← Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
BONUS Entertainment That Makes Change: Lessons in Product Thinking from Believe Ltd. With Patrick James Lynch
00:41:43
BONUS: Patrick James Lynch on Entertainment That Makes Change - Lessons in Product Thinking from Believe Ltd. In this BONUS episode we explore how Patrick James Lynch, filmmaker, media executive, and rare disease advocate, has built around a...
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- [00:04]
Vasko
Hey there, agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if, for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of.
- [00:24]
Unknown Host
But you can also join live calls.
- [00:26]
Vasko
With world class practitioners and hang out in a flame war free and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's this Scrum Master Toolbox membership. And it's your unfair advantage in the agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership. That's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast.
- [01:12]
Patrick Lynch
Hello everybody.
- [01:13]
Unknown Host
Welcome to a very special bonus episode. And for this bonus episode, we have master storyteller, filmmaker and entrepreneur, Patrick Lynch. Hey Patrick, welcome to the show.
- [01:25]
Patrick Lynch
Thank you, Vasko. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [01:27]
Unknown Host
Likewise. Likewise. So Patrick, for all of you to know him a little bit better, is a filmmaker, a media executive, and also a rare disease Advocate. He's the CEO of Believe Ltd. And founder of Bloodstream Media. He uses his experience with hemophilia to drive award winning storytelling, health advocacy and mission driven content that inspires and empowers rare and chronic disease communities worldwide. And he's here to tell us a lot more about his journey and his work and of course to help us get inspired with the idea of being a value fundamentalist. More on that coming up. And a great storyteller. So, Patrick, to get us started, tell us a little bit more about Believe Limited. How would you describe that in one phrase?
- [02:19]
Patrick Lynch
Believe Limited in one phrase is an agency, a creative agency and an independent production company that specializes in high impact videos, films, podcasts, live experiences and influencer campaigns. We started about 12 or 13 years ago with a pretty simple mission to produce entertainment that affects change. And given my experience in hemophilia and rare disease, that is where we started and where we've largely grown over the past 12, 13 years.
- [02:57]
Unknown Host
That's a really bold mission. And of course you have personal experience with that since you yourself have that condition. But can you walk us back to the beginning? What's the origin story of Believe Limited? Where did this all begin?
- [03:15]
Patrick Lynch
The beginning of Believe Limited is interesting. To me, I am entrepreneurial. I identify as an entrepreneur, but I did not set out to start a company. I set out to respond to a need that I identified with one specific product, with one program to try to meet that need. So in addition to my having hemophilia, my younger brother was also born with the disease. And sadly, when he was in college, in large part due to some complacency with self care, he passed away. And on the heels of that, I became very curious about what had happened to him, that he's so disconnected from having hemophilia that he stopped treating himself, left himself so vulnerable, and passed away. We grew up in the same household, have the same diagnosis. What was the difference? And what I boiled it down to was that my brother simply never identified as having hemophilia. He was taken care of by my mother, as was I, but he was so well cared for that he didn't really develop the independent traits needed to self manage the condition once he left the household. So when I saw that and started looking around at, okay, what, what are we doing in the larger hemophilia and blood disorder space to meaningfully engage young people? And I found that we really weren't doing much at all, certainly not doing anything that would compete for the attention of a young person, similar to that of everything else in the world of a young person begging for their attention. So my thesis was if we create a piece of entertainment and put it on the Internet, where young people flock to videos and comedic videos in particular, and this is 2011, 2012, at the time I'm having these conversations, if we create valuable material there in the sandbox, they are already playing in funny online video, then we have a chance to engage them. Once they're engaged, we can educate and empower them, but if we never engage them, we don't have a chance. And I believe entertainment is the best form of engagement. So that's really how it started. And then that philosophy is what's grown the company. We started with the one project, and then people started asking, what else are you working on? Pretty quickly. And my co founder, Ryan Gieland and I looked at each other and realized, you know, this is more than a project, this is a mission, this is a company. And we've grown that way ever since.
- [05:54]
Unknown Host
Yeah, absolutely. And as part of that, I think that it's really important from, you know, especially from our audience's perspective who, who works with products, who tries to meet specific customer needs there all the time, this perspective of figuring out, okay, so how Do I engage? How do I learn more about my customers? How do I help convey the value that my product or my service brings to them? And I know that you work with clients to do that, to help them do exactly that. So what are some of the key tips you've learned about storytelling, about engaging with the customer, the users, the audience that you can share with us so that we can apply that into our products as well?
