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Maps are important. We wouldn’t embark on a long and challenging journey without one. The journey towards better stakeholder engagement is no exception.
Only, rather than a geographical map, our education organisations need an empathy map. Having greater empathy with our stakeholders will help us identify barriers that are causing friction between colleagues and collaborators.
Firstly, this session will offer you a series of empathy-mapping models that have been used to better understand stakeholders within the education sector.
Secondly, you will learn methods to populate these empathy maps to ensure you are not filling them with guesswork and assumptions.
Finally, you will understand how your empathy-mapping can be translated into meaningful insights to inform your approach when communicating with your stakeholders.
Together, we will put stakeholders on the map.
Your facilitator
Robert is Director of Research at Pickle Jar Communications. He primarily works on behalf of clients in the education and charity sectors, where he is responsible for all aspects of information-gathering, audience research, user testing, and anything else related to content or customer insights.
He has worked with schools, colleges, universities, membership organisations, charities, and education sector bodies. Whatever the work and whoever the client, Robert likes to find the connections between the driving forces of a project and the needs of the audience, with the aim of being able to satisfy both at the same time. He wants to know about the journeys that people make in relation to clients’ offerings, because the only way to truly deliver the right content to the right audience is to understand the context behind that journey. That’s why his favourite answer to any question is “it depends”.
He has a particular interest in student influencers and widening participation efforts, and has worked with clients such as UCL, Aston University, Leeds Beckett University, and United World Colleges on projects that focus on these areas. Robert also represents Pickle Jar Communications at education sector events, speaking on aspects of audience research and digital communications at conferences organised by groups such as CASE and UUK.
Before joining Pickle Jar, Robert worked on content creation and digital communications in the aviation industry. He studied communications and English literature at Newcastle University, and now lives in Newcastle.