked about the fact that attractions need to stock products that you can't buy anywhere else, that's the whole point of going to that gift shop. You don't really want to just pop in there and buy something that you could pop to Tesco's and buy, or pop to your high street gift shop and buy. The reason for going is, you've been to this fantastic attraction all day, if you're going to go into the gift shop and buy something, you want to buy something that you can only get there that is very individual to that venue. And, you touched on that a little bit when you were speaking about your client had said that it's unusual for them to have illustrations that were very much focused on them, rather than just buying something that was stock. 

Kelly Molson: So, I wanted to talk through your process really, because I thought that would be really interesting for our audience, how you work with an organisation to do this. So, can you tell us a little bit about how that process starts? What do you do when you're first speaking to an attraction? How do you start that process of designing something that is bespoke for them? 

Esther Johnson: Most importantly, I need to visit the place. There's obviously so much that you can get from the internet and looking at social media, but actually visiting, as a visitor and as a customer, you see things that you wouldn't necessarily get on the internet. And also, I think a hugely important part of when I do design, is speaking to the staff, some of the visitors, and some of the people that work there because they're the experts in that place. Some of them have been there for their whole career and know every inch of the history of the museum or heritage site. And, it's that kind of information that I think is crucial and is really helpful in making a really good design. Because, they'll know what visitors are always keen to go and look at, the best sellers or the must-sees of each place. And, it's that kind of information that you wouldn't get maybe on the internet. You get a feel, you get an idea of the colours, and what the place is laid out like. So that, when you've done the whole journey and then you finish up at the gift shop, which sometimes that is how it works in museums, you know what they're expecting, and what kind of products they would want to have as part of their trip and day out. So, definitely very much go and visit it first, see it firsthand, and get imagery, photography from those places. 

Esther Johnson: And then, I'll go back and do some illustrations, do some designs, and put together something. I'm very lucky that I get free rein to start off with, "Here's the brief, here's what we want", go in, create something. So then, after that, we'll put together a design and I'll maybe put together some products that I think might work. And then, we go from there, we tweak it, sometimes the information might be incorrect, or they prefer to take out some images. It's a very partnership kind of relationship, because, the people that I'm working with, they know the place inside out. So, if I've taken something that I thought was interesting but doesn't quite work with their branding or with their ethos, then it will be taken out. And, that's absolutely fine, because it's them that will be selling it, it will be them that are talking to the customers, and knowing what's going to sell, and things like that. 

Esther Johnson: So, design is created, and then we'll put it onto products. And normally, I help find the suppliers and recommend some products that I think might work with some designs from previous examples, previous museums that I've worked with. And then, I also like doing the end part, the packaging, because I found some clients it's quite a small team in the retail side, and don't necessarily have the time to look at swatches for binding for oven gloves, and looking at fabric materials, and all those details. I'm putting my name on it, so I want to make sure it's the best product that it can be for the customer, and I want it to be well-thought-out. Because, like you say, they're spending their money and they want to have something that is bespoke for that place. And, also you can add a bit of a premium to that product that has been well-thought-out, and things like that. So, I really try and go for the full process from start to finish, and they're helping with the packaging, and if you need labels designed. I'm really interested in that whole design process.

Kelly Molson: It's really collaborative, isn't it? You're working really hand in hand with them.

Esther Johnson: Yeah. I definitely feel that is the better way to go about it, rather than just, "Here's a design, you pay me for that, you've got to deal with it, you've got to sell it." I'd rather it be something that they're proud of as well, and that they're passionate about it. That really does help actually with the design. When you're speaking to the staff and customers, the passion of their site and the story that they are telling, when that passion comes over, it really influences the design. And, I get that passion as well, and then I get really excited thinking, "I really hope that they like it, and I really hope that they can see that I've listened to what they've said." So, little details that go in the design, I hope that comes across.

Kelly Molson: And, how do you work with the site to define what those products might be? Because your illustrations can be applied to a variety of different products, how do you help that site define what products are going to be the most popular for them, and how they can make the most of them?

Esther Johnson: So, normally they already have a shop and a product range that they have already, and sometimes it is just a new product collection. So, I can say that "This design particularly works well with confectionary or kitchenware." If it's a place that's not really had product development, or they've just potentially bought things for stock, it's kind of, "Who's your target market? Who are the people that are coming in and buying tickets? Who are the people that are spending the most time in the gift shop?" It's really the research that they have, and it's all their knowledge that really influences what the products... I can suggest and say, "I think this would work really well for this target market", but they are the people that would know who is their customer. I'm not there to tell them, "This is what you should do", at all. It really is a, "I would like to help", or, "I'd like to contribute". So, it really is down to them, to be honest.

Kelly Molson: If we talk about things that people need to think about before they start to speak to somebody like you who will help them develop those products, what do they need to know before they engage with you? What do they need to prepare beforehand?

Esther Johnson: I suppose it depends on what their end reason for having a design. So, an example would be, some design I did for a client was not used for products, it was used for educational purposes. So, getting the school kids would be a big part of their attraction, and they needed a branding or a mascot that could be targeting to the children, and have little speech bubbles, and giving them the educational purposes, and the facts and figures of that. So, that was a very different market.

Kelly Molson: If I gave you an ideal brief, what would be in that brief? What would you need to know, that you would have everything that was in that brief, that you'd go, "This brief is perfect. I'm going to take that away and..."?

Esther Johnson: A perfect brief would be fairly minimal. It would be, "Come and visit on X, Y, and Z", and then I go and take inspiration from the place, and go from there. That would, I'd say, be the perfect brief. Or, another one would be, "We've got five sites, and we're trying to collaborate them together because they're all a bit disjointed", or something like that. And then, I'll be like, "Okay, I'll go to each five sites, find out something specific, and then a design will be created that can collaborate each five site, and then you can sell it in each five sites, so they're all brought together." Finding out what their unique characteristics are to go on.

Kelly Molson: Is that harder to do? Because, if you're going to one site there will be individual things about that site that are really bespoke to that site, it feels like it would be easier to create on thing. How do you manage it when it's five different sites? Do you have to go through the same process at each site? 

Esther Johnson: I suppose. There's one particular client that I'm working with, the Brighton Pavilion Trust. So, they've got five museums down in Brighton. The Royal Pavilion is a classic, beautiful architectural building.

Kelly Molson: Such an iconic building, isn't it?

Esther Johnson: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: Everyone remembers it.

Esther Johnson: Beautiful. And, I didn't know that they had five other sites that were all linked in the same thing, and they wanted to create something that was uniformed. So, went around and found all these quirky little things that were in each site. So, I've drawn all the buildings, and then added little elements that were relevant. And then, put them into one design... I know I put it into repeat, just for a textile design background, I suppose. Customers, I hope, will be able to recognise all these different elements, and know that they can go to each different site and then find something else there.

Kelly Molson: That makes sense. I guess you might be a bit biased in [inaudible 00:22:40], how important do you think it is that heritage sites do have niche products?

Esther Johnson: I think it's very important. So, yes, I'm probably biased. I think it is very important because... My mindset for it is that you're spending X amount of money to get into the place, and it's a day out. And, you wouldn't go there if it was just a park, or it had no memory or meaning to it, you go there because there is a purpose to that place. And, the people are passionate about their history and what they are offering. They are, ultimately, offering a story and a place to go. And, I think that it's only fair to capture those stories into something that they can take home as a souvenir. And, the meaning of the souvenir is the whole reason why I create bespoke-ness, is because you want something that you can only buy from that place. And, I also think that well-thought design is important, rather than something that you think, "They didn't really care much about the product." I think it's important to make sure that you do care about the end product so that your customers know that you're passionate about the story, and you want them to come back, and you want them to remember. And, it would be a nice gift that they can give to somebody else as well. 

Kelly Molson: It's helping them continue that story as well, isn't it? To continue the journey that they've been on by buying something that is only available there, they then bring it home, which then sparks those lovely memories of that day. And again, does it act as a reminder to say, "We need to go there again", it's something that's in their house, they physically see it all the time, "We need to go back there. We need to revisit."?

Esther Johnson: Yeah, of course. And, if you go to John Lewis and they've got some beautiful collections from maybe artists or just well-designed products, you think, "Wow, that's really nice. I might want to go back and add to the collection." So, you've got a set of some really nice products. And, I think, why couldn't you do that in the museum setting, and a visitor site setting? Why can't you have really beautiful products that maybe you want to go back and get the set. Or, maybe you see what else they've developed and think, "I'd rather spend my money here than on a high street store." It's making that decision made easy for customers to spend their money in a museum and visitor site rather than somewhere else online.

Kelly Molson: That's a great answer. I completely agree with you on that. I think it's part of that whole mindset... There was a majority of people that were trying to shift to buying local, and buying [inaudible 00:25:43], buying smaller products anyway. But, there's definitely been a shift towards that more so since lockdown, buying local, supporting independents and things. So, I think if you can intertwine that into your visitor center as well then that's a perfect offering.

Esther Johnson: Yeah. I totally agree.

Kelly Molson: You might not have facts and figures and stuff for this, but it'd be interesting to know if you've spoken to any of the attractions that you've worked with and seen what the uptake has been in those niche products, compared to something that was a stock product that people would have been able to buy previously?

Esther Johnson: I don't have facts and figures. I would love to be able to say their revenue was amazing after they had worked with me. In 2020, I had five projects that was going onto products that all got put on hold, and I only really started the business in 2018. So, in terms of facts and figures, it's quite difficult to get them because it's quite a short time. However, I did get contacted by a charity called ABF, the national Soldier's Charity, I think it was March/ April last year, so during the lockdown. And, we created a design, and we created some products, and it went quite well. And, they had to reorder within a couple of months. And, we did some Christmas cards that were e-cards, and they were doing them onto physical Christmas cards. And, we're doing some new product collections that are now stationary. We did confectionary, we expanded on the confectionary style. And, the response has been really good. It is a different market in terms of that it's a military charity, rather than a visitor attraction. But, the process is still the same thing. I still get in elements from what they do, what their ethos, why they do what they do, and put that onto design.

Esther Johnson: And, people took... I think they liked it. Because, they were like, "Yes, this is the charity that I support and have a lot of relationships or memories within this charity, and I want to support them. And, the fact that they've got a lovely designed product, even better." So, instead of just donating money, which people do every month, they actually get a product for it. And, something that they can admire... Not admire, [inaudible 00:28:16].

Kelly Molson: I totally get that. I think it's really relevant, regardless of whether that's a charity or an attraction that you're talking to. Again, it comes back to that idea of people are making really big choices about where they spend their money, and that charity or that attraction is really important to them, therefore they're choosing to spend their money there. And, they want something that they can only get at that venue. That's the message that we're driving through today. It is really important that your venue has something that is so special, and so unique to you, that people can only spend their money there on that product.

Esther Johnson: Yeah, because, ultimately, the people will go there for a particular reason, because of the story that they tell. And, if it can be someway reflected into a lovely product that they can then purchase and help, then the money goes back into the refurbishment or the continuation of that organisation, I think all the better for it. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. So, other than behind your head, where I can see some of your beautiful products. Again, if you're not watching this on YouTube, apologies. What attractions have you worked with? Where can we find out a bit more about your work?

Esther Johnson: Chatham Dockyard, to start off with. They still sell the three designs that I started my business on, so you can go and find them there. Chelsea Pensioners was such an amazing project to work on, going around the Chelsea Pensioner site, the Royal Hospital, and speaking with Chelsea Pensioner, and getting all that thing. So, they have products and they have it online as well. So, if you have any connections with the Chelsea Pensioners, that was a really good project to work on. The Brighton Billing Trust, I really hope I've got that name right, this year we're working on some products that will combine all the five sites that they have, and we're putting them on to products. So, it would have come out in 2020, but obviously, it was postponed. So, hopefully, this year, maybe next year, Brighton will have some new products designed by me.

Kelly Molson: So exciting. I think it's wonderful. I've really enjoyed chatting to you today, just to find out more about that process and how it works. If anyone wants to get in touch with you, where's the best place that they can do that? 

Esther Johnson: Website, email, designedbyesther.co.uk. Instagram, I try and put a lot more on Instagram. 

Kelly Molson: Fabulous. And, we will put all the links to Esther's contact details in the show notes anyway, so don't worry if you didn't grab that. You'll be able to pop over and hit her up if you want to chat with her and find out a little bit more about how she can help. We always end our podcast with asking about a book that you'd recommend to our listeners. So, a book that you love, or something that's helped shape your career in some way? What's your suggestion for us today?

Esther Johnson: Ashamedly, I've not read many books. However, over lockdown, there's a lady called Holly Tucker, who co-founded Not On The High Street, and Holly & Co, and she's been doing these Instagram Lives two or three times a week, and they've been so inspirational, so motivating. She really just captures what small businesses and small entrepreneurs are going through. She answers questions, she's just so helpful. She has a book coming out called Do What You Love, Love What You Do. I've pre-ordered it, and I am so excited to read it. I've gone against the rules, that I haven't read it. Over lockdown, she has really inspired me to think, "Why do I want to run a business?", and, "Why do I want to continue what I'm doing?" So, she has been a big boost in the daily running of my business. I really recommend her. And also, if you just watch her Instagram Lives, she's so interesting and so personable, she's just incredible. 

Kelly Molson: I love that. I think that's a perfect book for this episode.

Esther Johnson: Perfect, yeah.

Kelly Molson: It fits really well with what we've been talking about, in terms of products. Good recommendation. As ever, listeners, if you want to win a copy of this book, then if you head over to our Twitter account, which is Skip the Queue, and if you retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want Esther's book", then you will be in with a chance of winning it. 

Esther Johnson: It should be a good one. 

Kelly Molson: Esther, thank you so much for coming on today, I've really enjoyed finding out a bit more about what you do. I think understanding a bit of that process that you go through when you work with attractions will definitely help our audience if they're thinking about developing a bespoke product in some way that is going to be really individual for them. So, thank you.

Esther Johnson: Thank you very much for asking, I hope it has been of some use. 

Kelly Molson: It absolutely will be.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review, it really helps others find us. And, remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://museumofus.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-haddan-88a7ba93/

James Haddan has been a resident of San Diego since 1998, and has worked in the museum field for almost two decades. As the Senior Director of Development and External Communications at the Museum of Us (formerly the San Diego Museum of Man), he is responsible for building a community of support for the institution. 

Recently, he and Museum CEO, Micah Parzen, led the effort to publicly launch the Museum’s new name, which embraces a more equitable and accessible identity dedicated to anti-racism and decolonizing work. Mr. Haddan holds both a Bachelor of Environmental Design and Master of Arts in Anthropology from Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. His graduate work was associated with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and included underwater archaeology fieldwork at the 17th-century port city of Port Royal, Jamaica.

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. 

In today's episode, I speak with James Haddan, Senior Director of Development and External Communications at the Museum of Us in San Diego. 

We discuss the multifaceted process of decolonization and the process of changing the museum's 40-year-old name. 

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: James, it is absolutely lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me. 

James Haddan: Well, thank you, Kelly, for having me. I'm really looking forward to our chat.

Kelly Molson: So am I. But first, icebreaker questions, as always. James, I know that you're a regular listener to the podcast, so you kind of know what's in store for you. What talent would you most like to grow and develop?

James Haddan: I would really like to improve my ability with languages. That's something that I've tried over time and have not been really very good at keeping up and someday, in retirement, I'd love to live abroad, and so I really feel like I don't want to be one of those Americans living in a country that refuses to speak any other language but English. And so, I'd like to work on that.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I always say.. Yeah. It's that Brit abroad. For us, I always call it that Brit abroad thing where you go, okay, well, I'm going to go and retire to Spain, but I'm never going to learn a single word of Spanish. I'm just going to speak English the whole time there, so yeah. It's not the right thing to do. What language? What have you tried, or what would you like to learn?

James Haddan: So, I did kind of that requisite year or two of high school French in the United States, which I didn't really learn much of anything. In college, I studied German, and in my graduate program, we actually were required to be able to translate in a foreign language. So, I actually, for a period of time, could read German. It wasn't a conversational knowledge of the language, but I could translate it. The German has left me, basically. 

James Haddan: So what I've been working on now, and I just started it in the pandemic, and please don't ask me to show it off because I'm not ready for that. I'm trying to learn some Portuguese. I really love Portugal. But Portuguese, the pronunciation is really difficult for me. I don't find it natural at all. 

Kelly Molson: Okay. It's interesting you mention German, actually, because we did French and German at school. And you could choose which one you went on and did for your GCSEs. And I chose German because it was the easier language because it was quite masculine.

James Haddan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: It felt more similar to the British language. 

James Haddan: Yes.

Kelly Molson: And so I found it easier to say. And that's why I went with German. But it has left me as well. I've been on the Duolingo app. I started doing Duolingo and learning in Spanish in lockdown. And I've been really consistent, so I've done it every day. I think I'm on a 190 day streak at the moment.

James Haddan: I am on 390 of a streak of Portuguese.

Kelly Molson: Whoa. We should hook up on there. I'll find you.

James Haddan: I have been amazed at myself, but it does make it easy. It's not a long period of time, and I do feel like it's okay for me to pick it up for 10 minutes and it's-

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I love that. Oh good. Okay. Well, I will find you on there and we'll hook up and we'll spur each other on to learn our languages. Okay, next one. What's the worst movie that you've ever watched?

James Haddan: I will say, it's the worst in some ways, but I love it. It's one of those movies that I love but it... It's that Flash Gordon that was done in the eighties, I think. 

Kelly Molson: Film.

James Haddan: And I really love the movie, but it was.

Kelly Molson: It's not aged well.

James Haddan: Yeah. But I loved it. But I kind of loved hated it, yeah.

Kelly Molson: So, that's one of those movies, it's so bad it's good.

James Haddan: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I love Flash Gordon. I think that's a great film. I might, I need to watch that now. Okay. Next one. If you could be in the Guinness World of Records, what record-breaking feat would you attempt?

James Haddan: Oh. That's really a tough one. It would have to do with travel. I think it would be places visited or something... I know that's really kind of tough to do, but I'm really obsessed with travel and so, it would be something having to do with travel.

Kelly Molson: All right. That's cool. I was thinking of something eating for me.

James Haddan: Well, and that was my kind of backup one, that I almost said, was around pasta. Because, but then I think of, oh, the process of eating it for those eating challenges always seems so awful, and it would probably make me not ever want to eat pasta again. And so, that's why I switched over, but I also had an initial urge to choose eating pasta, or some kind of Italian food.

Kelly Molson: A couple of years ago, my agency, Rubber Cheese, we did a big year-long charity fundraiser, and one of the challenges that we did was to try and break the world record for eating a can of cheddar cheese Pringles in the fastest amount of time. And we did break the world record for that. Not myself, personally, I was dreadful at it, but I have never eaten a cheese Pringle ever since. Ruined cheese Pringles for me for life, so. All right, James. What is your unpopular opinion?

James Haddan: So, my unpopular opinion, which will be more unpopular in the United States probably than in the UK is that our crispy bacon is an abomination. Our idea of taking streaky bacon and essentially nuking it until it's just a piece of ash is horrible. I just don't understand why we insist on doing that to bacon. It seems like such a bad thing to do for lovely pigs who gave their lives for this delicious meat and we just shouldn't do that to bacon.

Kelly Molson: I'm with you. I don't understand that. The whole making it, it shouldn't be rock hard, should it? 

James Haddan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: That's not nice. 

James Haddan: Yeah. It shouldn't shatter when you go in to bite it. And so I find when I'm in England, I have a much better experience with bacon because they don't assume that I want it... Well, sometimes because if they hear me speak and know I'm American, assume that I want it that way, but. It's like no, just prepare it the way you would normally prepare it. 

Kelly Molson: All right. Come to the UK, it's all about the good bacon. 

James Haddan: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Selling the UK well.

James Haddan: A bacon sandwich in the Uk is a wonderful thing.

Kelly Molson: Completely agree with you on that one, James. Right. Let's get into the good stuff.

James Haddan: Okay.

Kelly Molson: So, James, you are, currently, Senior Director of Development and External Communications at the Museum of US in San Diego. Tell us a little bit about your career. How did you get to that point?

James Haddan: So, it's been a long and varied route. And so I'll try to do the CliffsNotes version of it. But I kind of wanted to start off by saying I was one of those students growing up that loved so many different things to study. I loved architecture, I loved art, I loved the built environment, I loved archaeology. And so I was one of those students, I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do when I went to college, but I felt like I needed to make a decision and I started right away with aerospace engineering and immediately in the first week or two of that, said, no, this isn't going to be a good idea. Changed my major very quickly to architecture. 

James Haddan: And so, I did a bachelor's degree in... I went to Texas A&M and their program was a four-year undergraduate degree called environmental design, which then moved to a master's degree in architecture. And, so I did and completed the four years Bachelor of Environmental Design degree and I really loved that degree. But at the end of it, I realized that I would be a very mediocre architect and the world didn't need another mediocre architect. And so I was at a crossroads, I didn't know what to do. I wasn't very employable with that degree and so, like many people will do, oh, I'll just get a master's degree. 

James Haddan: And I really loved archaeology. And so I decided I would get a Master's degree in Anthropology, specialisation in Archeology. Again, I'm sure my parents and family were like, that's not a great decision in the job field. And so, why are you doing that? But I followed my heart and I was glad that I did that and in my anthropology program, my archaeology program, I worked with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M, which is very famous, and did my fieldwork in Port Royal, Jamaica, which is a 17th century English port city that sank into what is now Kingston Harbour. And our program had been excavating there for about 10 years. So, really, very interesting work that I really loved doing. But I also, in that process, decided that a PhD and an academic life for me in archaeology or anthropology also wasn't really meant for me. 

James Haddan: And while I was doing my graduate work, I was invited to be a graduate assistant at an art gallery on campus. And the curator of the gallery wanted a graduate assistant who had really good research skills and also had good design skills. And he said "I would love an architecture student, but they just don't have time, and especially in their master's program, to work away from the studio. And I would love an anthropology student because they're really great at research, but they don't have any design background." So he kind of reached out to both departments. Well, both departments knew me and said oh, we have the unicorn for you.

Kelly Molson: The perfect fit.

James Haddan: The perfect fit. And so, I went over and I met with him and he was delighted and I started and that's where I started to realise that a role for myself in a museum was possible. That I had some really good skills that would work in the field. So that kind of lit the fire for me with the professional idea that I could work in museums. So, when I finished graduate school, I had moved to Phoenix to be with my partner, who had finished his graduate program a little earlier and already had a job. He was an engineer. He had a sensible job. 

James Haddan: And we moved to Phoenix and I was hired by the Arizona Historical Society to head an exhibits project that they were doing. They were opening a new museum. And I worked for them for about five and a half years and it was a really invaluable experience. I was very young and I didn't realize at the time the kind of amount of responsibility I was given. But people had just given me a lot to do and project manage and deal with grants and all kinds of things. Really, really gave me a great foundation to work in the museum field. Great job. 

James Haddan: I didn't really want to spend the rest of my life in Phoenix. And I had occasionally come to San Diego on holiday as many people in Phoenix do. It's hot in the desert and you drive six hours and you're by the seaside, and it's a very Mediterranean lovely climate. So I wanted to move to San Diego. So I just quit my job. I moved to San Diego. My partner, by that time, was my ex-partner. He had a spare room and he very graciously said you can stay with me rent-free. And so I loaded up, I moved to San Diego, and I got a job at the San Diego Natural History Museum as their Director of Membership. 

James Haddan: There's a long story about that, but I won't bore you about that. So, I was hired there and that was my first kind of work in the development realm. And my boss there, whose name was Anne Laden, and she was an amazing fundraiser and an amazing mentor. And she taught me so much. And I was there about four years and just kind of soaked in everything that she was doing. She was running this 30 million dollar capital campaign to build a new wing, and I just kind of soaked all of that up.

James Haddan: I took a little detour after that. I decided I wanted to try something outside the nonprofit realm. I worked in healthcare for nine years, which taught me that I really wanted to be back in museums. And when I made that decision, the very day that I made the decision that I wanted to get back into the museum field, I started looking online for jobs. I looked at, what then was the San Diego Museum of Man, which is an anthropology museum, and that was my field of graduate study. And I had been to the museum but the kind of the old version of the museum wasn't very exciting for me. But I thought well, I'll see if they have a job. 

James Haddan: Well, they had a development manager job. And so I thought, I'll give it a try. I sent in my materials, and they called me right away and interviewed me. And in that studying up for the interview process, getting to know the museum actually before my interview, I realised that the museum was in a whole new direction from what it was. So suddenly, I was really excited and thought, oh, this will be a really wonderful place to work and I hope I get this job. And I got the job. And then, I've been at the museum since 2013, and my role has grown over time. And so, now I'm heading the department that I first started in. 

Kelly Molson: I love hearing how people's careers are so squiggly. 

James Haddan: Yes.

Kelly Molson: There's a great podcast in the UK called Squiggly Careers. I think it's Helen Tupper that is the host of it. And it is fabulous. And it is all about these kinds of weird little directions that we take, that brings us to the perfect place. 

James Haddan: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Now, this is what I want to talk about. So, you mentioned earlier that the museum was known as the San Diego Museum of Man. And I think that was, it had been named that for over 40 years-

James Haddan: Yes.

Kelly Molson: So it's a really long time. But now it's called the Museum of Us. What is it that prompted that change and how has this come about, that the museum has changed? Because there's quite a big story to this that I want to delve a little bit deeper into.

James Haddan: Sure. So it's really interesting. We've done a bit of digging on the history of the name. First of all, the museum was founded in 1915 for the California Panama Exposition. We're located in Balboa Park, which was built for the Exposition. Its original name was not San Diego Museum of Man. It was a very kind of bland name, like California, San Diego Museum Association, or... I'm drawing a bit of a blank on that actually now. But in the forties, it became the Museum of Man and then, later on, San Diego was added to it too. So, it had that name for quite a bit of time and was very, that name, when you came to the museum, it was one of those anthropology museums that you expect to see of that time period. It was about ancient civilisations. Come see the exhibit on the Maya, come see an exhibit on ancient Egypt. 

James Haddan: Over time, and especially kind of beginning in the seventies, but you see it also in the eighties, there started to be a lot of kind of rumbling in the community about the name. And really, a lot of this was tied to kind of the Equal Right Amendment. Things that were going on at the same time in the United States about language and how our language tends to be very patriarchal and the use of man in that sense of it being humanity. It's really an old use of the word, which really wasn't used anymore in everyday speech. Academics might use it, but in everyday speech, it wasn't. 

James Haddan: And so, really in the late eighties, early nineties, there was even kind of petition drives that were submitted to the museum and said, "Please consider changing your name. We don't feel welcome with that name.

Kelly Molson: Right.

James Haddan: It sounds very patriarchal name, a very sexist name, and so please change it." And there were... Actually, the board considered it. At that time, there was a formal kind of membership that had to review those kinds of things. I think there was a vote that said, no, we're not going to change our name. But really, beginning in the nineties, there was a lot of talk about changing our name. And so that's when it really started. 

James Haddan: And so, in the last 10 years, when we really began changing what we do as a museum, which I think we'll probably talk about in a bit, we also really realised that that old name, the San Diego Museum of Man, didn't fit with what work the museum was doing now. There was really a brand disconnect.

Kelly Molson: Okay. Cool. So, one of the things I want to talk about today, and I think it's a really interesting subject, but it's also quite a challenging subject to talk about and discuss about what, the changes that you've made. But it's about the decolonisation initiatives that you've run. Can you tell us when that started and what you've done to kind of facilitate that happening?

James Haddan: Sure. Well, it's a very long process and it will be an ongoing process for decades. I mean, you don't decolonise a 100 plus year institution, and museums are, in many ways, deeply colonial structures, as institutions. So you just don't magically undo that. But I always look at, a turning point really for me in decolonising work was, we were talking about it, as I said, I've been here since 2013, and we were talking about it when I started. And I'm sure even before then. 

James Haddan: Our director came in 10 years ago, Micah Parzen. And so this has been an interest of his for a long time. But really in 2017, we submitted a grant request to IMLS, which is the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the United States. It's a government agency. And we submitted a very large grant to formally start decolonizing practices at the museum. So $300,000 plus grant, and we were awarded it. The review committee was really thrilled to see the museum really want to tackle this in a formal kind of way. And it was essentially a pilot project for us to start working with the Kumeyaay community. 

James Haddan: And the museum and San Diego, we're all located on Kumeyaay land. This whole land that was settled by Spanish and American settlers was the home of the Kumeyaay and continues to be the home of the Kumeyaay. And so there is a long history there. The cultural materials that we have, much of them are Kumeyaay materials. And so this grant really started that process for us to start building a relationship with the Kumeyaay community about the materials that we hold and to start really consulting with them in ways.

James Haddan: And I'll talk, I'll really point to two pieces of really policy decisions that we made about the same time or as this process had gone. The first one was a policy on human remains, where the board formally decided that we would not exhibit human remains without the consent of descendant communities. So we pulled any human remains that we had on display. And so that was one of the first steps.

James Haddan: The second step, which is even a bigger step, is called the colonial pathways policy. And what that, in a nutshell, it's a long policy, but what it does is it says that we will be consulting with descendant communities to see what materials that we should continue to hold. So, if materials came into our holdings through any kind of colonial path, we will return those to the descendant communities. And that's a big deal in the museum world. 

James Haddan: And so, those were some of the two key kinds of pieces of work. Now, since that time, the decolonizing efforts have expanded in every department, including my development department. We are finding ways to move forward in ways that embrace a decolonial paradigm to the work that we are doing. So, it's an ongoing process, but I really look to that IMLS grant as one of the first steps and then those two policy decisions that our board, and I can't kind of give enough kudos to our board for really taking a lead on that. And so, a lot of work had to be done building a board that was ready to make those kinds of decisions.

Kelly Molson: How did you go about engaging with the community to do this? Because it's fabulous that those steps were taken. Absolutely the right thing to do. How do you then put that into practice? How do you engage with the community to understand what they want you to do? 

James Haddan: That's a great question. There are a lot of different layers to that. So, one of the key parts of that is to start having Indigenous and Native American people in the decision making positions on your staff. And so, for example, we have a Director of Decolonizing Initiatives, whose name is Brandie MacDonald and she's Choctaw and Chickasaw, and she's part of the four-member kind of senior executive team of the museum. So she is right in there with all the keys decisions being made at the museum.

James Haddan: There's also a past history of the museum with the Kumeyaay community that wasn't a good one. I mean, the Kumeyaay community looked at the museum, rightly so, as an organisation that had their cultural patrimony and shouldn't have it and displayed it in ways that they weren't happy about. So, we needed to start truth-telling about that in the exhibits that we have and we also needed to apologise for that. 

James Haddan: And so our senior, our director, our deputy director, really our CEO and our Deputy Director went and have apologised for what we have done in the past and have really committed to changing those practices, but not surprisingly, those kinds of things are looked upon with a great deal of scepticism. So, it takes action to start building trust. And so, we're still building trust, but we've started. And we're making progress.

Kelly Molson: That's wonderful. And like you say, it's not a quick fix, is it? It's something that going to progress and change over time. How granular do you look at those decisions that you're making now? In terms of, for instance, if there's a new exhibit that you'd like to showcase, do you consult with the community before that happens to make sure that they're happy for you to exhibit those artefacts? How detailed do you go? 

James Haddan: So that's really interesting because we've done a couple kind of pilots and tests, some kind of small work. For example, with our existing Kumeyaay exhibit, we were partially closed because of a seismic retrofit to our California tower, which is a very famous icon, and during that time, we had to close our Kumeyaay exhibit. And so we thought, this is a perfect time to kind of consult with the Kumeyaay community, which we were already doing, and at least ask what shouldn't be on display. What should we at least take off of display that you don't want us to? So, that gave us kind of the first taste of what do we do, and at least make this exhibit that is decades old less problematic. It still needs to change. 

James Haddan: But also during that process, and during this first IMLS grant, we were really working with the Kumeyaay and finding out, well, what did they want us to do next? What do they see this museum helping kind of elevate their voice? And they said you need a new Kumeyaay exhibit. You are not talking about us in the way that we want to be presented to the world, and not surprisingly, you don't know anything about us. You are white scholars who aren't Kumeyaay. 

James Haddan: And so, we just, in this last year, received a second grant from IMLS to actually work on the new Kumeyaay exhibit. And so we're really going to be trying to figure that out because it's that whole process because we want it to be a community-driven exhibit. We want the Kumeyaay community to tell us how their story should be told and to be a part of that. And not just consulting occasionally, but to be with it every step of the way. What's on display, what's on the design, where does it go in the exhibit, in the museum, all of those kinds of things. 

James Haddan: And so, when I say our decolonising work is a process, it's a process. And sometimes it's messy and we make mistakes. But we're trying to learn how to do it correctly. And so we're still in that process.

Kelly Molson: And what's the reaction been from the Kumeyaay community? And then also, other communities that would visit the museum. How have people responded to the changes that you've made?

James Haddan: So, I don't know and I wouldn't want to speak for the Kumeyaay on what their impression is of what our work is. From what I see with the partnerships that we've been building through our IMLS work, there's also NAGPRA work, which is another government type of work about the repatriation of ancestors and associated grave goods. It feels like trust is building and so I think that that means that, or is an indicator that there is some happiness about the work that's going. But I don't want to speak for them in any way. 

James Haddan: I will give one example that I feel shows, it really kind of impacted staff quite a bit. So, we had a visitor to the museum from the Maasai community, an ambassador from the Maasai community, and he was visiting and there was contact between our cultural resources staff and he wanted to come to see what we might have from his community. And so he can in and our staff pulled everything that we, as far as we knew, were Maasai materials. 

James Haddan: And the first question that we asked him was, should we have these? Should we even have these and should we be stewarding these for your community? And he said, "Yes, it's fine for you to have these. There's nothing that you have in your holdings here that you shouldn't have. But what you should be doing is caring for them differently."

James Haddan: We use this very western, European sort of approach to stewarding materials. And so we wrap things in acid-free materials or sometimes different kinds of plastics, and I'm probably using the wrong terms, I'm not a conservator. But he said... And there was specifically a spear that he was looking at. And he said, "You really need to be rubbing this with lamb's fat, for example. And it's dead the way you're taking care of it. It can't live this way."

James Haddan: And so, we started following the cultural care practices that he asked for us to do. And it's amazing how that spear changed. Suddenly, it shines in a different way. And it does feel like it's alive again. And so, from those kinds of reactions, it feels like we're on the right track and that we're doing the right thing morally.

Kelly Molson: There's so many layers to that, isn't there?

James Haddan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: When you start to engage with the community where these items have come from. You would never have known that at all about that artefact. 

James Haddan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: You would never, you wouldn't have read about that anywhere unless that man had told you about it. 

James Haddan: Yes.

Kelly Molson: It's fascinating.

James Haddan: And then it also means that I think that if we at some point in time, put that item on display, then also we have a contact who we can talk to and say, how should it be displayed? What story should we tell about this item? And then we can also feel good about it being on display and not feel like we are doing harm or causing trauma to a community by putting it on display.

Kelly Molson: So how does this, if we just take a step back and go back to the name change, how have those things run in parallel with each other because they are intertwined, aren't they?

James Haddan: They are very much intertwined. And I think we started kind of again, bringing up this idea of a name change two years, in 2018, we actually hired a firm to help us kind of start navigating the process around a name change. To have us kind of start testing names and all of those kinds of activities. We wanted to engage stakeholders with a name and no one was kind of sure what a name should, nobody had any name that just popped to their minds that seemed like a good one. 

James Haddan: But we knew we wanted to change our name. Also in those discussions, it was interesting because we were kind of told, don't change your name though, until your name, your name or your brand, until the experience in the museum is much different. You don't want there to be a disconnect between having a new name and then the visitor experience be very much different, not be very much different. 

James Haddan: And so in the back of our minds, we kept thinking, okay, well, at some point, we want to do this multimillion-dollar capital campaign and completely reimagine the visitor experience to the museum. And we had engaged this firm to help us start planning for that and had some really exciting plans around that. We still do. But it will cost a lot of money to make happen and that kind of capital campaign will take some years. We're not quite ready to do that yet. 

James Haddan: And so when we were thinking about changing our name, we kept thinking, okay, well, we've now gone out to the communities starting in 2018 saying we want to change our name but we're not quite ready to have a whole new visitor experience. How are we going to time this? This is really, this is hard to do and we, by that point in time, we had it kind of narrowed down to three names that we were thinking about. And then, the pandemic happened.

James Haddan: Be honest, was part of the thing and I think, like many institutions, we started looking at ourselves and saying, how do we come out of this as a better version of ourselves? What can we learn from this time to make ourselves better? And we did a lot of self-examination and we realized that as an institution, we were already so much different than what we were 10 years ago, we were embracing and really doing all this decolonizing work. We have an exhibit called Race: Are We So Different? where we really tackle that whole idea about systemic racism and white privilege and all of those kinds of things. And that had become the centre point of our education programs. 

James Haddan: And so we're doing all this antiracism work. We were doing this decolonizing work. We were doing much more work in the social justice sphere. And we were doing, in the kind of traditional collecting of artefacts and showing artefacts from ancient civilizations. And that old name is associated with those old activities. 

Kelly Molson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

James Haddan: And we really realised that the old name didn't match what we were doing now. And it was causing a disconnect for people coming in. You come in with that old name and you start seeing, even though we still have some exhibits that are older, but we have new exhibits as well. So there's kind of a mixture. So there's a bit of a disconnect there. And we suddenly realised that no, we really needed to change our name. We had outgrown that old name. Or maybe that not the right word, but we weren't in the same place as that old name was. And we really needed to change the name to be in line with the work that we were doing now.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Even though, in the sense of the visitor experience, it hasn't changed that much in terms of how you walk around the building. 

