In this week’s episode, Josh is talking to Tullio Rossi who was a Winner in the 2020 South Australian Community Achievement Awards.
Dr Tullio Rossi is an award-winning science communicator, marine biologist and graphic designer. As Founder of the science communication agency “Animate Your Science”, he helps researchers tell their story to the world. His engaging video animations and eye-catching graphics make science understandable for everyone, reaching millions of people around the world, thereby creating a real-life impact.
I am Dr Tullio Rossi, the director at Animate Your Science. My team and I empower researchers and institution to change the world by communicating in an effective and accessible way. Our clients span from Cornell University in New York to The Australian Government. In every case, we’ve helped them unleash their impact through the power of video and graphics.
Animate Your Science of Adelaide is empowering scientists and the research community. Founded by Tullio Rossi, Animate Your Science (AYS) produces video animations and graphics that make research stand out and obtain visibility. The innovative tools enable researchers to reach audiences outside of their specific field and on a global scale, creating life-changing impact and visibility, a healthy dose of fun and understandable science. AYS tripled their sales in their third year and hired two full-time employees and a team of over 20 contractors. They have attracted $50,000 in angel investment and $23,000 in awards. AYS holds workshops on how researchers can improve their communication skills
In this episode:
- We hear how Tullio, a self-taught graphic designer created a very successful and much awarded, animated video of his PHD research to make his research accessible to everyone
- We learnt about “bioluminescence” and Tullio says he is “half fish/half human”!!
- Tullio has two distinct types of people working at Animate Your Science, working side-by-side, Academics and Researchers and Artists
Links
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Transcript
[00:00:04] Josh
Welcome to the inspirational australian’s podcast where we chat to people making a difference in their communities and in the lives of others. And here’s your host for today, Josh.
[00:00:21] Josh
Thank you Annette, and for this week’s dose of inspiration, I’m joined by Dr. Tullio Rossie, who
[00:00:27] Josh
not only has an incredibly cool name but an incredibly cool accent
[00:00:30] Josh
and very excited to speak
[00:00:33] Josh
with Tullio
[00:00:34] Josh
for a couple of reasons.
[00:00:36] Josh
Tullio is currently in Europe
[00:00:38] Josh
and us
[00:00:40] Josh
in Melbourne and New South Wales we can just dream of
[00:00:43] Josh
being in different places at the moment. And also there’s a really cool connection between Tullio and the young achiever Awards that we also run here.
[00:00:51] Josh
Awards, Australia which will get to later on. But before I quickly throw the Tullio I just want to let everyone know that
[00:00:59] Josh
the young achiever Awards are currently open now across
[00:01:01] Josh
the country
[00:01:02] Josh
in all states of Australia.
[00:01:04] Josh
So if you do know a young person who’s doing something pretty Great then I’d encourage you to visit
[00:01:09] Josh
young achiever Awards dot com.
[00:01:11] Josh
And you can take two minutes only of your time to refer someone. And it could be a really cool thing to do for a young person.
[00:01:19] Josh
All right, to today’s interview, like I said, it’s Dr. Tullio Rossi who is an award winning science communicator. Marine biologist, and graphic designer. As founder of the science communication agency animate your science, he helps researchers tell their story to the world.
[00:01:35] Josh
He’s engaging, video animations and eye catching graphics
[00:01:38] Josh
make science understandable for everyone.
[00:01:41] Josh
Reaching millions of people around the World, thereby
[00:01:43] Josh
creating a real life impact and Tullio it’s evening for me. Good morning to you.
[00:01:49] Tullio
Good evening everyone. It’s Great to be here.
[00:01:52] Josh
Tullio thanks for taking some time to
[00:01:55] Josh
delve into it too too much. But the last time we spoke was very, very early in the morning. And
[00:02:02] Josh
if I didn’t know better I would have thought that
[00:02:04] Josh
you were quite old
[00:02:08] Josh
Because he had a bit of a croaky voice. I think it was just because you just woken up. So I’m glad that we could make a
[00:02:13] Josh
good time to chat.
[00:02:15] Tullio
Yes, and I’m not a morning person and I need my espresso because I’m Italian originally and
[00:02:21] Tullio
there’s this pressure then
[00:02:23] Tullio
half an hour for this pressure to kick in and then I can talk.
[00:02:27] Josh
Fair enough. Everyone has their own morning routines.