- [06:39]
Patrick Lynch
Sure. I mean, so in my world, there's always what's called a needs assessment or a compilation of true burden of disease. And this is in many ways a North Star, because in theory, anything beyond the medicine the company's providing, anything they may invest in programmatically, should be meeting some unmet need from a community, and there should be some kind of data to support that. So that's very helpful. But that's really only a starting place. Deep listening. When I started in, obviously I have hemophilia, but that doesn't make me an expert on hemophilia. That doesn't mean I understand the latest and greatest in drug development or treatment strategies or management practices or advocacy initiatives. The way that I became expert in those things was by embedding myself into the community. So I believe if you have something worth offering, it's important first to listen, learn, do no harm. Make sure that you are truly understanding what that audience is. Use available materials, like in my case, a needs assessment or true burden of disease list. But then do your own R and D. Embed yourself in the community, because without fail, there will be something that rises to the surface that didn't make its way to the needs assessment sheet that isn't going to be in some kind of one pager on, you know, audience demographics and background. So do your own work, really embed yourself, and then figure out where are the bridges between what the needs are and what I'm offering. How can I message that what I am offering truly meets a need? Where are those little bridges and where are those four phrases that I can leave people with, where they go, oh, entertainment to affect change. That's. That's good. I like that. I can remember that. I can pass that on. Entertainment doesn't have to be a scary word in healthcare. Entertainment can affect change. So those are some of the things that come to mind when thinking about how do we make sure that the product we're offering is actually meeting a need that the audience has.
- [08:47]
Unknown Host
I really like the concept or the idea that you described of involving yourself in the community. So in other words, I think for us as product people. This means kind of being exposed to our users or potential users and customers on a regular basis with the intention of listening, right?
- [09:07]
Patrick Lynch
That's right. And in my company now, that's an entire job. We have someone who's our senior vice president of engagement, and their job is, okay, we now have an opportunity in juvenile diabetes or sickle cell disease, or mitochondrial disease, whatever it may be. We operate in more than two dozen disease spaces. Anytime we're in a new space, that person's job is to make her and her team as familiar with that community as humanly possible so that we can serve the client as well as possible. Now, the client's going to have their own point of view on their audience and who they're trying to reach. Their client. The client's going to have their own point of view on strategy and tactics. But I believe as a service provider to the client, it is my responsibility to be as literate as possible and to make suggestions, even where sometimes it's going to create a little bit of headwind for something the client has stated they're interested in or they're prioritizing. When I'm doing my own R and D, I have the confidence to say I appreciate why we're strategically moving in that direction. Can I just offer another point of view before we lock in? Can I offer another point of view? I don't have the opportunity to say that if I'm not doing my own work or now that we've grown, don't have somebody on my team whose job it is to make sure we're as fully informed as possible.
- [10:29]
Unknown Host
The other aspect. So first is this. Involve yourself with the community. And then the other aspect is to find the value that you can bring and kind of create the story. I mean, you talked about the words or the phrases, but it's really a story of how to convey the value that you deliver. Right. Like, you use the phrase entertainment that affects change, and that triggers in me the thought that, okay, after we involve ourselves in the community, we need to be speaking language that the community understands so the users, the customers understand. But that also clearly described the value that we're bringing to them through our products and services. Right. And you did that yourself for Believe Limited. How did the process go?
- [11:13]
Patrick Lynch
Well, I was able to use my own story in a lot of respects to help bring attention to Believe Limited. Because when I would stand in front of a room of stakeholders in the spaces that I operate in and would share, I'm a patient, I have this rare disease, hemophilia I also lost my brother to it. And I think I have means whereby we can stop losing people like my brother and stop having young people fall into this place of complacency where they're doing irreversible damage to their bodies. Even if they're not suffering fatal injury, they're doing irreversible, lifelong damage. I get a lot of credibility when I stand in front of a room of people like that. Now what I'm able to say when I'm in front of other rooms is that I may not know what it's like to have, like I said, mitochondrial disease or sickle cell disease or spina bifida. I don't know what it's like to live with those, but I do know what it's like to live with a rare disease. And I know how insidious a rare disease can be, the way it impacts all other aspects of life. And I know from that experience that there's a lot more that we all have in common than that which divides us, especially when it comes to needs beyond the therapies and medicines. So it started small. It started with me being the face of our company and our mission. And anytime somebody was trying to work with us, making sure they understood who we were and why we did what we did. And then over time, as we grew, my task has been how do I extend that credibility in such a way that I'm not coming off as being from somewhere else or coming off false? How can I show up authentically when my lived experience isn't exactly that of the audiences I'm trying to serve? How can I. How can I relate? How can I tell story that demonstrates the ways in which I relate while accepting I'm not you and therefore I'm doing my own homework to make sure I know as much about you as possible?