James Haddan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Actually, the initiatives that you have are so different from what they used to be-

James Haddan: Yes.

Kelly Molson: It was the right time to make that change. It's interesting, isn't it? That the pandemic has kind of, one of the positives of it is that it's given people a little bit of time to sit back and kind of be static and look at what's already been achieved up until this point.

James Haddan: Yeah, and I think it also gave us permission... In our mind, we couldn't launch a new name without spending a huge amount of money and having everything, every sign redone, and every graphic, a whole new website, and all of those kinds of things. And so then when you think about well, oh, that's going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, to make that a reality. 

James Haddan: Suddenly we realised during the pandemic, people are probably going to forgive us if we don't do it in that way right now. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

James Haddan: And so, there's actually now, our team was much reduced because of the pandemic. And so, now, I oversee development and marketing and I think the staff had previously been say, eight, it depends how you count them. And now there's two of us. 

Kelly Molson: Gosh.

James Haddan: So there's me and Kelsey Pickert, who is just the greatest partner to have, in crime, so to speak. And we made it happen. We worked with a wonderful graphic designer named Helen Good, who had worked with us in the past, when we had been kind of working with stakeholder groups about the museum and things. And we contracted with her and we figured out a way to launch a new name and new brand. It's a transitional brand right now because we wanted to kind of let the community get used to fact that the old name is going away. But we did the first round in six weeks. 

Kelly Molson: Wow.

James Haddan: Yeah. The board voted to change the name at the end of June 2020. That's when they officially picked the new name. And we had graphics ready to go. We had hoped that we might be able to reopen in July, so we'd kind of given ourselves a July deadline to kind of launch it. And we were ready to go, but we weren't allowed to reopen at that period in time and so we just kind of waited for a bit. And then months went by, and we weren't sure when we were going to be able to reopen. And we weren't sure when should we announce the new name and we finally just decided to do it in August, even though we weren't reopened. 

James Haddan: So we announced the name on August 2. The new name and had a front-page local news story about it. It ended up being picked up all over the world. The story went all over the world, the name change. And so then we had a brief reopening in September with the new name.

James Haddan: It's interesting because we just installed the permanent sign on the exterior of the building in December and when we posted that on social media, I think it suddenly sunk into many people that we were serious, that the name really changed. Because people, all of a sudden, you changed your name. Well, yes, months ago. 

Kelly Molson: I can't believe how much you achieved in such a short space of time. I'm laughing because having worked with cultural organisations before, we all know that things do take an awful lot of time to get signed off. So that's a massive achievement.

James Haddan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: With a team of two and your graphic designer. So, yeah. Hats off to you. I'd like to ask, there will be, in the UK no doubt, and I know this podcast gets listened to all over the world, thank you, listeners, there'll be other museums that will be thinking about this or starting this process or trying to understand how they start this process. What would be your best advice to those museums that are considering going down this path? 

James Haddan: So, I think one obvious one is for it not to be performative. For people to really think it through and to make sure that they are doing internal changes within their organisation because if you haven't started that work internally, the external communities that you start working with can feel that. And understandably don't want to be a part of that kind of tokenised process of being a performative process. 

James Haddan: They really have to understand that this is something that you're committed too, that's why I mentioned our board and our CEO earlier. This is a leadership shift and change that we have. And there also needs to be changes in leadership. We have a board which is, and I don't have the percentages right in front of me, but I think it's around half of the people of colour and I think more women on the board than men. And we have Native Americans on staff.

James Haddan: So you have to start making your institution reflective of your community if you expect to be able to have a conversation and work with the community that you need to work with. And I want to be really clear about saying we still have a lot of work to do in that. We're not where we want to be in that. But I think after a number of years now, at least people are seeing that we're committed to it and that we're making real structural changes. 

Kelly Molson: Thank you, James. I think this has been such an interesting discussion and I really respect how honest you've been about the process that you've gone through and the changes that you've made, so thank you.

Kelly Molson: We always ask our guests about a book that they would recommend. Now it can be a book that you love, it can be a book that's helped shape your career in some way. What have you chosen for us today?

James Haddan: So, I have chosen Decolonizing Wealth by Edgar Villanueva. And I think it's a really brilliant book. And it's not a really long read and he writes in a way that really engaging and easy to digest. A lot of really kind of substantial ideas, but around philanthropy and the whole kind of nonprofit sector. And how the colonial paradigm is deeply embedded in that. And that to start making changes in other systems, we're going to have to start making changes there. 

James Haddan: And he really approaches it from idea of approaching it with an idea around Indigenous healing and how philanthropy, if it changes in certain ways, can be a part of the healing process. And I just think it's a really brilliantly written book and it's in a way that makes you think about those things differently but I think also doesn't scare you. It inspires you but doesn't scare you.

James Haddan: I think a lot of these ideas are really scary for people because change can be scary. And so sometimes you need to read about it in ways where you realise that this sort of community healing is good for us all. When we help communities that have suffered and experienced trauma, it helps us all. 

Kelly Molson: Completely agree. What a perfect book for this podcast. As ever, listeners, if you would like to be with the chance of winning this book if you head over to our Twitter account, and you retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want James' book", then you will be in with a chance of winning it. 

Kelly Molson: James, before we go, I want to just go back, because there was a question that I wanted to ask that I completely missed off. You have reopened now in the US-

James Haddan: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Which is super exciting. It's really, it's so lovely to hear about positive reopening stories. What's next for the museum in terms of the initiatives that you have running?

James Haddan: So our big initiative is really around, I mentioned that even my department, development and marketing, is embracing decolonising strategies. And so we have initiated this program called Membership on Us, which means for the price of a single-day admission, you have a membership to the museum for the rest of the year. 

James Haddan: And so, for the price of daily admission, you can come back as many times as you want over and over during the year. And we've done away with that traditional membership structure, which is very embedded in this idea of if you can pay more, you receive more benefits, you're treated differently at the museum, all of those kinds of things that are really antithetical to what the Museum of Us, which is about all of us, is about. And we want everyone to have a more equitable way of accessing the work that we do. 

James Haddan: And so we announced this new program just before we reopened, and we really think that it goes hand in hand with our new name, with the decolonizing work that we're doing and we're really super excited about it. And the response has already been really off the chart, really.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's really excellent to hear. That's really, really excellent to hear. James, thank you. I've really enjoyed this conversation. What I want to know though is next time you're in the UK, are you going to hit me up so that we can go for a bacon sandwich together? 

James Haddan: I definitely will. 

Kelly Molson: I'll introduce you to my favourite place to get a good cup of tea. 

James Haddan: I can't wait.

Kelly Molson: James, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been a pleasure. 

James Haddan: Thank you.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps us others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://cheshire.bewilderwood.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/bewilderwoodchr

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-monteverde-456475aa/

Hannah Monteverde

Hannah is the Top Banana (aka Park Manager) of the newly opened BeWILDerwood Cheshire site. A 70 acre WILD woodland home to the literary characters from owner and creator Tom Blofeld’s books, the park centres its offering on nostalgic, technology free play. With slides, treehouses, zip wires and rope bridges, alongside daily interactive storytelling and craft sessions it is a full family day out for families with children between the ages of 2-12. Leading the management team and ensuring that visitors have the best day, along with the commercial success and strategic development of the business are Hannah’s key focuses.

Starting out as a seasonal staff member at BeWILDerwood Norfolk in 2012, Hannah swiftly worked her way up through the organisation taking various operational roles with progressive levels of responsibility to see her become the Deputy General Manager of the BeWILDerwood Norfolk site in 2018. Shortly after this the opportunity arose for Hannah to become Top Banana, relocate to Cheshire and lead the operational setup and opening of the second BeWILDerwood site based in the North West. This has been Hannah’s primary focus for the past 18 months.

The site opened to national acclaim in April 2021 and continues to be a resounding success, with a sell out season likely ahead.

Hannah is passionate about demonstrating a positive working and parenting life balance to her three year old daughter and when not running WILD at BeWILDerwood enjoys spending time adventuring with her family outdoors, listening to live music, and devouring full books in just one sitting.
 

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. These chats are fun, informative and hopefully, always interesting. 

In today's episode, I speak with Hannah Monteverde, Top Banana, aka Park Manager, at BeWILDerwood in Cheshire. 

We discuss how the pandemic impacted the opening of BeWILDerwood Cheshire and all of the learnings that have come from that happening. 

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. 

Kelly Molson: Hannah, thank you for coming on the podcast today. I'm really excited to have you on. 

Hannah Monteverde: Thank you. I am excited to be here. 

Kelly Molson: Good. I know how busy you've been the last couple of weeks as well, which we'll get to in a minute. I am really grateful of the time that you've been able to give us today. 

Kelly Molson: As ever though, we are going to start the podcast with our icebreaker questions. So Hannah and I had a little chat a few weeks ago, a little pre-podcast interview chat just to see what we could talk about and how we got on. We discovered that we're both big fans of rising up other women, and girl power and all that schiz. So I want to know, who is your favourite Spice Girl and why? 

Hannah Monteverde: Oh, do you know what? I'm going to throw a curveball right at the beginning. 

Kelly Molson: Is this going to be an unpopular opinion? 

Hannah Monteverde: Well, it's not my unpopular opinion but it may well be. I wasn't a Spice Girls girl. 

Kelly Molson: What? 

Hannah Monteverde: It was all about Bewitched for me, I'm afraid. 

Kelly Molson: Double denim. 

Hannah Monteverde: Okay, let me think about the Spice Girls. I think, if I had to pick a favourite, it's got to be Sporty Spice, I think.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, she rocks. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: She rocks. All right, okay. 

Hannah Monteverde: Sorry about that. 

Kelly Molson: No, that's okay. But, I want to delve a little bit deeper into the whole Bewitched. 

Hannah Monteverde: Oh, gosh. 

Kelly Molson: What was it about Bewitched? Was it the outfits? Was it the Irish dancing? 

Hannah Monteverde: I don't know. I think it was a bit of both. I can't remember the name of their first album, but it had that little orange cover. I must have probably been about, I don't know, I was probably far too old to admit, probably about 11. You know, they were all jumping on the cover and looking like they're having the best time. I wanted to be one of them. 

Kelly Molson: If it came on the radio now though, I would definitely get up and dance, wouldn't you? 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Yeah, and you know all the words. Of course. 

Kelly Molson: For sure. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: All right, I'll let you off the Spice Girls just because of that little glorious nugget of information.

Kelly Molson: What is the top of your bucket list? 

Hannah Monteverde: Oh. I think a trip around Iceland in a camper van. 

Kelly Molson: Oh yeah. 

Hannah Monteverde: We always said we were going to go to Iceland on honeymoon, and we got married nearly five years ago now and somehow, we've still not managed to do that. I think yeah, that. Or, New Zealand I think. Really back to basics, nothing fancy. No fancy hotels or anything, just being able to drive where you want, and park up where you want and enjoy that, I think. 

Kelly Molson: That whole idea of just opening your camper van doors and being in the middle of nowhere, sounds incredibly enticing right now, doesn't it? 

Hannah Monteverde: Absolutely. Yeah, right now. 

Kelly Molson: Okay. Last one. What's your favourite movie quote? 

Hannah Monteverde: Oh no, this is one of the ones that we said if you ask me this question I will not have an answer. Because the only thing I can think of is, "I'll be back," from Terminator and I've never even seen that film.

Kelly Molson: I'll take that as your favourite quote, despite you never watched it. That's fine. 

Hannah Monteverde: Oh no, it couldn't have gone worse. My husband said in the car, he said, "Oh, do you know any quotes from Chalet Girl, because that's your favourite film isn't it?" If you've not seen Chalet Girl, then that's a can of worms to open up. I can't even remember any quotes from that. 

Kelly Molson: Oh gosh. Sorry listeners, Hannah, she even tried to prep for the icebreaker questions. I just caught her out with a curveball there. 

Kelly Molson: All right, let's park that then. What's your unpopular opinion? 

Hannah Monteverde: Okay, now this, if any of my colleagues ever listen to this podcast, which I'm undecided whether I'm going to tell them about or not, this is not going to go down very well with them. Houseplants are overrated. 

Kelly Molson: Oh.

Hannah Monteverde: I just can't get behind a houseplant. 

Kelly Molson: Is it because you can't keep them alive? 

Hannah Monteverde: Partly, I think. I think if I tried, I could keep them alive. But, I think I much prefer if someone buys you flowers, they're bright and they last for a few weeks if you're lucky. And then, they're done. As you say, a houseplant you've got to look after it. 

Kelly Molson: A responsibility. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Someone was telling me the other day, actually, I think. You know when you buy a nice peace lily or something, and it's got lovely flowers? It only flowers because they put loads of hormones in it before you buy it. So you think, "Oh, that looks lovely." And then, we've got a peace lily which sat at home, which we've had for years, which we can't kill no matter how hard we try, but it's never flowered again so it's just left. 

Kelly Molson: Oh. I didn't know that. I don't think I've ever had a peace lily. I 100% would have killed it because this mantelpiece was full of houseplants, which I then promptly killed every single one of. I'm kind of with you on that. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: Faux houseplants, all the way. 

Hannah Monteverde: Maybe that's the way to go. Yeah, we recently moved and my sister, she was really kind and she sent us a houseplant from Norwich where she lives, it came in the post. That was really exciting because sending plants in the post. But I have to say, I can probably count on my hand the amount of times I've watered it since we've had it, so that's not going to last very long. But yeah, houseplants are overrated. Sorry, everybody. 

Kelly Molson: I like that. Good unpopular opinion. We've not had that one, either. It's a fresh take on it.

Kelly Molson: Right. Okay, let's get into our questions. Hannah, how did you get to be the top banana, aka park manager, at BeWILDerwood in Cheshire? Tell us about your career. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Well, I don't tell this story that often to be honest, but I quite often tell this story as if it's an unorthodox story and it's unique. But actually, I think when I was thinking about this in prep, it's probably fairly common within the industry. 

Hannah Monteverde: My career within the attractions industry sits with BeWILDerwood and BeWILDerwood alone. When I graduated uni in 2011, I think, I started working at BeWILDerwood, just picking up seasonal work because I needed something to tide me over until I found a real, proper job. I did that for a couple of years, and then I went and I trained to become a teacher, that was going to be my proper, serious job. I was going to have a career, and I was going to be a teacher.

Hannah Monteverde: That lasted about six months before I unceremoniously dumped that. It didn't work out well for my mental health, and there were some things I found more important. And, I knew that I enjoyed working at BeWILDerwood. So I think it was March 2014, I went grovelling back to the ops manager at the time. I was like, "This hasn't worked out. Have you got any seasonal work going?" They had me back, thankfully, and I just came back and I started working seasonally again. I loved it and I didn't really want to leave. I was at a bit of a point where I was like, "Well, I might as well do what makes me happy." 

Hannah Monteverde: I guess, the rest of it almost, in a sense, it's a series of happy accidents and, I guess, being in the right place at the right time. I was working front of house, letting people into the park, making sure that everyone was having fun, having the best day ever. And then, I progressed from that into a site supervisor role, so that's what we call our duty managers. So taking care of the site on a day-to-day basis, making sure that all our visitors are happy, dealing with any queries, any issues, all that kind of stuff. And then from there, I moved upwards into the operations manager position, I spent quite a few years doing that. And loving that actually, it's where I first started managing staff and things. We've got quite a big team of seasonal staff. This was in Norfolk at the time, so it was managing up to about 100 people in a season, which was great fun and I really used to enjoy it. 

Hannah Monteverde: I then, somehow, luckiest catch of all I think, I managed to land a promotion to the deputy general manager whilst I was on maternity leave. Not really sure how that happened. 

Kelly Molson: Nice work. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Go and have a baby, and then come back as a deputy general manager, which was great. It was then, that must have been about 2018, it was then when the talk of Cheshire first started to become a thing and started to become something that we could almost believe. It had been going around the houses for a little while, and there'd been rumours about Cheshire. We always knew that we wanted to open a second park, and by that point, it was at a point where it was becoming real, and things were getting put in the ground and we got planning permission. We could really believe that it was going to happen. 

Hannah Monteverde: I remember I was having chats with Ben, our General Manager, around that time. He was saying, "You know if that's where you want your career to go if that's something you want to do, have a think about it. Maybe if you try this deputy general management position for a year, we'll see how it goes. We'll give you the opportunity to have a crack a running a park for a year," which was fantastic. It was the most amazing opportunity. I had his support, literally right there, but he allowed me to do my own thing and run the park. 

Hannah Monteverde: And then, moving on from there, that in essence, as I said, my trial run for a year. Obviously, didn't do too bad a job because they asked if we wanted to come up to Cheshire and run the park here. Which of course, I would have been mad to say no. We moved up here in December 2019. Yeah, December 2019. Obviously, I'm sure we'll talk in a bit about the curve balls that last year and things have thrown at us. But, the plan was to move up here, December 2019, and work with Ben to set up the park operationally, and then moving forward, run the park as top banana/park manager. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, that's me. We often say that I'm the poster girl for that, within BeWILDerwood. That I'm the one that started out as part of the Twiggle Team, as part of our seasonal staff, and then have worked my way up through the company. Which is lovely, and it's everyone. No, I don't think everybody would want to be a poster girl. But, what I think is even lovelier with BeWILDerwood, and with the company, is that that's not unique, it's not just me as said poster girl who done that. 

Hannah Monteverde: So whilst there aren't lots of people running BeWILDerwoods around the country because we've only got two, there are lots of people especially in Norfolk, in management positions who have started out as part of the Twiggle Team and then have made their way up through the company. So our marketing manager, she was part of the Twiggle Team. Our operations manager in Norfolk now, and the assistant operations manager, they've all come from working within the Twiggle Team. Which is something that I think is so important, and it's really important, I think for me as well, setting up Cheshire, and setting up the ops team and things here, is that we champion that, giving people the opportunities to grow and to develop.

Hannah Monteverde: And I know, speaking about me and from my experience, it probably would have been far easier for them to appoint an experienced general manager who had all these whistles and bows, and feathers in his hat to come and run the park. But actually, being able to send someone from Norfolk who got the knowledge and the understanding of what BeWILDerwood is, both as a brand and as a business, I think especially given everything that's happened this year, it's been so beneficial, that we can be able to bring that brand to a brand new audience. And yeah, it's been massively challenging and it's been an amazing learning curve for me. I've done so many things that I probably wouldn't have been able to do anywhere else. Yeah, that's what makes it fun, isn't it? All those challenges and things. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. 

Hannah Monteverde: That's where I'm at. 

Kelly Molson: That's where I want to pick up the story. I'm going to come back to this in a minute, because there's a couple of questions I want to speak to you about, around that topic of being the poster girl, like you said. I think the more attractions that I speak to, the more I see that the organizations themselves are really keen to bring people on, almost like from a grassroots level. They're really keen to have people that progress and move their careers on through that organisation. They've had real hands-on experience of every kind of level of engaging with the guests, like you say, being a Twiggle from that level there. And then moving up through marketing, and management, and et cetera. I think that's a really fantastic thing for attractions to be able to do. 

Kelly Molson: But, you mentioned poster girl. One of the things that I've been looking at recently is trying to keep the diversity of the guests that come onto the show quite even. I find that quite difficult because it seems to me, there's still a bit of a dis-balance around men and women in the sector. I wanted to ask you, do you think that there's a little bit of a lack of women at that senior level in attractions? Is there anything that can be done about that? It seems like BeWILDerwood is doing really great things, in terms of moving people through their organisation, from promoting inside. But, are there any things that you've been involved in that you could see as a real positive benefit to women in the industry? 

Hannah Monteverde: That's a really interesting question. I don't know if we break the mould in that, actually, within BeWILDerwood, we are predominantly female managed and run. At the board level, which perhaps maybe is a different subject and a different conversation probably for a different day. At the board level it's different and I don't know that's reflected elsewhere, and whether that's unique or not. But, I would say and from my, obviously as I said, BeWILDerwood is my attractions life, so my very limited experience, I think either we break the mould or no, actually we don't. I don't see a lack of women in senior leadership roles. 

Hannah Monteverde: I think, obviously, it's a really big conversation at the moment, and it's a conversation that I need to educate myself further in. Because I don't think I understand enough, or know enough, about women and diversity within leadership. I think it's really important as well to remember that, I guess, in a sense, that the glass ceiling isn't just women. I guess, in a way, it's anyone who's not straight, male or white, probably. It's encouraging the ... As you said, I think the diversity that we have within our society should be reflected within our workplaces, and within leadership and at every level. But yeah, it's something that I think I need to go away and do some more work on, and more understanding and more research to be able to speak about it eloquently. But yeah, it's definitely something. 

Hannah Monteverde: I think it's a conversation that is being had, which is great. We need more of that, we need more of the gender pay gap reporting, and the championing flexible working and all of that kind of thing. But, I think it's important that it's not just women, it is anybody. It's making sure that diversity is represented and society is represented. 

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. 

Hannah Monteverde: If that makes sense? 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it absolutely does. I've been thinking about actually running a panel session on this, and bringing that to the forefront of some of the things that we talk about as well.

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I think, for me actually, one thing because I don't know, from my limited experience, it doesn't seem to me that way. But actually, if that's not the case then for me, it would be really interesting to speak to other people and find out whether what we're like is reflective of other places and things.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Well, let's carry this conversation on further. 

Hannah Monteverde: Lets. 

Kelly Molson: But for now, I would like to go back to December 2019. You've left your life in Norwich, you've moved to Cheshire, it's Christmas time, you've got a young family at home. And, you're just about to start possibly the most exciting part of your career so far. And then, we get whacked with the Coronavirus. 

Hannah Monteverde: The Rona. 

Kelly Molson: The Rona comes and smacks us on the ass. Tell us about what's happened, because I think the attraction was due to originally open last ... Was it May time, March time last year? 

Hannah Monteverde: May 23rd, 2020, was the big date. As Tom's been saying, Tom Blofeld, the guy that owns BeWILDerwood, has been saying recently in lots of his interviews and things, what I've heard him saying, "We couldn't have possibly picked a worse date," and he's so true. May 23rd, 2020, was when it was going to be. We, as you rightfully said, we moved up to Cheshire in December 2019. That was lovely. There I was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, ready to build the team. We're going to open BeWILDerwood Cheshire, it's going to be wonderful. 

Hannah Monteverde: And it was great, it was great for the first few months. We started building the team, we got the managers in, we got our maintenance guys in. Everything started progressing and ticking along, we were making all those big, long lists about what we still needed to do, working with the contractor and things, all going for this May 23rd date. We just announced to the public and to all our wonderful visitors that we were going to open on the 23rd May 2020. We had all the graphics and things designed, we put the leaflets out to print. 

Hannah Monteverde: I will always remember, it must have been the middle of March. Obviously, we were all starting to talk about Coronavirus by this point, and I noticed ... I'm a member of the Visitor Experience Forum on LinkedIn, so I noticed they were doing, I think it was a [inaudible 00:17:48] they called around COVID-19. I thought, "Oh yeah, this will be a nice trip out of the office. I'll get the train down to London, and I'll go and meet some other people and we'll talk about this Coronavirus thing. And maybe, we'll talk about how we might have to close our attractions for a week or two, and that will be a shame. But, it'll be a nice rest for us all." 

Hannah Monteverde: There I go, down on the train, really excited, a nice trip out. I remember sitting in this room, and I think it was Bernard Donoghue was just ... I just felt like a balloon being slowly deflated across the course of the morning. I remember sitting on the train on the way back, typing up my notes, and messaging people like, "Oh, Lordy." 

Kelly Molson: Oh my gosh.

Hannah Monteverde: "This is a big deal." Yeah. Obviously, there were elements. I was probably over naïve and over-excited about what we were doing. Yeah, quickly after that, I guess it was probably the week or so after that, everyone was told to work from home. We sent our minimal, I think there was probably about five or six of us in the office by that point, so we sent them home. We kept our maintenance guys on. But then, within a week or two of that, it became very apparent very quickly that actually, we wouldn't be opening in May. 

Hannah Monteverde: Initially, what we did, we initially decided to delay it until July. And then, I think as lockdown progressed and proceeded, and there was no end to it, again very quickly, we didn't have to take long to make the decisions which was quite a nice thing, in a sense. We made decisions quickly, we made the right decisions, and we made sure that we kept the guys informed. But yeah, very quickly it became apparent that July actually wouldn't be achievable, because, by the time we came back out of lockdown, we'd have to get people back into the office. We'd have to start out from where we left off. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, July 2020, then, very quickly became spring 2021. But, we have opened, so we are now open which is brilliant. Yeah, it was all together a rather strange few months for me, especially I think. 

Kelly Molson: I can imagine how life-changing that was as well because you've done a big step in moving to a different area and having to establish yourself there in a personal sense. And then, you're establishing yourself in a new role in a new place, and you're building a new team around you as well. That must have been pretty horrendous, right? You would have had to have recruited, ready for the opening. And then what happens? 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I just feel like, almost in a sense, like the whole of my last 18 months have felt like a recruitment Groundhog Day. It's awful to say that because it felt like it was never-ending. And the poor people who are on the other ends of the sticks, it was far worse for them, they had the worse end of the stick. 

Hannah Monteverde: But yeah, much of last year for me, and also remembering that I was coming into this with a huge amount to learn anyway ... So much of last year was, in a nutshell, it was just a masterclass in management skills, and techniques that you really wish that you don't ever have to use. So really, unfortunately for us, while I had the horrible task of having to let go all those people that we had recruited because unfortunately, the way that the furlough scheme cut off, we just got people in within weeks. So that within weeks of that deadline, so we couldn't furlough anyone. It was a case of we need to save this business, there were really worrying points last year.

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, in about May I think, we had to let the team go. We did keep them on for as long as we could, keep supporting them and things, but we did have to let them go. And then, from May to January last year, it was me and a couple of Boggle Builders, our maintenance team that we kept on to caretake the site. Thankfully, I wasn't completely on my own. We did keep coming into the office, they obviously had work that they needed to do around the site and things. Yeah, it's a 70-acre site so it did feel a bit strange with just the three of us rattling around. I did learn some skills in how to use a jigsaw and stuff.

Kelly Molson: Good life skills to have. 

Hannah Monteverde: Exactly, something to add to my CV. But yeah, and for myself, I was really lucky, in a sense, that once lockdown eased, because we are BeWILDerwood, we are one company, I was able to go back down to Norfolk and help support the guys in Norfolk with their reopening. And then, I actually ended up helping them put together their COVID secure Lantern Parade that they put on for October half-term, so that was really nice. For me personally, it was really lovely to actually be able to go back somewhere and feel like I was part of a team, not three people rattling around somewhere. Yeah, I think I probably would have lost my mind a bit if I didn't manage to do that. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I guess, in a sense, thinking about the positives, there are positives that have come out of it. I managed to spend time on, in a sense, the more paperwork-y side of stuff. So managing to get all the health and safety things all ticked off and out of the way whilst it was quiet in the summer, and you didn't have loads of stuff running around and happening. But yeah, as I said, it felt like Groundhog Day of recruitment. Yeah, 18 months of recruiting people and then letting people go, and then re-recruiting people. 

Hannah Monteverde: What was lovely actually, though, is that we had ... I was going to try and work out the percentage, but I ran out of time. We had a huge percentage of the people that we let go in May came back. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's fabulous. 

Hannah Monteverde: Obviously, we kept them in the loop and things. I quite enjoyed going around taking pictures and being able to send people updates of what was going on around the site. It was so nice. Yeah, we'd obviously recruited a bunch of people who shared the passion for what we were doing. And after everything, for them to say, "I want to come back, I still want to work with you," that was lovely. It was really nice. 

Kelly Molson: That's testament to how you obviously managed that process, in terms of keeping in touch with them, and the empathy that you showed them with the situation that you were in. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, I hope so. It was tough. It was really tough. But yeah, as you say, it was so nice that they'd come back. And actually, now that we have finally opened, that they have all got to be involved in it. I imagine last May, everyone that thoughts of, "Is this place ever going to open?" And to now be sat here, having actually opened it. I think if someone had said to me last July, "Do you reckon you'll be sat there next April with a park that has opened to resounding success?," I would have confidently been able to say yes, so that's nice. 

Kelly Molson: Wow. Yeah, that is really nice. What's it been like? What's the response been like from the general public? 

Hannah Monteverde: Do you know what, it's been absolutely phenomenal. It's been so amazing to open. For one, the weather was absolutely perfect for the whole week. Obviously, as you can imagine, we are an outdoor attraction so we are quite a weather dependant. There's so much fun to be had in the rain, but people don't often understand that. But yeah, to have a week of amazing sunshine and really warmish weather was perfect, that's absolutely perfect for us. And then, just to see people in the park, it was the cherry on top of the cake that everybody loved it, because everybody did love it, which was amazing. 

Hannah Monteverde: But, to see people running around the park that you've spent so long working on. The weirdest thing was it was seeing people using the park, and I turned and said to someone on day one, I was like, "This feels so normal." But yet, yesterday I was running around like a headless chicken with a screwdriver, putting signs on things. For the past three years, this is what we've been working towards. And all of a sudden, you fill it with people and it just felt normal. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah. 

Hannah Monteverde: I mean, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things that we need to work on. I always say to the team, for us, it wasn't going to be perfect when we opened it. If we did feel like it was perfect, then we'd probably done something wrong. We've got lists and list of things that we want to improve and things that we want to change. But, to see visitors playing in the park, and enjoying the park, and seeing the feedback that we got from the visitors, it was just the best thing, to be honest.

Kelly Molson: Ah, that's incredible. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Yeah, it was. I think we were mindful, and I was always a bit mindful, that we've moved to a new area, it's quite a niche concept. It's really hard to explain without being able to see what BeWILDerwood is. But, to have visitor reviews that are saying things like how amazing the staff are, to sit there and read that, and things saying how brilliant the facilities are, and how much fun they've had. Yeah, I can't lie, it was brilliant. It was such a relief and just so lovely to ... Yeah, it was great. 

Kelly Molson: What a massive morale boost for the team as well. To have gone through so much in that year, especially for those poor people that have been made redundant, and then they've come back, and now they're in the thick of it, that must be just music to their ears right now. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, absolutely. The past couple of weeks before we opened, I think they must think I'm completely mad, we ended up doing these stupid Monday motivational meetings. Where we'd all get together at nine o'clock on a Monday morning and I'd say something stupid and irritate them all, probably, with some silly little motivational saying or something. But, one thing that I really believe in, and I have to tell myself to do it as well sometimes, but I was saying to them in the weeks before, "Remember when we open to take a step back and just watch and see what people do. And, to take a step back and think about everything that you have done, and just think about that impact that's had on everyone else."

Hannah Monteverde: It's so easy to get lost in what you're doing in the day-to-day, and the grind, and how many hours you're putting in, and how much hard work you're putting in. Because everyone has worked phenomenally hard, and it's not just the guys in Cheshire as well, it's the guys in Norfolk, too. As I said before, we are BeWILDerwood, one team, and that's true. The guys in Norfolk, they also reopened on the 12th. But, the effort that they also put into helping us get open in Cheshire, even though, in a sense, when we had our team up here start, we couldn't travel down to Norfolk and get them to see the site. 

Hannah Monteverde: That was initially the plan. In a sense, I would induct them into the company, and we'd do our Cheshire induction up here. And then, the first thing that they would all do would be to go down to Norfolk, and to meet their counterparts in Norfolk, and see the sight in Norfolk, and understand what BeWILDerwood is and how it works. When you're in lockdown, you can't do that. Yeah. We had fun trying to think up ways we could get people talking to each other remotely and to get people to understand the brand and things.

Kelly Molson: How did you do that? That would be interesting. Because that's great isn't it, just the fact that you'd been able to send people and shadow them. "This is your role in this park, this is what you'll be doing." But, how did you do that virtually? 

Hannah Monteverde: Everyone came into the office, and we put loads of stuff in place to make it COVID secure and things. In a sense, up here, we did our induction like that. Again, I played some really silly motivational games, which I'm sure they probably all hated. We had Two Truths and a Lie, and I got them all to send them in in advance and found out really interesting things about people, which is quite funny. 

Kelly Molson: We should disclose some of those on the podcast. That'd be better than the unpopular opinion.

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. And then, I guess in a sense, it was working remotely so used quite a lot of Microsoft Teams and things, and making sure that we're checking in and chatting to people. And doing it like we're doing now, so face-to-face over a video call. I, a year ago, would never have imagined that I would be on a webcam with headsets talking to be people because it was my worst nightmare. Getting people to embrace that. And then, I think we even did silly things as full teams. I remember we did a show-and-tell activity or something, we got everyone to bring in something that was personal to them, and then we all stood in front of a camera and talked to each other for half an hour. 

Hannah Monteverde: I think this year has proven that there is so much that can be done remotely. But, I also think it has also proven that there is so much that can't be done remotely. There are bits and pieces that we want to pick up now that we can travel, and now that we are open and things. It's really important, before May half-term and the summer, that we get our guys down to Norfolk so they can understand where BeWILDerwood comes from and exactly what it is because that's going to be so much more beneficial to them than a load of waffle and a load of words from me, trying to explain it because it's really hard to explain.

Kelly Molson: I still want to pronounce it BeWILDerwood as well. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: I want to shout the wild bit. I know I pronounced it wrong earlier in the podcast. 

Hannah Monteverde: We get people asking. My dad asked this weekend. I've worked at BeWILDerwood for nine years, so if my dad can't pick it up in nine years then ...

Kelly Molson: I'm all right, let me off. 

Hannah Monteverde: I'll let you off just this once. 

Kelly Molson: Okay. It's a phenomenal story. I can't even begin to imagine how tough the last year must have been for you, with everything that you've got going on. Not just the effects of the Coronavirus and having to not open the attraction, but having moved to a new area as well. And suddenly, being in lockdown with a young family. That must have been so overwhelming for you. I think it's so lovely to hear such an incredibly positive story come from something like that. 

Kelly Molson: I wonder if you could share with us ... You started off this podcast by saying I'm going into this new role, and there was a load of things that were still new and learning for me. You've really had-

Hannah Monteverde: I've had no choice. 

Kelly Molson: You've really been dropped into the deep end, haven't you? If you can cope with last year, you've peaked. You can cope with anything now. 

Hannah Monteverde: I hope I've not peaked. I hope I just keep going that way. 

Kelly Molson: There's more to come. Okay. 

Hannah Monteverde: I hope so. 

Kelly Molson: What do you that's been your biggest professional and personal learning from last year? 

Hannah Monteverde: I think personally is easier to understand. Obviously, I've had a chance to think about these. At one point, I have learned personally that I am certainly not a hobbyist. I'm not a person for hobbies. I love the idea of a hobby, and I go all in and I buy everything I need to start it. So I buy the knitting needles, and I buy the wool, and I buy a pattern and I'm going to knit something really lovely. And I get two days in and I'm like, "God, this is boring." 

Kelly Molson: Can you tell us what you've tried? Have you tried knitting? List the things. 

Hannah Monteverde: I've got a half-knitted cardigan. 

Kelly Molson: Excellent.

Hannah Monteverde: Now to be honest, with knitting I did manage to knit Lyra, my daughter, a jumper. She's three, so I've knitted a three-year-old's jumper. But then I was like, "Right, now's the chance to do something for me. I'm going to knit myself a cardigan." I've knitted half of aside, so I've done that. 

Hannah Monteverde: We had a sourdough starter for a while. 

Kelly Molson: Excellent. That's a standard Coronavirus necessity, I'll be. Yeah. 

Hannah Monteverde: Then, that went moldy. Actually, I'd probably say I've got two true hobbies, which are probably reading and running. But reading, this year, the reading hobby has turned into a buying books hobby. I don't read any, they just sit. I've got a really nice pile of books. 

Kelly Molson: They look beautiful. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I am trying really hard though, actually, to read more because that's good for me.

Hannah Monteverde: What else have I tried? Oh. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. I've definitely tried a fair few. Podcasting, I've tried to listen to podcasts. I listen to a few, and then six weeks later I'll say, "Oh yeah, I was listening to that podcast." 

Kelly Molson: But you've been listening to this one. 

Hannah Monteverde: Of course. Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: Now that you're a guest on it. Oh God, that's all good. 

Hannah Monteverde: No, I had to do my research on this one. Of course, I listened to this. 

Hannah Monteverde: What else have I done? I can't think. Lots of things, I'm definitely a really faddy person. Oh, I probably buy a diary every year, and I get as far as writing my address in it. That's about as far as it goes. 

Kelly Molson: But, it's good. I think that's a good thing to learn about yourself. Hobbyist, no, but there are other things that you can focus your time on. 

Hannah Monteverde: No. And then, I think more seriously, in a post-COVID, had quite a fair amount of time to reflect, and think about myself and things. I think one thing from this year, personally, that's resonated with me quite a lot is in a sense that not comparing your feelings to others, I think. And, not trying to rationalize or justify your feelings with others. 

Hannah Monteverde: We've been enormously lucky this year, as a family, and my friends. We've not suffered enormous emotional or financial suffering. But at the same time, we've all had our struggles. I think this years' been difficult for everyone and difficult for everyone for all sorts of different reasons. I think it's really easy, and I found it really easy this past year, to try and diminish your own feelings by looking at someone else and saying, "Well, you're not struggling as much as them, so it's not okay for you to struggle." 

Hannah Monteverde: I think for myself, personally, I've tried really hard, especially in the past few months, to not compare myself to others. If you're feeling those feelings, you're feeling those feelings. Just because person X has got more going on, or maybe feels different about the same thing, that doesn't diminish your feelings or make your feelings any less feeling-y. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Hannah Monteverde: Do you know what I mean? 

Kelly Molson: It's that validity, isn't it?

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: If someone is having a really, really difficult time, and you can see they're clearly going through it, it doesn't make your feelings of, "Well, I feel really challenged by the things that I'm going through," and they're minuscule in comparison but they're still valid. 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: You can feel okay to feel like that.