[00:02:31] Josh
I’ve never understood morning people, I’ve got to be honest. It takes me a long time.
[00:02:36] Tullio
me neither. But
[00:02:37] Tullio
I came to learn that there’s an evolutionary explanation why we have morning people and
[00:02:44] Tullio
not morning people. And that’s because if we live in a tribe,
[00:02:48] Tullio
you don’t want the whole tried to sleep at the same time. If there is a danger outside, like a beast lurking in the shadows,
[00:02:54] Tullio
you want some people to wake up earlier than others. So there’s always somebodyawake.
[00:02:59] Tullio
So with things I learned, I was like, this makes a lot of sense.
[00:03:02] Tullio
So people like me serve a purpose.
[00:03:06] Josh
I love that I’m going to recite that now actually because I haven’t heard that before. It’s cool.
[00:03:10] Tullio
Yeah, there’s always an explanation.
[00:03:14] Josh
So Tullio, when we came across you, because you were nominated in two thousand twenty four in South Australia and the community achievement Awards in the minister for skills and innovation, small business award. And for those who don’t know the minister for skills innovation in Adelaide, his name is David Pisoni, the honourable David Pisoni, member of parliament.
[00:03:36] Josh
And it’s a really cool story that truly, I’m not sure if you know this, but he himself was a nominee in the young achiever Awards in the 1980s.
[00:03:45] Josh
And he became a winner and
[00:03:47] Josh
he was an apprentice.
[00:03:49] Josh
And then all these Years later he’s now in government
[00:03:51] Josh
and he became a sponsor of our sponsor partner of our young achiever, in South Australia
[00:03:58] Josh
and love that program so much I’m willing to
[00:04:01] Josh
give back to other young apprentices when he realised that we had the community achievement award, we thought, well, let’s make
[00:04:07] Josh
everyone have an award that they can be part of especially special not just young people. So the community even was open to all ages and that was really cool.
[00:04:15] Josh
And that was the category
[00:04:17] Josh
you won last year.
[00:04:19] Tullio
That’s right. To didn’t big story really?
[00:04:21] Josh
Yeah. Now,
[00:04:23] Josh
speaking of cool back stories, I think that animate your science your business has a really cool back story. So rather than me trying to tell it, I’d love to throw to you and, and find out
[00:04:33] Josh
what it is. How it started.
[00:04:36] Josh
Yeah and give us a bit of that story behind, animate your science.
[00:04:40] Tullio
Of course, well, we need to go
[00:04:42] Tullio
a while back to the time when I was about to finish high School. That’s when I first got into graphic design. Thanks to my art teacher who gave me a copy of Photoshop Adobe Photoshop. Oh, really. And I started playing with it mostly for fun. I like to do photo manipulation and things like that for fun. Then what happened is that one of my best friends, organized events.
[00:05:05] Tullio
And so
[00:05:06] Tullio
back then, you know, before Facebook events were a thing, you know, the flyer was a really important thing to promote an event.
[00:05:12] Tullio
So why don’t we try to make a flyer
[00:05:14] Tullio
You know how to use software. Let’s do it. I said, yeah, awesome. Let’s do it.
[00:05:18] Tullio
And so I made a play and then a
[00:05:19] Tullio
second one, third one.
[00:05:21] Tullio
And then I met the guy who was printing those fires and he said, hey, look, you’re pretty decent. Do you want some really poorly paid work?Sure.
[00:05:30] Josh
I was appealing till
[00:05:31] Tullio
I was 18 at the time and you know,
[00:05:34] Tullio
well there was also getting was the free entry in the clubs
[00:05:37] Tullio
and free drinks, which were an 18 year old is better
[00:05:39] Tullio
than money.
[00:05:40] Tullio
So it was a Great deal for me back then. I wouldn’t do it now
[00:05:43] Tullio
but back then it was pretty cool. And so I did it for
[00:05:47] Tullio
Years and basically I was self trained graphic designer.
[00:05:51] Tullio
But then man made bigger and stronger. Passion was about theOcean.
[00:05:55] Tullio
And that’s what led me into becoming a Marine biologist.
[00:05:58] Tullio
And I sort of thought about graphic design
[00:06:01] Tullio
as a plan B career. If my science career would work out, I
[00:06:05] Tullio
would always be a graphic designer.