- [13:12]
Unknown Host
So, so if I, if I get you right, it is, of course, credibility is a. Is a big aspect when you're talking to your customers, to your users. But. But you also refer to that credibility doesn't come only from us being like our users, but it comes from having experiences that they can relate to or sharing experiences that they can relate to and that drive kind of lessons. In your case, it's, you know, self care and so on, reaching young audiences that drive lessons that they can apply. Right.
- [13:45]
Patrick Lynch
That's exactly it. And it doesn't have to. It doesn't have to be. Credibility isn't about having the same lived experience as the audience or that. That who I'm trying to speak to. But credibility comes from bringing my true lived experience to the work that I'm doing. So it's okay. When I'm operating in a space that I am not actually a member of that community, it's okay. So long as I accept that and I don't try to pretend otherwise and I'm doing my homework, it's okay. That's credibility. That's authenticity. I think sometimes there can be a misunderstanding of authenticity where I have to directly connect with the lived experience of my customer or my audience or whomever I'm trying to reach, when that's not what authenticity is. Authenticity is how do I show up fully as me and connect to you from that place. And as communicators, it's our job to figure out where, again, where are those bridges? How can I make sure that my lived experience and that which is top of mind for my audience, how can I make sure that resonates? Through storytelling, I would advise through storytelling, where are those bridges?
- [14:47]
Unknown Host
So one of the aspects that is also present in your business is that you work in very complex environments. Right. Like you've talked about patients, but there are also funders, there are healthcare professionals, pharma companies. So you live in this multi stakeholder world, which is something that we as product people also live within. Even though we might not immediately recognize that because of course, we have our direct management line, we have our peers, we have the customers, we have the sales, we have the users, we have the shareholders of the company potentially that we work for. So we also live in this multi stakeholder, stakeholder world. How do you work with your team and of course your stakeholders to design products and services and experiences that satisfy this kind of diverse set of needs. Right. Because it's not just even though you're serving the patients, the way that we get to the patients is not directly. Right. It's through the collaboration with many other stakeholders.
- [15:51]
Patrick Lynch
That's right. It's complicated and it's one of my favorite parts of the work. I love the multi stakeholder environments that we work in and I love the challenge of having scientific people and medical people and some creative people on the marketing or advertising side, and then some legal and regulatory people who are looking at things from an entirely different lens. It can be very frustrating, it can be difficult, but it's absolutely necessary. And if collaboration is. Collaboration is only successful when all points of view are respected and allowed to bring themselves fully to the table. So success in a multi stakeholder environment means we have to prioritize what's the end game. So what is the product or what is the ultimate goal of what we're trying to do? That's our North Star and we must be as ego list as possible and how we try to reach that North Star with our combined skills, capabilities, networks and so on. Some teams or some individuals of certain teams need a little more hand holding up front. So especially in my case, where I'm proposing in highly regulated environments, hey, let's produce documentaries and let's produce podcasts and let's produce live event workshops. That stuff can make lawyers very, very nervous. On the other hand, it makes the marketing people really, really excited because it's far different than the flyer that they were preparing or, you know, the thing for the booth that the rather standard thing. These are exciting for them and they want to put their best foot forward for the project. Well, that's great. Then we turn to their colleague in the legal department and that person is just absolutely terrified. And they're going to need us to walk through every line and verse, chapter and verse, what we're doing, how we're doing it, why it has precedent, how it's not going to get them sued. I think being able to meet each of those people, the excited person in the marketing department, the really nervous person in the legal office, the senior executive who sees the vision and thinks ahead and says, wow, a year from now, if we had this documentary come out and we could get all this press and media as a result of it, it's lining up with when our product launch is happening in Q2 of next year. This is amazing. Make it happen. All of these people have valuable perspectives, but they're not the same. And it's my job as the. As the service provider to make sure that I sit in the middle of it, listen to everyone, listen deeply, make sure I understand as best as I can what is your true pain point? Because sometimes, Vasco, sometimes the note isn't the note, sometimes the direction isn't the direction. It's coming from something else. There's some other, maybe even undefined