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I think for me, that's the biggest thing for me personally. I think that's something that I think will continue to work on, in a sense. 

Hannah Monteverde: I think professionally, as you said, if I was to try and stop and think about what I've learned this year, I don't think I could even scratch the surface. I have learned so much, and it has been unique and exciting, and it's been an amazing opportunity. There are so many ways I can turn everything into a positive, all the things I've had the chance to learn, the chance to do, the chance to jump feet-first in and give it a go. And, the things that I've been thrown in the deep end and have just had to get on with. The amount of learning I've got out of those challenges, I will forever be grateful for, I think.

Hannah Monteverde: It's been a massive rollercoaster. There have been some really, really high, high points. But at the same time, there have also been some really worrying low points, at the same time. I think the two things I came back with when I was thinking about it, is it's learning to adapt, which is something I've never been great at. I've always been a lists person, and I've always been a planner. 

Hannah Monteverde: When I was in the ops role in Norfolk, we always used to jest at me when we got to. We shut over winter, so we shut from November to February. Everyone used to have a laugh at me. In the first couple weeks of the winter, I would literally print out 10 weeks of weekly planners, and I would plan my winter. It didn't always go to plan, but just by doing that exercise, I would sit there. I'd be like, "Right, okay. On this day, I'm going to look at the staffing. And we're going to do this, this, and this." That's just how my brain works. 

Hannah Monteverde: But, I've had to learn this year that, when things change, and they change again, and they change again, you just have to be able to adapt. You have to be able to think fast on your feet, and you have to be able to make decisions. Sometimes, they have to be quick decisions. But if you can justify them, and make everyone aware of why those decisions are being made even if they're tricky ones, I think people appreciate that. Yeah, being able to adapt was one. 

Hannah Monteverde: And then, I think the other thing that I've learned about myself is that there is nothing I love more than a challenge. And, that despite everything that's gone on, there is nothing that beats the feeling of having to work to a hard deadline, and getting there, and achieving it. I know we quite often joke, every day's a school day and there are new challenges every day, but for me, I think that's really important. I thrive off being able to learn and being to grow and develop, and I think I've probably done a certain amount of that this year and I really enjoyed it. 

Kelly Molson: Good. I think that's a huge positive to take from it and I completely agree with you. I think there would be a lot of our listeners, and myself included, that would say that that's probably the biggest thing that they've learned about themselves this year as well. 

Kelly Molson: What's next, then? What's next for BeWILDerwood Cheshire? And, what's the next big challenge that you've got? What exciting things have you got coming up this summer? 

Hannah Monteverde: I think what's next for BeWILDerwood Cheshire, there's a lot of work to do between now and summer, to make BeWILDerwood feel like BeWILDerwood to BeWILDerwood. It's fantastic that the new audience and our new visitors and things love us and get us. As I said before, that was one thing I was mindful of. But, I think internally, there is so much more that we can do to make BeWILDerwood BeWILDerwood, so that's going to be, I think, one of our focuses. 

Hannah Monteverde: There is a big focus on our Lantern Parade at the end of the year, which I think will probably be the next big challenge. I know I'm having a wander around with our ops people at some point this week, to discuss October, which is great. 

Kelly Molson: That sounds really far away at the moment as well. 

Hannah Monteverde: I know.

Kelly Molson: October, gosh. 

Hannah Monteverde: Who knows what could happen by then? Let's hope things have settled down a bit more. Obviously, there's thinking forward to the post-COVID world. What happens when we don't have to limit our numbers? How do we deal with that? Do the facilities cope, does our infrastructure cope? What can we cope with? And, if we don't think we can cope with what we're going to get, how can we develop? How can we grow? How can we make it work? What exciting things can we put in next? Where are we going next?

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. There's loads of question at the moment. I think short term, we get through the next few weeks and then we really can start developing and growing, and thinking about what comes next. 

Kelly Molson: Maybe you can come back on in a year from now, and share the next instalment of Hannah's career progression and crazy life that's going on up in Cheshire. That'd be awesome.

Hannah Monteverde: What is Hannah doing now? Oh, dear. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, well we're at the end of the interview. But, there is one last question that I always ask all of our guests. And, it is a book, a book that you love, hopefully, that you've read and isn't sitting in that lovely stack that's next to your bed right now. But, would you have a book that you'd recommend to our audience? 

Hannah Monteverde: I've been greedy and I've got two, I hope that's okay. 

Kelly Molson: You know what, people do this all the time. It blows my marketing budget consistently. 

Hannah Monteverde: I'm so sorry.

Kelly Molson: But, you go for it.

Hannah Monteverde: You'll probably be able to pick at least one of them up fairly cheaply. I think the first one you might not even need to buy because it's a really popular one, and most of your listeners will probably be familiar with it. But, for me this year it's been a really important one, I think. The first one is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Macksey.

Kelly Molson: It's a great book. 

Hannah Monteverde: It's not a leadership book, it's not anything fancy like that. It's not going to tell you how to get a million visitors to your visitor attraction. But, I found it so useful this year for putting things into perspective. This will get a bit personal anyway, but the few days I did work from home this year, my husband would pick out the book and set it out on a page on my desk, each morning. I'd be like, "Yeah, I can do this." 

Kelly Molson: That's lovely. 

Hannah Monteverde: "I can do this." Something different to read. 

Hannah Monteverde: I did want to mention, there's a really lovely audio version of it that I think they put on Radio Four over Christmas, which I really enjoyed. That's a really nice another way to listen to it. 

Hannah Monteverde: And then, the other one, this one I hope you'll laugh at this, otherwise you'll just think I'm really weird. 

Kelly Molson: Is it the Spice Girls annual? 

Hannah Monteverde: No, I'm afraid not. It's not Bewitched, either. This is one that I panic bought when you asked me to come onto this podcast because I was like, "Oh, God." 

Kelly Molson: Oh, the pressure. 

Hannah Monteverde: "I'm on a podcast with all these attractions professionals, and there I am, hello I'm Hannah, and I work at BeWILDerwood." I was like, "What book can I recommend?" Oh my goodness, nothing was highbrow enough or anything. 

Hannah Monteverde: So I did some research, and I bought an anthology of speeches called She Speaks. It's put together by Yvette Cooper. It's basically ... I've got it sitting next to me, so I can remember what it says. Its tagline is, "Women's speeches that changed the world." It's an anthology of famous women's speeches. But, I read it at breakfast when I feel like I need a kick up the ass for that day. I pick a page at random. What's really nice is that there's no agenda behind it. You've got people from completely different walks of life, but just copies of their powerful speeches. Yeah, I've found it hugely inspirational. I think at times it's quite moving, and I think it demonstrates, really succinctly, the power of words. So, that one. 

Kelly Molson: What a fantastic book. I've never heard of that book, either. I think that's one that I'm going to have to grab a copy of. Read it in the morning, that's a really self-motivating thing to set you up for the day as well, isn't it? 

Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Yeah, I read that and I think, "Look at what all those amazing women have achieved." And then think, "I could do that." 

Kelly Molson: I am heading to BeWILDerwood and I'm going to do the same. 

Hannah Monteverde: Exactly.  I did threaten to my guys on one Motivational Monday that I'd come in and read one, but thankfully for them, I haven't subjected them to it yet. 

Kelly Molson: Well to be fair, when we were talking about hobbies earlier, I did actually make my team learn how to do crochet. 

Hannah Monteverde: Actually, that is another one I've tried. I got stuck on Insta, talking about magic circles or something. Is that right? 

Kelly Molson: It's really hard, a magic circle. That is a really difficult skill.

Hannah Monteverde: I tried to crochet a cactus, and it didn't work out too well.

Kelly Molson: Okay. See, all of my team were male at that point as well, so it was an interesting day of me trying to ... Well, it was a lunchtime of me trying to teach them how to do that. 

Hannah Monteverde: One thing I did, I did some macrame. I made a macrame wall hanging, but I've only made one wall hanging and that's it. I've ticked that off now, don't need to do it anymore. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, but it's on the wall. There's the achievement, you don't need to do anymore. Look what you did. I love that, thank you. 

Kelly Molson: Hannah, it's been so lovely to have you on. I've really, really enjoyed this interview. I genuinely do extend that offer, it would be really great for you to come back maybe a year from now, and let us know what the next stage is of what's happened up there and how it's all gone. It would be really good to hear from you. 

Hannah Monteverde: Thank you. I'd love to come back.

Kelly Molson: Awesome, thank you very much. 

Kelly Molson: Well, if you as ever, listeners, if you want to win Hannah's books that she's mentioned today, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want Hannah's books," then you'll be in a chance of winning them both. 

Kelly Molson: Awesome, Hannah. Come back soon, and good luck with the rest of the season. 

Hannah Monteverde: Thank you. 

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review, it really helps others find us. And, remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

www.linkedin.com/in/jamesrpenfold

www.itv.com/imacelebrityjunglechallenge

www.itv.com/coronationstreettour

https://village.emmerdalestudioexperience.co.uk

James Penfold

James is the Controller of Partnerships over at ITV and the name behind some of the prolific IP attraction, tour experiences and event ventures – including Coronation Street The Tour, Emmerdale Village Tour and the brand new (for 2021) I’m A Celebrity… Jungle Challenge. 

James has garnered an indisputable reputation during his 20+ year career at the forefront of leading British media and entertainment branded content formats. 

An instrumental and respected figure within the industry, James has directly influenced some of the most pioneering live events, UK visitor attractions and big-brand agency collaborations of recent times. 

His strategic vision, creative energy and unequivocal commercial drive has captured the essence of Intellectual Property (IP) immersive content as he continues to push the boundaries with trailblazing concepts for the biggest players within the media landscape today. 

With business development disciplines stretching across mergers and acquisitions, brand licencing, IP visitor attractions and participation services, cross platform content distribution, media strategy and commercial partnerships, James has carved out an illustrious career when it comes to brand experiential.

Now, a distinguished and well-networked figurehead for immersive experiences and visitor attractions, James’ name is associated with new-format arena tours, big-brand visitor experiences, digital cinema trials, TV channel launches and live entertainment events. 

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. 

In today's episode, I speak with James Penfold, Controller of Partnerships at ITV, the name behind prolific tour experiences including Coronation Street The Tour, and Emmerdale Village Tour. 

We discuss translating big brand IPs into commercial ventures, what the most successful formats are, and the brand new I'm A Celebrity Jungle Challenge, opening later this year.

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's such a pleasure to see you again.

James Penfold: Thank you. It's great to see you today.

Kelly Molson: Well, I mean, you say that now, you might not say that after the questions that I'm about to ask you.

James Penfold: No, no. Listen, I'm a regular listener and I don't know what's going to be thrown at me, so yeah, I've taken my Xanax and I'm ready.

Kelly Molson: I had a lot of fun putting these together. I've gone for a theme. You might notice what the theme is. Okay, let's begin. Would you rather eat a fish eye or drink blended fermented duck eggs?

James Penfold: The duck eggs, definitely.

Kelly Molson: Oh, really? You'd go for the duck eggs? But the smell though?

James Penfold: Yeah. But that's the eye thing, and I always say, the eyeballs or anything, it's that kind of crunch moment, I suppose. Mind you, a fish eye is quite small, isn't it? I was kind of thinking ... Yeah, no, I'll have to stick with my answer, sadly.

Kelly Molson: All right. Blended duck eggs, okay. I was not expecting that. Right, who's funnier; Ant or Dec?

James Penfold: Oh my god. Well, listen, I love them both, but it's got to be Dec.

Kelly Molson: I agree, but then I had a bit of a crush on Dec when I was younger, so he's always been my fave.

James Penfold: Yeah, I'm not going to say who my crush is with, but they're both lovely.

Kelly Molson: Maybe we'll find out later when you've relaxed a little bit. If you could be any Coronation Street character, who would you be?

James Penfold: William Roach. Ken Barlow. Because who doesn't want to work for 40, 50 years in the industry and get so many great storylines?

Kelly Molson: He's been a bit of rogue as well though, hasn't he?

James Penfold: Absolutely.

Kelly Molson: He's been a hit with the ladies.

James Penfold: Completely. And a returning hit with the ladies. And he gets great one-liners, he's been involved in amazingly iconic plots. So whenever I ask colleagues within the industry, if any actor can have anything, it's longevity within the industry, isn't it? So yeah, I'll go that road.

Kelly Molson: Great. Thank you for answering those. Right, tell me what your unpopular opinion is?

James Penfold: My unpopular opinion? Well, let's just say that this is formed off the back of a big reunion. It was controversial, certainly then at the time, certainly on the trips, it was simply that the live recording of any single is 99% of the time not as good as the single recorded in the studio. And obviously, I used to say things like, "Well it's not as good as in the studio," and yeah, it didn't go down that well.

Kelly Molson: I think you're probably right though, aren't you?

James Penfold: Yeah. I mean Adam Rickitt took it personally, but I think we'd all have to agree. I Breath Again, sitting in the fish tank, needs to be done in the studio.

Kelly Molson: I cannot wait to talk to you about this. So James and I had a kind of pre-interview chat a few weeks ago, and I did share my huge love ... I mean, who doesn't love Ant and Dec really? I mean, maybe that will come up as someone's unpopular opinion some day, that they detest them. But I've been such a massive fan, I kind of grew up with them over the years as well, and when they came back a few years ago and brought out Ready to Rumble again, I lost my shit watching that episode. I can remember my friends texting me, it was like, "What is happening? This is amazing." And then for that to kind of expand into the whole big reunion thing was just phenomenal. But we will come to that.

Kelly Molson: James, at the moment, you're Controller of Partnerships at ITV, which sounds like a very grand title. What about your background? How did you get to where you are today, and what big highlights have you had in your career?

James Penfold: So, like anyone, I think career is all about a bit of a zigzag. Not many people go straight to the end role they hope to achieve. So, left school not knowing at all what I wanted to do, always absolutely loved television. I mean, was an avid fan of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop every Saturday morning. But how did I, therefore, end up in a BT technical apprenticeship at the age of 16, having just done the first year of GCSEs? So we were kind of guinea pigs on that front. Ageing myself here. But BT ran an amazing classic apprenticeship scheme. Three years, going across, two months at a time, every facet in the business. So you could be on estates one week, you'd be on customer residential services and installations, you'd be on externals, so working in the man-holes and those sorts of things and learning about that aspect, marketing, sales, customer service in the sense of operator services. It was a great induction, and all the while being able to go on block release, again, doesn't happen very often, paid for by the company during the day, three months at a time, to colleges and that to get a technical qualification. And then I was very grateful when they offered me, "Did I want to go to university and do a degree?"

James Penfold: So I do those three years later than most, probably, at 21 rather than 18. But that meant that I was absolutely ready for it, I knew what I wanted to do, I loved commerce and commercial and the marketing sales. And so I went to Birmingham University, studied B-Comm there, Bachelor of Commerce. Again, coming back into BT in the summer holidays. The internet was just kicking off and so I was fortunate enough to have the choice of, "Which division do you want to go back to in those holidays?" And I went into a division that was just a startup division called the Internet and Multimedia Services. That was actually the precursor days of BT becoming an internet service provider, it was all about the narrow band, but we quickly learned, or the company quickly learned, like everyone, that whether you're an AOL operator or anybody else, that once the people had logged on, what were they going to go to? Because it was the early days of search engines. There wasn't a great lot of content.

James Penfold: So I just opted to be a content development manager, which was basically business classic, business development. So looking to acquire content fees. So, in the day, you'd go to BT's various partners and obviously think to what you personally liked, whether it was Top of the Pops, the music, Bloomberg for financial services, and you'd pick off these various brands and go and do deals to acquire that. That moved into broadband services, then worked on a number of trials that were pioneering, I suppose, towards all the things we use now. Multimedia payphones. So they were a whole trial of payphones across Cardiff and Central London for people coming when not many people had email, and certainly, not many people had laptops at home and computers at home, but they did want to be able to send email messages or check their messages when they were between stations or travelling between offices.

James Penfold: And then the early precursor to BT TV, which was an ADSL trial, so again using copper wire to send TV signals down it. Well, again, where's the content there. So I was lucky enough to ... again, all hands to the pump really when you're launching these trials, so I opted to talk to the music companies. So EMI, Sony BMG, [inaudible 00:07:33], to provide a variety of content to prove. And then we were really just looking to the customer to say what they wanted. These were only closed user group trials, two or three thousand people in Ipswich and those sorts of things.

James Penfold: My boss then got snapped up by Sky. Sky was really taking off as a digital satellite broadcaster, and that inherently launched something called Interactive Services, or the Red Button services, which many of us might have used. He stayed very briefly at Sky, I should say, because he didn't get famously on with James Murdoch, but quickly learned that there was a real desire with multi-choice TV. The reason we had those 200, 300 channels, it's obviously refined itself now as technology has moved on, there are other ways of accessing content. But we settled on a company called the Interactive TV Group. I'm fortunate for Adam Faith, the singer, he'd set up a financial TV group based out of Wapping. Sadly, three weeks into operating that, he passed away. But the facility was available, and my then boss at the time, John [inaudible 00:08:37], picked it up at an absolute song, and we went in. And he'd reformed a team from people he'd worked with at BT and Sky to become an Interactive TV Group, so launching TV channels for other parties here in the UK, and some further afield.

James Penfold: I was a business development manager at first, looking after studio facilities and winning clients to use those. And then also looking then into interactive services, which is, again, taking back, I suppose, the internet skillsets, some red buttons. We used to provide those red button services. If Sky didn't develop them for you and do all the coding and the content, then probably the Interactive TV Group did at the time. So BBC, all the Children In Need apps, the multi-screen sports, the Glastonbury multi-screen sports. Not all of it was just developed in-house at the BBC.

James Penfold: That took me then to a company called Interaction TV because brands and branded content was becoming very much niche, but certainly a fad at the time, and obviously it's come back in many facets now. I was a commercial director at that company for about four years, which took me to 10, 11 years ago when a colleague, and now my boss, William Van Rest who had joined ITV, picked up the phone and said, "Do you want to come in for a conversation?" And I was lucky enough to literally join ITV.

James Penfold: So, probably 20 years after starting my career, always having wanted to work in television, never thinking, "What's my route to being that?" Sadly I'm never going to be in front of a camera, not while Ant and Dec are around and other greats on like that. And there the role, it wasn't defined, which is always, again, a great opportunity where I thrive from. It was about classic business development or sales, looking at what the opportunities are, "Where aren't we making use of the assets that ITV might have?" ITV was absolutely just coming off the back of a transformation where the regions, all the various regions, Granada, HTV, Meridian, London Carbon, LWT, were all combining in to become under one brand for once.

James Penfold: And so that journey began. And the team at first was called Brand Extension, which I think was really simple, did what it said on the tin, which was literally, if there's a brand that would have intellectual property that ITV has, owns or makes, what could we be doing with it that isn't the core show itself? And that took me into actually working with all the producers who make all of our shows, whether they're in-house or in the ITV Studios group or third parties, to see where there are opportunities. And often there aren't, but every now and again you strike lucky and there is.

Kelly Molson: That's such a crazy path to get to where you really wanted to get to. I love hearing how people have got there. And that must be such an exciting thing to do, to have that opportunity to say, "We have this amazing brand that people love; what more do we do with it? How do we make that even more immersive for people? How do we build this into an experience?" What a fantastic role.

James Penfold: Yeah, no, I mean I'm one of a great team, and it's been and is an incredible train set to play with. And you don't take any opportunity for granted, and the show must come first, and absolutely respect the IP in that sense. But sometimes it's not always necessarily the show itself, but there's something that happens off the back of that show. Or you feel, "Right, okay, a tour is warranted off the back of this." Whether that's a theatrical tour, whether it's an arena tour, whether there's obviously a set tour opportunity as we change buildings that we own and opportunities present themselves. Or, increasingly now, again with colleagues, the whole app generation, and games and gaming, and the natural brand extension that you might have to the very successful quiz shows that we produce.

Kelly Molson: Well, this is one of my first questions really, because essentially, breaking down what you do is you translate big brand IPs into commercial ventures. So it's taking something and making it more than just a TV show.

James Penfold: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: What qualities does a brand need to have for it to succeed beyond the telly? What are you looking for?

James Penfold: Let's see. It helps if it's got a super fan base. I mean, there is always one ... not one rule, something that we certainly began to find over the years. Again, because ITV's been around for 65 years, and it's a commercial broadcaster, but really this notion of brand extension beyond just simple merchandising is something that's only probably looked at in the last 10, 12 years. A super fan base is great. A show that's certainly finding its feet, so second, the third series, so you don't jump at the opportunity too quickly. That's not always the rule, and I'll come back to the big reunion. Broad appeal, longevity, again, that helps because you've got the fan base and it's really aligned itself with that fan base, viewer engagement. Repeatability is obviously a great commercial opportunity because one-offs tend to be expensive, and that's again a very good learning point. And sometimes we do things that are more celebratory about a show, and they're commercial, but ultimately they've not got the rerun factor or the repeat factor.

James Penfold: And then a decent amount of context. I think that's another important thing. So with context, that could be timing in the sense of an anniversary. A talent anniversary, a show anniversary, or related events, so a season in the year where it's just summer festivals, or even just like the exhibitions field where certain things happen in spring and Easter and you think, "Do you know, God, that really resonates with what we do as a show?" And that was a really good example when we took This Morning to the NEC for three years running because as a show it lends itself, it is live, it lends itself to an audience. And you think of nature as a news and consumer affairs show, if you think of what the subject matter is, the broad base of it all, then God, you don't even need to think what the floor plan of the exhibition is, and you don't even really need to change from what people already do for exhibitions. You're just layering our IP onto it. So that's an easy one.

Kelly Molson: Some of the things we're talking about today are what you're involved in terms of TV shows and real-life visitor experience. So we've got Coronation Street The Tour, we've got the Emmerdale Village Tour, and again, we'll mention the Big Reunion, there's been various tours and live experiences that have spun out of existing TV shows as well. But then you've also got something brand new that's launching this year, which I'm not going to mention just yet, we're going to keep the suspense, we'll talk about that a little bit later. What are the most successful formats that you find translate from the telly to real-life experiences?

James Penfold: So I suppose the obvious ones, and this isn't unique to ITV, but certainly, it's about Mass Market big entertainment, stuff that appeals to the broadest audience; so with Syco and Fremantle, X Factor was an obvious tour in its day, at the height of unknown people becoming music talents, celebrities, recording artists, and then going on tour. You have it with the BBC, and they still do it with Strictly. With ourselves again, BGT, Britain's Got Talent, absolutely lends itself to scalability, and scalability leads to commercial success, and it leads itself to repetition. But everything has a life cycle.

James Penfold: For ourselves, purely on your own, Saturday Night Takeaway. I've talked about anniversaries; Ant and Dec. What are we? Five or six years ago now it was their 20th anniversary in the industry, they wanted to do something, we'd actually spotted the opportunity; why are Ant and Dec not on tour? Well, there are many reasons. They're very busy and not everybody wants to be on tour the whole time. But the Saturday Night Takeaway show, it's just mass-market entertainment, and it's a show that's so professionally produced that when it airs as a live TV show if you arrived as an audience member, you don't have to arrive hours and hours and hours beforehand. You're slotted into your seats. There might be a few hits done to record some interim piece, some inter-show pieces that play out in the ads or links to that, but then you're straight onto the show. And the 90 minutes you see in the TV audience is the 90 minutes you get at home. God, if you're in that audience, there's a live buzz to it. So, taking that to an arena tour, 30 dates, matinees and evenings, 15, 16 days with the boys on tour around the country, absolutely lent itself. And hats off to colleagues in my team who helped to deliver that. The production company, ITV Entertainment and ITV Studios Entertainment, and of course working with Live Nation as a promoter. So there’s a great marry of partnerships.

James Penfold: Big Reunion, again, that's the one, I would say, where it didn't need to be into its 10th series, it didn't need to be coming back like Saturday Night Takeaway was doing after a bit of a hiatus. That was, "Okay, it's been certainly 10 years since we've seen a lot of these acts in arenas or in larger-scale theatres. What have they gone on to do?" Michael Kelpie and Potato, one of the ITV labels, had had success with bringing back Steps for Sky, and they've made that format. I've looked at that format and there was an obvious journey there. And then it was, "Okay, how does ITV do that?" Well, we do it on the scale, so why bring back just one band? Why not let's bring back five every series? And we did two series because basically, there were about 15 real acts that when we thought about it and looked at chart successes and also their back story, what they've gone on to do and where they all are now, we didn't even have to air the first episode. And Twitter was really a thing by then and it was like, "Well, obviously there's going to be a tour." I can assure you there wasn't going to be a tour.

Kelly Molson: Oh, so the public requested that? It wasn't the plan to start with?

James Penfold: Well, there was a kind of concept. When you work with that many artists and that much talent and its confusing schedules, you think, "Okay, this could lend itself to be but let's be ready, waiting in the wings," but consumer demand, instant feedback. And then, by picking the right partnerships, you've got to be able to move quickly on those sorts of opportunities. And they don't often come along in that way.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's fabulous. I mean, that show, for me, was really like reliving my childhood, because I'm of a certain age.

James Penfold: Much younger than me.

Kelly Molson: Thank you. I doubt that very much though. But I was into a lot of those bands at the time, on some level, and it just brilliant watching what they'd gone on and done, and then trying to get them back into shape to do the routines and stuff. It was so funny and so interesting.

James Penfold: Kelly, I'm in the exact same situation as you. Don't think I'm not. As somebody in an 18-year-old apprenticeship, or working in and around Soho as I did, because that was where my apprenticeship was based, it was based in the West End of London, love pop music; if you'd ever said you'd then be working with those individuals, sitting on a couch, sometimes on short journeys, sometimes on long journeys, and sometimes in the craziest situations. Well, the show was playing itself out, and of course, the stories were, and then we were getting to take them on tour at the time. So yeah, no, you don't get many opportunities like that, and I'm ever so grateful.

Kelly Molson: Fantastic experience for you. So, with the TV, what's interesting is you've obviously got a captive audience with the TV, and it was really interesting to hear how that audience demand kind of spurred ... there was obviously a little idea about the tour, but it really spurred it. How do you strike that balance between developing products to reach new audiences? How do you get that right?

James Penfold: So I think, importantly for us, and this is done by trial by error, is you've got to, I suppose, look at does it feel right? Is it a natural extension for us, ITV, to be taking? Because we're not a theme park operator, we don't do reparatory theatre, those sorts of things, and there are other parties out there. And one of the principal roles, I suppose what my role's evolved into now, is looking at the licensing side, where there are many entities who might choose to look at something from a slightly less obvious position and take the thought.

James Penfold: But from our perspective, it's really looking at ratings, it's looking at social media and how that talent engages with their audience. Do they engage with their audience? Don't they? Are there natural wins? Because of course, people can always involve them and move their careers forward. A really good example is Gino D'Acampo. So I think we did three tours with him. So Gino, incredible talent, was iconic from his season when he was on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, he was obviously becoming a prominent TV chef, he was on This Morning pretty much every week or every other week. And then he starts getting his own show, and that's the test for the commissioners. They're almost like a litmus test; they spot these opportunities and take some of the pain out of it for us. And it was Gino ... I think was Italian Escapes, and that was where he'd go to a different part of Italy.

James Penfold: And then we were talking again to a promoter, I think it was clean and Gyro, could he live, who also looked at Ed Sheeran, so talk about different ends of the spectrum for them. And they were talking about theatre shows and the successes they have, and they'd said, "Would Gino be interested?" And there was a quick conversation to be had, "If the talents are interested, then great." Of course, he was. And for him, it suits his purpose, because there he is, having done I'm a Celebrity, having done some TV chef shows, having done This Morning, and now with his own Italian Escapes, but what does he actually stand for? And he wants to evolve his career and put himself differently. So I'd like to think three sellout tours in theatres, 1500, 2000 seats a night, which we were told we were doing well at because we're doing 14 nights a run. And it wasn't just Gino who goes on stage and cooks, because that would have been obvious. It's Gino who goes on stage and does what he does best, which is to engage with the audience. The cooking almost becomes auxiliary to the evening.

James Penfold: And then, quickly really, we learned that the audience ... it becomes almost a 50/50 divide. 50% of them were there because they wanted some cooking advice or to hear his anecdotes about Italian Escapes and what it's like to be on the road and cooking the food of his homeland, and 50%, of course, enjoy him because he was suddenly an overnight success in Celebrity Juice. And that audience wanted quite a different thing. And of course, Gino being Gino, he would play to the Celebrity Juice audience, and it made for an unpredictable but incredibly entertaining show. The first tour, it was fairly locked down in what they produced and what it would be and what the format would be. Number two and three, "You go for it. You know what you want to do. As long as you pitch it correctly to the audience as to what they're going to be getting," so Live and Unplugged was tour number two, "Then you've got success."

James Penfold: Another good example is, I suppose, This Morning Live. So there we'd been approached by Media 10, the guys who deliver Grand Designs and the Ideal Home Show for a number of years. In fact, for probably nearly about eight or nine years. And they hit us when it was right to have a conversation, because I'd thought, "This is madness?" I'd be challenged; "Why aren't we doing festivals? Why isn't ITV more involved with festivals?" Because you had the Good Food Program for the BBC, you had The Clothes Show historically being such a success.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it is.

James Penfold: And in truth, we have always been very successful in the daytime, and I think with This Morning, it was really ... well, we looked at all the shows, so Good Morning Britain, Lorraine, This Morning, and Loose Women, and could you take them all on the road, and would there be an exhibition? And then you start getting into the realities of cost, of logistics, of actually the quite disparate audiences that do come across those four different shows and what they want to engage with. And we quickly settled on This Morning, and then just simply This Morning Live, in that it has cooking in it, it has health issues, it does fashion, it does entertainment. And ultimately, at the heart of it are Phil and Holly, or Eamonn and Ruth at the time. And we learned very quickly that we were taking the show on the road whilst we had a replacement presenter team in London. So you'd have Phil and Holly in Birmingham and Eamonn and Ruth in the studio, or vice versa. They'd hand to each other. Great segments of the show were able to be done from the NEC.

James Penfold: Yes, there were costs involved, but to us, that was more of a marketing vehicle. It worked really well for Media 10, because they absolutely know how to deliver a live exhibition. And from a Stand's perspective, and from all those consumer brands that want to sell to our audiences who would normally take advertising slots in those shows anyway, it was a no brainer for them to want to attend. And it was on for four days a week every year, 40 to 50,000 people attending over those four days.

James Penfold: And then you get into the great hurdles of, "Oh my God, it's almost too successful in terms of capacities." And fans being more than just, I suppose, the typical ticket buyer and visitor. Everyone wants to meet the talent. And so meet and greets, I think that became a whole performance item in itself.

Kelly Molson: So, a huge success. You can see that the formats work, you've got huge engagement from people, and then a global pandemic comes along and kind of smashes us all in the face. I mean, it's affected obviously your plans and things that you've got in fruition quite extensively; how has it affected you and how have you tried to overcome some of those challenges this year?

James Penfold: Yeah. So if we look back to this time this year, or actually go back a further two, three weeks, when the UK government was still slightly in denial of the nature of this pandemic-

Kelly Molson: I think we all were, weren't we? Because I think we were watching the news going, "Oh, it's all happening in Italy, isn't it? Oh yeah, that looks bad."

James Penfold: Yes, the broad public were, but don't forget, ITV is a stakeholder in ITN, so we produce Channel Four News, Channel Five News and ITN News, the three variants, different editorial flavours. So I don't think you could avoid it from that point of view. And I'm based in Gray's Inn Road. Well, I was based in Gray's Inn Road, which is where the news studios are, so I think there was a real feeling there, most importantly about just hand sanitisers introducing themselves.

James Penfold: But the thing came to was three weeks out of not even lockdown, us beginning to talk about it, so probably we're talking the back end of February. I was approached by my then division director to say, "At a board level, we think we need to curtail or stop set tours." So the set tours of Coronation Street and the Emmerdale Village Tour. Both were external sets, although there were some interiors to be seen, as in interior sets on the Coronation Street set. And that is principal because, first and foremost, we're a broadcaster and a producer of content, a producer of successful TV shows. These serial dramas have been going last year, 60 years for Corrie, and this year we're celebrating 45 years for Emmerdale.

James Penfold: And so hearts and minds, which is a phrase that's very well known now within the business, is looking after staff wellbeing. And staff wellbeing is, therefore, the actors, the talent, all the production staff, all those many people that come on board. So, quickly the sets began to lockdown, and a wrapper was put around the productions to enable them to come on production for as long as they could. That wasn't feasible from the moment the national lockdown happened, and we had to then wait and work with health and safety committees and other people, and with the government, to work out what the safe way through production was.

James Penfold: So from my perspective, it was, "Please turn off tours." And we were just starting the season. And we had loads of pre-bookings across Emmerdale, and we had loads of booking across Coronation Street. And of course, we'd just recruited our seasonal workers in the sense of our tour guides for that year, many who come back each year and have other roles when the tours aren't operated at weekends. So I think it was straight away onto the phones with Emmerdale, our partner, Continuum Group, Continuum Attractions, who will work with on many tours and attractions. And obviously, from their perspective, there was a quite rightful debate, "Are we jumping the gun and doing this too soon?" Because they weren't seeing that advice in the tourism market for their attractions. But ours was, "No, this is what we need to do." And we didn't want to let consumers down at the last minute, because with Corrie certainly, people travel quite a distance across the country to come to those weekends. They book hotels in advance, they book transport in advance, and so then it really is about you're just going into a situation of customer management.

James Penfold: So there it was a case of, "Listen, sorry, we need to cancel down tours. Obviously, refunds were immediately available if you wanted them, or you can basically move to hold a voucher and we'll contact you as soon as." So that's a complete curtailment of that business, and it became then a reality that even with unlock-down, lockdown, over the backend of summer, that again the situation was even just worse. Think of where we are now in winter. So autumn and the end of summer last year, everyone was feeling great in the UK, and around most of the world. Some had fitted in summer holidays or done stay-cations and things like this. So again, from a consumer point of view, it's all about proactively managing the comms to them.

James Penfold: But at the same time, for us, because we don't have a lot to say on this because we're not a true classic digital attraction, just enough communication where you're engaging, giving the consumers what they need to know. Of course, at all opportunities, offering refunds. When we began to realise, "Do you know what? We aren't going to be opening these in autumn, because if anything the pandemic's getting worse," and this was even before new variants, it was, "Okay, well we hope to be able to bring this back in in 2021." That's a realisation now that probably that isn't even a reality. And of course, it's incredibly disappointing to the team. Thank God in the early days, when the furlough opportunity was there, we absolutely used it. From a customer point of view, social media, thank God we've got decent outlets to be able to contact customers. And from being a broadcaster with viewer services, we were able to really talk about it's a business for them to help us to get in contact with as many consumers as possible.

James Penfold: And even now it's a difficult one because we look to the advice from ALVA, we keep across Blooloop, we listen to your podcast, we talk to experts, we're talking with Continuum every day, and we have health and safety advisers from the tourist market as well. But from a set tours point of view, it just isn't realistic. There is nobody in any of our offices, we all work remotely. All the editing of the shows is pretty much done remotely, incredibly. In the early days of the pandemic, every show was produced remotely. The galleries all became laptops, so editors and directors were sitting at home. And the two teams that make the soaps have done an incredible job of creating cohorts where nobody overlaps, you're in your cohort group, and you move through, based on your plotline, through those cohorts so that you always stay safe. And then you have the people who go on sets, their costumes are already hung out for them, and their makeup they do themselves.

James Penfold: And so I suppose the thought on the ITV Studios drama and production side, the thought of even entertaining us being able to welcome the members of the public onto those sets currently is still untenable. So the good news is very exciting plans for next year. What this has given, I suppose, the pandemic, let me come to the positives, is it's given us a time to reflect. We were very lucky six years ago when the old set became available, Coronation Street. The Granada building was sold quite quickly after 55 years of ownership by ITV. It would have just been quickly demolished, but I was like, "No, that can't happen. Let's think about this."

Kelly Molson: Sacrilege.

James Penfold: Yeah. Well, and also, to the developer who bought it, "When do you need the building by? You've got planning to do, you've got plans to put into council; when do you need it by?" "We need it probably in about 24 months time." So for 18 months, we were able to open that set, and 900,000 people came through that set tour in that period of time. And that's a success. And that felt completely natural.

James Penfold: But now when we're working in a different environment, we're part of a living breathing production, a production community, so we're looking at it from a filming perspective and from that visitor perspective. The exciting thing is we are able to look at now how do we make the tours more accessible? Is there technology that can almost enhance them? We've worked with groups like Antenna. We've long resisted audio guides because we love the interpersonal nature of the tour guide, but actually, if you think of the amount of content and archive and things like that, it can actually bring sets to life, and everybody's got a different character they like on those shows, and different memory of the storylines. Some people like the '60s, the '70s, the '80s. Some people remember Emmerdale, and I'm going to say ITV sacrilege when it was called Emmerdale Farm. And so there are those angles to it. And it's given us time to reflect.

James Penfold: Completely exclusive to you, where we're building a new building next to Coronation Street in Manchester. The pilings underway. The intention is to have it open by next Easter. What's it going to serve? It's multifaceted because it addresses multiple problems. The scriptwriters and there are about 200 in Corrie, normally meet in hotels and go to conference centres to marry all the plot lines together and to do the timelines. Again, with the cast, with all the principal production team, they'll now be able to haggle on the top floor of this almost event space building. The middle floor will have an exhibition space, which will be used by us from a Coronation Street perspective. And the ground floor will have a 70 seat theatre for those, like me, who believe that people will come back in some form to a similar environment. And we'll have a café and we'll have a retail outlet.