[00:06:07] Tullio
And I thought the
[00:06:09] Tullio
two things are separate parts, but for many many Years. And until they met, again, doing my PhD, which was what brought me here to Australia. I did the University of Adelaide.
[00:06:22] Tullio
And that’s when I realised that science really needs design and communication science sciences, this massive communication problem. We’ve got these Great
[00:06:32] Tullio
stories,but
[00:06:34] Tullio
researchers are often not the best people to tell the stories.
[00:06:38] Tullio
They’re trained to be researchers. They’re not trained to be storytellers. And also they’re not trained in visual media.
[00:06:45] Tullio
So there’s a lot of opportunity to apply
[00:06:48] Tullio
the skills of design and storytelling to science And that’s exactly what I did. So I started with my own research at some point, I finally had my first Peer reviewed
[00:06:59] Tullio
paper accepted for publication because of course, very exciting.
[00:07:03] Tullio
But as the excitement faded away I realized
[00:07:06] Tullio
OK here we’ve got this 10 pages long. Peer reviewed scientific paper
[00:07:11] Tullio
is written for experts really heavy will have really complicated jargon. Let’s be honest, who’s going to read this thing?
[00:07:20] Tullio
Maybe a dozen experts out there in my field, and that’s it. That’s the reality of most research papers. And
[00:07:28] Tullio
for the most, nothing is done to tell those stories beyond
[00:07:33] Tullio
the academic,academia.
[00:07:35] Tullio
And I wasn’t happy with that because my research was about the effect of climate change on fish.
[00:07:40] Tullio
So I fell, well,
[00:07:42] Tullio
everyone should know that as many if you just like to
[00:07:44] Tullio
eat fish or to look at them when snorkeling
[00:07:49] Tullio
the results were quite concerning. So I found that story
[00:07:52] Tullio
should have gotten out to a broader audience.
[00:07:55] Tullio
And so that
[00:07:55] Tullio
pushed me to try new things. And I learned a lot about storytelling applied to science and
[00:08:02] Tullio
it pushed me to try something new which was video animation.
[00:08:06] Tullio
I’m not an animator, I was never trained as an animator but I have tried. I started with the easy stuff
[00:08:12] Tullio
with the whiteboard animations that those are within reach to most
[00:08:16] Tullio
people, even if you’re not a designer, you can make one of those. The software is actually quite easy to use.
[00:08:22] Tullio
And so
[00:08:23] Tullio
I presented
[00:08:24] Tullio
my research in a way that didn’t feel like
[00:08:27] Tullio
a lecture
[00:08:29] Tullio
that will bore everyone,
[00:08:31] Tullio
but I presented it in a way that felt like a story. And so I was telling the story of this
[00:08:37] Tullio
baby fish that gets lost in the Ocean and adds my Italian accent. And the way I say baby fish and people love me.
[00:08:45] Tullio
And so I put that video out there without really knowing what to expect. And I
[00:08:49] Tullio
submitted it to a few competitions that invited researchers to
[00:08:54] Tullio
exactly this to tell their story of the research in three minutes using video
[00:09:01] Tullio
and video one won three
[00:09:03] Tullio
Awards in the matter and
[00:09:05] Tullio
in one year and blew me away. But the best part is that it reached thousands. So all of a sudden
[00:09:12] Tullio
I went from being
[00:09:14] Tullio
completely unknown and forgotten
[00:09:16] Tullio
in my office at
[00:09:17] Tullio
youto
[00:09:19] Tullio
thousands of people know about what I’m doing
[00:09:21] Tullio
all around the World which blew me away.
[00:09:23] Tullio
And it really hit me when I got this email from a stranger
[00:09:28] Tullio
saying I watched your video. I finally
[00:09:30] Tullio
understand what the problem is with this thing called Ocean acidification. Thank you for doing what you’re doing.
[00:09:38] Josh
That’s right. And that
[00:09:38] Tullio
hit me because I realized, I think up until now nobody ever told me thank you for doing the research on the
[00:09:45] Tullio
and that really highlighted
[00:09:48] Tullio
the importance of how researchers are
[00:09:51] Tullio
doing that
[00:09:51] Tullio
extra bit of work to make our research accessible and understandable to everyone
[00:09:58] Tullio
and the world is not just made by climate change deniers that will attack you.
[00:10:03] Tullio
They are nice people out there that will show signs of gratitude if we researchers do that excellent bit of
[00:10:10] Tullio
work to make it more accessible.