thing that's rattling around and it just comes out as that part in the middle is kind of slow. I don't. I don't like that part in the middle. And I can receive that note and go, okay, there's something about what's happening in the middle. They can't necessarily articulate it, but there's something going on there that people are disconnecting. Have to listen really deeply and then not move too quick at the start. You know, some of these projects that I work on, they are exciting and we want to jump in, we want to dive in, we want to tease out all the creative. But making sure that early on, when all the stakeholders are first aligning, right, when all the avengers are first flocking in to get their briefing, we have to make sure we're on the same page. We're going to, at some point have to run full steam ahead, right? You got to design the product, you got to get moving, moving, moving. But first make sure that everybody has been accounted for. Because if I don't account for that scared lawyer, because I'm scared to engage with them, because I am fearful they're going to shut me down. So I don't, I want to be conflict avoidant. I don't even want to deal with it. Well, guess what? It's going to come up in three, six, nine weeks and it's going to be a much bigger problem later. So I know that was long winded, but I would say the short version of it is being willing to have those lateral conversations early in the process. Listen to everybody and have a clear understanding on what you believe is each individual stakeholder's goal. If you're clear on that, you can help steer them to where they need to go to get everybody on the same page.
- [19:58]
Unknown Host
And talking about getting everybody on the same page. One of the things that we need to do as product people is, as the saying goes, meeting people where they are, right? Like you can't go to. Well, one of the things I tell the product owners that I, that I train and coach is that if you have to start educating users as to why your product is important for them, you already lost them, right? We need to meet them where they are, where their needs are, right? We need to be able to phrase that, as you said, right, like that one phrase affecting entertainment that affects change. We need to be able to have that kind of story to tell our users. How can we as product people, as people who think about that multi stakeholder environment, but also the users, the ones that are out there receiving our products, how can we start working on really crafting that kind of story? Like what are the tips that you share with your clients and also that you use yourself to kind of craft that kind of story so that we can really meet people where they are and explain the value of the products that we are creating?
- [21:05]
Patrick Lynch
I am always going to recommend human centered storytelling. So with a product, I can, I can, you know, let's. This, this thermos, right? If this thermos that I'm currently holding was something that I designed. And it's really special for all these reasons that I can tell you about. Well, that's all well and good, but if I can tell you a story about a time the indestructibility of this thermos meant that I actually had enough water to survive what became a life threatening situation when I was out on a hike somewhere, that's a much more compelling story to tell than going through the features and characteristics and albeit an entertaining presentation. So what's the human story of the value add of the product, whether it's a real story or hypothetical story, but use storytelling. We've been using storytelling since cave paintings. You know, I like to say that Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like after food, water, shelter, I don't know what love, I forget what all the need, but the next one is storytelling. Because when we got back from the hunt and we came, we said, guess what? I left the cave today, guess what I saw? And they picked up a piece of chalk and they drew on the cave. There was a giant animal. It looked like this. We've been telling each other stories since the beginning of time. And I think sometimes we forget that we get so focused on the product or the service that we're offering we kind of lose sight. That the best way to help the other person on the other side of the conversation lock into what it is that we're trying to say is to tell them a story. I mean, what do most of us do to unwind at the end of a day? Right. We've all got a Netflix or a Mac subscription. Or we want stories or crime podcast. Yes. Why can't. That's a great example. Why can't we use these formats to tell stories that help sell our products? The answer is we can. We just don't always think about it in those terms. So what's the human centered story that makes the value proposition utterly clear? And then use some good storytelling principles. You know, every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. You want to hook people immediately in the beginning. You want to give them some twists and develop the story without losing momentum in the middle. And you want to resolve what you first set up in the beginning. In the ending, whether it's a 30 second YouTube video or it's a five hour Shakespearean play that you're going to, those same storytelling principles are at play. So tell good stories and use structure that's been working for us for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.
