Cindy Lenferna de la Motte (Head of Customer and Community at Harvest) sits down with engagement expert Jacinta Cubis to discuss creative ways to engage through photography using her 'show what matters' approach.

Jacinta is holding Show What Matters™ walkshops over summer to teach her unique engagement process and demonstrate how the tools of The HiVE can be used to compliment and scale her approach.

Cindy:

Hello Jacinta, and welcome. We love your work. Can you give us a brief summary of your 'Show what Matters' method'?

Jacinta:

I’d love to. 'Show what Matters' helps people to share their lived experience through photography. We don’t just have to ask people what they think, but instead, ask them to share photos that show what they think.

It’s a facilitated photo 'walkshop' where participants become street photographers and explore new ways of seeing beyond the obvious.

In an online setting, every ‘walkshop’ produces an album of photos. Participants engage with each other’s photos, liking and commenting and discussing the story behind each other’s photos.

Albums become galleries, and anyone in the community can visit the gallery and build on the conversation. So even if people can’t make a walkshop, they can still participate and contribute.

(attributed to Jacinta Cubis)

Cindy:

What are the advantages of using this approach, and what value does it add to an engagement process?

Jacinta:

Participants see, and experience, many different perspectives and points of view of the same community. I’ve seen this time and time again in my walkshops. The same area, seen through completely different lenses.

There’s something about a photo on a wall - online or in the room - being separate from the person who took it. So while it’s subjective, it’s also now an ‘object’ and easier to talk to and about, rather than talk about how you might feel. This is so helpful when people have completely opposite, or even polarised, views. I’ve seen this effect when I”ve used the process with communities on tricky topics, like planning.

It’s accessible. Everyone can take photos and almost everyone has a phone in their pocket. People of all ages and backgrounds connect with each other, share their stories and show what matters to them.

Preliminary research shows that getting ideas this way can engage a wider segment of the community and unlock insights that might otherwise have been tied up in language and translation.

We process visual information some 60,000 times faster than text, so it's also a very efficient and fast way to connect people.

Photos help us to connect with each other, fast. It’s because we just don’t take them, we make them. There’s a lot more to taking a photo than just holding up a phone. Cartier-Bresson said that we take photos with our eyes, our heart and our head - not just the camera.

Cindy:

How do you ensure you draw useful insights from the process, rather than just collecting random photographs?

Jacinta:

Great question! The secret is in the photo exercises I design. Without good questions, aligned with the context and purpose of the engagement, the photos risk just being pretty pictures.

Once the photos are up on the wall, I facilitate a process that draws out all sorts of insights, the stories behind the photos and implications for a community or a topic. With engagement practitioners, we explore ways to use ‘Show What Matters’ with their communities and stakeholders.

Also, it's essential to create a circular process, with opportunities for people to keep engaging, long after the first walkshop.

Cindy:

We know that you typically run these types of workshops in a face-to-face setting, which during the Covid crises is increasingly difficult. How have you adapted your approach for online, and what are some of the opportunities you see for going digital?

Jacinta:

Connecting, conversing, contributing is more vital than ever as we move in and out of lockdowns around the globe.

We started running our workshops online earlier this year and got some fabulous outcomes.

People loved the fact that they could go outside on a Zoom call!

I missed Melbourne’s laneways, but going online meant people from the Ukraine, Montana and New Zealand could come, as well as Queensland, South Australia and NSW. So we were in one Zoom room, but the photos were from cities, towns and farms, in all seasons, from around the world.

It means that I can run sessions for a global facilitation festival, Never Done Before this week and for a . A group of Canadian partnership brokers next year. I’m also doing a pilot with a social enterprise to help some of their clients get more comfortable talking about themselves and their work, using photos.

The collaboration with The HiVE is the next step in exploring digital possibilities.

I am excited about how photography can engage people, and deepen engagement and going online creates even more opportunities to make this accessible.

Cindy:

What kind of feedback have you received from participants who have done this in an online format?

Jacinta:

I’ve had such great feedback from engagement practitioners, facilitators, educators and project leaders.

One engagement practitioner said the process is a “great way to lead people to the questions that need to be asked, not just asking it.”

Others have said:

“It was such a great experience! I don’t see the world in the same way.”

“A technique that forced me to look at things differently. I’m going to do it more.”

“It gave me a stronger sense of the value of looking at things from new perspectives.”

Cindy:

How can our customers learn more about using photography to engage their audience and the 'Show what Matters' process?

Jacinta:

I'm offering a series of walkshops to experience my methods in a bit more detail. We'll be experimenting with The Hive’s Visioner and Gather storytelling tools specifically to explore ‘Show What Matters’ in a digital context.

We'll use an interactive case study for participants to get involved that will focus on our shared experience of 'what makes a good life'.

We'd love to see you there.

Cindy:

Thanks for your time, it was great speaking with you. I love this creative way of engaging with people and giving them a chance to show what matters to them through photography and your beautiful engagement process.

We are keen for our customers to experiment with your unique engagement technique as we can see great benefit in reaching ‘hard to reach”community segments including Youth, Migrants and busy Professionals giving them an opportunity to contribute and shape their neighbourhoods.