[00:10:12] Tullio
So it was
[00:10:13] Tullio
really rewarding. Really a beautiful experience and really that
[00:10:19] Tullio
set the new trajectory of my life. Because at
[00:10:22] Tullio
the same time,
[00:10:24] Tullio
my interest in pursuing an academic career faded away
[00:10:29] Tullio
and instead started considering science communication
[00:10:32] Tullio
as my new career.
[00:10:34] Tullio
And so I started on my own, initially as a freelancer, but
[00:10:39] Tullio
soon enough, I got lucky to get into the
[00:10:42] Tullio
thing club business incubator.
[00:10:45] Tullio
And that’s a place for startups. So they taught me to think
[00:10:48] Tullio
like a business owner and not like a freelancer.
[00:10:52] Tullio
And that was really useful
[00:10:53] Tullio
because this is the beginning I was in the mindset of building a team.
[00:10:58] Tullio
And so I initially got a couple of
[00:11:00] Tullio
interns the straight out from our school and started helping me do more than I could do on my own.
[00:11:07] Tullio
And then eventually
[00:11:09] Tullio
we put some stuff out and then we got our first paying clients that felt amazing.
[00:11:13] Tullio
My somebody out there is willing to pay for this. I can’t believe it.
[00:11:18] Tullio
And then you know,
[00:11:19] Tullio
things started to fall into place little by little.
[00:11:23] Tullio
Of
[00:11:23] Tullio
course the first
[00:11:24] Tullio
couple of Years were really tough because there were very few clients and a lot of time doing nothing in between.
[00:11:32] Tullio
But I think it’s a necessary phase, because then if you stick with it, eventually,
[00:11:39] Tullio
if it’s a good idea and
[00:11:40] Tullio
there is a need, things will fall into place and that’s what happened. So now where we started in twenty seventeen. And now I’m very,
[00:11:51] Tullio
very lucky to say that we have clients in the whole world. Well,
[00:11:55] Tullio
on six continents We’re really growing strongly and team is growing now where we’re four
[00:12:04] Tullio
full time people working in the business and a number of
[00:12:09] Tullio
freelancers that help us with various things like voiceovers, sound design, et cetera.
[00:12:15] Josh
That’s incredible. That’s really cool to hear how
[00:12:18] Josh
it’s grown and
[00:12:20] Josh
how the weird and wonderful combo of Marine biology science and
[00:12:24] Josh
graphic design have come together.
[00:12:27] Tullio
Yeah, look, I could,
[00:12:28] Tullio
I could have never pictured it until it happened yet. At some point it just makes sense. And you know, when people would say one day, you connect the dots and that’s
[00:12:36] Josh
exactly, that’s what happened.
[00:12:40] Tullio
I could not predict.
[00:12:41] Josh
You mentioned something just
[00:12:43] Josh
kind of before when you’re describing how
[00:12:46] Josh
some people in science and stem
[00:12:49] Josh
were not good at
[00:12:50] Josh
storytelling to get their research across to a wider audience. And I think it’s in some ways the exact same, but the inverse,where
[00:12:58] Josh
some people are good with language or good at telling stories.
[00:13:02] Josh
But they’re not as good at comprehending stats and not as complex ideas behind science. And so it goes both ways, I think.
[00:13:10] Tullio
Yeah, and how different
[00:13:12] Tullio
and I think that there’s a lot of scope with collaboration between the sciences and the arts.
[00:13:18] Josh
I think having someone like you who is able to do both is, is quite
[00:13:21] Josh
unique, I think.
[00:13:24] Tullio
Yeah I’m very much a bridge between these two worlds. That normally rarely interact with each other.
[00:13:32] Tullio
But in my team,
[00:13:33] Tullio
I have this rule that we have
[00:13:36] Tullio
two types of people. The science
[00:13:37] Tullio
communicators which all have PhDs, because they need to be experts in
[00:13:42] Tullio
different fields and understand the science. Deep learning, the Deep level
[00:13:47] Tullio
as an insider,
[00:13:49] Tullio
and then we put them to work side by side with artists
[00:13:52] Tullio
that don’t need to be excited about science because they have the science communicator. They’re
[00:13:57] Tullio
breaking it down for them,
[00:13:59] Tullio
making
[00:13:59] Tullio
everything understandable. And so the artist can focus on what they’re best at, which is to make things look amazing.