- [23:42]
Unknown Host
So before this is over, of course, I want the recommendation for a book on that, but I do want to pick on that and kind of take it to the next level. Because one way you describe yourself is as a value fundamentalist. Now that's a very strong term. And of course I understand that the environment where you are is also high stakes. So you really have to be a value fundamentalist, as you've already explained in the stories that you've shared. But what does that mean for you in the day to day of building your business, your products, your services? What does that mean for you and for your company to be a value fundamentalist?
- [24:19]
Patrick Lynch
For me, being a value fundamentalist means that at any given moment, if someone was to take a screen grab of me or a screen grab of something happening in one of our product workflows or project workflows, that if they took that and set it against our five core values as a company, you would see that it is playing out that the DNA of who we are is present in everything we do all the time. We don't make decisions that compromise our values to go chase a dollar or chase an opportunity. We say no. We have said no, and we will say no again to things that do not fit our mission, vision and values. It sounds good. It sounds fancy. Value fundamentalist. It's not easy because there are forces, even internal forces, that would say, you know, it would be easier if we just did it this way, or, why don't you not worry so much about that thing and just, hey, that lawyer who you know is going to be annoying. Why don't we just not have that conversation and see if it comes up again later? No, the value fundamentalist says, if only in order to protect the project, in order to protect the thing we're all here theoretically to do, I need to be willing to be courageous at times, to say the hard thing at times, to stand up for ways we will and will not do things. Because as you mentioned, we do work in a regulated environment. It's health care, it's people's lives, it's sensitive information. It's not frivolous in any way, shape or form. So I, as a CEO and founder, need to be a walking embodiment of our mission, vision and values. And I would like to say that you could pause our workflow on any project at any time and see our mission, vision and values playing out.
- [26:09]
Unknown Host
Absolutely. That's a great way to talk about values and a very pragmatic way as well. Right. Like at any given moment, if anyone takes A screen grab or looks at what we're doing with a product or a service. Our values are playing out. Another topic that I wanted to talk about with you, because one of the things you talked about was like this idea of embedding yourself with the community. But you all do that, not just when you're learning about something, but you do that also with your products, with your services. You even talk about being in a sandbox with the audience. So how do you balance this? You know, engaging with the audience, being there, being part of whatever is happening at that moment, but also kind of focusing on delivering something that is bigger, that goes beyond that particular audience that you are with at the moment? How do you implement in practice that idea of being in the sandbox with the audience to develop your products?
- [27:11]
Patrick Lynch
Yeah, it's a great question, because if I rewind my first program, a comedic web series, if we had done a needs assessment of the community and said, you know, what's. What's missing? Or what do you think would most help your life? Or even would a web series help your life, Would a web series be helpful to you? Chances are people would have said no. No. Why? How would a web series do anything for my life? And that would be a fair response, but because I had a vision for how entertainment could be used to impact people's lives, I was very confident that if given the opportunity, it will work, it will hit, and people will respond to it. And sure enough, they did. So, as I said earlier, there's always those needs assessments or those true burden of disease in my space. Materials that can be helpful, but they're incomplete. They don't give you everything that you need. Playing in the sandbox goes back to that. Listening, learning, first, do no harm, really. Embedding myself with a community, but it doesn't sacrifice vision. Playing in the sandbox doesn't mean I close my eyes to what exists beyond the sandbox. It also is extremely helpful and has been to me throughout my career. Having a co founder, having a partner, having someone that I can bounce things off of, because it's very common, actually, in our workflow. I'll go out to a conference or to an event. I'll go meet 5, 10, 25 people, have all sorts of conversation, embed myself somewhere, and then I'll come back and I'll debrief it with my partner. And as we go through the conversations, and I'll share, this guy said this and this lady said this, and it made me think about that other thing. And I thought, maybe we could do that. He'll help me filter through all of that and kind of determine what from all of those conversations can we use to try to get our bigger picture, mission accomplished. So I guess it's twofold. I don't have to sacrifice my vision just because I'm in the sandbox. I can operate in the sandbox and maintain my own sense of what could be that isn't currently in the world. And then secondarily having a partner, a collaborator, someone that I can bounce things off of so that I'm not just drinking from a water hose and then kind of running around going, where do I, what do I do with all of this?