James Penfold: So I'm going to call it a visitor reception area, as opposed to them just meeting somewhere in Media City and then we walk them over to the set and take them on the set there. That will allow us to be seven days a week from an experience point of view as people engage with the brand. It really plays for Peel, the landowner of Media City, because there's a brand new tramline that opened ... it was pretty much all whilst we've been in lockdown, that serves the Trafford side of Manchester and is a much faster link into Manchester. There's a stop right by ourselves and the Imperial War Museum, so there'll be that stop. There'll be a café there that which I say will provide to. So that's playing to an opportunity, that if we'd not had the pandemic, would have taken quite a lot longer because we've been able to do stuff when the set's been closed, when the filming hasn't happened, and it's a great positive.

James Penfold: Something similar is happening with the village for Emmerdale for hopefully the backend of 2022 so that we can get more people into the village and really celebrate the sets and do Q and As and audience with cast and things like that. So yeah, so positives.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that you've come on and dropped a few little exclusives for us, James. Thank you for sharing that. I mean, many of our listeners are in the attractions world, and they will be completely sympathising with the situation you've been in terms of having to shut down the sets, but it's such a different challenge that you have. I mean, the attractions now, they're planning for their reopening in May time, and are incredibly excited about that and what that looks like, that roadmap. But your roadmap is so much longer because of the logistics of filming, and I hadn't really taken that into consideration at all, how difficult that would be because obviously, you can't have the general public on the sets when you've got to protect the people that are on the sets recording each day. It's a huge challenge.

James Penfold: I mean, they're such substantial principle revenue streams, and the most important audience drivers for ITV. The soaps still regularly get between six and eight million, depending on where we are in the storylines, five days a week. And that's incredible in the streaming platform and non-linear broadcast era that we all live within.

James Penfold: That said, colleagues within my team who look after our Ninja Warrior brand, in lockdown we started last year with eight licensees and eight sites. By the time we get to the backend of summer, there will be 15 sites, because people are proactively taking and opening sites because they've seen properties becoming available. Previous guests of yours have talked about the nature of retail and leisure finally beginning to merge, which we haven't seen in the UK. It's been prevalent in Asia, very strong in the USA, and to some extent mainland Europe. But that's created a real opportunity. And so there's a real opportunity in that, and obviously those, they're nothing to do with show production, and so they can open, as you're talking about, with these May time scales, and I hope they go on to have really successful years. And whatever sort of restrictions we have in 2021, let's hope 2022 then gives them a full run.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. And there's going to be a huge resurgence in people wanting to do things. We're all desperate to get back out and have new experiences because we've been stuck between our four walls for so long. But this brings me to something very exciting, which is the I'm A Celebrity Jungle Challenge. Is it opening this year? Maybe this year? Who knows at the moment? Tell us a little bit about it.

James Penfold: I can tell you that based on current government guidelines and what we know of the roadmap, we're absolutely opening this summer. I mean, for me it's very exciting. It's the fruition of a three-year project in a sense, from talking with Peel Holdings, the landowner, to then working with various design companies and settling with Scruffy Dog Productions, and then the exciting part, which we started right back at the start of this podcast, working with the producers of the show. And Richard Cowles, Tom Gould and that ITV entertainment team are genius. I'm A Celebrity is his format, Saturday Night Takeaway is his co-format, Love Island is his format. That team know how to do live programming. And being able to look under the bonnet of what is the essence of I'm A Celebrity if we were going to make it an attraction, has been really exciting.

James Penfold: So yeah, Media City, or Quayside Media City I should say, what was the Lowry Outlet, will be opening this summer.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I'm so excited. You know, the team, we've already started planning that we'll come and do it as one of our Christmas do adventures because our Christmas do is always a thing. We go and have an experience somewhere. We went and did the Crystal Maze challenge, and then we'll go for dinner and drinks and stuff. And as soon as I mentioned this, they were like, "That's it. That's the Christmas do."

James Penfold: I know, Kelly, I need you there soon. We need those guinea pigs for early summer, so I'll be calling you up.

Kelly Molson: All right, we'll bring our Christmas to do forward. That's right, we missed out on one last year, so we'll be there.

James Penfold: There are no restrictions on tinsel, so you're welcome.

Kelly Molson: Fabulous, because I do love a bit of tinsel. Has COVID changed how you will deliver that visitor experience for that attraction, though? Because I think one of the things that we've been talking about quite a lot with attractions are actually some of the positives, of the visitor experience is better when the capacity has been reduced. So, for example, you want to go and visit the Mona Lisa. Well, on a normal day, if you go and visit the Mona Lisa, there are thousands of people that are doing it with you at the same time, and so that experience is just not what you might have hoped for. But actually, if you did it ... well, not now, but when they're open and you've got that reduced capacity, it's a nicer experience. It's more engaging for you. Maybe people will pay a slightly higher price for that as well. So how has that changed how you open and your strategy?

James Penfold: So, obviously, when you design any of these attractions, and again, we work with good partners, and we're not experts. We hold people to flame as to how we want it to look and we want it to be delivered 100% to be true to the format, but you've designed it for this sort of flow, for this capacity, and people use it in this manner. And of course, only when we start getting to the customer testing, which we're pretty much just approaching now, will we see how that happens. Now we layer on the COVID factor, and the COVID factor is exactly what you've said. Probably a little more time in that attraction, yes, reviewing the price for that, but the capacity is being reduced, but then the experience is so much better. I think also all leisure attractions are getting price-sensitive, but I do think, and I hope when you see it ... the layering over the IP of the Jungle Challenge, and whether it's the thematic, and even a safety video from Ant and Dec, through to the gameplay we've put on what would traditionally be a rope and swinging course and a bit of Ninja Warrior in the middle, really does bring value to it. So I think we've got to, and we are, reviewing what that customer experience is.

James Penfold: Similarly, on the tours side of things, it's absolutely about capacity. Less people maybe in tour groups, certainly fast-tracking this notion of pre-flow that colleagues have had, which is, "Okay, tour guides are wonderful and they give the as scripted and in the tone of a show version of events," but we know, especially as we look to the younger audiences, that it absolutely is all about the selfie moment, the racing to the bit of the set that you know most. Again, I mentioned characters earlier, so we've got to look at that. And then that looks at, "Okay, well how do we then convey some of the knowledge and depth and years of plot lines, characters, and why things look the way they do? Why the houses aren't as big as real houses would be and all those sorts of things." Then we're looking at the audio guide, or certainly the interactive guide, and how smartphones, that again really have got pretty much mass market penetration now across all age brackets, how we can use those.

James Penfold: I think last week somebody raised a really ... so the podcast that aired last week, and I can't recall the chap's name, but oh my God, never did I think we'd be looking back at QR codes. And-

Kelly Molson: QR codes; 2020 was the year of the resurgence for them. Who knew that was going to happen?

James Penfold: Absolutely. It's like the spectrum of tourism, it's suddenly back.

Kelly Molson: I was going to say Atari, but that would super age me.

James Penfold: Yeah, no, that was 10 years before me.

Kelly Molson: So we're coming to the end of the podcast, but one more question to ask you. But can you let us know what kind of things that we might find in this new attraction? Are there going to be any disgusting eating challenges? Because I feel like that is up there with what people really want to do.

James Penfold: Listen, I'm A Celebrity just had its 20th season, even in an amazing cast in Wales, did record audiences, and I know we've got pandemic viewers and that people can't go out, and there are many facets to the show. And so I think this is the first iteration of what you're going to see and what we'd like to do with the I'm A Celebrity brand, working with not just property partners, but also with operator partners that we're currently engaged with. This one is all about the Jungle Challenge and getting stars because, at the heart of the show, you get those stars, and it is for the more physical aspects of it. So you've got to climb 15-meter rock-faces, you've got to zip line across the venue, you've got to do a treetop trail that doesn't have much to support you other than the harness you're clipped to, and so that'll test your heights. There's a spy ride, if you so wish, that you can strap yourself into and travel 20 miles an hour around the rooftop. There's Escape the Jungle, which is our variant on Ninja Warrior. So we've packed a lot into this. And if you want to test, again, your test of heights, there's Leap of Faith, where you go and you jump, you hang onto a cushion for as long as you can before you drop to the ground.

James Penfold: Yeah, but don't worry, you're in a safe be like.

Kelly Molson: Oh, it's going to be great. I feel super excited about it already, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of our listeners will be booking up tickets as soon as they can. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing that, James.

James Penfold: Pleasure.

Kelly Molson: We always ask our guests for a book that they would recommend to us, and it can be anything really. I used to always ask ... it was a book that had shaped someone's career, but I think actually just a book that you really love, or one that you would just like to share with our audience would be great.

James Penfold: Okey-dokey. Well, I've changed my choice as of this morning, and it's courtesy, because of course, working from home, or even when I work in the office, I've always got ITV on, playing in the background. And a book that I found absolutely charming, and not a lifesaver, but just really resonated with me in this lockdown, being single, working on my own, working on a project quite distanced with a team that's quite disparate around the country, has been The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse. Charlie Mackesy.

Kelly Molson: Oh gosh.

James Penfold: And it comes into mind today because I saw him over my shoulder just because we came on the call because he was on This Morning and it's being made into a movie, which is incredible. An animated movie using his beautiful artwork. And as I understand it, it's going to extend the characters and give some background to those four wonderful subjects. And I just feel, with all that's going on, whether it's headlines in the news this week on any level, whether it regards ITV or not, that you put a bit of love out there and we'll all be good, and we'll get through this storm, as he likes to put it.

Kelly Molson: Oh, do you know what? That book has given me so much comfort over the years, and I'm so glad that somebody ... nobody has recommended that book yet, I'm so glad that you chose that one today because it really does sum up what we all need right now. And like I said, for me, it's been a huge comfort on many different levels, and I think it has been a huge comfort for a lot of people through the lockdown as well.

James Penfold: Absolutely. And yeah, you can turn to any page of it and there's a quote or a phrase that you can draw something from it. And I think there have been many books prior to that, and I'm not going to bankrupt you as others do, so that's my book.

Kelly Molson: Thank you, just the one book. Just remember, I ask for one book, people.

James Penfold: Yeah guys, just listen, one book, please. That's all Kelly wants.

Kelly Molson: Costs me so much money. Oh, thank you so much, that's a great recommendation. As ever, if you want to win a copy of that book, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want James's book," then you will be in with a chance of winning a copy. And you should do that because it is a really lovely book. I'm so glad that there's going to be a film as well, that's really nice.

James Penfold: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: James, thank you.

James Penfold: Can I say thank you, by the way? Because I listen to your podcast every week; fascinating insights helps all of us, and yeah, so I'm really pleased that I was invited on. Thank you.

Kelly Molson: Aw, that's very kind. All of our guests have said very lovely things about the podcast and I feel super humbled by it. I actually felt really humbled that you put us in the bracket of ALVA and Blooloop there, who are phenomenal organisations that have been doing brilliant things for attractions throughout this. Thank you, James, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you today. It's been wonderful, so thank you so much for your time.

James Penfold: You're very welcome, you take care.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. 

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge

www.linkedin.com/in/james-rodliff-89224055

James Rodliff

James is currently the Operations Manager at Stonehenge, Europe’s most famous prehistoric monument and one of the UK's busiest visitor attractions. He is responsible for overseeing the day to day running of the large site, leading the operations, admissions, volunteering and education teams in delivering a world class visitor experience. He is also involved with English Heritage's brand and training groups. At the end of 2020 James was one of eight individuals chosen as the UK’s ‘unsung heritage champions’, a Heritage Lottery Fund initiative honouring remarkable individuals who have worked tirelessly to keep the UK’s heritage accessible during the pandemic and beyond.

Growing up in Cornwall James held a number of roles in tourism and heritage before going to Cardiff where he completed his post-graduate studies in Archaeology. He then spent two years at Lloyds Banking Group where he thrived in training and improving customer service. In 2012 James landed a dream role working for the Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth; here he commenced a seven year journey through the installation, launch, relaunch, and rebranding of the multi-award winning Mary Rose Museum.  

James loves the great outdoors and, when not at work, can often be found hiking, biking, or jogging the length and breadth of the country (Covid travel rules allowing), often visiting attractions and heritage sites en-route.

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue. A podcast for people working in, or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. These chats are fun, informative, and hopefully always interesting. 

In today's episode I speak with James Rodliff, Operations Manager at Stonehenge, part of English Heritage. 

We discuss the challenges and positives to come from a changing audience this year. From international to domestic, and how Stonehenge will maintain a blend of physical and virtual events for the future.

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Right James, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast today. I'm super-excited to have you on. I feel like we've spoken a lot on social media, but we've never properly had a chat, so this is going to be fun.

James Rodliff: I'm really excited. Thanks for inviting me on. I'm a big fan, so I've made it. I've made it onto Skip the Queue, this is amazing.

Kelly Molson: I love this. This is like the highlight of my day that people are excited about coming on here. Thank you. Right, well as you know, if you are a big fan, we always start with our icebreaker question. So let's get going. I would like to know what is the greatest, either TV show or film from your childhood?

James Rodliff: Ah, lots of options. I'm going to have to go to Goonies, straight up. The Goonies. It just ticks every box, it's amazing. For me, I was really interested in the history and the maps, I'm a nerd, but them finding this treasure. I was also really worried that the treasure got destroyed at the end, you know? I'm the same when I watch Indiana Jones, I love Indiana Jones, but at the same time I'm panicking when they're destroying the temples or this precious or archaeology's being lost. But yeah, no The Goonies is just fantastic.

Kelly Molson: Great, great choice. I am a child of the '80s, and those films are a comfort to me. Whenever I'm a bit under the weather, and I have a little diva day, it's always an '80s film that goes on. Something that you've watched a billion times that's just really comforting. That is definitely one for me. Next question, would you rather give up social media, or eat the same dinner for the rest of your life?

James Rodliff: That is mean. I love social media. A lot of my friends live all around the world, and it's part of the way how we all work nowadays, and stay in touch with each other. I don't know if you can tell from my physique, I love my food. I could not eat the same ... There are some things I could eat a lot, but I couldn't eat the same meal over and over again. I would ditch the social media, and probably be a healthier person, probably, for it, in the long run. But yes, I would have to go for that.

Kelly Molson: What's your favourite meal? If you had to eat the same meal every night, what would it be?

James Rodliff: That's so hard, maybe a glorious green Thai curry would probably be the absolute top for me. Yeah, absolutely adore Thai food. I was lucky enough to go out there a few years ago, and the place was amazing, the people were amazing, but the food, oh my god, the food.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, lovely. That is a really good choice. It would get a bit boring if it was the same every day though, wouldn't it?

James Rodliff: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: You just, repetitive.

James Rodliff: Lose the magic.

Kelly Molson: Okay, I might have had a little bit of help with the next question.

James Rodliff: Uh-oh.

Kelly Molson: You'll probably know who when I ask you. What's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you at an airport?

James Rodliff: Oh no. Yeah, I might know who would be behind this one. So calamity seems to follow me, Kelly, around my life. On one particular time ... So this was the young Paul Griffiths, no doubt, that's helped you here. Where were we going? We were coming back from Norway, I think. We got some funding to go out, we were putting together some work when we worked at the Mary Rose together. We were flying up to Norway, and for some reason when I went through the scanny machine thingy that scans ... They do like the heat temperature and the metal detector, for some reason, can't tell you why, but my lower regions glowed a glorious, radiant orange.

James Rodliff: They pulled me in to get proper strip searched by these big Norwegian chaps. Yeah, it was quite the experience. Then, after it was all done and I put my clothes back on and was walking away, realized I'd left my iPad. I had to go back and speak to them again, and say, "I'm so sorry."

Kelly Molson: Oh, the horror.

James Rodliff: I know, I think they thought I was coming back to get their number, or something. Yeah, that was a moment.

Kelly Molson: Wow, that is unexpected, isn't it? You're really not expecting that to happen.

James Rodliff: Yeah, thanks Paul for that. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Thank you, Paul. I'm so glad that I asked you. Okay, thank you for answering all those. What's your unpopular opinion?

James Rodliff: So this is going to lose me a lot of fans straight off the bat. I think people are going to turn off straight away, but I don't really like Abba. Like I really don't like Abba. I know. I know, right? So everyone's got a band or an artist that they just don't get on with, that's kind of just ... Yeah. For me, it's Abba, and this has landed me in all sorts of bother throughout my life. One time when we were, again, in Scandinavia, in Sweden, and we worked with the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. Beautiful museum with a ship. A little bit newer, but more intact than the Mary Rose, an absolutely gorgeous museum. We were being hosted out there whilst we worked, again, on some projects.

James Rodliff: They said, "Ah, the Abba Museum's just opened down the road, we should take you." I had to explain that I didn't really like Abba. Honestly, explain to Swedish people you don't like Abba. Their faces. They just couldn't comprehend it. They just could not understand it. But we went anyway. It must have been ... Yes, it was the trip that we took some of our volunteers from the Mary Rose with us. We all went into the Abba Museum, and it's a fabulous museum, they've done an amazing job, but the subject matter was ... I just really, really don't like it. So that was interesting. But fabulous attraction if you're ever in Stockholm you should go and see it, whether you're an Abba fan or not.

Kelly Molson: I feel like you're trying to dig yourself out of a big hole there, James. I would just like to state that the views of our guests do not reflect the views of our podcast. [inaudible 00:06:35] tune in. Thank you. I feel like we're going to get some tweets about that.

James Rodliff: I'm going to get some hate mail about that.

Kelly Molson: Maybe.

James Rodliff: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Right, let's get into having a chat about you and Stonehenge because this is exciting. I just want to say that we are recording this, so it's the 5th of March today, which is a day that parents all around the country will be rejoicing, because it is the end of homeschooling, hopefully, for now. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

James Rodliff: Hopefully.

Kelly Molson: But it is also St Piran's Day.

James Rodliff: It is St Piran's Day, yeah.

Kelly Molson: It's the national day of Cornwall. We just had a lovely chat about this off air, but I think this is really special for you, isn't it, because this is where you're from?

James Rodliff: Absolutely. Yeah, so I was born and raised in Cornwall, and kind of strong Cornish identity. Well, everyone, I think, who was born and grows up there, has it? It's a very special place, and it has very much its own character and history and legends and stories. Actually growing up there had a massive impact on me because it's a very, very touristy economic environment down there anyway. So that was always a big part of living down there, but also surrounded by these amazing standing stones, and ruins and hill forts on windswept moors. There's just this kind of sense of magic and mystery down there.

James Rodliff: There's lots of these kinds of special high days and holidays, usually involving food, a fair few drinks, and a bit of dancing, and all sorts of good times. But yeah, that had a really big impact on me growing up. This huge sense of storytelling in Cornwall as well. My friend's laughing because I don't seem to be able to answer a question in a short way, there's always a story, a rambling story to my answers. But I think that's partly growing up in Cornwall, and just the way we explain things and weave things. I think that's had a really big impact on my later career as well.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, well this segue ways really nicely into what your background is, and how you got to where you are now. Because you mentioned growing up in Cornwall you were really kind of part of that tourist economy, and experiences that were happening there. Was that the start of it? You always knew that you would kind of work within that industry?

James Rodliff: I think so. I mean it's just what I did. It was a few jobs a few decades back now working in busy pub kitchens, or working in summer retail environments. That's what all of us, all my friends did the same. Working on the beaches in shops, or whatever. Or I was working in the caravan park during one summer. That's just what the economy was. Alongside this, like I said, being surrounded by kind of the history and the legends and the stories as well. They kind of fueled a bit of a dual passion in me, I suppose. Which was the facilitation of these stories, and the history and the heritage to people, to explain what these things are, and what they mean.

James Rodliff: So that, yeah, I think did have a really big impact on me. Yeah, Cornwall is absolutely chocka with attractions. Lots of people go down there because the place is beautiful, and they want to get a sense of the food, the culture, the history. And lots and lots of different attractions have popped up, as well, to facilitate them, and help them part with their cash as well. Some of these attractions, amazing. A couple, slightly more questionable, but all, in their own ways, amazing, well worth a visit.

Kelly Molson: You're now at Stonehenge, but I know that you worked at the Mary Rose previously, with Paul, who was very kind to help me out with some of those questions. Paul has been a previous guest on the podcast as well. But I think you started, was it banking that you actually started your career in?

James Rodliff: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: That's quite a big change.

James Rodliff: It is a bit, yeah. So I decided to study archaeology through to the postgraduate level. I loved finding out more and more and more of these stories beneath our feet, and I just couldn't get enough of it. Graduated with my masters, I worked actually as an archaeologist in the field for a while on a few different digs, as well as balancing various other jobs, whatever came up. Then graduated with my masters, and kind of hoped to swan into a brilliant job in heritage or archaeology, and obviously, that's not necessarily the way the world worked. But an amazing opportunity came up and I went to work for Lloyds Bank. Which was right after the credit crunch, and right coming up to the PPI scandal. It was quite a time to work for banks.

James Rodliff: I got involved with kind of customer complaint handling and how you should treat your customers, and how to retain business, and how to help put things right when things do go wrong. That was really, really useful for me. So having that kind of history heritage side, and then being thrown into quite a corporate environment, but one that was in a bit of a crisis, really, and having to find a way out of that was actually really useful. So I did that for a few years. Worked hard, got all the experience I possibly could, but I really ... My heart had to get back into heritage. I knew I had to make a step back.

James Rodliff: So started looking around, and a job popped up down in Portsmouth on the south coast, at the Mary Rose, where they were just getting ready to set up the new museum, and it was to join the conservation team to help install the objects. So they were looking for people with experience who had handled objects, and could work on projects. So I applied, it was a pay cut. It was a short contract. It was a massive gamble. My dad was very unsure about it. I was like, "What do you think?" He was like, "I don't know." But we decided to go for it. Moved down to Portsmouth, and yeah, the project was amazing.

James Rodliff: I spent a year being able to help install this incredible collection. There's 19,000 objects in the Mary Rose collection, and the museum itself, if anyone hasn't yet gone, must go. It is absolutely phenomenal. They've done such a good job there. 30 years in the planning and it really shows, it is beautiful. So that was amazing.

James Rodliff: Then joined the operations team once the installation had done. Worked in different roles. Front of house manager, visitor operations manager. Then I worked as part of the marketing team for a little while. Kind of did everything. Was there for seven years. Which I think in your late 20s early 30s is a long time to be anywhere. Yeah, so I started thinking there are people that do work at the Mary Rose for their entire career, and you can understand why. It is a stunning project. But I knew it was probably getting time for me to move onto a new challenge.

James Rodliff: I did really want a challenge as well, something to really sink my teeth into. So I was kind of keeping an eye out, and this job popped up at Stonehenge, where they were looking for an operations manager. You know, you hear of my history there, that just kind of ticked a lot of boxes for me. So again, up sticks, moved up to Salisbury, and joined Stonehenge June 1st, 2019. So straight into the summer, straight into my first Summer Solstice. The Solstice is also my birthday, so that was a nice treat to have 10,000 people celebrating on my birthday.

Kelly Molson: How wonderful they all just turned up just for you.

James Rodliff: I know, it's fabulous, but that was really lovely. The first summer was a whirlwind. You know, we had dealt with some really busy times at the Mary Rose, but Stonehenge and sites like that, they're a different scale. Everything is just scaled up massively. The visitors come from all around the world, it's just the most incredible place. It was a steep learning curve, but we had our busiest ever summer day during that first summer. The winter was fabulous and we had our busiest winter day as well that year. We were just starting to put in some quite ambitious plans around looking at the admissions process and kind of moving it from what it is, which is a stunning product into making sure that it's a world-class visitor attraction as well. Then of course COVID hit, didn't it?

Kelly Molson: Gosh, I mean you had a really big start to your career there, didn't you?

James Rodliff: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Straight in into a Summer Solstice-

James Rodliff: Straight in.

Kelly Molson: ... and then hey, smashed in the face with a pandemic.

James Rodliff: Absolutely. I've spent now more time at Stonehenge under the kind of pandemic situation than I did beforehand, which is really strange. So yeah, I feel like a bit of a kind of wartime operations manager, in a way, you know? But it is fabulous, and it means that I've been able to part of this quite dynamic time, which is really interesting.

Kelly Molson: In at the deep end with both feet.

James Rodliff: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kelly Molson: Couldn't have planned that more perfectly, right? If you can get through last year, you can get through anything, James.

James Rodliff: I hope so, yeah.

Kelly Molson: So what worked well last year for Stonehenge? Because a huge change, I guess you were closed for a certain amount of time, but then outdoor attractions were allowed to then start to reopen and stuff. What went well, what didn't go well?

James Rodliff: Yeah, so I mean it was ... What a year it was, right? I mean for everyone in the sector it was incredibly tough. What worked well? So we actually received some of the best feedback we have received in recent times during last year. Which is, I think, outstanding. That kind of came about because we really took, well not a step back, we took a lot of steps back to look at the entire visitor journey. It's cliché, visitor journey, but really, really did kind of think about every single touchpoint with our visitors, with our members, with our supporting staff, volunteers, how we could make it work. When were coming to reopen the site and not just our site, but there's ... Well, English Heritage looks after 400 sites, 130 sites with staff. How are we going to reopen the portfolio and make it work?

James Rodliff: So we looked at what people expectations would be around COVID, and what their priorities would be once we could reopen, and what they would actually want to get from the site. So we took that, we took, like I said, every single step of the journey, every touchpoint, and we just worked our way through it. Everyone kind of honed in on this single mission to make this the best that it could be in the circumstances. Also to kind of mitigate against any times, if we did have to step back and say there's a bit of the experience there that you're not going to be able to access in the same way, what could we do otherwise then?

James Rodliff: So that worked really, really well, and that process all the way through, pre-booking, booking, admissions, arrival, the whole day. We looked at what we had. We've got, as you said, we're an outdoor attraction, we've got outdoor space. What did people want after being locked in for so long? They wanted to get outdoors, and spread out, and breathe, and a bit of normality. So we started looking at what could we do a bit different. So let's tell people to come and bring a picnic, have a picnic in the monument field. What a lovely thing to do and Stonehenge right there.

James Rodliff: Come and walk the landscape, instead of ... We have our shuttle buses. Now if people are in a bit more of a hurry, or they don't fancy the walk, or whatever, we have the buses, and we kept them going as well, especially for those who couldn't or didn't want to walk. But if you can walk, walk. Spread-out, enjoy yourselves. People came, they spent the day, and they really, really had a great time. Alongside that, we had lots of projects working on how we could better engage with people at home, different formats that we could use, tying in with education platforms, and all the other needs that people had as well.

James Rodliff: It worked. It really worked. What was amazing is that all this planning, all this kind of forethought into the operations, people noticed. You look on TripAdvisor and people were noticing the operations and they're commenting on the ... People don't normally do that, you know? "They really thought about where to put the barriers, and how people stand." People just don't normally say that. So that was outstanding, and it really felt good.

James Rodliff: The other thing that worked really well was our staff. They have just been outstanding. Absolutely outstanding, and I just can't thank them enough. All the way through this process they've been practical and intuitive and supportive, and they've just wanted to make it work. They love the place. They really, really love the place, and you can see that in how they approach everything. The feedback from visitors, alongside the operational stuff, has been about the staff. "I arrived, I was warmly greeted. I was made to feel safe and secure. Like they've really thought about everything." That was really, really magic as well.

James Rodliff: Another thing is our VIP experience. We have stone circle experiences where we can host a smaller number of people outside of the normal opening times, where you can actually go inside, up close to the stones. Normally this is often quite heavily in demand from international audiences, and larger tour companies. But we were able to offer this out to a domestic market. So if you can't go on holiday, why not come inside the Stonehenge stone circle? That was amazing. The feedback from that from domestic audience was fantastic. Really, really impressive.

James Rodliff: I also am a big fan of our hand sanitiser. I think it smells delightful, but it smells a bit like tequila. Was it you or Carly when-

Kelly Molson: Oh.

James Rodliff: Is it you? Okay.

Kelly Molson: Carly loves tequila, but me, I can't even think about it.

James Rodliff: Carly would have a lovely old time, but you'd have to bring your own. But no, slight tequila whiff at night, that I think is lovely as well. But not the entire ... That coming together, we were just chuffed to bits to see, in the face of all this adversity, that actually we delivered something that we were really proud of.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it? The more people that I speak to in the sector, the more this comes through, is that the things that were really important to visitors that were coming is that they were welcomed. It still felt like a really lovely, warm experience for them, aside from the fact that there were extra security processes in place, and barriers and things. It still felt like a great time for them to come. It's the team that makes that. It's the front-of-house team, it's the people that care about the place, that care about the people's experience that makes that happen.

Kelly Molson: Did you find that, because you mentioned about people kind of like walking to the stones and people bringing picnics and things. Did you find that people stayed longer, and had a kind of a longer experience there then they normally would?

James Rodliff: Definitely, yeah.

Kelly Molson: So in a way, less people actually better experience for the people that did come.

James Rodliff: Yeah, absolutely. We encouraged it really, because although we had our caps and we were trying to get that balance right of safety limits in terms of ... Because obviously we have got space, but there are ... Our facilities, they are big, but they still need to be very mindful in terms of the number of people coming through in the hour slots. So we were very, very cautious about that. But yeah, we encouraged it. Come, spend the day, bring a picnic. Really have a wonderful day. I think the domestic audiences if they're going out they're not necessarily doing like you do on holiday, you're quite happy to do two or three things in a day, quick, go, take your photos, off you go again.

James Rodliff: If you're going somewhere domestically and you're going to be parting with your hard-earned cash, then you want to get the most out of it. So that was fabulous. Actually, some of the things we tweaked helped facilitate that. So as we said, the picnics in the monument field. The landscape walks. We have these beautiful replica neolithic houses on the site, which have been made by our volunteers, absolutely gorgeous. They're basically experimental archaeology, based on houses that were excavated nearby on the landscape. They're phenomenally interesting, and some of them actually have all kind of neolithic replica artefacts in, and a volunteer will sit in there, and they can light a fire, and you can come in and hear about it, and it's just incredible.

James Rodliff: Couldn't do that in COVID. So what we did we brought that outside into the middle of the village. Actually made it kind of more approachable and accessible in some ways. That was a huge success, and people were sitting there, and really engaging. So that really helped. Actually some of these things we put in, we thought this is, in some ways, arguably better. So I think there's some real lessons there for us to take away as well.

Kelly Molson: So that's interesting because this brings me to what this year looks like. So obviously you've got ... You mentioned you'd have quite a predominantly international audience, and 2021, let's face it, we have no idea when people are going to be flying in from anywhere. So your audience goes back to predominantly domestic. What challenges does that throw up for you? Do you carry on doing the things that you did last year? Or are there more things that you've got to adapt and change for this year?

James Rodliff: Well you know, it's undeniably going to be a massive challenge. The last year has been a huge challenge for our sector, us as a charity we rely on ticket income, as so many other organisations do. Not having that international audience is undeniably going to have a big impact on that. We've had to delay things like some of our conservation projects and maintenance projects because we just don't have the ticket income coming in. That will be a further symptom of not having necessarily as many international guests coming in.

James Rodliff: Yeah, the majority of our visitors each year are international. So what are we going to do about that? So we know what worked last year, and we took a lot of lessons from that. I think we are well prepared to do a comparable, if not better offer, from the things that we learnt last year for our domestic audiences, which is exciting. We have got infrastructure onsite that is dedicated to coach groups and international audiences that isn't going to be used by them, so how can we better use that to help spread people out, and make it a more comfortable and better experience for them as well.

James Rodliff: But you're right, we have to think about car parks, and what happens if the car park starts to fill up because people aren't coming on coaches. The changes in dwell time, and what that will do. The other parts of our offer, our catering and retail, is that as relevant when you're looking after this big domestic audience, as it was in this international one?

James Rodliff: But it does give us some real positives as well. The stay-cation market should be strong. In fact, some of the English Heritage sites had one of their best-ever years last year, because especially in the west, people were looking around, thinking okay, we can't go to Magaluf, we can't go to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, we've got this amazing castle three miles away, we've never been there. Let's go and have a day. What a lovely thing.

James Rodliff: You know, some of our sites had an amazing year last year, and I think they will again, have a strong year as well. But other sites will have more challenges. Ones that are more indoors will struggle. Those who rely heavily on international tourism, like us, will have those issues. But it's going to push us to be more inventive in problem-solving. Come up with new ways of making sure the offer really is good. It's things like our special, our stone circle experience tours, things like that, again, I think we've got a great season with that lined up, and a whole new audience to really speak to there as well.

Kelly Molson: It's amazing, isn't it? You're talking through about how there's so many things to think about when you're in an operation. You mentioned about the car park in there, if lots of people aren't coming on one coach, and then loads of people are coming in all individual cars, then that changes that completely. It blows my mind to think about how you even start to plan all of this out. You mentioned the catering, so does your catering offer then have to change to if people are going to come for the day, and they're going to stay for longer, is your catering offering hampers, so they can have the picnic?

Kelly Molson: Then that shifts in that sense. Whereas, if they're coming on a tour bus, that might have been they're just going to grab a quick sandwich or a scone or something to eat while they're looking at stuff, and then they're off again. There's so much to think about. How do you even start to plan this? It's such an epic task.

James Rodliff: It is, and you know, talking about catering, are people coming for two meals now? And what does that look like? Think about all those different things. Certain retail products, are they going to be right for the different audiences? Yeah, I mean luckily we've got just an amazing team. I've got some amazing, amazing colleagues, and so we've been putting a lot of thought into this. You know, finally, it's what a week it's been. We got our dates last week, which obviously kind of paves forward a bit of a roadmap for the coming weeks, months and hoping to get open asap in a safe way.

James Rodliff: But it also means that right now there are some deadlines, we really need to get planning. But also we didn't necessarily know what we were opening into. So when we do open, I won't be able to open our exhibition at first, you know, indoor interpretation spaces. So that's going to be a challenge. So how do we offset that and make sure that is as good as it can be? What is quite exciting is that it has actually fast forwarded some other measures. So our new audio offer is going to be ready for when we reopen, which is brilliant. We've been able to crack on, our new café is going to be open for when we reopen. So there are lots of new and exciting things already in the bag, which is really good.

Kelly Molson: That's great as well because I guess that kind of engages with people that have already been before, that live locally too. So there's something new for them to come and see. There's something new for them to experience. Which means you're kind of engaging with them and drawing them back. So it's not just kind of a one-time visit. I want to ask about the venue, and if you need to adapt it in any way for different audiences? Not just kind of international to domestic, but potentially less attentive audiences.

Kelly Molson: So this was a question that Mark Ellis sent in from the National Memorial Arboretum. He's kind of asking around if your audience changes to maybe kind of like gen Zed, I don't really like these acronyms, they drive me mad. But a younger generation have maybe a slightly ... They're slightly less attentive. Are there new things that you're thinking about that you're going to need to implement to engage with them?

James Rodliff: That's a very interesting question. Do you know what's funny? Thinking back 10 years or so, and this same question was to replace gen Zed with the word millennial and it was the same question then. As an older millennial, I was there thinking I love museums, I don't know why they're worried that I'm going to go, and I know lots of people like me that really like going to these places. You're right, segmentation is super useful, and super un-useful at the same time. So I think doing it by age groups is a slightly dangerous route to go down because lots of different age groups act in different ways.

James Rodliff: I see it on site. We see people from one to 100, and some of them will be really attentive and interested, and some won't be. That doesn't necessarily depend on the age group. I think perhaps looking at are these people experience seekers? If that's what they want, if they want to come and make memories, then how do we best facilitate that? We have the benefit of having ... We've got Stonehenge. It's one of a kind, it's very authentic, it's very amazing. When you're there, you've stood in that field looking at it, you cannot help be mesmerised. That is brilliant. No amount of AR, VR, crazy different ways of technologically adding to that will be able to match the magnificence of the actual monument itself.

James Rodliff: That being said, I think there are lots of different ways that we can tell stories, and that we should always be pushing ourselves to ... Just because we've done something a certain way for a long time, doesn't mean we should keep doing it that way. I think we should always be keeping an eye on whatever tools we can use in our arsenal to make that best possible experience it can be for our guests. Some of that I think is giving space to people to explore it in their own way, and not being overly prescriptive, and this is the way you should experience it. This is the only way you'll get the story is by listening to this guide, or standing at that point, or following that exact route.

James Rodliff: Give people the space to do it. Now some people want to be led. They want to know, "I'm scared of missing something if I don't follow the exact route." Other people they want to just go and do it in their own way. They might want to stand in the field and catch Pokemon or something. I don't know. There are different ways that people want to enjoy that environment. I think the other thing is talking about younger generations is certainly that the young generation now, they are more into the outdoors and nature and fitness-

Kelly Molson: Absolutely.

James Rodliff: ... and healthy and wellbeing. I was sat on the couch in the Chelsea eating pork pies and cans of Coke as a young person. These young people they're out there, they run for fun. This is something I've discovered much later, but different things are important to them. So again, us, we have a lot of outdoor space, this is brilliant for us. But I think other places should think about that, what is important to these audiences. Not just kind of changing the offer to match them, but looking at what you already have, and matching that to the need. There are some stuff, talking about making memories, we are looking at is there some cool places we can suggest that are the ultimate selfie spots, you know?

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

James Rodliff: Silly things like the shot that everyone wants, that great bit that people want to share on social media with their friends. Yeah, so bits like that.

Kelly Molson: But that's great. So that engages with them in something that they love to do, but also it's beneficial for the experience. They share that content, it's user-generated content, it gets shared across their social media channels, it all helps to promote. I am a big fan of museums introducing kind of Instagram-able areas because I think it's just an incredible way to be able to promote and engage with that different audience. That's what they want to do. They want to capture that perfect moment as well.

Kelly Molson: I want to talk about kind of virtual stuff as well. So I know that obviously Summer Solstice you did some virtual elements around that last year. What have you got planned for this year? So what events have you got planned that might be virtual? And what might always stay virtual, or go back to physical? Is there plans to kind of keep some of those things hand-in-hand with the real-life experience?