[00:14:06] Josh
Yeah, that’s very cool. What would a typical day for you look like now that it’s a big otane that has grown that you’ve got clients all over the world?
[00:14:16] Tullio
Well it,
[00:14:17] Tullio
it changed definitely. Now that the team is bigger
[00:14:20] Tullio
a lot of my time is spent managing the team in
[00:14:26] Tullio
very much remotely because
[00:14:29] Tullio
yeah, I haven’t seen my team since May.
[00:14:32] Tullio
So we will do everything remotely which with current technology is actually not much of a problem. And everything we offer is digital service. So we can, you know, deliver anywhere in the world with
[00:14:46] Tullio
just over Dropbox which is yeah. Which really is that is cool.
[00:14:50] Tullio
We don’t do live action filming of any kind. We don’t own a single camera.
[00:14:57] Tullio
And so we can work with people anywhere on this planet and
[00:15:01] Tullio
that’s a big advantage.
[00:15:03] Tullio
And so my day
[00:15:05] Tullio
it’s a lot of
[00:15:07] Tullio
meeting with clients hearing what their communication problems are what the,
[00:15:13] Tullio
what message is trying to get across.
[00:15:15] Tullio
And then my favorite part is very, is that process of
[00:15:20] Tullio
having that initial chat with the researcher. Usually they dump everything they’ve got in their head on me is like, oh my God,
[00:15:28] Tullio
it’s like this
[00:15:29] Tullio
massive spaghetti bowl where you don’t know where to start.
[00:15:33] Tullio
And then my job is
[00:15:35] Tullio
to ask the right questions to tease apart the story.
[00:15:39] Tullio
So this is always messy, but then
[00:15:42] Tullio
because I know which pieces I need to put together the story,
[00:15:45] Tullio
eventually we get there.
[00:15:47] Tullio
And that’s a really fun process to do with the research.
[00:15:50] Tullio
And it’s rewarding when at the end they say,
[00:15:53] Tullio
yeah, that’s the story.
[00:15:55] Tullio
Why didn’t I think about it like this before.
[00:15:58] Josh
OK, I’ve got a pretty silly analogy here but it
[00:16:00] Josh
just popped into my head as you were describing that process. Because I did this earlier with my two little kids, not long before we started chatting.
[00:16:08] Josh
It’s like a puzzle.
[00:16:09] Josh
When you tip it out of the box, half the pieces are upside down, they’re all over here and there’s a big mess. You got to sort them out on the corner pieces. Line them all up together and eventually it Comes. Comes together,
[00:16:21] Josh
picture. Perfect.
[00:16:22] Tullio
Exactly, but the thing is that for research, it is very useful to
[00:16:28] Tullio
have the
[00:16:28] Tullio
help of an external person is that not familiar
[00:16:31] Tullio
with this specific project?
[00:16:33] Tullio
Because in a way, from the outside we’re better positioned at telling that story to somebody that hasn’t
[00:16:40] Tullio
heard about it before.
[00:16:42] Tullio
When you’re the researcher, you’re immersed
[00:16:44] Tullio
in that research on a daily basis and you lose the bigger picture perspective. Yep.
[00:16:50] Tullio
I remember this was really obvious.
[00:16:53] Tullio
Years ago when I was teaching
[00:16:55] Tullio
graduate students
[00:16:57] Tullio
story at face communication and one of them said above
[00:17:01] Tullio
all I do every day is writing code for satellites. Nobody cares. And I’m like, OK if you say it that way.
[00:17:09] Tullio
I agree.
[00:17:11] Tullio
But let me ask you something.
[00:17:13] Tullio
What do those satellites do
[00:17:15] Tullio
that affect the sky?
[00:17:17] Tullio
And maybe they do something useful.
[00:17:20] Tullio
Well I guess if there is funding for your research, they do something useful, right? They would
[00:17:24] Tullio
pay you to just write code for the sake of writing code.
[00:17:28] Tullio
But that’s the difference. You know, when you’re the graduate student and everything you’re doing
[00:17:32] Tullio
all day writing code, that’s the world, that’s your world, right?
[00:17:35] Tullio
You kind of forget that you’re writing code for a
[00:17:39] Tullio
bigger purpose
[00:17:41] Tullio
for satellites that will give you, I don’t know, remote sensing mapping, G.P.S. or whatever that might be. And that’s when you communicate that story. And that’s where you need to start. You need to start from the bigger picture. Yeah.