- [29:41]
Unknown Host
Because it's also an important part of staying true to that vision, right? Because that's for me, that's what I understand from the. Okay, so first of all, it's very important to be in that sandbox with the audience or being there with the customer, seeing how they use the product or what kind of challenges they are facing. That's very important. But as you said, we need to stay true to the vision. And having that partner you can bounce things off of will help you to kind of recenter yourself in that vision. But now with all of that other information that you've gathered from the audience, from the potential users, right?
- [30:16]
Patrick Lynch
And that's when it gets exciting because now we're starting to build, right? I'm going out collecting inputs, I'm bringing it back to the partner, we're plugging those inputs into the vision that we had. What does that teach us? Ooh, something. Who do we need to now next talk to to bring that to the next? Like, you know, all these things are iterative. I love that line. Great things have small beginnings and it so often is true. And great things often don't start great, they start good or fine or even suboptimal, right? But as product people, I'm sure there's appreciation for the value of iteration. We get something done, we create a minimum viable product, right? And then we iterate on it, we improve it, we make it better over time. I also notice with creatives, there is sometimes this letting perfect become the enemy of the good attitude that can unfortunately block people from ever doing anything right, because conditions will never be perfect. And so as product people, as creatives, as visionaries, we want to aspire to the biggest, boldest, most robust and well articulated vision we can. But in pursuing it, we need to be realistic about and soberly analyze how are things going and then iterate on it along the way. It does not have to come out of the gate. Unless you're developing a pharmaceutical drug that is intended to change people's lives and needs all sorts of regulation and testing to make sure it's doing what it's doing and isn't going to grow a second head. Yes, in that case, we want to be very specific upon launch. But generally speaking, don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. It kills more great ideas than it doesn't.
- [31:58]
Unknown Host
And picking up on that, you also already mentioned MVP or minimum viable product, which is something we talk about all the time. But in your work, you talk more about a product being emotionally viable, Right? That's one of the things that when we were doing the prep, that really kind of sparked my imagination because very often when we talk about minimum viable product, we end up talking about a list of features, right? Like, do we have enough features? Do we have the same features as our competitors, whatever that might be. But when you talk about minimum viable product, you're talking about engaging with the audience, right? Of course you're talking about, you know, creating podcasts or campaigns or whatever. But I think this lesson is very important also for us who develop, for example, software products, because it is through that emotional connection with the users that we actually get adoption first and hopefully also value delivered.
- [32:52]
Patrick Lynch
And it's very hard to develop that emotional connection by running through a list of product features, as you said. That goes back to my piece earlier on. I could tell you about all the features of this thermos and why it's the greatest thermos in the world. Or I could tell you a story that makes the value proposition of the thermos abundantly clear. The latter emotionally hooks you. The first does not. After I've told you the story, then I can go through the features in a more traditional, you know, dotting of the I's crossing of the T's kind of way. But opening with that story to emotionally hook people is absolutely paramount. Emotional viability is critical, not just for documentaries or high impact films, but for any kind of storytelling or messaging or marketing or communication. I mean, emotions have such a. We could do an entire podcast just on the importance of emotion. But emotions are so critical, we must, must, must respect that. Whether we like it or not, people are engaging with our products when we are not in the room with them, when we don't have an opportunity to sit over their shoulder and tell them how they could do it better, or tell them just how great it is, we got to hook them with the few opportunities we have. There is nothing stronger than human centered, emotionally viable storytelling to do that.
- [34:09]
Unknown Host
Yeah, absolutely. And of course this is how like this storytelling is how we also hook the imagination of the users to all of the other things they could do with the product that we don't even imagine. Right. It's also about empowering them to use the product for whatever they want to achieve.
- [34:31]
Patrick Lynch
That's a great point because our audience are also our greatest educators, you know, and that also goes back to the iterating piece. The audience will teach us how to use the product in ways that we never even thought of. And if we're smart and we're listening, we may be able to then hear that and further tweak the product to even better meet that once unintended need. So it becomes a dance at a certain point between us and our audience if we are really listening and really locked in.
- [34:58]
Unknown Host
Yeah, we want to dance with our audience. And I actually have a challenge for all of you guys listening to us right now because very often we talk about software product users, but as, as Patrick just shared with us, if we look at it more from the perspective of conveying values through storytelling, we actually should really be talking about software product audiences, right?