James Rodliff: It's a good point. We've been dabbling with how do we share the Solstice with not just the people that can make it to the site, but how can we do that. Like you said, the Solstice last year where we weren't able to ... Sadly weren't able to host our managed open access to the stones, we had an empty field, which is a very unusual thing on a Solstice, it's probably been a very long time since that happened. But we were able then to share that experience with the world. People from all around the world tuned in to see it. Huge audience of people. Both the Summer and the Winter Solstice.

James Rodliff: People found it really quite something. Actually, the winter one I was working in the evening, so we still have a few people onsite just checking and making sure everything's okay. I worked the evening slot, but not the morning. So I woke up quite early at home thinking I hope everything's okay, and I kind of tuned into the livestream, and I was actually just lying in bed, watching the sunrise over the stones. It was so beautiful, so lovely. That has been a real success. Definitely we'd love to do some more of that to share that for people that can't get here. Especially this year, even if domestic audiences might be able to travel, international audiences might not, and so you know, we know it's a really important thing to people. So more of that, yes. More of that, absolutely.

James Rodliff: We've got our skyscape camera as well. I don't know if you've seen that. Which is there's a camera up at the stones basically. Which, whenever you want to, at any time of day, you can go onto the site, and you can see what the sky is doing at Stonehenge. You can click on different filters, so you can see where the stars are moving, where the sun's moving, everything. Which is really lovely. That's here to stay, that's really lovely.

James Rodliff: We've got some new projects that are kind of launching this year, which may well fuel future adventures as well. But we've got Songs of England, which is just coming out, which is an English Heritage wide project, working with amazing folk singers to bring English folk songs to the sites. The amazing sites that we have that tell England's history, which is just fabulous. That's really, really lovely. We do have other stuff, but I'm not allowed to talk about them, to come. So keep an eye on the website and our social media channels. But there are other things that we blended, right?

James Rodliff: So when we talked earlier, Kelly, about if there's things on site that you are unable to experience firsthand, is there any other way of getting some of that experience? So we had our agile interpretation. I love this phrase, agile interpretation, which is kind of the brainchild of some of our very brilliant visceral experience and learning and interpretation colleagues who start producing things. Okay, so for us, our houses, I said you couldn't go inside the houses and have that experience. Okay, the volunteers are outside, and they're showing you things and engaging in that way, but how can you just close that gap between what we did have, pre-COVID, and what we've got now?

James Rodliff: So we've got QR codes. It's pretty much a simple post that says, "Want to see what it's like? Scan this QR code." Then it pops up on your phone and you're in the house, and you can see the fire's going, and you're inside. Just closing that gap. That agile interpretation, it's quick, it's relatively cheap, and it just works. It doesn't have to be perfect. I think there are lots of places that could look at that and say, "It's such a shame we can't do this part of our experience." What can you do then to close that gap in? That blend of kind of digital and physical I think is going to be really important as we go forward.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that. I love the way that you've described it as a blend, because I think that's exactly what it should be. It's exactly what people are expecting things to be now. It's really weird that even me that works in a kind of digital world, it's never been my first ... You know, I'll go and look at a website of an attraction that I want to go and visit. But I wouldn't engage with the website as much, because I knew that I was going to go to the physical place. But now, I'll go to the website and I'll look at everything that I possibly can, just to try and get that kind of sense of experience of what it's going to be like.

Kelly Molson: I can remember a month or so ago you've got like a ... You can click on the stones, and it tells you what each of the stones are called, and where they came from, and information about them. I spent a good hour kind of clicking through and looking at it. You could kind of change things around. It felt quite immersive. It was quite a simple thing, but it kind of gave me a sense of yeah, I really need to be there now. It sort of built that excitement. I think that's what's important about having these virtual experiences is it builds the excitement about going. Actually that kind of anticipation, that's what you want in people. You want them to be super excited when they come.

Kelly Molson: I think that the only way to really do that is to continue doing these things that are digital, that you can share with anyone and everyone around the world.

James Rodliff: Yeah, you're absolutely right. We were talking earlier on about that kind of sense of welcome when you arrive. People should be excited about coming to our site still, even reopening into social distancing, or opening in social distancing, we still need to make sure that people are excited. These are magic days that we work in these environments where we're bringing people to have amazing experiences, and they should be excited to have those.

Kelly Molson: I guess this question is probably something that you've probably done already, because you were able to open last year, to a certain extent. But what more can you put in place so that your front of line staff feel really safe and secure about what's happening? Because they're the first people that interact with the guests that are coming, so essentially they're kind of frontline, there's an element of risk there for them, right? How do you make them feel comfortable? Is there any more that you're going to have to think about this year, potentially, with a new kind of COVID strands?

James Rodliff: Yeah, it's a great point. Yeah, you said staff are that first point of contact, so if staff do feel nervous, they do feel unsafe, or they do feel worried, that's going to come across. So that's got to be the top priority. For us, that was always at the top of our priority list was making sure the staff are safe, that they feel safe, and that they understand everything that's happening so that they are an active part of the whole process. That has been a thread that we've pulled all the way through. So what we did, for example, when we opened after the first lockdown, we've been opened and closed a few times now.

James Rodliff: After the first lockdown what we did was we put all our plans into place. The few of us that weren't furloughed we'd spent a long, long time coming up with these very clever plans, we thought. When we got all the team back about a week before we opened up, and we talked them through it. I led the team around, socially distanced, led the team around the site and said, "This is what I'm planning, or this is what we're planning, and these are the elements of the site we want to tweak. This is what we're thinking. You guys are the experts, you're on the ground, you deal with this every day. You tell me, what have I forgotten? What could we do better?" There was brilliant feedback.

James Rodliff: They came and they shared, and they were very happy to come up with solutions to other problems, or just highlight things that, "I don't know what the solution is here, but this is something we're going to have to watch." Then what we did, when we did go round, we tweaked and we made things better for them. Made them an active part of that process. When we did open then the first thing, as soon as we closed on that first day we all gathered around, socially distanced, and said what went really well today? What worked? What parts of these very clever plans that have taken us ages to draw up actually worked? And what didn't work? What could we do better? What could we tweak?

James Rodliff: We did that every day for the first week or so. We tweaked and changed, and they really felt part of that process. They felt listened to, and they felt a lot better. It doesn't take away all the nerves. All of us working in a pandemic, just living through a pandemic, it's exhausting and it's terrifying. So you can't take away everything. But what we have done is work very hard to make sure it's the absolute best it can be.

James Rodliff: We're lucky we've got some amazing people that work for English Heritage. I have to shout out to Alex Page who's our Head of Safety. The man deserves a knighthood after this year. He has been an absolute national treasure. We had to interpret a lot very quickly, and turn it into plans on the ground. Alex and his team have just been phenomenal in supporting all the site staff in being able to make that happen. Then being infinitely calm and patient with us while we asked lots and lots of questions as well. So we've been lucky there. But you know, everything from making sure that the staff rooms are safe. So we weren't able to do in-classroom learning, so we had that resource. So we took that classroom, the classroom's now a welfare room. Everyone's spread out.

James Rodliff: But the priority there was the staff need, above the education, if the staff aren't safe, aren't happy, aren't okay then we can't open. But it also throws up other challenges. Your face-to-face briefings that we would like to do a lot of and get that feedback, the more you have, the more you incrementally slowly creep up that risk factor. What about all the lovely appreciations and the hand clapping, and the hugging, and the well done? Leaving parties, Kelly. We've had people that have retired during this year that have been at Stonehenge for years, and we'd normally party, we'd at least gather around and celebrate, and share. Not having that has been really tough.

James Rodliff: So there's some things you can offset. So our briefings we've moved them onto the radios where we can, and try and get, again, that balance, that blend of the physical and the digital, or other means. But yeah, it has been difficult. A lot of communication, in terms of explaining why we're doing stuff as we're doing it, all the way through every week, more internal information comes out explaining, not just what's happening, but why it's happening. If you need anything, if you need any support, where to find it. If you have any questions, where to ask those as well.

James Rodliff: There's been a lot of other, because everyone in our sector's been in this same position. So there's been a lot of good sector collaboration around this. I have to give Rachel a shout-out. Rachel Mackay with the Recovery Room website. She's been a good friend throughout this, and she's produced a lot of resources if people haven't found it yet, go onto the Recovery Room because there's a lot of information about supporting front of house teams there as well.

Kelly Molson: Rachel has been absolutely fabulous. So Rachel was a previous guest on the podcast actually. What we will do is we'll pop the link to her website in the show notes for this show as well, because it is something, if you are planning your reopening processes now, the resource that is on that blog is pretty phenomenal, isn't it? I know she's been doing some consulting with other organisations as well. So yeah, that's really lovely to see.

Kelly Molson: I think, again, that's a huge positive that's come out of this, is that sector collaboration. But also how adaptable everybody's been. The flexibility that people have had to have shown in the roles that they have. And how quickly things have changed, in terms of what you can and can't do, but also being given a week's notice that you can reopen again, and how that impacts people. It's been phenomenal. What's been really lovely to hear is how you've engaged with your team, and you've made them part of that process. It hasn't been we've made the decision, and this is how we're doing things. It's how is this going to work? This is what we think, but like you said, you're the experts, help us.

Kelly Molson: I guess that is part of your culture now already, but if it isn't, how do you embed that for the rest of the year, and for future?

James Rodliff: Yeah, it's really important that all of us make sure we don't lose some of this. Some of the positive legacy of COVID, if I can phrase it like that. Some of the things that have changed maybe for the better. Or ways of working that have improved, that we don't lose that, if and when they do start sliding back into the normality of some description, we don't lose some of that really positive stuff. That we make sure we do keep collaborating with our colleagues, and use our teams who are the experts on the ground, in how to look after guests, and where pinch points are, and what's the same question that they get asked 732 times a week. How we use that feedback and make things better, and quickly. Not just collate it and put it into a chart, and then sometime in a year's time we might get around to it. But be agile, and like you said, get on with things and make it happen.

James Rodliff: So there are some things, like Zoom, love it or hate it, what a way it's transformed the way we work. You can now gather all your experts together at short notice onto a Zoom, be sharing slides. Everyone's kind of tech-savvy, not that people necessarily weren't tech, and to be comfortable and confident to be able to do it, and just make it happen. That's become part of the way we work now. So that will speed things up, and hopefully lower travel costs, and have all sorts of positive environmental things as well.

James Rodliff: I do get a bit Zoomed out sometimes, I don't know about you, but especially if you're using it for professional, and then for socialising as well, it can get a bit much. But yeah, it's hugely facilitated this quick-acting, these quick discussions. You can go away, do work, come back, discuss it. That flexibility has been really useful. You said about the creativity from the teams in solving these problems, that's a positive thing that we need to keep moving, and keep that discussion alive as we go forward. And the agility. You said that a week's notice, well sometimes you think back, we'd have Boris on the telly on a Sunday night with things that need to be actioned Monday morning.

Kelly Molson: Yes, crazy.

James Rodliff: Yeah, I mean it is crazy.

Kelly Molson: It's crazy.

James Rodliff: Absolutely crazy. So we at Stonehenge, Stonehenge being very outdoors and very open to everything, we have really good kind of cascades and emergency comms protocols anyway. Perhaps not everyone had that, and this has highlighted actually sometimes you do need that. You know, make sure that you can be as agile, and don't lose that again. Just don't get into a position where you think, "Oh, it's okay, the pandemic's over, nothing worse could happen now, could it?" There's some lessons I've taken away as well, Kelly, around the planning elements for it, that even with our best business continuity plans, I don't think we included things as ... We didn't appreciate things such as the emotional impact of a pandemic.

James Rodliff: So we had a plan for a pandemic. We had one. What would happen if we had a ... Well, we'd keep going, when people feel off sick then the managers would come ... You know, it's like picking up the rifles at the Battle of Stalingrad, someone else would pick up the mantle and you keep charging forward, and you make it the best it can be. But actually what's the emotional impact there? How would people feel about coming to work? That wasn't in our business continuity planning. So things like that are important.

James Rodliff: Things around contracts that you sign based on the assumption or presumption that you'll always have X many thousand visitors coming. Why would you close for six months, or a year, or whatever? So thinking about supply chains and contracts, and that flexibility as well, I think is really important.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. It's been utterly phenomenal, hasn't it? I think what you were saying about that emotional aspect, I don't think any of us realized quite how significant this would be on our own mental health. I think that when the pandemic started I can remember sitting back and thinking, "Whoa, okay, so I need to work out ... Okay, so what projects have I got on that I think might not be happening now?" You know, what have I got that was coming up next month that is now not going to happen? So how do I work out that? What projects are still going to continue? How do the team feel? How do I get them set up working from home? How does this all happen?

Kelly Molson: It was more of kind of the logistical operation side of the physical stuff that I thought about. Then you started to sit back and go, actually people are really scared, and I'm a bit scared. I don't want to leave my house. I don't want to do these things. All right, we weren't allowed to leave our house, but you know, the emotional side was a secondary thought, and a secondary response. I guess that's something that I want to take forward, and not be that. I want to think about the emotional side before the logistics next time. I think that's really, really important. It's definitely still happening now.

Kelly Molson: I really sympathise with the people that you said, you know, we had leaving parties for people, and then we never got to hug them, and we never got to say goodbye. We've had team members leave and their last kind of thing that they do is click the Zoom button to leave the meeting. It's like-

James Rodliff: Yeah, it's just not the same.

Kelly Molson: ... that's not how it's supposed to end.

James Rodliff: No.

Kelly Molson: It's sad.

James Rodliff: We are planning, when we can, to have a gathering. So everyone who's not had that benefit of a proper thank you and a send-off, to get everyone back together. Which it'll be a glorious sunny day, and it's going to be marvellous, and I will have a cider or two.

Kelly Molson: Definitely, and maybe a pasty as well.

James Rodliff: Maybe.

Kelly Molson: I need to talk to you, we're coming to the end of the podcast, and I've got two more quick questions for you. I really need to ask you about the fact that your face was superimposed onto the stones at some point last year. Tell us about that.

James Rodliff: It was, yeah.

Kelly Molson: What an experience.

James Rodliff: It was an experience, yeah. So going back a couple of years, it's not the first time my face has been projected large onto something, and it happened at the Mary Rose because I accidentally became the face of the advertising campaign for the reopening of the museum, dressed as Henry VIII. This time I wasn't dressed in Tudor outfit, and I didn't have to wear a codpiece, so that was a relief, first of all.

Kelly Molson: Can I just say that I can remember seeing those posters on the tubes before I even knew you. Then when I saw them on your Twitter I was like, "Oh yeah, those were everywhere."

James Rodliff: Yeah, that was a strange time. Yeah, this was different, like I said, less costume. But this was really touching actually. It was all about saying thank you to some of the people who had managed to continue the amazing work of different charities supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. That actually people still playing the lottery, still having a massive effect because the support that they are giving to the Lottery Fund was able to keep these places going. Like our heritage sites, like our amazing charities, and like lots of cultural institutions that were looking after people who were quite marginalised, and during the pandemic, even more so.

James Rodliff: It was lovely, I was in mighty company, projected onto those stones. They've never been dedicated like that before to individuals. Really I was kind of representing all the good work that the team had done, that everyone was doing on our side. Really, I feel probably I was the face of our operational teams around the whole country that were working to keep the sites going. Who have been turning up every day through the pandemic, and still traveling, still working, to look after our important places that needed looking after. So yeah, no it was unbelievable to see it. Really did bring a tear to the eye to see, it looked amazing. It was very special.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, incredible thing to be part of for last year. Really incredible. One quick question, and then the final question, so Mark Ellis wants to know have you visited the National Memorial Arboretum? It's brilliant.

James Rodliff: You know, it's on my list. It's on my very long list that has grown throughout the pandemic, all these wonderful places I want to go to. You know, when you scroll through places, and you're like, I must go there, I must go there. So the list is long now. So as soon as we're out of this, I'm up there Mark, I promise.

Kelly Molson: Mark, it's on my list as well. We'll be there. Maybe we'll do a group outing. We could organise a Skip the Queue outing.

James Rodliff: It's been lovely. That would be nice.

Kelly Molson: Oh gosh, you've just given me so many ideas for ... All right, Mark, thank you for your questions, they've sparked good ideas today. We're at the end of the podcast, I always ask our guests to recommend a book. So either a book that you just really love, or a book that's kind of helped shape your career in some way. What have you got to share with us?

James Rodliff: So I really had to think about this. So I don't do a lot of reading of technical books that I probably should do. One of the few that I've read that really amazing history experience was, as Paul mentioned in his actually, was about the Disney Making Magic book, which is absolutely fantastic. Heartily recommend that. My favourite book is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which of course-

Kelly Molson: Great book, yes.

James Rodliff: Superb, and has the words "don't panic" of course blazoned, which for this year is brilliant. But in thinking about what I'd go for this time, I've gone for something a little bit different. We did talk about how tricky this year has been, and we talked about mental health, and I myself have found periods of this year incredibly difficult. Very, very, very tough, and I have had to really slow down and think about how my ... You've put so much effort into being the superhero and trying to do the best you can in whatever ... You know, you throw your energy into something. You don't have the ability to recharge your batteries in the same way. Pandemic's taken away so much. Everything that makes us human. You're scared to go near people in the street, how awful is that?

James Rodliff: So thinking about other ways you can try and recharge those batteries. So for me, I've been reading, I've been walking the dog, I've been drinking too much beer. I've been running, I've been learning to play guitar. I've been doing all sorts, and some of that's around mindfulness and meditation, and thinking about the things that I'm grateful for, and the things that do make me happy. So long answer told you, I can't give a short answer, Kelly, ever.

Kelly Molson: I love this, it makes for a great guest.

James Rodliff: I told you. So I'm going for Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to Happiness, as my book. Which has been-

Kelly Molson: Fabulous.

James Rodliff: ... an amazing read. So he wrote it in the early part of the pandemic, actually, when he was at home, locked in. He was kind of recounting stories, in his amazing way that he tells stories, about times and places and things that he ... You know, reflecting on happiness, what makes him happy. A lot of it is actually amazing stuff that we should be thinking about in terms of our attractions as we reopen and run our attractions. What people love. Nature, art, laughing, a sense of belonging, the unexpected and surprises. These lovely things that should be part of our attractions because they are places that are meant to make people happy. All of our places.

James Rodliff: So yeah, Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to Happiness is my pick.

Kelly Molson: That is such a perfect book. I haven't read this book, but it sounds like one for me. So as ever, if you'd like to win a copy of this book, if you head over to our Twitter account, Skip the Queue, and if you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want James's book." Then you will be in with a chance of winning your own copy of it. James, it's been such a pleasure to have you on today. Thank you so much.

James Rodliff: Thank you, Kelly, I'm off for a pasty. I'll see you again.

Kelly Molson: Enjoy.

James Rodliff: Take care.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. Remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

Michelle Emerson is a senior leader in development and marketing in the UK visitor attractions and museums sector. Currently Director of Marketing and Development at Eureka! The National Children's Museum, working with a fabulous team of visitor attraction, audience development, commercial operations and marketing professionals!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emersonmichelle/

https://www.eureka.org.uk/eureka-at-home/

https://www.eurekamersey.org.uk/

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. 

In today's episode, I speak with Michelle Emerson, Marketing and Development Director of Eureka! The National Children's Museum. 

We discussed their really exciting plans for Eureka! Mersey, and how they're co-creating a brand new science and discovery centre that's going to be based in Wirral. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Michelle, it's so lovely to finally get you on the podcast. I think I've been trying for about a year. So thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it. As ever, I'm going to start off with my icebreaker question. What would your dream house be like? And where would it be located?

Michelle Emerson: I know this because I've already got the field in mind. It's about 200 meters down the road from where I currently live. And lockdown has enabled me to play on a lovely free app called Floorplanner. So I actually designed it. I know exactly where it's going to be located in the field just down the road. I just need to persuade the farmer to sell me the field.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love this.

Michelle Emerson: And then I need to raise the money to build the house. But it's a very rural, very low-key single-story, cedar roof, off-grid sustainable house in the countryside with a separate garage and art studio for my husband, and a gym room and games room for my son. And then I get the rest of the house.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that sounds absolutely idyllic. And raising the funds and getting the field, that's just minor technicalities. Right? You already know what it's going to look like. That's the most important thing.

Michelle Emerson: And every time I take the dog on a walk through that field, it's already there in my mind. I can see it. It's already there. I just need to seem to put it into action.

Kelly Molson: How perfect. We love Grand Designs here. We do watch that quite frequently. Are you going to be comfortable living in a caravan while this will happens?

Michelle Emerson: Absolutely. We have a camper van called Woody that we've had for a number of years. All three of us. My son is 11 now. So he's getting a little bit big, but all three of us, plus a Labrador dog, can quite happily co-exist in that space for probably up to about nine months, nine or 10 months.

Kelly Molson: Michelle, I feel like you're living my dream. I feel like we're quite aligned there. I would be all right in a caravan.

Michelle Emerson: What's the worst that can happen?

Kelly Molson: I've got two dogs. To be honest, there's a lot of bad stuff that could go down in a caravan with those two. So who knows. Right. Would you rather be covered in fur or covered in scales?

Michelle Emerson: Oh, my word. I think I'm going to say scales.

Kelly Molson: Ooh. Oh, I wasn't expecting that.

Michelle Emerson: Well, I don't really know why. I think because that means I could be a swimmer. So I would be an animal that could swim, but also be on land. Don't like being too hot.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It'd be really hot with a big old fur on you, would you?

Michelle Emerson: Yeah. Yes. I think I'm a scaling person.

Kelly Molson: Okay.

Michelle Emerson: Sounds good.

Kelly Molson: All right. Yeah, it does, doesn't it when you think about it? But then the benefits of the scales, like swimming, would be good. I'm a swimmer. Yeah, but I was thinking furry because I'm a little bit furry already. So I was like, well, it wouldn't be that much difference.

Kelly Molson: Okay. Next one. If you can have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Michelle Emerson: Friends-

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's nice.

Michelle Emerson: ... an unlimited supply of good friends.

Kelly Molson: That is lovely. Oh, that's made me go a bit warm and fuzzy. Because I was thinking, sushi.

Michelle Emerson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Friends is a good one. Okay. All right. Now, this is the bit that we do with all of our guests. So I hope you have prepared this one. What's your unpopular opinion, Michelle?

Michelle Emerson: Oh, you know this one, Kelly.

Kelly Molson: I do. And I've seen photographic evidence as well.

Michelle Emerson: Crocs and socks. Crocs and socks. And I've worked at home 12 months now, and my feet have not been in anything other than Crocs, walking boots, and Wellie boots, or bare feet. So the idea of putting office shoes back on is terrifying. I just don't think it's going to happen. And if my boss was to allow me to wear socks and Crocs to work, I would be very happy.

Kelly Molson: See, this is my question. Is socks and Crocs in public or just in your house? Because I think if it's in your house or your back garden, that's okay.

Michelle Emerson: It's already in my house and back garden. And it should be in public. It should be an acceptable thing. And I know that's a very unpopular opinion because I've been told by many people that should not be allowed to happen. But if we've learned anything from lockdown, can it be that we can just be a little bit more comfortable?

Kelly Molson: Okay. I'll accept comfort, but I can't accept the socks and Crocs in public. I just can't, Michelle. And, listeners, tell me how you feel about this because I've seen this. Michelle has sent me a picture of her wearing these socks and Crocs, and I'm not going to lie. They need to stay in your house, Michelle.

Michelle Emerson: Well, even though the socks have cat pictures on them?

Kelly Molson: The socks were glorious. It was just the combo of them and the Crocs. That's all I'm saying.

Kelly Molson: All right. Thank you for answering those questions. So just as a caveat, Michelle and I know each other. We've worked together for a number of years. But for our listeners, I'd love to know a little bit about your background, Michelle. So how did you get to where you are now?

Michelle Emerson: So this is quite a long and convoluted journey to Eureka! I never anticipated being in a visitor attraction sector or tourism or anything like that. I did my degree in political geography, and I had a desire at that stage in my life to be working in one of the large international humanitarian organisations. I wanted to be in Africa, in Asia, somewhere on the ground, digging wells, doing humanitarian work, working with people somewhere where it was needed.

Michelle Emerson: And straight after graduating from university in 1991, I went and lived in Ukraine for 12 months. And at that time, Ukraine was newly independent from the Soviet Union. It didn't have a currency. It was rations. And it was a fantastic experience. And in hindsight, one which I wish I'd done when I was slightly older and more able to appreciate, probably, but I lived with a local family, slept on their sofa for 12 months. And I taught English in the local school, secondary school, with no teaching experience whatsoever. But it was a brilliant experience.

Michelle Emerson: And in fact, two years ago, my family and I went back to stay with the same family 25 years later.

Kelly Molson: Oh, how lovely.

Michelle Emerson: Yeah. And we did a lot of the same things. We went to look around the school. Absolutely brilliant timing in that Grandma and Granddad who lived in the house, it was a three-generational house, we're both still alive when we went back, and have both since passed away. So we did get to see both of them as well. So 25 years on.

Michelle Emerson: So I did that. And then I came back to Sheffield where I did my high schooling works for the University of Sheffield in an environmental consultancy role. And then only a few years later decided that I would be moving to Australia.

Michelle Emerson: So then I lived in Australia for eight years, and I worked for a small charity that was looking after deaf children. It was called the Shepherd Centre. And it was the charity that enabled children who were born profoundly deaf to develop language rather than using sign language. It's quite experimental, quite new at the time. It's very commonplace now. But I worked for them in a business development capacity. And one of the sponsors that we got on board at that organisation was Microsoft. And eventually, I moved over, and I went to work for Microsoft in Australia, reporting into a regional head office in Singapore, managing what was called Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher Program at the time, which was about getting old computers, PCs, and hardware back from the big corporations, refurbishing them, re-licensing them, and sending them to schools and charities and so on.

Michelle Emerson: So I did that for a number of years, and then long story short decided I wasn't going to end up living in Australia forever. So I'd been there for about eight years at this point, packed up my stuff, put my backpack on, went and travelled around Southeast Asia for a year. During which time I decided I would make the decision as to whether I was going back to Australia or [inaudible 00:09:11]. And made that decision and arrived back in the UK back to Sheffield. And then started working for the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, a membership organisation called NAVCA. Did that for five years. And again, a business development role. And then the opportunity came up at Eureka! The marketing director role there. And I went for it, and the rest, as they say, is history. I've been there 10 years now.

Kelly Molson: Ten years. So Eureka!, for me, is it's such a magic place. I know. Whenever I talk about Eureka!, I have a really huge smile on my face because there is just something magic about it. When you get there, the air just feels like it's filled with excitement. It's such a special place. What I always find is, when I say we work with Eureka! The National Children's Museum, it's amazing. It's hard to describe what Eureka! is because you've got a museum in the title. There's that assumption that it's, "Oh, well, is it like the Bethnal Green Children's Museum?"

Kelly Molson: And it's like, "Well, no. Actually, it's all about play. You can touch everything, and it's incredible. They've got this massive nose, and you can shove your head up there. And there's bogeys up there." And it's great, but it's a hard concept to describe. How do you do that? Share with our listeners how you describe what Eureka! is.

Michelle Emerson: So the concept of a children's museum is a North American concept. And if you go to North America, you will find a children's museum in pretty much every town and city there. They are a very established part of community life. And that's where the term museum comes from. That's the term that they use. Our model is based on that. And therefore, that historically is the term that we have used as well. But a children's museum is not a collections-based museum. There is nothing historical in the museum, as people might traditionally expect. It is a visitor attraction for children aged naught to 11, and their parents.

Michelle Emerson: We are all about family learning, family engagement, having fun together as a family with your siblings or your parents or grandparents, and developing a lifelong love of learning and visiting cultural attractions. And developing that pathway to further opportunities in more traditional cultural attractions, perhaps as they get older. Or developing a confidence in being in spaces and learning about things that they enjoy. And that is done through the medium of play.

Michelle Emerson: At Eureka! there are galleries, but each gallery is very much based around something that's very familiar to children. So our biggest gallery is called All About Me. And as most parents out there will know, children in any age up to 11 are absolutely fascinated by themselves. It's the thing that is most familiar to them. They want to understand. And they're fascinated by sick and poo and bogeys, and all of those things.

Kelly Molson: As am I still, clearly.

Michelle Emerson: As are a lot of adults. I can tell you, we get a lot of fun there in Eureka!. And so putting them in a space where they can play with exhibits and with interactives that explain some of these things in a very playful, engaging way, just gives them a little bit of an insight into themselves, how they interact with the world around them, how the world impacts on them and their decision-making and so on. So it's all very playful. It's all fun. You won't find any curriculum-based learning. It's all learning by self.

Michelle Emerson: And a lot of people will come to Eureka! two or three times a year as the kids get older, and find something new each time as their understanding of the world changes with their age and what they're engaging with at school. So there's something for everyone, pretty much, from babies through to 11 years old.

Kelly Molson: Through to 43-year-old adults. I'm not going to lie. It was a while ago that I first visited. It's probably about four or five years ago. But I can remember Paul and I coming up and being a little bit let loose. Have a look around, and see what you feel about it. And I just thought this is great. Because we were trying out all of the things. We were doing what was the longest jump. And I can remember putting my shoes into the world's biggest shoes, and just doing all of those things. Like I say, it's just such an engaging and a magic place. And it just feels like a really special place to be. So I can imagine working there every day is a really great feeling, with the people that you're surrounded with as well.

Michelle Emerson: Yeah. Yeah. It's a very fun place to work, even behind the scenes. You don't create experiences like that for other people without having fun with it yourself.

Kelly Molson: No. Not at all. And I know you all are a very fun bunch. I want to ask. So there's loads of stuff that I want to talk about for feature. So you've got some really exciting plans coming up, and I want to focus on that. But we can't really talk about that without just taking a bit of a snapshot of where we're at at the moment. So how has it been for you? It's been a really challenging time. You've been closed down. You've been open again. You've been shut again. It's really tough. How has it been for you through those lockdown periods?

Michelle Emerson: It's been challenging. I think there wouldn't be a single organisation in the sector that wouldn't say that, you can't use the word unprecedented because it's overused now, but this has been something that is off the scale. And nobody could have predicted or planned for, perhaps, more so than putting something away for a rainy day kind of thing.

Michelle Emerson: And in fact, Eureka! has been in an unusual position through this in that we are known as a museum. We have museum in the title, like we've just discussed, but we are not, for funding purposes, able to apply for any of the support for museums. Because we are not a collections-based organisation. We're not a heritage-based organisation, although we do have heritage assets to look after on our sites. That's just an accident of geography, really.

Michelle Emerson: But we have found ourselves ineligible to apply for a lot of supports. But saying that, the furlough and the business support has been absolutely crucial to supporting us over the last 12 months. And it has made a massive difference to how we see the future. We are now looking at not being able to open until the end of May, which misses some key dates in the diary for us, as it does for everybody else. But we're confident that when we do reopen we'll have a successful summer. And that we'll be able to re-engage, and depend on our loyal visitors, really, and the people in the North of England that know and love us, to come back. And it was incredible. As soon as the announcements were made about potential reopening dates a week or so ago, the number of people contacting us asking, "When can we come? When are you open bookings? When will tickets be available?" It was just phenomenal.

Michelle Emerson: And it's so reassuring. It's lovely to have a whole bunch of people out there, families out there that are desperate. Their kids are asking when can we go back to Eureka!? And that is a lovely position to be in. And we're very grateful for that. And we will do our very best to get open as soon as possible, and to provide those lovely experiences. People, families are going to need it more than ever.

Kelly Molson: Oh, for sure. People are desperate for experiences. We've been shut away in these four walls for such a long time. I do think that there's going to be a huge resurgence in experiences and people wanting to visit attractions. But I think you noticed that last summer. You said about your loyal visitors. You have an annual pass scheme at Eureka!, which is incredibly good value. And I think when you opened again last summer, you were practically sold out every single day, weren't you? The time slots were booked. And the people that were wanting to come back, it was pretty overwhelming, wasn't it? But fabulous.

Michelle Emerson: Yeah, it was. It was unknown. Eureka! have never operated a pre-booking system. It is an annual pass model. So people have their free tickets that they can come back as many times as they want within the year. They don't need to pre-book that. There's no exclusions. They can come by holidays, half-term holidays, whatever. And we've been operating Eureka! for 28 years. So we know average to patterns very well. We know what difference the weather makes, and all those things, that we can predict at the beginning of the day what the day's going to be like. We've never done a pre-booking or pre-ticketing system. And so that was an unknown. And obviously, the caps on the number of people able to visit every day are lower than they would have been previously.

Michelle Emerson: So to sell out felt great, although we were still a long way below the numbers that would have come pre-COVID on that particular day, and with those particular conditions and so on. But it's hugely reassuring. The difficulty being, really, that we have to ensure that financially repeat visitors on free tickets aren't outweighing the new visitors who are buying their annual pass for the first time. And cultivating that new audience that we need to come through the doors every year to ensure that, financially, ticket sales and admissions are still our key source of income.

Michelle Emerson: So yes, it's a balancing act. But we were absolutely thrilled. And so reassured that all the work that we put in before opening last summer to making sure things were safe for visitors and to making sure the ticketing system works and all the admin behind that worked and that people were going to have a stress-free experience, rather than imagining it's all very restricted and not everything's open. And it was all one-way systems and all the rest of it. We got the balance right, we feel. And visitors reported back that we got the balance right on that.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Michelle Emerson: It'll be interesting to see how we need to tweak that and change that going forward. And it's too early to make plans, really, it feels at the moment. Because we just don't know what it's going to look like, even at the end of May. Even though it's nice to have a date to it, too, but-

Kelly Molson: Yeah. That must feel really good that there is something to be working towards. It's been so long that you've just been in the, "Well, we just don't know, we can't plan for anything. It might be a couple of weeks. It might be another three months." But yeah, it must be really good to have that.

Michelle Emerson: Getting your front-of-house-staff team back on board after such a long time away, get retraining, re-engaging, re-motivating and all that stuff. You don't want to do that in two weeks prior to an opening date, and then that date be shifted. And then have to do it again six weeks later. It's very difficult to make sure that everything that you're doing is in the best timeline possible when you don't know what the end result is, what the end date is going to be. So yeah. But well pleased to have a date.

Kelly Molson: Good. Lots of positives to work towards. My observations from what you did brilliantly is that as an organisation, you reacted really quickly to what the situation was happening last year. So what was lovely to see is how much effort you were putting into actually engaging with your audience whilst the audience couldn't actually visit the attraction. So there were some really brilliant things that you did. You already had an online shop. So you could already encourage people to buy gift certificates or make donations when they couldn't visit the centre. So that was a real positive.

Kelly Molson: But what I loved was the Eureka! At Home section. We threw that up really quickly, but there's loads of parents and kids. And they're stuck at home. We do all of these fun things. Let's make it a recorded video series, and they can still engage with those fun things. And I think there was videos where people could make their own lava lamp and their own slime, and God knows what else. But it was brilliant. And I just thought, yeah. It's so great that you've done that so quickly, and been able to almost keep your audience engaged with what the ethos of what Eureka! is all about if they, even if they couldn't come.

Michelle Emerson: Yeah. I think there were a couple of really nice outcomes from that. Obviously, the audience engaged and really got something out of those activities. They're all still there. So they're accessible to anybody who wants them at any time. But it gave our front-of-house team something to do in that initial few months where we were all very, very unsure of what was happening and what was going on, how long was it going to last for? And we just basically sent a call out to our enablers saying, "Here's the challenge guys. What can you do from your living room or your kitchen table?"

Michelle Emerson: And they came back with a wonderful variety of things from storytelling to little chemistry experiments to drama activities and so on. And that was what we curated into our Eureka! At Home thing.

Michelle Emerson: And the other nice thing to come out of that was that we work with a number of freelancers, freelance entertainers and children's activity providers, for our main holiday periods where we layer on lots of additional events. And a handful of those are very local to us here. And obviously, their workstreams have dried up completely. And we were able to employ them to create content for us, which we shared on our platforms, obviously, which enabled them to have a little bit of an income stream as well back at the beginning. And I know they were very, very pleased to be involved with that as well. And it felt like the right partnership to forge ahead with at the time. And we got some lovely results out of it, as well as some fabulous, crazy science.

Kelly Molson: They stepped up, didn't they, the enablers? [crosstalk 00:24:22]

Michelle Emerson: And some amazing music and stories from Gakko, from Ian Douglas. And it was just wonderful stuff that they created in their living rooms and garages and whatever. And it was really lovely that they were able to do that for us. And we were able to support them in giving them little bits of freelance work to do.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. We'll pop the link to Eureka! At Home in the show notes. Because, like Michelle said, that the content that is up there is really phenomenal, though kids are back at school. But look, there is so much good stuff in there. You will keep them amused for hours during the holidays. Trust me. So we'll put that in the show notes. This brings me to something really exciting for Eureka! So Eureka at the moment is based in Halifax, a beautiful town. And there's going to be a second Eureka!, isn't there? And this is super, super exciting. So there's going to be Eureka! Mersey. It's going to be a cutting-edge, 21st-century science and discovery centre.

Kelly Molson: I'm really excited. Tell us about it. Tell us where should we start talking about it?

Michelle Emerson: Well, just make that noise again. That was great.

Kelly Molson: Urgh!

Michelle Emerson: So yeah. So Eureka! Mersey, the second Eureka in the UK. We are aiming and on schedule to be opening in summer 2022. So this is a project that has been in development for a long time. 2014 is when we started discussing it in earnest, really. And there has been, since then, a program of, as you would imagine, the feasibility work and all those sorts of research aspects that you need to do right back in the beginning. And moving forward into fundraising capital campaigns and very in-depth process of co-creation with local children and stakeholders. So that's been ongoing for a number of years now, and has resulted to the shape of the experience as it is now, where we're at the point of contracting fabricators and exhibition designers and developers to actually deliver what the children have come up with to be the content of Eureka! Mersey. So yeah.