[00:17:52] Josh
No I see what you mean. That makes sense. I like the way you describe that actually.
[00:17:55] Josh
That was
[00:17:57] Josh
as good. So you mentioned think that not long ago. And that kind of helped you, you
[00:18:03] Josh
know, switch from a freelancer mindset to a business owner and startup mindset. So for those who don’t know can you explain what think it is and tell us a bit about that?
[00:18:15] Tullio
Sure, so I think I
[00:18:17] Tullio
think you can call it a startup incubator or accelerator. The prematch mean the same thing. It’s
[00:18:25] Tullio
the coworking space
[00:18:27] Tullio
where lots of startups working on completely different
[00:18:30] Tullio
fields.
[00:18:32] Tullio
Share the space, share the office space, and then
[00:18:35] Tullio
there’s a lot more being beyond the office space. There’s a lot of mentoring
[00:18:39] Tullio
involved. So I think I will find a group very substantial group. I don’t know, 20 plus
[00:18:45] Tullio
mentors
[00:18:46] Tullio
each one with expertise in different fields.
[00:18:48] Tullio
These are maybe people that have been in business for 30 Years that have funded and sold and funded and sold
[00:18:55] Tullio
multiple businesses over the wealth of knowledge
[00:18:59] Tullio
that these people will sit down with you
[00:19:01] Tullio
startup founder for free. No, no,
[00:19:06] Tullio
nothing. You know, no money exchange involved of any kind and they will just help you
[00:19:11] Tullio
navigate
[00:19:12] Tullio
the waters of being a startup founders, which is quite treacherous.
[00:19:18] Tullio
So it,
[00:19:19] Tullio
for me was really
[00:19:21] Tullio
massive help
[00:19:22] Tullio
and probably the mentor that helped me the most was
[00:19:25] Tullio
a digital marketer.
[00:19:27] Tullio
In the early days who
[00:19:29] Tullio
looked at looked at the first version of our website which I made and took it to shreds.
[00:19:37] Tullio
But it was useful because I learned
[00:19:40] Tullio
what I did wrong and what needed to change.
[00:19:43] Tullio
And
[00:19:44] Tullio
following his advice and
[00:19:46] Tullio
of
[00:19:47] Tullio
doing content marketing, which
[00:19:49] Tullio
at the time for me was a new concept. Now we, that’s how we get most of our clients
[00:19:55] Tullio
is through content marketing and barebone
[00:19:58] Tullio
having good Google rankings,
[00:20:01] Tullio
for example. Now when you’re somebody in the US searches for science animations onGoogle,
[00:20:06] Tullio
we’re number three.
[00:20:08] Josh
Wow, that’s
[00:20:10] Tullio
amazing, which is huge. It’s huge and that’s how
[00:20:13] Tullio
most of our marketing
[00:20:14] Tullio
works essentially.
[00:20:17] Tullio
And so
[00:20:18] Tullio
I owe that to think.
[00:20:21] Tullio
I probably would have come across that concept at some point, but not.
[00:20:26] Tullio
I was lucky that I came across that concept early. So I started
[00:20:32] Tullio
doing content marketing early on because it’s a slow
[00:20:37] Tullio
process. But once it kicks in it really kicks in and
[00:20:40] Tullio
it’s then a very sustainable type of marketing.
[00:20:44] Josh
And you still involved within the or is that something that Yeah,
[00:20:50] Tullio
look, I thought at some point they will tell me it’s time for you to move on but
[00:20:56] Tullio
apparently they love us. And so
[00:21:00] Tullio
I love the place. I love the people there,
[00:21:03] Tullio
shout out the kind that is in the team.
[00:21:06] Tullio
They’re all Great and always helpful.
[00:21:09] Tullio
And nice people. So
[00:21:11] Tullio
yeah we, we love the space they love us.
[00:21:15] Tullio
So far there is no pressure to move on them. Although we’ve seen, you know it’s very much and
[00:21:21] Tullio
it’s very different for different start ups. Some grow Super rapidly, like a tech company might be the
[00:21:29] Tullio
January, a team of two. And then by the end of the year, your team of 15
[00:21:35] Tullio
because you got a lot of funding, all of a sudden you need to scale really quickly.
[00:21:41] Tullio
Then of course those people will outgrow
[00:21:43] Tullio
the space very rapidly, but we’re not a tech company.