- [35:24]
Patrick Lynch
Yes.
- [35:25]
Unknown Host
And what have you learned, Patrick, about looking at the world out there as audiences that you can share with us and maybe that you have already used to develop the products and services that you create?
- [35:37]
Patrick Lynch
I had a colleague say to me, probably 15 years ago, when social media was at its advent and we could just start seeing the trend lines of how these phones were going to become supercomputers and attention dominating devices in our pockets. She would say attention is the only currency. And I think there is great wisdom in that. Attention is everything. And every product, every service, every everything is begging for all of our attention all the time. Through push mode notifications and beeping this and shaking that and screaming this. The only way in my opinion to really break through all of that is to tell a great story and back it up with an even better product. People will listen to a great story, well told. And if what is offered at the end of that, if the call to action is here is this great product that relates to the story I was just telling. Well, that's an opportunity to break through the noise. But the world is an audience. We're all audiences all the time. And for me, thinking about the people we're trying to reach as audience helps me focus on when it comes to strategy and tactics. It's different than thinking them of, than thinking of Them as consumers. Right. Because I may try to reach an audience member with a short piece of video on TikTok that I wouldn't necessarily try to reach a consumer with, at least historically speaking. I think now we know we need to reach consumers on TikTok, but it tweaks the thinking just a little bit. So I would recommend trying to think about all users of products as audience and frankly, all stakeholders as your audience as well.
- [37:27]
Unknown Host
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, we're getting close to the end, but as I promised before, I really want you to give us some recommendation. Could be a book, podcast, a video, a film, whatever that is something that you think really embodies the importance and also some of the tips and tricks of storytelling. What would that be, Patrick?
- [37:52]
Patrick Lynch
So there's a book on screenwriting that I really like. It's well written and it's universally acclaimed by screenwriters and professionals in entertainment. And it's called Save the Cat. Three words, Save the Cat. That's what I would recommend for some good fundamental. Some good fundamentals of storytelling and how to think through developing a story over time. So Save the Cat. Highly recommend it.
- [38:22]
Unknown Host
Absolutely. And we'll put the link to that in the show notes. And for people who want to know more about you, Patrick, and what Believe Limited is doing, where could they go?
- [38:32]
Patrick Lynch
Sure. Our website is believe limited.com or believeltd.com and then if you're listening to this, you must like podcasts. We have a branded podcast network called Bloodstream Media. I host our flagship show, the Bloodstream Podcast, which comes out at least twice a month. But you can find all of our shows, of which there are about 15 on bloodstream media dot com.
- [38:56]
Unknown Host
Absolutely. And we'll put the link to those on the show notes and people go out and check out what Patrick is doing. And of course, if you are a member of those communities, you know Patrick wants to embed himself in the communities as well. So why not reach out and get in touch? Patrick, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for being on the show and for being so generous with your time and your knowledge.
- [39:19]
Patrick Lynch
My pleasure, Vaska. It was a great conversation. Thanks for having me.
- [39:26]
Vasko
All right, I hope you liked this episode. But before you hit next episode, here's the deal. This podcast is powered by people like you, the members who wanted more than just inspiration. They wanted real tools and real connection to people who are practicing agile. Every day we're talking access to over 700 hours of agile gold, CTO level strategy talks, summit keynotes, live workshops, E courses, Deep Dive Interviews books. And if you're into no Estimates, we got the pioneers of no Estimates in those Deep Dive interviews as well. Agile Business Intelligence, creating product visions, coaching your product owner courses. You name it. You'll get invites to monthly live Q&As with agile pioneers and practitioners, plus a private Slack community which is free of all of that AI slop you see everywhere. And of course, without the flame wars. It's a community of practitioners that want to learn and thrive together. It's the best place to connect with community and learn together. So if this podcast has helped you before, imagine what you will get from this podcast membership. So head on over to scrummastertoolbox.org.
- [40:55]
Unknown Host
And.
- [40:55]
Vasko
Join the community that's shaping the future of Agile. We have so much for you, so check out all the details@scrummastertoolbox.org membership because listening is great. It's important. But doing it together, that's next level. I'll see you in the community.
- [41:16]
Patrick Lynch
Slack.
- [41:18]
Unknown Host
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