Kelly Molson: This is what I love about the development is that this co-creation process has been so incredibly engaging. I've been watching it unfold on your Twitter account and seeing all of the projects that you've been getting the children involved with that. That must have been so much fun to be able to say, "What do you want? What do you need? And how do we make this happen?"

Michelle Emerson: Yes. You don't start with a blank piece of paper necessarily. Because one of the reasons why opening Eureka in Merseyside, in Wirral, is an exciting project for Eureka!, is that everything else falls into line. So the combined authority and the [inaudible 00:27:41] city region have been incredibly supportive right from the beginning. And their regional development plans and their focus and that energy and their drive and their money is being put behind a key set of themes. All of which we are able to demonstrate that we can deliver outcomes against with opening the new science and discovery center for young people. So we know the themes and the industry in the area and the pathways to work that will be created through engagement with children at that young age that will be beneficial for the region as a whole.

Michelle Emerson: And so working within those sorts of parameters, we're able to then go out to schools and youth centres and young people in the area and say, "This is going to be your space. This is going to be about you. It's going to be about your futures and what you want to achieve, and what you want to see. And the industry that's around you, and the opportunities that are around you," which for many of them were unknown, "how do we engage you? How do we get you to take your first steps?" Or maybe kids who were more engaged to take the further steps into developing that their knowledge and their experience and their passion for these things that can open up lots and lots of doors for them in the future. So the co-creation has been incredible in delivering some of those things.

Michelle Emerson: It's all done with the very Eureka! expertise and hat on. Obviously, the experience will be delivered in a very Eureka! way. It's all fun and humour and surprise and excitement. But it is more so topics that children in the age range of six to 14, so older than we engage within Halifax, we'll be thinking about, will be exploring. Climate change being one of the big ones that all kids of that age are really engaged with at the moment. And rightly so. And what do they see their place in the future in that sphere being? And what can they do? And what should they be doing? And what can they encourage other people to do? And so on. So there's those sorts of things that you're trying to unravel with children who maybe have very little engagement at school. They have families with multi-generational unemployment. What can we do with and for them to improve some of their life chances?

Michelle Emerson: And that's another one of the reasons why Eureka! is being located in Wirral, an area with a number of multiple deprivations in the local communities. Which is one of our strategic aims, is to reach those families. We are very lucky in Halifax in that 20% of our audience comes from very disadvantaged postcodes, and yet they still want to engage with us. We might be the only visitor attraction or museum or cultural engagement that they have in their lives, especially in their young lives. And that is something that we really want to continue to provide with the new Eureka! in Wirral, is to make sure we're reaching the people that can really benefit.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I'm assuming it will have the same ethos as Eureka! Halifax in that it will be learning through play and experiments and that thing. So it will be very hands-on centred.

Michelle Emerson: It's all hands-on, I would say. The older age range in Eureka! Mersey, so the target audience, is slightly older. And therefore, the play will be slightly different. But it is that same ethos in that you won't walk into Eureka! and be confronted with a panel of text that tells you something about A, B, or C. It won't be like that. You will get a chance to explore, discover, experiment, push buttons, pull things, do some digital gameplay or coding. There's a whole variety of things that are appropriate for that age range that will be akin to how they want to learn and how they want to engage and how they want to spend a fun afternoon with their family or their friends or whoever.

Kelly Molson: I guess the exact specifics are under lock and key at the moment, aren't they, Michelle? You can't give us any snippets into what's going to be?

Michelle Emerson: It's not exactly under lock and key, but we will be starting to reveal some of the content from April this year onwards. And we'll be building our new websites and so on over the course of this year. Obviously, there is a website there at the moment that talks a lot about the [inaudible 00:32:36] process and a lot of our partners and funders and so on, and the involvement of local companies and organisations in getting us to the point that we're at now, which has been incredibly valuable in supporting the work that we've done. So all of that stuff sits on the website, the Eureka! Mersey website at the moment. And we'll be doing a lot of work in starting to reveal some of the exciting content.

Kelly Molson: We'll put all of the links to that website in the show notes because you are definitely going to want to go and have a little look and see how the site is developed so far. And I am definitely going to be checking in after April to find out what's coming next. Because I can't wait to come and visit.

Kelly Molson: Michelle, thank you. I think this is such a positive, not only for Eureka!, not only for all of you that work there but for the industry itself. To know that there are these wonderful new attractions coming and that they can do such amazing things for the local communities that they're involved with as well. So thank you for sharing all of that today. I really appreciate it.

Kelly Molson: We always end the podcast by asking for a book recommendation from our guests. So I used to say something that's helped develop your career in some way. But now, I think it's just a book that you really love that you'd like to share with the visitors, with our listeners, even. So it doesn't need to be career-focused. Can be whatever you like.

Michelle Emerson: Okay. So I do read a lot. I am an avid reader. And I guess I read more for pleasure than I do for work. But I would say that the book I go back to more often than others is a book called Blueback, which is written by an Australian author called Tim Winton. It's a short book. It's a good Sunday afternoon book, if you've got nothing else to do. It's less than a hundred pages. And it's probably described as a modern fable. But it's about a young boy, and it sounds a bit strange, but his relationship with a fish. And what that slightly magical relationship results in him developing a passion for the sea, and his future passion for conservation and looking after the ocean nearby where he lives in Australia. So Tim Winton has written a lot of lovely, lovely books. And that one is probably my favourite.

Kelly Molson: That feels like a really fitting book for what we've just talked about. A perfect fit for engaging with something, and it becoming your passion in later life. I love that.

Kelly Molson: So as ever, if you would like to win a copy of that book, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this show announcement with the words, "I want Michelle's book," then you will be in with a chance of winning it.

Kelly Molson: Michelle, thank you so much for coming on and sharing today. I honestly can't get the picture of Michelle's Crocs and socks out of my head. So I might ask her permission to see if we can... Oh, she's giving us a little flash. Oh, look!

Michelle Emerson: No socks today.

Kelly Molson: Oh, listeners. You have to head over to our YouTube channel so that you can see that, and not just hear me cackling about it. I was going to ask Michelle if she'd give me permission to share the photo that she sent me a few weeks ago. But she's done it for me. So-

Michelle Emerson: That's the real deal, though. You see, that photo had socks.

Kelly Molson: I might share that on our Twitter account. Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate. It's been lovely to have you on.

Michelle Emerson: It's been a pleasure, Kelly. Sorry, it's taken me so long to agree.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

Performance Optimist Consulting: https://performanceoptimist.com

AttractionPros podcast: http://attractionpros.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattheller/

Calendly (free calls): https://calendly.com/matt-810/60min

POC YOUniversity (new leadership development membership program that launched in Feb.): https://performanceoptimist.com/vip-poc-youniversity/

Private FB group for attractions leaders: 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AttractionsLearningCommunity

Matt Heller, ICAE, wasn’t planning on getting a summer job at an amusement park when he was in college, but his Mom suggested it because she thought it would be fun. 32 years later, Matt still loves the sound of a carousel organ, the smell of roller coaster grease and the screams of people enjoying a great ride.

While working in operations and HR at companies like Canobie Lake Park, Knott’s Camp Snoopy, Valleyfair and Universal Orlando Resort, Matt developed a passion for helping others succeed and achieving their goals. He identified that the best way to assist other companies was to help them prepare and cultivate their leadership teams, so in 2011 he turned his passion into Performance Optimist Consulting which is driven by one simple goal: help leaders lead.  He uses his people-centric approach to focus on leadership development, guest service, and employee engagement. 

As a leadership coach, keynote speaker, or workshop facilitator, Matt has established a proven track record for being able to relate to any audience and give them solid tools they can use immediately. No matter the size of the group, Matt brings a fun and conversational style to each interaction or presentation.

Matt is also the author of two books geared specifically to the attractions industry.  The Myth of Employee Burnout tackles the difficult topic of maintaining employee motivation and engagement, while ALL CLEAR! A Practical Guide for First Time Leaders and the People Who Support Them outlines specific strategies both for people who are moving into a leadership role as well as the management teams overseeing the process. 

Matt, his wife Linda, and their dog Otis live in Hendersonville, NC.

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. 

In today's episode, I speak with Matt Heller, Founder of Performance Optimist Consulting and Co-Host of the brilliant AttractionPros podcast. 

We discuss how Matt has been supporting the industry through the pandemic, how to keep your teams motivated and his advice on how to be a better leader in the attractions industry. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. 

Kelly Molson: Matt, I am absolutely delighted that you're on the podcast today, even more so because my Internet has just come back on. Thankfully, this interview can go ahead.

Matt Heller: Well, that is fantastic. I am super excited that your Internet came back and that we can get started. 

Kelly Molson: I know that you've been listening to the podcast, so you know that we always start off with the icebreakers. Now, let's see if I've been kind to you. 

Matt Heller: Probably not. 

Kelly Molson: I think I have. 

Matt Heller: Okay. 

Kelly Molson: What is your favourite sandwich and why? 

Matt Heller: I am so glad you asked me this. I have heard you ask this to other people. My favourite sandwich, this is going to get really specific, it's a BLT, so bacon, lettuce and tomato grinder that is at one my favourite restaurants here in town, the Blue Ridge Pizza restaurant. They put this special sauce on it. They also put cheese on it, and then they put it through the pizza oven. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, is that the grinding bit? Is that where the grinder comes from? What does that mean?

Matt Heller: Well, it's basically a submarine sandwich or a sub sandwich. 

Kelly Molson: Gotcha. 

Matt Heller: But the owners are from New England, and in New England, a sub is called a grinder. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, okay. All right. 

Matt Heller: I'm not sure why. I thought maybe you would have an idea-

Kelly Molson: No, I have no idea. 

Matt Heller: Okay, so yeah that's my favourite sandwich. Everybody knows it's my favourite sandwich. My wife will just say, "Hey, you want to get your sandwich tonight?" Because she likes to get wings from there. So yeah, everybody knows. 

Kelly Molson: I am down for that sandwich, Matt. That is a great... A BLT with cheese-

Matt Heller: Yes, and sauce. 

Kelly Molson: Through [crosstalk 00:02:08]. Yeah, I'm there. All right, good. Okay. I'll have to try and recreate that in the UK. All right, who's the better podcast host, you or Josh? That was mean.

Matt Heller: That was mean. Is it wrong to say I think we both bring different things to the table?

Kelly Molson: No, it's very diplomatic. 

Matt Heller: What Josh brings to the table, which I so, so appreciate, is his attention to detail. So often he can say, "Well, we talked to this person. We talked to Kelly on episode-" whatever it was back in whatever month it was and the year. I'm like, "Yeah, I just know we talked to Kelly." I'm much more free-flowing and things like that, and I think I probably take things off in different directions, but I really appreciate how detail-oriented Josh is, and how we both think of things very differently. We look at things very differently. So, he will come up with questions that I will never think of, and probably vice versa. 

Kelly Molson: Good. It's a great podcast, and we talk a little bit more about that a little bit later. So, I'm sorry that I tricked you with a very mean question there. 

Matt Heller: That's okay. 

Kelly Molson: What was the worst haircut that you've ever had? 

Matt Heller: Probably my last one. I don't know what it's... 

Kelly Molson: When was the last time you got your hair cut? The hairdressers are shut here. We can't go at the moment. 

Matt Heller: Right? Probably two weeks ago. No actually, this one wasn't so bad. I used to go, when we first moved to North Carolina, I used to go to one of those quickie haircut places, kind of get them in/get them out in 10 minutes or whatever. Every time I came home my wife would say, "You've got to go someplace else." I'm like, "I can fix it." As soon as I take a shower and put some stuff in it, it's fine. It'll grow back. Well, because I'm getting older it's not growing back in all those places. I recently found one in a small town near us, and it's this old-timey small-town barbershop. It's still got the red and blue thingy. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it. 

Matt Heller: You go in there and it's like a throwback to the 50s, but the guys are super nice, they're very talkative and it's a great experience. They take some time to do it, so quite frankly even if they screw up a little bit, it's still a better experience than going to the other ones. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Yeah, it's all part of the experience, which a lot of that today as well. 

Matt Heller: Definitely. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, the last one, and this one I ask all of our guests. Tell me something that you believe to be true that hardly anyone agrees with you on. So, your unpopular opinion. 

Matt Heller: My unpopular opinion is that we should not use generational labels like "Baby Boomer", "Millennial", "Gen-X". Luckily, that's getting a little bit more popular, but I cringe whenever somebody says, "Well, it's just the Millennials. It's just Gen..." you know, I'm just like, "Stop." Because these labels are doing nothing but putting more of a divide between us than they are pulling us together. I really don't think we should be using those in any context, in any management training. I used to, and I sort of had a negative experience about it and really had an epiphany moment. I went, "This is just not helpful." So I've stopped doing it, and Josh knows if somebody says Millennial or something on the podcast that I'm secretly in the back going, "Ugh," or making a noise or something. Yeah, that's my somewhat unpopular opinion. 

Kelly Molson: I like that. I'm going to agree with you on that one, because I think they feel really kind of corporate-y and really dated, and it doesn't really fit with where we're at right now.

Matt Heller: Yeah, and I think what it does is it takes the individual out of the equation. From a management standpoint, we're looking at our team and saying, "Okay, well they're Millennials. They're Gen-X. They're Baby Boomers," so I only need to know three things instead of getting to know all 50 of my employees. What's really interesting is back when this really started to explode 15, 20 years ago when people were talking about the different dates for the different generations and things, you look at the people that were kind of leading the chargeback then and even they've softened. Even they're saying, "Well, the dates are just kind of more of a guideline. They're not a hard and fast rule." Even they are softening on that a little bit. 

Kelly Molson: It's a really good unpopular opinion, Matt. I would love to know what our listeners think about that, because I agree with Matt. Let's see if you do as well. Thank you for joining in my gang. 

Matt Heller: Absolutely. 

Kelly Molson: Matt, you have had a pretty incredible career in the attractions industry. It's 20+ plus years in hospitality and leadership, and you've worked for Universal, you've worked for Six Flags. It's really incredibly impressive. How did you get here, and did you always think that you would work in the industry?

Matt Heller: I did not think I would always work in the industry. In fact, until I was 16 years old I was definitely afraid of roller coasters. 

Kelly Molson: Wow. 

Matt Heller: I wouldn't even get on one. 

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Matt Heller: But my family was vacationing in Florida, and the girl that I was dating at the time, her family was vacationing, so we all went to Busch Gardens in Tampa. She said, "Well, just wait in line with me," for the Scorpion roller coaster. So I got in line and I figured there'd be a chicken exit when I got to the front, and there wasn't. So, I get in and I'm trying to be a good boyfriend. I get in and I'm white-knuckling all the way up the chain lift. As soon as we crested the hill and started going down, I was like, "This is awesome." 

Kelly Molson: Oh, wow. Got you. 

Matt Heller: I started really liking roller coasters then, but it wasn't until I was 18, so that was when I was about 16, when I was 18 I was back home from college and I didn't want to go back to the grocery store I had been working at through high school and everything. My mom said, "Well, Canobie," which is a park that was near us in New Hampshire, Canobie Lake Park, she said, "They're hiring for the summer." I said, "Well, all right. Okay, fine. That's fine." So I go down, get hired that day to be a ride operator and-

Kelly Molson: The rest is history. 

Matt Heller: Exactly, yeah. 

Kelly Molson: What did you do? Did you then just work your way up in the different parks that you've worked at, you just worked your way up from the ground level up to wherever you got to? 

Matt Heller: Yeah. When I started at Canobie like I said I was a ride operator. Very part-time. I didn't really think this was going to be a career, but I came back the next year, came back the next year, and I was kind of put into higher levels of leadership as I went along. Then I kind of hit my glass ceiling there because it's a smaller family-owned park and at the time the two people that were not family members, that I could have eventually been promoted into one of those positions, those two people weren't going anywhere. So, I knew I'd kind of hit my ceiling. Actually, at that point, I went to Minnesota. 

Matt Heller: I moved to Minnesota and started working at Knott's Camp Snoopy, which is in the Mall of America, which at the time was managed by Cedar Fair, so Cedar Point, Knott's Camp Snoopy. I figured this would be good in into one of those companies. There, I actually started over again. I went back to being a ride operator because they didn't have any other management positions, but quickly kind of went up through the ranks. Then that led to a position at Valley Fair, which is part of the Cedar Fair family, also in Minnesota. Then that led to working in Connecticut, and then Florida, and now I'm here in North Carolina. 

Kelly Molson: Amazing. It's really similar to Josh's kind of... The way that he worked through the industry as well. It feels like once you start working in it, it kind of sucks you in and people stay a lot longer than they ever expected to. 

Matt Heller: It definitely gets in your blood, I think. You know, I think what it is, is for the people that like to serve others and the people that like to entertain other people, those are the people that typically get attracted to this industry. When they find that this is kind of their home, all bets are off. Forget what you went to school for. Forget what you thought you were going to do when you were a kid. This is it. 

Kelly Molson: It's funny, because we had another guest on a little while ago, Carly Straughan, and she said actually she was kind of interested in the almost theatrical drama side when she was younger. But that fits really well with what you just said about kind of entertaining people and giving them that really fun experience. So yes, good. I like how all that works out. I want to talk about the industry in general at the moment. As we're recording this, I'm in the UK. Obviously, you can hear that Matt is in the US. We in the UK are in our third lockdown at the moment, and I think the third lockdown for many people has felt like the toughest one. We're coming up to nearly a year of COVID pandemic and sanctions, and destructions, and tragedies that's brought with us. 

Kelly Molson: It's been a really tough time for the sector, with closures and furlough, and redundancies. I think there's lots of positives on the way. We can feel like this does feel like the light at the end of the tunnel. I guess I wanted to kind of ask you how has it been for you, because you are in a position where you support leaders, and leaders in this industry have had to make really, really tough decisions about what they're going to do, and also it's hard to motivate yourself let alone motivate a team when you're going through this. How have you been supporting your clients through the pandemic? 

Matt Heller: One of the things that I did as a supplier, as a supporter of the industry is something that a lot of other people did, just from a practical standpoint, is that everything paused. All of our clients' business was paused, and certain ly, they weren't focused on leadership training at the time. At the beginning of 2020, I had a number of clients that had already signed up to work with me for the entire year, or for at least six months. All that paused, all of the invoices paused all that kind of stuff. I really wanted it to be "I'm in this with you, so whatever you need, whatever I can potentially help you with, including pausing and not sending you invoices, I definitely want to do." That was one thing just from a practical standpoint. 

Matt Heller: Then it was figuring out what other people needed, and part of that honestly started with what I needed, or what I could do, because when I started seeing all of my travel being cancelled, and all the jobs that I had lined up for 2020 just kind of evaporating, I sat here in my home office and I said, "What do I do? What am I supposed to be doing?" And I recognised I think that because of what was going on, that so many people were feeling this sense of loss, the sense of "I've lost stability in my life. I've lost now employees if I have to furlough them or let them go. I have lost a sense of security in the business. I may be on the verge of losing the business potentially." From a personal standpoint, and I think you know this from the work that you do, you become very close with your clients. 

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. 

Matt Heller: They're friends. In this industry, it's a big industry, but it's a small industry. Again, just kind of thinking about what I could do at that time when I knew I wasn't working and I knew people weren't going to be calling me up and saying, "Hey, we need a coaching session. Hey, we need a training session." But what could I do? One of the things that I've gotten feedback on that people say I'm pretty good at, is being a listener. So I said, "Well, I can listen. I can't bring your employees back." I remember writing a LinkedIn post about this, "I can't bring your employees back. I can't make it any better. I can't tell you what cleaning supplies to use. But I can listen. So, if you want to talk, if you want to chat, if you want to just get some things off your chest, let me know." 

Matt Heller: So I got the Calendly app and I allowed people to just kind of set a time on my calendar. I said, "Let's talk about anything you want." What was really interesting is some people of course want to talk about COVID, they wanted to talk about furloughs, they wanted to talk about how they were having conversations with their teams. One person actually from the UK called up and said, "I want to talk about Queue Theory," you know when people line up and queue up for a ride, he said, "I'm really interested in that. I want to pick your brain about that." Okay, great. 

Matt Heller: Another guy called up and he said, and somebody that's been in my coaching programs before, he said, "I want to talk about the return on investment of adding a water park." Okay, let's talk about that. What I think was really interesting is that yes, some people needed to vent and they needed to get this stuff off their chest about COVID, but some people just wanted to talk about normal stuff. And that was really eye-opening because I figured most of the conversations would be about COVID, but quite a few of them were not. That's one thing that I did and I'm going to continue doing, is just allowing myself to be available for people to call and talk about whatever they want.

Kelly Molson: That's lovely because I think that's something that has, with everybody that we've been speaking to... Actually, this is something that we spoke about when we were on the Attraction Pro podcast, is how supportive everyone has been through it, how helpful they have been. I think that is such a generous thing to do to open yourself up to just say, "Hey, I'm here. Talk to me. This is literally going to cost you the call of a Zoom chat. This is just free. I'm here for you." It's a generous thing to do, especially when you're in a situation yourself personally when you've got those same worries as everybody else. You may have a smaller team for a bit than they do, but you're still going through the same challenges of when is that phone going to start ringing again? When am I going to start getting those invoices paid? I know that's a really lovely thing to do. 

Kelly Molson: It was interesting because the next question that I had was to ask you when you were speaking to people what were their biggest challenges at the time? What were their worries? How were you able to help them, or how were you able to kind of alleviate some of those worries?

Matt Heller: The worries kind of ran the gamut of different things. I remember one person called up and he said that his facility had quickly closed down because one of the actions of the owners, and they really could have stayed open or they could have come up with a plan, but one of the owners just made a knee jerk reaction and he said, "This is a nightmare," what he was going through from a company standpoint. Then he also added on some other personal things that he was going through with his family, and his husband, and those kinds of things. That just broke my heart to hear those things. That's kind of one end of the gamut if you will. 

Matt Heller: One guy called up and he said, "I've got some people that obviously are not working with me right now because we're closed." He said, "I'm going in once a week just to check the lights and to make sure everything is secure. He said, "Our staff is not here. We actually have some people that have already contracted COVID. I want to call them. I want to talk to them," but they're technically furloughed and his head office, his corporate office was saying, "You can't talk to them."

Kelly Molson: Oh, gosh. 

Matt Heller: "You can't call them at all." So he's like, "I'm at my wit's end because I just want to call them as a human being, as a person, but my corporate office is saying, "You can't do that." 

Kelly Molson: That is so difficult. 

Matt Heller: It is. It is. One of the guests that Josh and I had on the podcast in that time was an employment lawyer from Florida. She said, and I was so glad she said this, she said, "You have a right to be human. You have a right to call that person and say "Kelly, how are you doing? Just tell me about what's going on with you. We won't talk about work. I'm not going to ask you where that report is," that kind of thing, "But just tell me about you," and that is totally within your realm of responsibility and opportunity as a leader, as a human being. I felt really good about that because that's kind of what I told him even before I talked to her because he was either going to break his company's policy or he was going to go crazy. 

Matt Heller: So I said, "You're probably going to have to break your company's policy and talk to that person so you don't go crazy." The other thing that was kind of along those lines is I was really encouraging people to err on the side of compassion. We hear it all the time, "Err on the side of caution." I think in this instance everybody that I talk to, they were all going through something and we were all going something. So, wouldn't it make sense that we added a little bit more compassion to our conversations, or we added a little bit more sympathy and empathy to how we were interacting with people knowing they were going through some pretty crazy stuff just like we were? So, why not extend that to them as well? 

Kelly Molson: That is the strength of a true leader as well, isn't it? It's the empathy. It's how you show that you care to your team regardless of size, regardless of location. It's about really caring about the individuals that are within your team. I'm so glad that you gave them that advice even before checking with the employment lawyer because that's absolutely what I would have done. Absolutely. Things have changed quite dramatically for you, and I want to talk a little bit about how you had to change, how you kind of service your clients within the situation that we're in from working from home, et cetera. How have you been able to kind of advise your clients on keeping their teams motivated, because I run a small team and we've been very fortunate to be busy throughout the pandemic. It's a digital team, a lot of our clients have had to not pivot, but they've had to think of new ways to engage in their audience. A lot of that has been on a digital basis. 

Kelly Molson: It's still been very difficult to keep the team motivated even though they're busy, because they've got their own personal worries about things. They might have family members that are really affected by this. They're working from home. Not everyone is sitting comfortable with that. How do you help a leader that has a team of kind of 50, 60, 70 people to try and keep all of those people motivated when some of them are on furlough as well? 

Matt Heller: It's really tough, but I think it comes down to communication. Especially as we're working with people in the digital realm, if you think you're communicating enough, you're not. If you are used to working with people where they're side by side and they're face to face, and you're in the same room, you might have gotten away with X level of communication in the past. Well, that's got to maybe double or triple. It doesn't mean that you always have to have something to say. Communication is both ways. It could be asking them questions: How are you doing? How's your family? Those kinds of things, and really like you said, treating them like a person and showing them that you care about them is really motivating for any human being.

Matt Heller: I think the other thing is when we talk about employee engagement for so long, people would ask the question, "What do my team members want? What do they want? Do they want a ping pong table? Do they want more breaks? Do they want that-" I said, "We have to change the question. The question is, what do they need, not what do they want, but what do they need?" That could be someone to listen to them. They may have things going on at home that they can't talk to anybody about. Maybe you as the boss, you're just a listening ear and you don't offer any advice, you don't offer any guidance. You just are there to listen. That may be what they need. 

Matt Heller: Some people may need information on the government programs that will help bridge the gap in terms of their money. That may be what they need. They may need a connection. So, get on Zoom if we have to, I would much rather be in person, but get on Zoom and have a little get together party with people and allow them to talk to people. You as the boss don't have to be the one leading it. You can just facilitate it. Start the process and just let people talk. Even in Zoom, there's breakout rooms, so put them in smaller rooms. Let them have little conversations, but allow them to have that connection with people because I think that's one of the things that we're missing most is the connection. 

Matt Heller: I think it's communication is a big part of that, but also changing that question from what do they want to what do they need. Then that will help guide how you actually interact with those 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 people. 

Kelly Molson: You're so right about the communication. I think that's something that we're definitely aware of, and I think we kind of over-communicate it to our clients. We probably didn't over-communicate enough with our team, like all of us kind of didn't talk enough. That probably led to a few moments of everyone feeling a little bit disjointed and not really feeling like they knew what was happening. 

Matt Heller: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: Towards the end of last year, I attended a really great webinar that you and Josh were on, which was around networking. It was all about connection and looking at how we build those connections within our network when we're not able to get out and about like we used to be able to. So much of the attractions industry was about face to face, lots of conferences, lots of things like that. Obviously, all of that is on hold in the moment. How do you motivate yourself, and how do you recommend that leaders keep themselves motivated? Is it very different to how they motivate their teams? And is building kind of those support networks part of that? 

Matt Heller: I absolutely think the support networks are incredibly important, and again when we're on lockdown a lot of times we think, "Well, I'm locked down from everything." Well, we're really not. You pick up the phone, you get on a Zoom call, you can be connected to other people. So, I think that's really critical is to keep that going. When you go on LinkedIn, or you go on Facebook, or you go on any of the social channels, if you just comment on things or find things that you like, it's not necessarily about building a relationship immediately, but it's about planting the seeds. 

Matt Heller: You can go on and say, "Hey, Kelly I love that post about-" whatever it was. You're just kind of again planting the seeds of building a relationship with someone that could turn into a professional relationship or it may just be a friendship, or wherever it might go. But it'll help you feel connected. One of the things that I feel that motivates me, and I think it motivates a lot of leaders, is when you can help someone else, when you can be the person that helps somebody else be successful. That's why I really love those listening meeting calls that I did, because after each one of them I would ask, "So was this helpful?" I just wanted to know for my own sanity I guess, is this something I should keep doing? 

Matt Heller: Everybody said, "Yes, this has been so helpful," whether I said much during the call or not, it was very helpful. That was extremely motivating to me because I got to help somebody else. I think a lot of people get into leadership roles for that reason because we want to help others. We want to serve others, especially in this business where that's part of what gets under your skin and gets into your blood, is helping and entertaining other people. So, I say ask that same question of yourself, not what do you want, but what do you need to stay motivated? And if it's to help people, that may look a little different right now, but it's the same as it would be when we're fully open and COVID wasn't even a thing that we even knew about. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, you're so right. That feeling that you get from helping someone is pretty incredible, isn't it? It can be such a small thing. It might just be that you're connecting someone with somebody else, you're making that introduction. Like you say, it might just be that you're giving them the ear that they need. They might just need to rant at someone for half an hour. That's fine. That's okay, I'll be that person. 

Matt Heller: Yeah, absolutely.

Kelly Molson: The way that you deliver your training and the way that you deliver and work with your clients has changed dramatically. Is everything for you virtual now? How have you adapted to that? Are you enjoying it? Does it feel a bit weird still? 

Matt Heller: It does still feel a bit weird. Not everything has been virtual. I have had a couple of clients that have really insisted on doing things in person. So, we took all the precautions. I was just in Florida about a week ago, and we took all the precautions. Everybody was wearing masks, we're distanced from each other, all those kind of things. So, they really saw the value of still getting together and taking those precautions because they felt like the in-person dynamic would be so much more valuable, and it really has been. For some of my other clients, we've changed. Sometimes it's just based on volume, like if I'm working with 200 leaders at a specific park or an institution, then it's just not practical to get 200 people in a room where you're all physically distanced. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Matt Heller: Then we look at different virtual options. Some of the time I'm delivering kind of a live seminar via Zoom. Sometimes I'm doing a prerecorded video for them. While yes, it's still a little weird, I think I'm starting to find my groove. I'm starting to find my legs if you will. One of the biggest things I did was to stand up. At the beginning of the pandemic, if I was delivering a webinar or an online class or something, I was sitting behind my desk and I was looking at the computer and I was like, "Why does this feel so weird?" It feels weird because that's not how I present.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. 

Matt Heller: I was facilitating a class. I'm standing up. Even right now, I'm standing up. I started using this too, my clicker. So, instead of fumbling for the space bar or the return key when I wanted to advance my slide in a presentation, I'm doing it just like I would when I'm standing in front of a group. I've been doing that for 30 years. So, that's pretty ingrained as a habit. Now if I bring that into what I'm doing in the virtual space, I feel like I can be more emotional. I feel like I can connect better because I'm not so worried about being behind the computer and looking at the monitor, and looking at the camera, and all those different things, having to be perfect. 

Matt Heller: I'm learning this process now, and it's getting more comfortable, although I will say I still prefer being in person. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, oh we all do. We do. We kind of wait for the day that we can go back to do that. One of the things I was thinking about last week is actually I used to travel a lot for work, and I think that as much as I love travelling and love seeing my clients, some of those meetings and all that travelling was slightly unnecessary. So I feel like when we go back to whatever normality we're going to go back to, this is going to change stuff for us quite dramatically. I think that there're barriers that have been broken down now. If we had to fly to Scotland for a day, that probably isn't going to happen now unless it really, really needs to. 

Kelly Molson: That's kind of nice, right? You've got that flexibility. Do you see this opening up more possibilities for you to work with maybe more people? I don't know if you've ever worked with organisations in the UK for example, would that be something that you could now start to look at that's more of a possibility?

Matt Heller: 100%, absolutely. I think it also opens it up to different levels of leadership because I think people are more apt to invest in a six-month group coaching program where people are on Zoom rather than flying me out every couple of weeks or something. Actually, I've got a couple of groups going right now that are kind of seasonal supervisors. What's great is that they probably wouldn't go to the big IAPAs and they wouldn't go to the big conferences on a regular basis, but this organisation has said "Hey, these folks are important," so now we've got the technology... I shouldn't say "now we have it", now we're more comfortable with it, and "Hey, let's get on a Zoom call and let's do it that way." 

Matt Heller: I think it opens it up for that. I'm also very involved with IAPA. I'm on the human resources subcommittee. So, as you talk about how we're going to deliver things in the future, there's probably now always going to be a virtual element, which is great for people who can't travel to the show. It opens up so many different possibilities of actually maybe presenting like if you were in the UK and you couldn't travel to the US, well you could now dial in and potentially present from the UK to an audience in Orlando. 

Matt Heller: There's just so many different possibilities now. I think just creativity is the issue. 

Kelly Molson: It's crazy though to think that all those possibilities were there before. We had this technology, we just weren't really taking advantage of it, or it just seemed like not the right thing to do. I love that there will always been kind of a physical and a digital aspect now. I just think like you, it opens up so many more people.

Matt Heller: Absolutely. 

Kelly Molson: That's a great story about the client that is now focusing on an audience of people, or a group of people in that organisation that wouldn't necessarily have been able to access the support that they need from you previously. I love that. It's really wonderful.

Matt Heller: Yeah, I think it's really opened up people's ideas of what's possible. If you think about some of the positive outcomes of what we've been through, sometimes it just takes a smack in the face for us to think, "Oh, we can do things differently," rather than just kind of keep going the same way that we've gone for years, and years, and years. "Oh, we can do things differently." What I heard from so many different people was, "We were forced to do things differently," and now we're seeing that that change wasn't so bad.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I've heard a lot of very, very similar conversations. In fact, there's an ongoing one about pre-booking which I do keep banging on about it on this show, but it was always something that was there and able to do, but it wasn't something that the industry had adopted completely in the UK. Now, there's a big possibility that a lot of organisations will never go back to not having pre-booking again. I see that as a huge, huge positive for the attraction, and a huge positive for improved customer experience as well. So yeah, lots and lots of positives to take from this. 

Matt Heller: Definitely. 

Kelly Molson: I want to talk about podcasts. 

Matt Heller: Yes. 

Kelly Molson: I did ask you a mean question, but I think you and Josh are excellent podcast hosts. I love the AttractionPros podcast because you have such a wide variety of guests on there, and I learn something new about the industry every time I listen to it. Gosh, you've been recording an episode every week. It's a weekly podcast. How long have you been doing this now? It's a long time. 

Matt Heller: It is. As of this recording, we just released our 180th episode. 

Kelly Molson: Wow. 

Matt Heller: Every Tuesday at 9:00 AM Eastern Time here in the US, we put up something new. So yeah, it's been going on for a long time. 

Kelly Molson: That is a huge achievement, and I think what I really like about it as well is that it's not just... You have a podcast which in itself is a huge amount of undertaking. I know. It's really great. You have great guests on, but you also do a lot of supporting work as well. You write great blogs that support the podcast, you've run webinars, you've run kind of training sessions around it as well. It feels like such a supportive community that you've built around the podcast, and that for me is such a positive. 

Kelly Molson: I want to know what's the... This might a difficult question, so I'm sorry-

Matt Heller: That's okay. 

Kelly Molson: But what's the best thing that you think that you've learned from one of your guests on the podcast this year? 

Matt Heller: It's something that quite a few of our guests actually talk about, and it's something that I've learned by doing the podcast. It's about consistency. You mentioned we've been doing this for a long time. When we first started, we made the very conscious decision that we were going to release these at certain times, and it was going to be consistent. Whatever it took, we were going to be able to put out a new episode on Tuesday morning. 

Matt Heller: There have been times, full disclosure and transparency, that Monday night Josh and I are like, "What are we going to put up tomorrow?" "I don't know." He's like, "I went to Home Depot yesterday." "Okay, let's talk about that." 

Kelly Molson: I love the authenticity of this. 

Matt Heller: Oh, yeah. 

Kelly Molson: Thank you for being honest. 

Matt Heller: Absolutely. There have been times that we've done that. I think you know Josh and his wife just had a baby, so congratulations to him. 

Kelly Molson: Yes, congrats Josh. That's lovely news. 

Matt Heller: Leading up to that, Josh knew he was going to be unavailable for quite a while. We had, I don't know, like a month and a half of podcasts that we prerecorded and had those done out. So, it really runs the gamut in terms of those kinds of things. But getting back to consistency, I found that when we put it up at a consistent time and we really try hard to deliver a really consistently high-quality product, that people respond. 

Matt Heller: Maybe we don't have millions and millions of viewers, but I think the viewers and the listeners that we have are people who are engaged and they enjoy what we're doing. So, it may be a smaller niche market, but I'm okay with that. I think quite a few of our guests have talked about consistency in terms of the guest service, and employee engagement, and treating people in a consistent way. I just noticed that putting out the podcast at the same time every week and being consistent with that has really been helpful to build our audience.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely. There's an expectation as well, once you've built that audience, that it's coming. There's a level of excitement. They're looking forward to the next episode. 

Matt Heller: Absolutely. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, consistency is absolutely key. It's a really good takeaway that you can apply that to any part of your business, can't you? Any part of your leadership journey. Good, okay. Next question about podcasts, do you think that it's helped you kind of tailor and change the way that you approach doing things. I mean, obviously one of the reasons that we started the podcast is to learn more about people in the industry from all different sides; suppliers, attractions, the whole breadth of that. 

Kelly Molson: It definitely helps us change how we approach certain conversations, how we approach the understanding of what people's challenges are. Has that been the same for you? 

Matt Heller: Absolutely. When you talk to people, really smart people, and we've been really lucky to have a lot of smart people, including yourself on our podcast, you can't help but be inspired by it. If you are not taking something away, if you're not learning something, if you're not writing down a couple of key nuggets that can help in your business, then I don't think you're doing it right. 

Kelly Molson: True. 