[00:21:46] Tullio
We offer a service for the most part.
[00:21:49] Tullio
So
[00:21:49] Tullio
it’s a bit different.
[00:21:52] Tullio
So we grow, but not as fast as
[00:21:54] Tullio
a company would.
[00:21:56] Josh
Now I’ve had lots of good stories from, from fan club. Stuff my head I’m thinking
[00:22:03] Josh
you may know Sean grealy.
[00:22:05] Tullio
Yeah of course. And
[00:22:08] Josh
Jordan Gruber, they had been young achiever Awards alumni as well.
[00:22:15] Josh
And Tom welspun from if he was part of the club as well. Maybe not the
[00:22:19] Tullio
rings the bell. Yes.
[00:22:21] Josh
But as you said they all said the same thing. It’s a wonderful community and
[00:22:25] Josh
it’s Great that things like that
[00:22:26] Josh
exist to give people a hand
[00:22:29] Josh
to have sensational ideas and just help them
[00:22:32] Josh
formulate that into operational businesses. It’s fantastic
[00:22:37] Tullio
that it’s
[00:22:38] Tullio
I think
[00:22:40] Tullio
it was the support structure that I really needed
[00:22:43] Tullio
early on. So it was really good that I could find it and
[00:22:49] Tullio
I could access it. Yeah.
[00:22:52] Josh
And so do you have plans to return to Adelaide at some point?
[00:22:57] Tullio
Yeah, I
[00:22:57] Tullio
was scheduled to return to Adelaide today
[00:23:02] Tullio
for a yes.
[00:23:03] Josh
Today is going to be cancelled.
[00:23:06] Josh
Yeah, so your flight got cancelled. OK,
[00:23:10] Tullio
so I decided to cancel the flight because I had to talk to you. I wish I could say that, but you
[00:23:19] Tullio
know their flight got cancelled and
[00:23:23] Tullio
they said our next unavailable is in January 20, 20 to that’s
[00:23:30] Tullio
expected some delays, but in the order of weeks,
[00:23:35] Tullio
not
[00:23:35] Tullio
months that really threw me off. That said is not the end of the world because as I said earlier I can work remotely. I’ve been doing it
[00:23:47] Tullio
for many months every year
[00:23:49] Tullio
because I’m a dual citizen of Italy and Australia. I go back and forth pretty much
[00:23:53] Tullio
yearly between Europe and Australia. So I’m used to that is not a
[00:23:58] Tullio
massive issue,
[00:24:00] Tullio
but at the same time, you know,
[00:24:02] Tullio
looking after the house God and
[00:24:05] Tullio
car, you know, that sort of stuff is it
[00:24:08] Tullio
worries me.
[00:24:09] Tullio
But one day I had, I woke up at night thinking about
[00:24:13] Tullio
as my car stolen
[00:24:18] Tullio
Does the guy look like a jungle and that sort of stuff. But you know, I knew when I left Australia
[00:24:26] Tullio
in May that there will be trouble getting back in.
[00:24:31] Tullio
I just didn’t expect the delays to be should big
[00:24:33] Tullio
and this very much has to do with
[00:24:37] Tullio
the reduced spots in hotel quarantining that were
[00:24:39] Tullio
introduced since the Deltaoutbreak.
[00:24:42] Tullio
Yeah, hopefully that will go back to where it was very soon.
[00:24:47] Tullio
But as of right now, really
[00:24:50] Tullio
terrible time to try to
[00:24:51] Tullio
go back to Australia,
[00:24:53] Josh
even if it is that the main reason that the limited hotel quarantine spots.
[00:24:58] Tullio
Yeah, that’s the that’s the bottleneck. Yeah.
[00:25:02] Tullio
It’s not the airlines you. Yeah. The airlines will be more than happy to take people back.
[00:25:06] Tullio
Is their business right.
[00:25:09] Tullio
Is the government that tells them today you can disembark only 20 people in Adelaide. So they need to fly an empty flight for the most part and leave.
[00:25:21] Tullio
Whoever else that
[00:25:23] Tullio
booked the
[00:25:23] Tullio
ticket with them, they have to leave them at home.
[00:25:28] Tullio
It must be really frustrating for our airline to deal with Australia right now.
[00:25:32] Josh
Yeah, I think so. And
[00:25:35] Josh
yeah tough times. Sorry to hear that.