Matt Heller: I think both Josh and I have taken things away from different guests and different experiences that we've had in doing the podcast that have helped us either build a new product or focus on a new area, or open our eyes to a different part of the industry that we have maybe not thought about as much. We really try hard to be well versed in the entire industry. He and I both started in amusement parks and theme parks, so that's kind of where our bread and butter is, if you will, of our knowledge. 

Matt Heller: But, learning so much about zoos, and aquariums, and cultural attractions, and family entertainment centres, and water parks, the industry is huge when it comes to the breadth of types of attractions, and we are AttractionPros, so we can't just be theme park pros. That's been really fascinating. One of the questions that we have asked a number of different folks is, "Okay, you're a for-profit company. What can a nonprofit learn from you and vice versa?" And those have been some really interesting conversations. 

Kelly Molson: That's a good question as well. Can you think about one of the best answers that they gave? 

Matt Heller: Yeah, I think a lot of nonprofits are really mission-driven, and they've got a mission whether it's conservation or animal health, or whatever their mission might be. You find people in those organisations that naturally want to help them achieve that mission. People that work with animals, I'm so lucky that I get to work with a number of zoos and zoological institutions because those people are extremely passionate about what they do. 

Matt Heller: Now, can we use that, finding people that are that excited about your mission just because that's who they are? Can we use that as a model or a framework to finding people that are just as passionate about what a theme park does? I think we can, but we also may have to alter the mission a little bit. So, it's not just about making money and making the guests happy, but how are we impacting the community? How are we impacting the world with what we do? Because entertainment, as we're seeing right now during lockdown is critically important. 

Matt Heller: Josh will tell that he doesn't think any of the attractions are non-essential, and he gets really-

Kelly Molson: I've heard Josh talk about it. He's very adamant about this. 

Matt Heller: His feathers really get ruffled when people talk about that. I think that's something that we try to embrace as well, is getting that message out there and focusing on all attractions. So yeah, I hope that answers your question anyway.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's a great answer. It's a really great answer. It's funny, I have heard Josh talk about the... He hates that word "non-essential". He said that quite a lot on LinkedIn actually. I've seen a few posts from him. But he's right because people's entertainment is essential, isn't it? It's cultural, it's your learning, you're learning through play, you're learning through entertainment. It is an essential service, the attractions and delivering. Completely, I'm on his side when it comes to that completely. 

Matt Heller: Me too. 

Kelly Molson: We're towards the end of the podcast. I always ask our guests if there's a book that they recommend, that they have loved or has helped them shape their career and work in some way. I want to ask you just a question before you choose a book-

Matt Heller: Okay. 

Kelly Molson: Because you've actually written two books yourself, haven't you?

Matt Heller: I have. 

Kelly Molson: You're a published author. Tell us a little bit about those books. 

Matt Heller: The first book that I wrote, people will ask how long it took me to write, and I say 25 years because it's a culmination of so many of my experiences. The first book that I wrote was called The Myth of Employee Burnout. It's all about when you have the beginning of the season, or the beginning of a year or somebody is new in your organisation and they start off really strong, and they're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and somewhere along the line they kind of fizzle out. 

Matt Heller: When I first started working in seasonal amusement parks, we just thought this was kind of mid-season burnout. We thought long hours, and dealing with the cranky guests, and all that kind of thing was really impacting that. Well, when I started my practice in 2011, I really wanted to take sort of a 30,000-foot view of that, and I wanted to understand that better because as an operator I felt like I was always too close to it. 

Matt Heller: What I really found is it really comes more down to leadership, it comes down to how we interact with our teams, it's also everything from how we hire people, how we train people, how we terminate people, how we discipline people. All those are factors. Everything in the employee life cycle, all those things impact how people are going to be engaged, or how motivated they're going to be. The book really outlines how we can get over that burnout process. Again, specifically looking at it from a leadership standpoint. 

Kelly Molson: Great. 

Matt Heller: The second book has the longest title ever. It's called All Clear: A Practical Guide for First-Time Leaders and the People Who Support Them. 

Kelly Molson: That is a mouth full. 

Matt Heller: It is a mouth full. But all clear is what you might see on a ride platform, somebody giving the thumbs up and the "all clear", and really that means that the ride is ready to go. What I wanted this book to be was a resource to give young leaders that they are ready to go. They're ready to take on this leadership role. Really, what it's about, it's about the transition to a leadership role, which is a tough transition. 

Matt Heller: Two-thirds of the book are about all those pitfalls, all those things that can go wrong. You're now leading your friends, that's a huge thing, getting to know yourself as a leader, communication, giving feedback, coaching people. All those kind of things are kind of the first two thirds. Then I also wanted to write it for the people who are guiding people through that transition, so their managers and directors, because so often they went through that same sort of sink or swim, "Here's your keys and here's your radio. Go be a leader." That was their training. 

Matt Heller: They don't necessarily understand how to train another leader, especially one coming up in the organisation. So, kind of the third third of the book is really for them about selecting the right people, training them on what they need to know as a leader, and then supporting their leadership journey. That kind of outlines that book, the All Clear book. 

Kelly Molson: They do say, I don't know if you've heard this phrase in the UK, but they say "The most important book in your life is the one that you write and not one that you read." We're going to put all of the notes about those books and where you can find them in the show notes. Let me ask you the final question then. What is a book that you have loved or has helped shape your career in some way? Actually, maybe it was the one that wrote that's helped shape your career in some way, that would recommend to our listeners. 

Matt Heller: Definitely, the ones that I wrote, like you said, they're very important to me and they did shape my career. I use them all the time. Just the other day somebody asked me something and I had just given them the Myth book. I said, "On page 88 of that book you'll see that we talk about this in more detail." It's been a great resource for that. I will say that there's a book, and I found it in my collection, it's a book called It's Okay to Ask 'Em to Work by Frank McNair. 

Matt Heller: I read this when I was first starting off as a leader. It was so practical. I think that is something that has driven me as a leader, it's driven me as a trainer, as a coach to be very practical in what I'm providing to people. None of this pie in the sky air fluffy stuff. Give me some things that I can use today as a leader. Very practical. This book is very practical. The title, It's Okay to Ask 'Em to Work, sometimes we feel like it's almost hard to ask people just to do their job. Like they're going to get offended, or they're going to react badly. 

Matt Heller: But as he explains, and I really internalised, is that that is their job and it's our job to get them to do their job. So he goes through all kinds of different things that again are very practical to help us figure that out. That's one that when you asked about a book that really shaped me and really influenced me, especially early on, it's that one. 

Kelly Molson: I feel like I need to go back and read that book now. I've been doing this a long time. Thank you, that's a great suggestion. Listen, listeners as ever, if you want to win a copy of that book, then if you head over our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the comment "I want Matt's book," then you will be in with a chance of winning it. 

Kelly Molson: Matt, I've really enjoyed this podcast interview because I think as somebody who trains leaders, I don't think I've ever met anyone who is as kind of positive and optimistic as you. I love the energy that you bring when we speak. I just think you're the best person right now to motivate leaders in the attraction sector. That's all I'm going to say. 

Kelly Molson: I hope everyone listening in to this will take the time out... You know what, Matt has got a really great offer of just... His ears are open. So, if you want to book in a little slot to have a chat with him, we're going to put those details in the show notes as well. I would encourage you to do that without a doubt. 

Kelly Molson: Matt, thank you for coming on the podcast today. It's been a pleasure. 

Matt Heller: It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much, Kelly. 

Kelly Molson: I think there's only one way to end the podcast though really, isn't there? That's to say we are all-

Matt Heller: All-

Kelly Molson: Attraction. 

Matt Heller: AttractionPros. 

Kelly Molson: Pros. 

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. Remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August 27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

www.modernhuman.co

www.linkedin.com/in/pauljervisheath/

https://www.modernhuman.co/visit-scotland/

https://www.modernhuman.co/oxford/

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode I speak with industry experts from the attractions world.

In today's episode I speak with Paul-Jervis Heath, Founding Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Modern Human.

We discuss service design for attractions, and how to apply this to the visitor funnel and the visitor journey. We also hear about the brilliant work Modern Human carried out for the Ashmolean Museum in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Paul, welcome to the podcast. It's really lovely to have you on.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Thank you very much, Kelly. It's great to be here.

Kelly Molson: As ever I am going to probe you with a few quick-fire questions.

Paul-Jervis Heath: I am ready.

Kelly Molson: Okay. Are you a cat person or a dog person?

Paul-Jervis Heath: I have a cat. I'm probably more of a cat person. Easier to look after, less maintenance.

Kelly Molson: I've been thinking about this because we have two dogs. So we're recording this in February at the moment it's very snowy outside, and I've been thinking about the convenience of a cat and not having to take it out for a walk. Not getting muddy, not really liking the rain, quite easy.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Very much so. Just kind of open the door, let them out. They do the funniest thing when it's snowed. They take a step and shake that paw in disgust, and then put the next paw down and do the same, and kind of make their way across the whole garden doing this little kind of paw shaking dance, which is ridiculous.

Kelly Molson: My Dachshund will do that if it's raining. So she will point blank refuse to go outside in the wet rain. No, it's not for her. But the minute it snows, it's the best thing in the world. I don't know what the difference is between wet water and slightly more solid water, but she's down with that. Very weird. Okay. Thank you.

Kelly Molson: And what is currently on your Netflix list or other on-demand TV service?

Paul-Jervis Heath: I am currently re-watching The West Wing.

Kelly Molson: Oh, great.

Paul-Jervis Heath: ...which is fantastic. But it looks dated when we think about the Trump presidency. Because the assumption was always that politics was sensible in some way and that they were trying to ... All of the conversations in The West Wing are about how the Democrats and Republicans come to some sort of agreement through kind of discussion and trading of tax breaks and all of those kinds of things. And it looks very dated when you think of the state politics as it was up until very recently.

Kelly Molson: I would just rip that off and throw it up in the air. Forget about all of that good stuff.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Reality has kind of outstripped the drama of The West Wing, I think. And everything else on my Netflix is my daughter, who's eight. So it's Art Ninja and Blue Peter and all of those kinds of things.

Kelly Molson: Oh, Art Ninja, sounds like something that I might actually enjoy. What is Art Ninja?

Paul-Jervis Heath: Art Ninja is fantastic, and a lifesaver at the moment. It's a little bit like Art Attack-

Kelly Molson: Right, yes. Newbie Cannon, yep.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Newbie Cannon, yeah. So a little bit like that. It's a guy who shows kids how to make stuff and it's been a lifesaver through the lockdown. The number of activities we have borrowed off of Art Ninja on BBC iPlayer to keep busy would be probably embarrassing to admit.

Kelly Molson: I've never heard of it. And I'm not going to lie, I'm going get involved in some of that myself now. I like a bit of craft, Paul, so it sounds like a program for me. Okay. Last one of these ridiculous questions. If you have to sing karaoke what's your song?

Paul-Jervis Heath: I think Rocket Man by Elton John.

Kelly Molson: Great song.

Paul-Jervis Heath: I love a bit of that. I'm not sure how good I would be. It's a long time since I done ... It's a long time since everyone's done karaoke, I suppose. But yeah, I'd go for a bit of Rocket Man by Elton John.

Kelly Molson: It's a great song. It's a crowd-pleaser as well, Paul. I think you've got to choose something that the crowd is going to be really behind you with karaoke. And then honestly, it doesn't matter about the quality, does it? I can't sing for coffee, but I'd always go for one that the crowd is going to join in on.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Something with a strong chorus that everybody can join into.

Kelly Molson: I'm with you. Great choice. All right. Okay. We always ask about your unpopular opinion on this show, so can you tell me something that you believe to be true that nobody agrees with you?

Paul-Jervis Heath: Oh, I think that's a really tricky question for me. I think I've lost track of all the unpopular opinions that I've had or ever had. I think because it happens daily. Well, I've just realized how disagreeable that makes me sound, but it's not that. It's just that doing what I do you often have to be a contrarian. A client will consider something is impossible, and then you calmly have to ask why it's impossible or why they can't do it. And so, one of any designer's superpowers is doubt. Kind of doubt that things will always be the way that they are now, or doubt the way that an organization operates and can't change. Or doubt that the future might not be like the present.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And it kind of reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's first law of prediction. Arthur C. Clarke said that when a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he's almost certainly right. But when he states that something's impossible, then he's probably wrong. And I think you can substitute the scientist in Clarke's first law for a distinguished executive, a distinguished business leader, a distinguished CEO. And so, I think one of the keys to creativity is doubt. And I think the other's belief as well. The belief that in the human capacity for ingenuity and creativity and belief that we can solve any problem that's put in front of us.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And so, inevitably with what we do at Modern Human, I end up diplomatically disagreeing with a lot of people. And so, it's really hard to say how many unpopular opinions I had yesterday, let alone how many I'm holding in total. The role just puts me in that kind of role as a contrarian.

Kelly Molson: I totally agree with you, Paul, being someone in a role myself. But you do feel like you're being slightly argumentative in some way on most days.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Yes. You're constantly in a situation where you're disagreeing because it's so ... People will fall into a pattern of operating that is ... We all do it. We all fall into habits, whether it's professionally or kind of in our personal lives. I've just talked to you about my habit of watching the West Wing so that I don't have to troll Netflix to choose anything. I've got seven seasons of the West Wing to go at. And it's that habit-forming. But the problem with those habits is then they become assumptions and those get baked into the way, when you do it professionally, into the way an organisation operates and the beliefs that an organisation has.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Arthur C. Clark, again, he talked about two failures of prophecy and the first was the failure of nerve. And the failure of nerve is when, even given all the relevant facts, a would-be prophet can't see that they point to an inescapable conclusion. And I think that happens very rarely in business. That actually it's not so much a failure of nerve that happens. I actually think that organisations are really good about looking at data and interpreting data. And sometimes there's a bias and there's what gets measured gets managed, and all of those kinds of failures.

Paul-Jervis Heath: But I think the failure that happens in business a lot is that the second of Arthur C. Clarke's failures of prophecy, and that's the failure of imagination. And that arises when all of the facts are completely appreciated, they're marshalled correctly. But actually when really vital facts are undiscovered, actually we don't know something. And the possibility of their existence is not even admitted. And I think that that happens quite a lot. That actually that organisations don't know what they don't know and have a kind of blindness to it because of all the things they do know pushing out all the possibilities of the things that they don't. And so, I end up playing the contrarian. I end up playing the professional contrarian quite a bit, I think.

Kelly Molson: Well, this leads us perfectly onto what you do and what Modern Human does. I mean, you're the founder of Modern Human. Could you give us a little bit of kind of info about your background leading onto how you founded Modern Human and what you guys do there?

Paul-Jervis Heath: Yeah, absolutely. I've been a designer for nearly 25 years. In that time I've designed just about everything. I've designed dashboards for driverless cars. I've designed connected home kitchen appliances, libraries, call centres. Just about everything. Like a really kind of broad and varied portfolio. I spent some time at Cambridge University as their Head of Innovation. And stepping out of the London design scene. And I inevitably have clients calling and asking what I was doing, asking if I could help them with things. And I ended up running a workshop for a couple of clients that I'd worked with before, and that just led on to finding Modern Human. And we've kind of grown sustainably over eight years. We've been a practice for eight years and we've grown sustainably over that time.

Paul-Jervis Heath: We're now almost 15 people and designers of different types, design researchers. We do a lot of ethnography so we've got anthropologists on staff. We've got design researchers on staff, ethnographers. As well as service designers, product designers, workplace and environment designers as well. So we've tried to stay varied and that's actually really hard in design because it's very easy to concentrate on digital design or on architectural design or whatever it is. It's actually relatively hard to build quite a varied portfolio. So we've been very lucky to be able to do that and work on some fantastic projects with some fantastic clients.

Kelly Molson: So, that's something that I want to talk to you about is the variety of what you do. Because I think one of the services that you offer is around service design. When we first spoke what I found quite interesting was service design for me has always been something that I've really associated with kind of public sector, but very much kind of government services or NHS services. But that isn't the case for you at all, is it? It's completely different sectors that you work with?

Paul-Jervis Heath: Yeah, we do. We actually don't do a lot of public sector service design at the moment. It's all commercial service design. If you think about how you service your credit card, for example. Obviously, in the 21st century, you will do that on a day-to-day basis probably through an app or you'll have a standing order set up. But every now and again you'll need to ring the bank. And that's the nature of service design. Service design is all about the multichannel. Not just about the kind of digital touchpoints. But what happens when somebody calls? When do you want someone to call as well? Because what you notice about a lot of organisations now is, obviously, when somebody calls you there's a cost associated with that. And that cost might be anywhere between 8, 12 pound a call, 15 pounds a call depending on how your call centre operates.

Paul-Jervis Heath: But if you think about it. If you're only interacting through an app then there's a danger that you become commoditised. Actually, you become a remote service in the customer's mind, and then you're completely interchangeable. Every bank's got an app, so why wouldn't I change from this bank to that bank and use their app, because their app looks as good as that app? None of us can tell how good the apps are when we're choosing a bank, for example.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And so, service design is really all about those moments where you actually want to use digital touchpoints because they're cheap, fast, convenient, all of those things that we all know about as consumers. And actually then what happens when you perhaps don't want somebody using an app or that you want to speak to them. And how do you build your value through those interactions? Because typically those interactions are the most difficult. They're complaints. When you complain to an organisation, how is that complaint dealt with? We've worked with a financial services company and managed to reduce the time that it takes for them to handle a complaint down by two thirds. And so, more customers getting more complaints dealt with more quickly and increase their customer satisfaction at the same time. And that's by looking at what happens when somebody calls, and how that call gets triaged, and who deals with it, and how can they deal with it better at the first point of contact so the first person that you speak to doesn't have to put you on hold and pass you around departments and all of those kinds of things.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And so, that service design lens really lends itself to thinking about how organisations operate in the 21st century, excepting that digital touchpoints are a really important kind of part of the mix. But that actually human touchpoint, whether that's on the phone or in person, actually we're all looking for that. And I think we're actually looking for it a little bit more at the moment because we're all shutting and in lockdown and craving human contact.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. And this is one of the reasons that I thought getting you on the podcast would be a really great idea. Because what you've described is very much how attractions need to look at how they're operating at the moment. You talked a little bit there about the customer service side, which is interesting. So a lot of the attractions that we've spoken to are actually having more, not necessarily customer complaints, but actually more customer interaction than they normally would at certain touchpoints because they've had to launch with a 100% ticketed and pre-booking. And for some that uptake for guests has been a little bit difficult or maybe what they've had to launch with has been a slightly cumbersome user journey. And so, there's a barrier there, there's a challenge. And then they're getting more kind of customer calls about how do they do certain things. And it's just not super clear.

Kelly Molson: And so, when we started speaking I was like, well, this is ... We talk about that experience very much as a kind of visitor experience. But actually, it's service design that covers the whole spectrum of that. We look at it very much from a digital perspective, others will look at it very much from an inexperienced perspective, but the services on it actually covers both.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And that kind of moved to a 100% ticketing is one of the greatest opportunities, I think, for attraction.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Knowing who's coming through your door and getting their permission to contact them after their visit, even if that's just to ask how their visit was. And actually, when you think about it in that inter-lockdown period, that was the best visitor experience you were ever going to have at the museum. Because I wanted to go to the Louvre during that period where there was going to be a 100% ticketed. Because normally you stand in front of the Mona Lisa and you're bopping around looking between people's heads. But you'd have an uninterrupted view because there would be no more than kind of three people in the gallery sort of thing. And selfishly as a visitor that would be a fantastic experience and all those kinds of fantastic attractions we've got in the UK as well.

Paul-Jervis Heath: I think it sounds really odd when you think of the visitor experience as a service because we're used to there being some exchange potentially between the service provider and the service user. But actually, I think service design is the perfect set of tools for looking at the visitor journey. It provides a way of thinking about service in a really holistic multi-channelled way. And so, while it might sound a little bit odd to refer to a museum visit as a service, actually the tools of service design are perfectly suited for the job. That kind of service blueprint and that kind of experience mapping looking at where digital touchpoints come in where the in-gallery visitor experience can be improved. How you help people who are struggling with tickets.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Even things like how you deal with people who didn't know that they had to buy a ticket and have just turned up. Because some of those people might be your most loyal visitors, and they just haven't thought about it cause they're so used to just kind of walking in. Or their members haven't thought about the ticketing experience. You don't really want to send them away to have to book a ticket. How do you recover from those moments?

Paul-Jervis Heath: And I think that's the other thing that service design is very good at, thinking about service recovery and how when something goes wrong, you pick up the thing that's gone wrong and you deal with it quite often in a non-digital channel. What are the human workarounds that you've got to resolve some of these situations and get that visitor back on track and into your attraction and having a great experience again?

Kelly Molson: It's a vast challenge, isn't it? I'm listening to you describe all of these touchpoints for digital and human, and it's a huge challenge. But you've actually been through this process with the Ashmolean quite recently, haven't you? Could you just talk us through what you did for them and how you implemented the changes there?

Paul-Jervis Heath: We sort of work in two or three phases with the Ashmolean. We've worked with Oxford University's gardens, libraries, and museums on several projects. And one of those was looking at the digital customer user journey if you like. So, where was it digital involved in the visitor journey? Where was it not involved as well really importantly and why? And what was the behaviours that led to that? And we looked at that for all of the gardens, libraries and museums at Oxford University. And then Ashmolean got back in touch after the first lockdown and said, "Actually, we're planning on reopening. This piece of work feels important, not just for now but for the future." We want to think about what the next 12 months look like. And we're in a very different situation because we're looking at reduced visitor numbers. What will the visitor experience be given the constraints that we now have around Coronavirus, distancing, ticketing? All of those things?

Paul-Jervis Heath: It really looked at both the challenges that that creates, but also the opportunities it creates for the Ashmolean museum. And we created kind of a two phase kind of deliverable for them. The first was looking at their reopening and their reopening was, I think, two or three weeks away from when we started. We helped them think about what's the visitor experience going to be of reopening. And we thought about actually as museums and visitor attractions were reopening between lockdowns, what we concentrated on was the very best kind of visitor experience that you can imagine having at these attractions. Because there's going to be fewer people there, and actually, therefore, how do we ... Yes, you're going to have to buy a ticket beforehand. Yes, you're going to have to think about your visit a little bit.

Paul-Jervis Heath: What that means that when you get there, you've got this kind of experience where you wander around without the crowds, and actually get a chance to look at everything that you want to. And the director of the Ashmolean was really keen that we didn't go down the same route as the National Portrait Gallery, where we laid out particular routes that people have to stick to.

Kelly Molson: Okay.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And I think that was really key to the briefing in many ways because the Ashmolean has such a wide variety of things. It's got the Egyptian gallery where they've got a mummy, and it's got Egyptian tombs and some fantastic kind of Egyptian artefacts. It's got the Greek and the Roman. But it's also got an art gallery upstairs. And so, it's a really varied collection.

Paul-Jervis Heath: The sensible question was, "Well, how would we even construct a route through all of this stuff that would interest everyone?" It's such a varied collection that actually some people do just want to go and spend hours looking at Egyptian artefacts. And some people want to take the tour and see a little bit of everything. We really had to think about, well, okay, how do we move people through this space safely, first of all? But also how do we engage them at a level that's deeper than they've ever been engaged before with the museum? Because there's going to be fewer people here. They can have the deepest experience they want of these artefacts. And for some people, they won't want that. They'll they just want somewhere to wander that isn't their own four walls and something different to see. And you know what? That's fine too. It's a perfect place for that too.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And so, what we came up with was this idea of a spotlight trail. 12 objects that really gave a sense of the variety of things that were available at the museum. But the key thing about that was that it acted like a spine. So rather than being a mandatory kind of trail, "You can just do this." That actually it led you through the gallery in a sensible way that you could then jump off, spot something you were interested in like a massive Greek statue and go, "Oh, I wonder what that is." And potter off to that, have a look at that, and then come back to the trail and follow it around the rest of the museum and then deviate in all of those kinds of things.

Kelly Molson: Nice.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And there were a few areas where actually, because of safety, we had to create a one-way system. There's a few pinch points, one-way staircases and things like that. But actually, the museum did a lot of thinking about that because they know they knew their space very well. We had a long day where we spent the time walking around the museum working out which bits were one way, which bits were going to flow in what way and how that leads people around making sure that nobody ends up at a dead-end and didn't know where to go. All of those kinds of hygiene factors.

Paul-Jervis Heath: But one of the things we noticed during that first lockdown is do you remember when we started coming out of that first lockdown, a lot of the restaurants had QR codes for menus. And so, when you went to a restaurant like just after that first lockdown, I think the government was doing a scheme, like eat out kind of discounts. I can't remember what they call that.

Kelly Molson: Eat Out to Help Out scheme. That's the one.

Paul-Jervis Heath: That's the one, yeah. And the restaurants were very keen to get people back in. And they'd all put kind of QR codes to their menus and you could order, and then they'd bring the food and stuff like that. And so, we were like, "You know what? This could be a resurgence of the QR code."

Paul-Jervis Heath: It was an old technology that had sort of died and become a bit of a joke because they got used on the London underground quite a bit where you haven't got a mobile signal and things like that. They'd been put high up on a billboard where you've got no chance of getting a photo of it as you sped past in your car or whatever. They've been used using some really daft places. But seeing this behaviour and seeing even all ages, all kind of a demographics using QR codes when they were going out on the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, we thought actually what if we used the QR code in the tour as well so that actually, if you're interested in the artefacts on the spotlight tour, you can scan the QR code and get a much deeper engagement.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And whereas that might be troublesome when there's lots of people in the gallery to have a few people who are on their mobile phones, trying to capture the QR code and read the information that's there. Actually, when there's fewer people there, there's fewer people to kind of bump up against and all of those things. So if you want more information about that historical artefact that isn't on the little kind of board that you perhaps get next to it. Well, now's your opportunity to discover everything that the Ashmolean knows about that particular artefact. And everything that they know might include some of the darker history of that object. Where the object was procured from. Some of the contested history behind that object. Some of the things that they can't put on the little plaques for room and things like that.

Paul-Jervis Heath: You can unlock things like black history. You can unlock alternative voices around that objects, alternative critique of the object. All sorts of things. Because in a digital sphere, you can put unlimited amounts of information about an object and allow people to navigate it kind of sensibly much more than you could put on the boards that have behind the artefact. And so we thought about that as well.

Paul-Jervis Heath: We also thought about the kind of visitor funnel as it were and likened it to the conversion funnel the commercial organisation would go through. And actually, thought about how do you entice somebody from casual visitor or somebody who's considering a visit to an attraction through to actually becoming a member and a repeat member through a one-time donation to a kind of repeat and regular member? Because I think when you're faced with the situation where you're going to have massively fewer numbers, you have to be much more efficient in a business sense about encouraging people to spend money, whether it's spending money in the cafe, whether it's spending money in the gift shop, whether it's becoming a member.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And of course, that's where the opportunities of ticketing come in. That if you ask to gather people's data while they're ticketing and reuse that data, then, yes, you can send them a survey afterwards to say, "How was your visit?" But you can also tell them about all of the great work that the attraction does. You can tell them about the artefacts afterwards. You can do all kinds of things to deepen and extend their engagement after their visit. I think that's really important.

Paul-Jervis Heath: I also think when it's your one cultural visit that you've done after lockdown, that actually buying a souvenir and maybe doing it from home when you get home rather than browsing the shop while you're at the attraction, that's something that kind of ticketing kind of enables as well. So there's loads of opportunity in that tickets in situation. And I was speaking to the client at the Ashmolean the other day, and they said, unlike other attractions that they've spoken to, they've had no complaints about the trail. I think 25% of visitors have followed the trail and they've seen an uptick in their spend in both the gift shop and the cafe. And so, it's been really kind of successful in that way.

Kelly Molson: Do you think part of that is because how you didn't make it rigid? So when you were describing the trial, it felt very loose, it felt very comfortable. Like you weren't being forced in a certain direction, which is we don't like that, do we? We don't like to be forced to do something or follow rules. Let's face it.

Paul-Jervis Heath: If you're told you can do one thing, or you're told that you have to follow this trail, the first thing that you think about is like, "Well, what are all the things that I'm missing? What are all the things that I'm not seeing?" And I think when you design, you know that you're influencing people's behaviour. And you often design to influence people's behaviour. And that gives you an ethical responsibility as a designer to only kind of influence in positive ways. But I think that's the magic of service design that actually you influence people to do things that they sort of wanted to do anyway, but are sort of convenient to the institution that you're designing for at the same time. And so, in that influencing people, I think rather than telling people what they can't do, you influence them to do the things that you want them to do. And in doing that you make it easier to behave like a good visitor and make people less likely to behave like a bad visitor, whatever that may be.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that.

Paul-Jervis Heath: The other part of the Ashmolean project was all about a 12-month program of work as well, looking at not only the reopening but then post reopening. What are the things that they ought to be doing over the next 12 months to really underpin the visitor experience? And actually create a situation where they can thrive in what is a really adverse situation for visitor attractions. And I think that's still there. And obviously, they're closed again at the moment. But when I know that they're working behind the scenes to put a lot of those things in place because the commercials of visitor attractions have changed radically. And so, for attractions to thrive again, we would both, both Ashmolean and Modern Human, were really keen that we put together a 12-month program to say, "Actually, how do we create a sustainable commercial kind of model, if you like, or a sustainable way for the Ashmolean to retain and engage visitors?"

Kelly Molson: Does that plan look at when we're in a situation when we're past this? Because one of the things that you mentioned earlier around the QR codes was really interesting where you said at the moment, huge opportunities to go and see something beautiful that you wouldn't necessarily be able to see that well because there would be too many people there. And you mentioned about the QR codes and people in a crowded situation, it would be quite challenging to have a lot of people around that trying to find out that extra information about that item. So what does that look like when attractions can go back to having 80%, 90%, 100% capacity? How will they have to change things?

Paul-Jervis Heath: I mean, the 12-month vision was all about that. And I think that is the majority of work that we're doing at the moment. What happens not just in visitor attractions either. We're currently working with three different clients on how they'll work after coronavirus. They've sent everyone home. Everyone's working from home. And in the interim, some of the companies have closed part of their office real estate and so their question is: How does the purpose of the office change? And that's partly physical workplace design. But it's also redesigning their ways of working, how they manage people, how work is distributed and completed. You have to really imagine or reimagine what work means and how it's done in order to answer that question.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And I think that's part of what we did with Ashmolean to say, actually, let's think about the different scenarios that might happen in a post lockdown kind of situation. And it would be lovely to think that by April we'll have all had our jobs and that there'll be no social distancing and all of that kind of thing. But the truth is probably more like the world is irrevocably changed in some ways. And actually, it won't be quite like it was before. What you have to then plan is what is the likelihood of things continuing and which things will continue. And actually what you can then say is, which things do we want to continue? For example, would we actually ever want to retain the situation where we've got 100% ticketing? Actually, that ticketing situation is an opportunity and we might not be turning people away anymore when they come without a ticket, but we may do something to capture some details and give them a kind of virtual kind of ticket on the door sort of thing.

Paul-Jervis Heath: In a situation where nobody knows what's going to happen, you can actually choose your own future in a much more effective way, because you can say this is how we're going to deal with it. This is how this is what we're going to do. Actually, we can throw our assumptions aside and actually go in a different direction. And I think that's really important. It comes back to that thing before about kind of being a contrarian. It's like the world probably isn't going to go back to exactly how it was before. Then it's about choosing the changes that you want to retain, the changes you want to discard and say, actually, how do we want to do things? Because people's assumptions about what a museum visit is or what a visit to a cultural attraction entails have been broken. There's actually a discontinuity between what exists, what has existed up to now and what will exist in the future. There's a real opportunity to insert yourself into that discontinuity and actually say, "This is what we're going to do going forward." And I think that's a [inaudible 00:34:25] every organization.

Kelly Molson: It's exciting as well, isn't it, Paul? Because it gives you an opportunity to actually be proactive about the situation. Because that's one of the biggest frustrations with a lot of the clients that we've been speaking to. Is that they've been in such a reactive state all the time with having very little timeframes between being told when they can open and you've got a week where you got two weeks to prepare, and actually making that decision to say, "No, this is when we're going to plan to open. And it might be a couple of months after we're allowed to. But this is when we're going to, and this is what it's going to look like. And this is our opportunity to own that and make it a positive experience for the organization as well as the visitor."

Paul-Jervis Heath: It's a huge opportunity for all organisations to say, rather than say, "How quickly can we go back?" To say actually, "How are we going to move forward?" And that's true of museums. It's true of every organization that's got, employees. I don't want to sound Pollyanna-ish about how great the opportunities are after coronavirus. It's been a terrible situation. People have missed out on an awful lot of things. A lot of people have died. It's certainly not a positive situation. But I think there are positives that we can take from it. And I think one of those positives is a discontinuity between the assumptions of the past and what's possible in the future.

Paul-Jervis Heath: One of the areas where this is really stark is working from home. So many organisations said it is impossible for our staff to work from home.

Kelly Molson: And I look at us.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And now look at us. Somehow we've all managed it. Now, we might not right now in February in the UK be enjoying working from home, but it is possible to work from home. There were organisations that said you can't do creativity remotely. And of course, that's nonsense as well and it's been shown to be nonsense. You can be creative in a group remotely, you just have to do it differently. And so, that lack of imagination that organisations have had has disappeared. Actually, we've busted that assumption that it's not possible to work from home. It's not possible to do creative work remotely. It's not possible to do a client meeting over Zoom or ... Whatever those assumptions were.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And I think that discontinuity exists when it comes to our free time as well. It's broken a lot of the assumptions people have about what it means to visit a cultural attraction, how they go about that, what's expected of them when they do and all of those kinds of things. And that means that it can be rebuilt in a way that is very different to perhaps how it looked before.

Paul-Jervis Heath: I also think a lot of cultural attractions have done some really great stuff during lockdown to keep people engaged. Some of the Zoom talks and stuff like that. I bought my parents a Zoom cheese tasting for Christmas. Cheese and wine pairing. They got the cheese and wine sent to them and somebody taught them through it on a Zoom call. Brilliant. I know a lot of cultural attractions have been talking about some of their kind of objects and artefacts on Zoom and going really deep into that.

Paul-Jervis Heath: When you're kitted out to do that, you can't believe that perhaps that wasn't happening beforehand. But that kind of necessity is the mother of invention has really made people get creative about what they do to keep people engaged, and engage people in the collections, and provide extra value to members of their institutions and all of those kinds of things. And I think that's something that actually gives us a really good kind of jumping-off point for going forward rather than just going back.

Paul-Jervis Heath: So it's inevitable that some things will have to change. So the QR codes that you mentioned, we put on floor decals. I'm showing, Kelly, how big they were, which works brilliantly on a podcast, right? Me showing you in with my hands, how big they are. But so they're about 20 centimetres across something like that. I can't remember the 20, 25-centimetre decals and they're stuck on the floor next to the object with an arrow pointing to the object. So you can tell what object they correspond to. You can stand by that and scan it on your phone. And even in a dark gallery, they're bright enough with high enough contrast that you'd be able to scan them.

Paul-Jervis Heath: But when there's lots of people in the gallery, you can imagine somebody might be stood on the QRS code that you want to scan or something like that. And you then have to take a choice. Do we dot more QR codes around it? Or do we do something actually clever with the technology? Do we do something kind of geo-fencing, for example, so that actually when somebody's in this room, we can tell them about the objects in this room on their mobile device? And I think this all depends then on people's behaviour in the space. And our whole ethos behind any type of design that we do is that you have to watch people understand their needs.

Paul-Jervis Heath: I think one of the mistakes that any organisation makes is that they'll run surveys or they'll run focus groups, and try and diagnose what people need from a survey or a focus group. And of course, a survey assumes that you know the right questions to ask. And a focus group is really just a way of kind of gathering opinion. But if you want to understand what they really need, you really have to observe their behaviour because people don't necessarily know what they intuitively need, particularly not their latent needs. So they can tell you about needs that they're already having satisfied in some way. But what they can't tell you is about their undiagnosed needs because often they haven't diagnosed their needs effectively either. But when you watch their behaviour, you'll see them do something that's kind of a tell as to an unmet need, and then you can dive deep into kind of how people behave and why they behave like that and identify kind of what's missing in their experience.

Paul-Jervis Heath: The key thing is we made the decals liftable so if they're not working you just take them up, put more down. But actually, by observing the people's behaviour in the gallery, you can work out then how many people are engaging with that information? How much of a need is there for that information? And then what other ways could you provide? What adaptations do you need as more people come into the gallery? I think the key thing is not to stop yourself from making a change because you can already think of the problems.

Paul-Jervis Heath: If there's obvious problems with an idea then you need to kind of kill the idea and move on to something that will work. But actually, the number of times that people will discount an idea because it doesn't work in outlying situations is really high. And actually sometimes what people will do is they'll discount an idea for a situation that will never, or very rarely occur. And so, actually much better to watch people's behaviour and design for the behaviour you do see, then imagine the behaviour that you might see and design for imagined extremes.

Kelly Molson: Because one of my questions was going to be around what do we think the visitor behaviours and expectations are going to be as we move further into 2021. But would that be your advice to attractions that are ... At the moment we're still in a knockdown. Let's say most attractions at the moment are probably planning for reopening around Easter time, just after Easter. Is that your advice to them? Open safely and then watch your visitors. Really observe their behaviours and how they're interacting with your venue.

Paul-Jervis Heath: I think that's certainly part of the equation because unless you're doing that, and I'm sure attractions will, but unless you're doing that there's a danger that you assume that their behaviour will change in a certain way. And then get confounded when it doesn't or when people bring their own new assumptions into space. But you can also kind of predict likely behavioural changes from the situation as well.

Paul-Jervis Heath: It's a balance of the two, to be perfectly honest. I think what you want to do is you want to think forwards and try and identify how people's needs have changed. And rather than the tasks that people do, when you look at the goals behind why they do them, all's very rarely changed for people, but tasks change all the time. And so, in any great shift, like we've had, what you see is that the goal behind why they were visiting the cultural attraction, the goals behind their visit will stay the same, but the tasks that they might do to fulfill that visit might be very different.

Paul-Jervis Heath: I always kind of counsel organizations to look for their users and visitors goals. Why are they coming? Because those won't change or they'll change much less than a task. Where actually they might need to book a ticket now, for example. So, there's an extra task that they didn't have to do before. Completely new task. But if you think about why they're coming, they're still coming to get ... There was always an element of a change of scene. There was always an element of entertaining the kids. There was always an element of providing an experience for someone else. Actually, somebody's visiting and I want to show them something. And therefore, I'm facilitating their visits actually to a cultural attraction and showing off where I live, or the life I have, or something like that. There's fulfilling a passion that I have. I'm really interested in Vikings and I'm going to go and see some Viking artefacts.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Those goals are still there. And once you understand those goals, you can then say, "Well, how have those goals changed as a result of coronavirus and lockdown and things like that?" And then you can then identify what behaviours might be more prevalent after you reopen. I would always say go back to the goals. If you understand your visitor's goals and you understand that they're the reasons that they're visiting, then you can then start to think about have those reasons changed, how will the things that they do in order to facilitate that visit change in line with that goal? And it gives you a way of thinking very differently about the types of visitors that you get, rather than just thinking about them as a demographic. That all young people visit like this or all over 65 visits like that. It's actually a much more accurate model to say, these are the reasons that people visit, these are the goals that they have, and here's how they facilitate those goals. And that gives you a much better way of thinking about kind of visitor behaviour as you go forward as well.

Kelly Molson: That's super advice. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sure that it's going to be really useful to a lot of attractions that are currently planning how they're going to reopen after all of this. If attractions are thinking about, "Actually this is something that we need to speak to Paul about, we need to speak to Modern Human." What are those triggers for when people might call you in? What are the kind of challenges that an attraction might have that they would think to pick up the phone and speak to you?

Paul-Jervis Heath: I think the big one is clients usually come to us with some kind of business problem rather than a design challenge, to be perfectly honest. And the big one with visitor attractions is the funnel. How do we turn people who are considering visiting into actual visitors? And how do we convert actual visitors into donors? And how do we convert donors into members? And I think that kind of funnel of how you convert through that funnel to get people closer to the institution is one of the key questions that we get invited in by institutions to talk to them about. I think understanding visitor behaviour is another. We do a lot of ethnography and understand whether that's understanding how people choose a visitor attraction or how people visit a visitor attraction through watching their behaviour either longitudinally.

Paul-Jervis Heath: So we've done studies, for example, on why people visit Scotland as a destination. And how people choose to visit Scotland versus other places. And so, we got people who were planning visits to Scotland from all over the world to keep diaries of that planning, and looked at how they chose or didn't choose to visit Scotland, for example. And then down to what attractions did they visit while they were in Scotland? How did they kind of keep that visit alive after they visited Scotland? All of those kinds of things. So, looking longitudinally at a visit and understanding visitor behaviour is another thing that people kind of ask us to help them with.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And then within that, you've got all of the usual, "How do we encourage us just to stay longer, spend more? How do we appeal to different types of visitors or reveal more about that collection as well?" Quite often the frustration for museums particularly is that they know so much about artefacts that they've got, and they can put only so much on all about those artefacts. When you've got some of the most fantastic artefacts in the world, you've perhaps got the only one of something in the world, how do you tell people everything that you know about that and also discuss some of the issues around it? Around British colonialism, for example. And the checkered past of the acquisition of some of these objects and all of these kinds of things.

Paul-Jervis Heath: How do bring in alternative voices and maybe tell, wherever that artefact is from, how do you tell that kind of culture's story of either artefact, not just the anglicised version of it? All of those kinds of things are questions that we get involved with. How do people extend their relationship with visitors? How do they deepen the relationship with visitors? That's really key in a lot of those questions.

Kelly Molson: Amazing. Thank you. Well, I mean, that's given our listeners, I'm sure, plenty of food for thought on why they might want to book a chat with you. And we will supply all of Paul's contact details in our show notes as well.

Kelly Molson: But Paul, it's the last question of the podcast, and it's a question that I ask all of our guests, and it's: Is there a book that you would recommend? And this can be something that you really love that has either helped you throughout your career? Or just a book that you really love and has become part of you.

Paul-Jervis Heath: I think the book that I read, and I read it every January, is Chris Hadfield's autobiography. For anyone who doesn't know who that is, Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut, and he was captain of the International Space Station. And the biography tells, like many biographies, it tells the story of how he became an astronaut and his life story, and fills in some of the details behind that. But one of the key things in this book is something that Chris Hadfield talks about, expedition thinking. And that's the fact that you're going into this hostile environment as an astronaut and you all have to come back alive. It's not about who's the best astronaut.

Paul-Jervis Heath: When you think about astronauts, they're typically fighter pilots, they're typically test pilots. They're usually very, very competitive people. They're usually alpha people that get selected for the astronaut program. And one of the things that you have to learn as an astronaut is this kind of idea of expedition thinking. That it's actually we either all get home or the mission was a failure. And that runs counter to that alpha thinking. And he talks about this idea of grading your involvement in anything as either a minus one, a zero or a plus one. You never want to be a minus one. You never want to detract from whatever is happening. Because even fixing the space toilet has the opportunity to go massively wrong and result in death. So you never want to be a minus one. You never want to be detracting from the work of your team and your teammates.

Paul-Jervis Heath: The best in many situations you can hope to be is a zero. That actually you go, you play your part, you don't detract from the work of the team, but you assist the team, you do everything that you can. And in the odd situation, you will get to be a plus one. You'll get to be that kind of outstanding astronaut, that outstanding leader. But if you go in trying to make every situation into the situation where you're the plus one, you very quickly become the minus one. You quickly become the one that everyone in the team is having to workaround.

Paul-Jervis Heath: And I just think the idea of expedition thinking is the brilliant way of thinking about how a team works and how a team works together. And how, yes, everyone wants to shine, but really the only way you can shine is everyone shines together. And sometimes that means assisting others to shine, not necessarily being in the limelight yourself. And I read it every year to just kind of remind myself about expedition thinking. And remind myself that I can't always be the plus one. And sometimes the best I can do is sit quietly and help the team. And that is enough.

Kelly Molson: That sounds like a perfect book to read it at the start of every year, Paul. And actually, a perfect book if you are running a team of designers and developers like we both are. So thank you for that recommendation personally.

Paul-Jervis Heath: You're welcome.

Kelly Molson: And if you want the opportunity to win Paul's book then you just need to head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this podcast announcement with the words, "I want Paul's book." And then you'll be in a chance of winning that later on in the year.

Kelly Molson: Paul, it's been a pleasure to have you on. Thank you for joining me today. And we're going to put all of your contact details in show notes, as I said earlier. But where's the best place that people can get hold of you if they would like to chat about what we've talked about today?

Paul-Jervis Heath: Best thing to do is to drop me an email, [email protected]. Or look me up on LinkedIn I'm Paul-Jervis Heath on LinkedIn.

Kelly Molson: Fabulous. And again, we will put all of those details in the show notes. So you'll have all of those available to you. Paul, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for coming on today. I've really enjoyed it.

Paul-Jervis Heath: Thanks very much, Kelly.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends March 31st 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

Podcast: www.conversationsworthmillions.com

Agency: www.syntheticagency.co

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/roymurphy/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/agencysynthetic

https://www.syntheticagency.co/10-simple-tips-on-bot-strategy-and-design/

https://www.syntheticagency.co/oracle-chatbots/

‘Songs for themeparks’ - 100 tunes for those who love + those who are terrified

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6SQ77ZYMDbdHBYPKkQKJ4V?si=XqTPtiTZSICe7Daeb4Mn4w

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. 

In today's episode, I speak with Roy Murphy from Synthetic, the chatbot and voice agency. 

We discuss the opportunity for exciting voice strategies for attractions, and also how attractions can derive maximum value from chatbots. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. 

Kelly Molson: Roy, welcome to the Skip The Queue podcast, it's good to have you on today.

Roy Murphy: Hello Kelly, looking forward to talking to you on the legendary Skip The Queue podcast. This will be a great conversation.

Kelly Molson: You are very kind indeed. Now as you know, you've listened to a few of these episodes and you know that I start off with a few icebreaker questions, which you don't get to prep. Are you ready?

Roy Murphy: As ready as I'll ever be. 

Kelly Molson: Okay. All right, what is the worst job that you've ever had?

Roy Murphy: The worst job I've ever had is probably when I was very young on a Pitch and Putt golf course, not because the Pitch and Putt wasn't bad as a summer job, it was pretty cool, I quite enjoyed my job, but it was in a small hut in Wellington Island in Braze in South Dublin in Ireland many years ago, and the problem with the job was that it was in a small hut on the seafront outside a pub, and after the pub, everyone would come into the hut and kick it in and not only take the golf equipment out onto the kind of fairway in front of the promenade, then also do some not very nice things and use it as a toilet.

Kelly Molson: Oh no, oh that's horrible.

Roy Murphy: So for that reason, that is ... I've got a few other ones, but that's probably my top of the list I think.

Kelly Molson: Oh God.

Roy Murphy: Let's move on.

Kelly Molson: So yeah let's ... shall we? 

Roy Murphy: Let's move on.

Kelly Molson: Sorry.

Roy Murphy: Anyway, I told you that, it's awful, isn't it?

Kelly Molson: Sounds dreadful. Sorry, I'm just really having a chuckle, I feel bad that I'm laughing at your unfortunate job. 

Roy Murphy: It's all right.

Kelly Molson: Okay.

Roy Murphy: My hands are clean now though. My hands are clean now, it's fine. 

Kelly Molson: Good that, hygiene is very important.

Roy Murphy: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Which cartoon character do you wish was real?

Roy Murphy: Oh, Tasmanian Devil.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Roy Murphy: Just for the mayhem, I think. I just love ... I loved it as a kid, I'm not sure if it's appropriate now in terms of the name and so on, but just that whole kind of whirling dervish, and let it loose on various politicians.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. If you had your own late-night talk show, who would be the first person that you'd invite on as a guest?

Roy Murphy: Andrew Ridgeley. 

Kelly Molson: For what reason?

Roy Murphy: I read his biography last year and I found it absolutely fascinating. I love those stories behind the fame, and actually, it came across that he was actually quite talented. You wouldn't have thought that from his public persona, but actually as a songwriter and a musician he gets kind of a bad rep, you know, George Michael, God bless, was so talented and popular, and I actually ... I think the stories behind the stories are sometimes more interesting, so I'd like to have him on and tell his side of the story face-to-face.

Kelly Molson: That would be a great guest. I have to say that I was a massive Wham! fan so I would be watching that.

Roy Murphy: Shows your age a bit.

Kelly Molson: I know, I can't help it. Tell me something that is true that almost nobody agrees with you on, so your unpopular opinion.

Roy Murphy: Oh, I've got lots of those. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, I'm intrigued.

Roy Murphy: I like being contrary. So I pose it that winter doesn't exist. I have a theory.

Kelly Molson: You need to explain this theory because it feels very wintery at the moment.

Roy Murphy: Well, I'm not a flat-earther, but I have a theory. Let me run it past you. Typically there's four seasons in a year, I get that, and my own way of thinking is ... and I'm an optimist and I hate winter, by the way, just to set the groundwork. So summer doesn't end until September in my book, right? Because ultimately you always want an Indian summer, and September's still summer in my book. Autumn is October, November, and part of December because October, November are kind of autumn-ish, and December is a month of Fridays, right? So December isn't winter either. 

Roy Murphy: On the 21st of December, it's the winter equinox, and it gets lighter one minute per day, so therefore by the time you're into the 21st of December, forget about Christmas, that's always fun, by the time you get to first of January, the days are getting lighter every day by a minute, therefore winter doesn't exist. Discussed.

Kelly Molson: I'm going to disagree, but I'm going to do it based ... I know where you're going, I understand where you're going with the equinox, but the winter ... the weather in January is horrendous and you could not associate that with any other month, other than winter. 

Roy Murphy: Disagree. 

Kelly Molson: Like it's always miserable, it's always really super cold, it normally snows.

Roy Murphy: I see your point, but I'm an absolute optimist and I'm not having it. Winter is a construct, doesn't exist, and we're already into spring, so I'm skipping winter.

Kelly Molson: I feel like we all need to do that this year.

Roy Murphy: Every year.

Kelly Molson: So maybe we should just all agree with you.

Roy Murphy: Every year. This year in particular.

Kelly Molson: January is my birthday month, which is really tough, nobody ever has any money, everyone's a bit miserable, the weather's rubbish, so maybe we should all just skip January and then I'll have a birthday later on in the summer.

Roy Murphy: You'll thank me for it, Kelly, believe me.

Kelly Molson: I'm with you. Thank you, Roy, for answering my questions. Roy, I want you to tell us about your agency that you run. So your agency is Synthetic, tell me what you do. 

Roy Murphy: So I run Synthetic, we are an emerging technology agency with a specialism in conversational AI, so what that means is we create conversations worth millions for our clients using chat, voice, messaging, all those AI-based concepts. I've been running it for about four years, got in quite early into the space, previously we were a mobile agency, but niched down into conversational AI because it's a really growing space, very interesting things happening across all those kind of areas from chat, voice, and messaging and so on.

Roy Murphy: The platform is getting bigger, social's getting bigger, and customers and clients both are using these platforms every day, and therefore there's a massive opportunity for niche agencies in that space to help strategy, help to develop, and help to maintain those kinds of platforms and those kinds of activities.

Kelly Molson: And what kind of ... like give me an example of something that you've worked on that we can reference. 

Roy Murphy: Sure, there's a couple of interesting ones, one on the kind of more entertainment side and maybe some more business-related ones. So one of the first ones and a very successful one we did a little while ago was a Robbie Williams virtual personality bot. So that was a fascinating project actually, so we actually got some time with the man himself and went through it with his record company and so on, and that was to promote ... I think about two albums ago, it was about 2016 we started that, that's still going actually, it's one of the longest-running ... certainly messenger chatbots, or successful ones, that's been around.

Roy Murphy: So the idea being that you know, it's a virtual personality, he is not obviously there, but when we started it, it was quite early in the kind of chat space and area, there were so many messages coming through saying, "Is this you? Tell me where you are, I'm going to show you something," and it got quite personal actually-

Kelly Molson: I can imagine.

Roy Murphy: Not [crosstalk 00:07:09] yeah it did, but at one point we had ... I think we broke Facebook inbox it was so popular, and this was, you know, one of those kinds of small budget and small kind of time-spent projects that had a massive footprint.

Kelly Molson: So it was a bit like ... as if you were messaging Robbie and you would get responses back from him?

Roy Murphy: Yeah, exactly right, yeah. Since then obviously like lots has happened in that space around a kind of virtual assistants, a lot more sort or reality around augmented reality and kind of replicas of people and digital twins and so on, but that was kind of where it started, that was very successful and very popular, and still going actually. So a bit more up-to-date, we work with a number of large technology companies, one in particular, so we are doing a bunch of stuff with them around gamification and chat, so that's using the conversational piece to ... in the SaaS space actually along sort of [inaudible 00:08:01] and CX in that space, where we're doing things like virtual events on chat and we're doing some voice applications as well. 

Roy Murphy: Customers will come onto the website and using things like web chat to find out more about some of their products and then upselling from there, so chat and conversational AI with an ROI behind it.

Kelly Molson: And that's kind of what I want to talk about today. So Roy and I are both members of an agency networking group, so we're both members of Agencynomics, and this is how we met, and I think Roy saw something that I posted about chatbots on LinkedIn, which spurred us to have a conversation about a few things. So some of you listening will have seen me speak at the Visitor Attractions Conference last year, and as part of our talk we were talking about things that could improve the guest's user journey and guest experience online, and one of the things that we suggested was using a chatbot.

Kelly Molson: I mean chatbots are great, they can often give people information that they can't find that easily, or you know, if you have a chatbot you're freeing up someone else's time from having to kind of be on that and populating it themselves, and that's how we got talking, and I have to admit, after the talk in the Q&A session, I got a lot of questions about chatbots, and I thought, "Why don't I get Roy on to answer those questions? Because he is an expert in it and I am not." Hence why you're on Roy.

Roy Murphy: That's useful.

Kelly Molson: So I kind of want to talk about that kind of side of voice activation and voice kind of conversation around attractions, and I know that you have worked a little bit in that sector, and I wondered if you could give us your kind of ... well, your thoughts on them, and then maybe can we talk about how ... like how can attractions derive that kind of maximum value from using chatbots?

Roy Murphy: Just to set the scene a little bit, quite important to mention I think, that you know, around the chat and conversational AI space we're still very early into it. I mean from our side it feels like it's been going on forever, we're almost five years into this kind of space, so the questions that we still get are often quite fundamental questions, you know, "Can I give my website, my product, over to an AI? What's going to happen? What if they start making ridiculous claims and comments? Will people be able to use them? Are we lying to people because they're not talking to people? Is there any kind of brand damage that might happen?

Roy Murphy: You know we get a lot of these questions still quite a lot from the educational side, and that's, of course, every sector, not just visitor attractions, that's everything from finance to healthcare, wellness, education and so on. So the fundamentals still apply. So the first thing to say is, of course, we're still quite early into it, although we've been doing it for quite a while, so these questions do still apply, and then the second thing we often get as well is, you know, how do you get started? Is it very difficult and complicated and therefore expensive?

Roy Murphy: And it really isn't. You know, of course, anything ... as a piece of string, can be ... you can be using very basic bots or very, very complex and integrated with the CRM systems, so in essence, we are early into it, there are lots of use-cases coming in that are ROI focused and kind of based in reality, which is great, but in terms of visitor attractions, you know, the very basics of a museum or an attraction using an FAQ bot is a great place or a great example to start with.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Roy Murphy: So in essence ... and that's very simple to do, so really these are not large projects, and most attractions and most businesses will have most of the information to hand anyway, which is often in their call centre scripts or on the FAQs or the questions being asked on their website, and indeed what's coming in on email, you know, whether it's the kind of ... you know, a more analogue process they have. So in the very basic version, it's not difficult for a site to spin up something on their current site based around their FAQs and then use that kind of data that comes back in to understand what people are asking for, because the beauty of those simple chatbot systems, of course, is that people are asking you actual questions, they're not ... you know you don't have to use eye-tracking software, you don't have to use Hotjar or something like that, you can actually get ... you know, people are actually asking you what they want, you know, what time you're open, will my discount vouchers still apply because of COVID? 

Roy Murphy: You know, are you COVID safe? You know, things that have really been kind of popular last year.

Kelly Molson: In its simplistic form, you are gathering data about what people need to find out about your organization?

Roy Murphy: It is ... in essence, it is really like having a conversation with a customer, and that can be automated, of course, so you don't have to have your call-centre staff on board, you don't have to have you, social team, if you're a small business as well with a single site attraction, this can all be automated very simply and very quickly, and that's a great place to start with this whole kind of AI space if you like because then you're going to get a load of data back which will inform you as you what you might do next.

Roy Murphy: The classic what we call think like a startup, kill or continue, so if you're getting a whole bunch of questions back and you've already answered, okay, maybe that is what you need to spend your time on, but if people are often ... if your bot or if your site's failing on the certain questions of ... you know, maybe someone's asking a particular question all the time, are you open? How do I get to you? How much is it? How much are ticket costs? You can use that and you'll find that we've got loads of data around how people use conversation versus how they use a website, and they'll spend more time basically on chatbots, and they'll ask more questions, side-by-side apples with apples than they will on the website, we've seen that time and time again. 

Kelly Molson: So the time that they'll spend talking to a bot will be longer than a browse time?

Roy Murphy: Yeah, often. Often there's caveats around that of course, but yeah, in essence, we see that a lot because if you've ... and again, you don't have to brand it particularly excitingly, although keep away from female named assistants, I've got a massive bugbear about that, let's get onto that later, but you know, if you're not ... you know, you don't have to spend huge amounts of time with developing new characters or new kind of personas for your bot, if you've got a friendly open museum visitor attraction park, whatever, just use that. Answer the basic questions, and use those questions to inform what you do next.

Roy Murphy: And the other point of that is ... so the other important point is that of course if someone gets stuck or if they've got a major problem, or it's a high priority customer service question you can always hand over to a live agent anyway, so there's loads of nuances around how you would do that and when you would do it, but these things are all very possible and very easy to integrate with whatever you're currently using in terms of your live chat.

Kelly Molson: Sounds really cool, doesn't it? Like it sounds like something that everybody should be using.

Roy Murphy: I think people are often quite flummoxed by where to start and how easy it can be, because it seems like it's a great thing to do and everyone, of course, jumps in and goes, "Right, can we have a Robbie plus replica ... can we have someone in our ... can they be AR? Can they be this? And can they connect to all our systems?" And absolutely it can, but you don't necessarily have to start there. So you know ... and again, because the prevalence of chat and voice and all these technologies that are happening and your customers are using them, it's not a big jump for them, so really it's something you should be doing, you should be talking to your customers on the channels they're already using.

Kelly Molson: And what would you say is the starting point? Because you talked a little bit about things to think about before you get started with this, like what should an organization be thinking about before they commit to something or before they come and speak to you for example?

Roy Murphy: It's very simple really. I mean you've got to pick a use-case, so there's a bunch of things you could do, and a bunch of things you should do, but what you absolutely must do is, you know, set your KPI, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to, number one, reduce the amount of hours spent with your social team on answering questions that could be very simply answered by a bot? Are you number two, needing to increase sales by X percent and will this help us to do that? What do we do about? How do we get involved in that? 

Roy Murphy: So first thing you need to do, understand what it is you're trying to do in terms of the business KPIs, and then the second thing, of course, is that ... you know, leading on from that is describing it which is just a pre-post or after-sales type of scenario, or is it an engagement tool? So are we looking at conversational AI in this instance? Should we be ... are we using it for your website? So that's pre-buy, someone's looking at your information, it's top of the funnel, it's awareness, and that's one thing and that can be driven all the way through to the final ... to kind of booking.

Roy Murphy: Or is it on the other side of the coin when someone gets to your park, your attraction, or your museum, whatever it might be, are you interacting more there with a character? Is it more things like treasure hunts? Is it something that's engaging in terms of dwell time? Are you upselling from there? So they're kind of separate things. Either can be started off very simply, but I think you need to ask yourself those simple kind of one-page answers and questions which are, what's the bot trying to do? What's the key audience? And what the success looked like, you know, very simple, basic questions you need to start with first.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, one of the questions that came up ... well there was a couple, there was quite a few questions actually at the Visitor Attractions Conference, but one that sticks in my mind was around ... it was around social media, you know, was there a platform of some sort or something that would interact with people's social media, as well as people, being able to ask questions on the website as well? I guess if you're building something bespoke for an organization, you can make it do pretty much whatever you want it to.

Roy Murphy: Yeah pretty much. I mean anything with API is integrable, basically. So, in essence, yeah, so whether you want to ingest your Twitter feeds ... or indeed a lot of the chats are actually social themselves, so they don't have to be ... and there's kind of ... there's open and closed systems of course, but you know, for instance, Facebook obviously everyone's aware of, and it would appear from all the things that we see that ... and not forgetting that Facebook own three of the biggest social platforms in the world, you know, not just Facebook, of course, they own Instagram, of course, they own WhatsApp, and who knows what else, and they are moving into a ... it feels like or it seems like an integrated system where you can now message, you can now use chatbots, to an extent, on Instagram. 

Roy Murphy: Messenger obviously is the platform for bots for Facebook, but again, WhatsApp being more private has had business beta on it, and it hasn't really broken in the Western countries as yet. It's massive in India mind you, WhatsApp. So all these things are all possible and all ... and you can build one system and one platform to interact on those as a single point of view, so yeah, it's all very possible from a social perspective, yeah.

Kelly Molson: How about engaging with different demographics? So is there ... you know, in your experience, is there a certain age bracket that will interact more with a chatbot on a site? I guess ... again one of the questions was around kind of our grandparents that are booking a trip with their grandkids, are they going to use this chatbot? Is it going to be helpful for them?

Roy Murphy: That is a very, very common question. That's a great question. Before I started in this whole space I had the same question, isn't this just for kids though? But actually, kids aren't using Facebook as you've probably noticed. I've got a 14-and-a-half year old going on 20 daughter, she hasn't touched Facebook in four years, or for that matter, Instagram and WhatsApp. If you're not on TikTok or some of the newer ones you're kind of toast really. So yeah, we've seen ... we've got a ream of data around this and you'll probably be quite surprised from the grandparent question that they're actually very capable and use Facebook, in particular, a lot, because that's how they communicate with their kids and grandkids. 

Roy Murphy: So we see a huge spread. We thought the same thing actually a couple of years ago, is this route for kids? And would anyone use it? And is it all ... opposite, if it's easy to use, that's a truism across any platform, if it's simple, you use and you're being upfront about what it is and how you use it, it really does cross ... there isn't a demographic we've seen that doesn't use it. So yeah, it's not skewed young in essence, no.

Kelly Molson: Is it a case of if it's easy, anybody will use it? Or would an attraction have to put in any kind of work to get people to engage with it? Because I think that was something that people were a bit worried about, is committing to this and then it not being used, and would it need to be ... like would they need to put this huge kind of drive behind encouraging people to use it?

Roy Murphy: So again, depending on what the use-case is. So in very simple terms for the kind of top-of-funnel awareness, and there is other ways of doing this, but your classic chatbot scenario is the bottom right circle, you know, on your website, which you select, and I think we're all pretty used to ... there's loads of different ones out there from some of the big names like Drift and Intercom and so on, and some of the other platforms. So that is really a tap of a button to ask questions into a kind of FAQ.

Roy Murphy: So that is people are coming to your site anyway, or they're coming to your Facebook page, and that how you interact anyway, or they're Instagram now and possibly WhatsApp and so on, so that's all kind of intrinsically baked in. In terms of on-park or on-site, slightly different scenario. So yeah, I think it's fair to say that you need to surface it. So if you're in the aquarium or whatever it might be, or you know, a London Bridge experience or whatever, front-of-house, there's something there they haven't seen already, I think definitely. 

Roy Murphy: Parts of your marketing in terms of if you're using an app already and there's a nice part of it which might be chat-related or kind of something you would engage with through the experience, I think yeah, so it really depends. I think the key though is ultimately ... it's telling people about it, yes, but then making it really simple to use, and there's two things you want to do really, you know, you don't want to take away from the experience itself, right? The reason they're there is to see fantastic ocean animals or go on roller coaster rides.

Roy Murphy: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that, you know, some train or some ... or at least an awareness from front-of-house staff would be important, if you know ... just to check in with people, "Have you seen X or Y? Have you seen we've got a new dipper," you know, for museum, you know, our new Dippy chat bot, interact with it, you can see ... find treasures, if you do the treasures you get a discount or an offer or something, you know, that kind of stuff is important I think, but again, not taking away from the experience is really important, because you know, let's face it, we, and our kids as well, spend enough time on screens, so it's got to add to the experience, and we're going through the experience of the attraction, and of course not all attractions are end-to-end and kind of, you know, linear, but understanding whether it's just using a QR code or something simple or being tripped by another kind of interactivity, is important, and making those things short and sweet I think is important as well, those interactions.

Kelly Molson: This was going to be like my kind of final round-up question to you because what we've focused on quite a bit is what I think is that kind of pre-attraction journey using chatbots, so people are asking questions about you know, are you open? How much is the ticket price? I can't find this thing to be able to book, but actually, there's a lot that can be done in terms of voice strategies for attractions once you're at the attraction as well. 

Kelly Molson: Like what kind of things could potentially attractions be looking at for that? I guess this is endless, endless opportunities?

Roy Murphy: Yeah absolutely. I mean you know, depending on the attraction, like I say, I mentioned the kind of Dippy scenario where ... you know, are we looking through the museum at bones or artifacts or using a voice to give hints around where to find things, more like an interactive treasure hunt scenario, I think is definitely useful. Making it engaging as well, because you know, obviously moving into a post ... hopefully a post-COVID world soon where things are back open again, hopefully sooner rather than later, you're able to touch things, but maybe people don't want to, so I think it's going to be quite important that that kind of touchless experience is probably more part of the experience going forward than it has been.

Kelly Molson: Really good point.

Roy Murphy: So then that's going to be important. There's tons of things you can do, like you say, create new characters, use some new technology like AR to kind enhance, I've seen some great stuff around museum attractions around selfies, you know, putting yourself into pictures and really engaging and immersing yourself in whatever you're looking around. I mean my own personal favourite which doesn't exist, I'm so disappointed that they stopped doing it, was in Audley End, you know, the national heritage-

Kelly Molson: I live right near Audley End-

Roy Murphy: Oh okay. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, we live in Saffron Walden.

Roy Murphy: I love it.

Kelly Molson: It's a great place.

Roy Murphy: I love Audley End, they used to have a Victorian sing-along at Christmas, I don't know if you ever went to it-

Kelly Molson: No, we moved here a couple of years ago so-

Roy Murphy: Right, I think they stopped it about three or four years ago, every time I go there I'm so disappointed they don't do it, because you got a chance to go into the house and there were some people dressed up in Victorian ... I thought, "Wow that's what I want, I want a Victorian granddad bot, that's what they're missing," right?

Kelly Molson: Yes.

Roy Murphy: I honestly do, I might just go and do it anyway because it's a fantastic idea, but that kind of interactive and engagement, these things, these character-driven kind of experiences around AI are again ... they can be quite complex. It's not that difficult to start, but again, it just adds to the kind of fun, doesn't it? And again, the important point I think is, is not just to have that on the park, so there's any kind of brand and merchandise extensions that are possible in terms of licensing et cetera, so if you're ... I know Dippy's a good example, or maybe Audley End's a bad example, but there's certainly plenty of character-driven attractions where you could extend that more and you could have more engagement from people outside of visiting the attraction.

Roy Murphy: And again, it could just be that you have a conversation starter and you are able to talk to people and engage, and that might be, "Did you know we're open? Why don't you come along and have a two-for-one offer?" And these are you know, digitally printed tickets, they can go into an existing app they've got, they can go onto social, go onto the bot itself, so lots of opportunities I think, commercially speaking, that aren't really being utilized that well because ... because we're quite early into it, and again, I'm going to put a stake in the ground and say I think that in the visitor attraction kind of space there's huge opportunities because ... for people to steal a march on the competitors to be honest.

Roy Murphy: Because not many people are doing it and doing it well, so there's a massive opportunity. The audience is definitely there, we know that, we're going to reopen again soon, and even before reopening it's a brilliant way to engage people and not particularly ... I wouldn't say cost-neutral, but it's not particularly expensive to get these things started if you go in with an MVP think like the startup mindset.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, totally agree with that. There is endless possibilities and huge opportunities at the moment. I love what you talked about ... the Audley End example is a really great example actually because it is about ... you know, it's about putting you into that experience, isn't it? It's about ... it's complementary to it, it enhances the experience, it doesn't take away from it or distract you from what's actually happening there at the same time. 

Roy Murphy: Yeah, I think that's really important. I was also just thinking about audio as well, and again, this is just simple things, and this isn't necessarily around conversational, but you know, just ahead of us having a chat, just thinking about things like some of the more ride-based attractions, and whether this has been done or not, I'm using ... audio is massive obviously, podcasts are massive, audio content's massive, Alexa and Google and so on are massive, and you know, just simple things like those additional engagements of those ... for instance Spotify or Alexa playlists of ... you know, you're going to Alton Towers in a month's time, you're really excited about it, here's the Terror List list with ride on time and songs from TerrorVision and Screamadelica, why aren't we doing that? This is not difficult to do. 

Roy Murphy: You know, and you can do corporate audio and AI and conversation to all these things, and there's so many good opportunities I think for this, and I think there's a ... you know, I think the brands that jump on this and attractions that jump on this will ... they'll put themselves in a good spot I think.

Kelly Molson: That's such a great idea, what is your attraction's playlist? That's what I want everyone to tweet me, what would be on your attraction's playlist? 

Roy Murphy: You can't use Screamadelica, I've used that. Try and get an example that's under 30 years old, I tried to think of one earlier, I couldn't. 

Kelly Molson: Well this one's not under 30 years ... well ... yeah no, it is, but I always think about ... there's the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster at Disney and it plays Aerosmith, and it's such a great song, Dude (Looks like a lady), and I just have got such great memories, and every time I hear that song I instantly get transported back to that attraction. It would be really cool wouldn't it, to have like your playlist from your favourite attractions?

Roy Murphy: It'd be great, just on a personal note, I'm a heavy ... well my family, we are heavy attraction users, I was talking to my wife earlier and I think we count ... even though we're on COVID, I think we counted up about 30 attractions last year we did.

Kelly Molson: Nice.

Roy Murphy: And we generally do around 40 plus, and that's everything from you know, the obvious big ones, you know, the Alton Towers and so on, to ... we went to Portsmouth into the Mary Rose and the dockyards we did [inaudible 00:27:53] Tower, we did Woburn Safari, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Shakespeare Museums, and I did one interestingly, like just before Christmas, the Silverstone Experience, don't know if you've done it, which is-

Kelly Molson: Oh no, I haven't yet. I should because it's not that far from where we are.

Roy Murphy: It was actually really good. You know, I'm not a huge Formula 1 fan, but I know lots of people are, but I took the kids out there and my wife came as well, and you get to drive on the track, and now it's very slow, but they've got little lights on, it's fantastic actually.

Kelly Molson: That's cool.

Roy Murphy: And there was a Silverstone radio station which you could turn on and they play some tunes, but I thought they were missing a huge trick around interactivity, they should have had a very simple point and click where they are, which you can do very easily now. You're all going very slowly up the grid, why they didn't have sounds popping and people revving their engines like Lewis Hamilton on the grid is beyond me.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, really build that atmosphere a bit, yeah.

Roy Murphy: Exactly. Roll your phone over the ... traffic lights are, you know, they're red, amber, green, and then show it off and then you could have James [inaudible 00:28:46] it just missed the big trick there, and none of this is difficult, whether you could just point your thing at the stands and you can have the voice of Murray Walker or whatever it is for the F1 fans. These interactivity things, again, are not difficult.

Kelly Molson: Well I mean they might be listening Roy, so-

Roy Murphy: They should. Call us.

Kelly Molson: You could get a call. Call Roy. 

Roy Murphy: Call us. Call Kelly.

Kelly Molson: On that note, if you do want to know a bit more about Roy and what he does at Synthetic, then there's loads of places you can look. So you've got loads of really great articles on your website, syntehticagency.co, now there's a couple of really specific articles that are really useful to this conversation, so you've got 10 simple tips on bot strategy and design, and you've got a case study around Oracle chatbots as well, and there's just some really, really useful information if you want to carry this conversation on, that's the best place to go. 

Kelly Molson: And actually Roy you've got a podcast as well, haven't you?

Roy Murphy: It is called Conversations Worth Millions.

Kelly Molson: Love it.

Roy Murphy: So in essence, conversationsworthmillions.com is the URL, but if you ... because I'm amazing at SEO as well, if you type in conversations worth millions into Google, every result on the home pace will be my podcast, if it isn't, my OCD's going to go mental.

Kelly Molson: Okay, well let's test this, so yeah, if you want to listen to a bit more about this topic, then Conversations Worth Millions is what you type into Google and as Roy said, you should find everything that you need. One last question for you, I always ask all of our guests to recommend a book, and it can be a book that you love, just you love it personally, or it could be a book that's kind of helped shape your career on some way, so have you got a recommendation for us today?

Roy Murphy: Can I just make one small comment before I tell you what book it is? My second unpopular opinion is that you can't read too much.

Kelly Molson: Okay, yeah.

Roy Murphy: I'm a doer, don't ... my final parting shot on that is don't just consume, create. I'll leave it there, however-

Kelly Molson: Yeah, no do you know what? I agree, and don't just read self-help books, I think there's a lot of people who consume self-help business book one after the other, go read some fiction as well, and mix it up.

Roy Murphy: Speaking of self-help, I've got one for you. 

Kelly Molson: Good.

Roy Murphy: You'll like this. Okay so this one has got ... it's a bit of a mouthful for a name, it's brand new, don't know if you've seen it, so this is the Almanack of Naval Ravikant, have you seen it?

Kelly Molson: No, I haven't.

Roy Murphy: Okay, so I'll give you a quick pre-see of what it says on the back cover. So it says getting rich is not just about luck, happiness is not just a trait we are born with. So in essence what this is, is Naval is very famous on Twitter, he's a VC and a bit of a lifestyle guru and so on, and a tech guru too, he wrote quite a ... again, famous tweet about a year-and-a-half ago on why getting rich isn't just about money, it was a massive Twitter thread of maybe, I don't know, 15 tweets. Someone took those tweets and turned them into a book, which I thought for a couple of reasons was fantastic.

Roy Murphy: First of all, to be able to spin a book out of 15 tweets is really interesting, and actually the lessons in it I think are actually quite powerful, so that's my recommendation. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. 

Kelly Molson: Great. Good. That is a good choice. As ever, if you would like to win a copy of this book, we offer it as a prize, so all you need to do is head over to our Twitter account which is Skip The Queue if you just search for that on Twitter, and then if you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Roy's books," then you will be put into a prize draw to potentially win it. 

Kelly Molson: Roy thank you, I've really enjoyed this chat. Thanks for coming on and for sharing your knowledge about this topic. Please, everyone, go and subscribe to Roy's podcast the Conversations Worth Millions. If you are interested in what we've been talking about today, it's a wealth of knowledge there, and I would definitely check out Roy's website too. Thanks for coming on.

Roy Murphy: Thanks a lot, Kelly, it's been a pleasure. 

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review, it really helps others find us, and remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here