[00:25:38] Josh
Hopefully you’re not stranded too much. You’ve got somewhere to stay and
[00:25:41] Tullio
Yeah, yeah, I’ve got somewhere to stay. So as I said it’s not the end of
[00:25:45] Tullio
the world but I’m sure there’s lots of people out there way worse situation than myself.
[00:25:50] Josh
Yeah. I couldn’t really complain too much. Now you’re not complaining Tullio.
[00:25:56] Josh
At the top of the podcast, I did hint that there was a cool connection a really nice connection between yourself. The young achiever was and I guess
[00:26:05] Josh
myself, I used to
[00:26:06] Josh
manage the younger Awards in South Australia,
[00:26:09] Josh
myself. And I love that that program very deeply and
[00:26:14] Josh
I believe that person’s day with you and I first noticed this person and you
[00:26:18] Josh
had a connection when I was looking at before we always look up just double check your bio and the photos we have a photos of all the people doing that now. Awards on file and things like that.
[00:26:31] Josh
And, and does like hang on, that’s Dr. Catarina Richter
[00:26:35] Josh
in a couple of the photos with you and I’m thinking and wonder how
[00:26:39] Josh
Tullio knows that because she was a finalist in twenty, sixteen and seventeen, and the young achiever Awards. And
[00:26:45] Josh
then she’s there with you now
[00:26:48] Tullio
with me now and we’ll get married next year.
[00:26:50] Josh
Wow that’s really cool. So I was blown away when you told me that to start before we hit record. That’s really amazing. And congratulations to you both.
[00:26:59] Tullio
Thank you.
[00:27:00] Josh
Have you got concrete plans or is it too hard just to plan for these things at the moment?
[00:27:03] Tullio
No, no we, we have plans.
[00:27:06] Tullio
I mean, we’re betting on borders being
[00:27:08] Tullio
open by
[00:27:10] Tullio
the next European summer. So
[00:27:13] Tullio
next Australian winter.
[00:27:15] Tullio
And we will get married in Germany and also have a party in Italy.
[00:27:21] Tullio
Of course capturing is German and Italian. Yes.
[00:27:24] Tullio
So we’ll try to,
[00:27:26] Tullio
to do it
[00:27:27] Tullio
in both places then then later, probably also a
[00:27:30] Tullio
little party in Australia,but
[00:27:32] Tullio
I have too much to plan right now
[00:27:34] Tullio
and we’re just focusing on the German and Italian word for that.
[00:27:38] Josh
Well I think that sounds like the best wedding of all time. A party in three different countries.
[00:27:42] Tullio
And yeah, we we love to party organization.
[00:27:47] Josh
That’s fantastic. Not very happy for you too. It was really cool to hear that connection. And just Katerina,
[00:27:54] Josh
you’ve got two scientists together. Does she get involved and make your science at all? Or is that just completely separate?
[00:28:01] Tullio
Well,
[00:28:02] Tullio
funnily enough, the first
[00:28:05] Tullio
time I met Katerina was the very
[00:28:08] Tullio
nerdy book launch.
[00:28:11] Tullio
And in our first conversation
[00:28:15] Tullio
struck her how switched on with Time’s communication really struck me.
[00:28:21] Tullio
And initially I thought
[00:28:23] Tullio
I need to get this woman involved in my team.
[00:28:29] Tullio
You know, initially she was
[00:28:32] Tullio
waiting to hear back from a funding opportunity she was
[00:28:36] Tullio
going after.
[00:28:37] Tullio
And she was a bit unsure about her future, so she considered it, we talked about it, but then eventually she got funding for research. So she,
[00:28:46] Tullio
she stayed in academia.
[00:28:49] Tullio
But then
[00:28:50] Tullio
things took a different turn and
[00:28:52] Tullio
we started dating. And here’s where we are today.
[00:28:56] Josh
What a funny story you trying to recruit?
[00:28:59] Josh
Yeah, I ended up dating that.
[00:29:01] Tullio
Yeah the problem is that I was trying to recruit with the very force that I found the victim. I couldn’t offer much.
[00:29:09] Josh
It wasn’t impressed.
[00:29:10] Tullio
She was very impressed.
[00:29:14] Tullio
But luckily
[00:29:17] Tullio
She apparently got impressed by something else in me other than you know, the potential job.
[00:29:25] Tullio
Yeah. And so here’s where we are.
[00:29:28] Tullio
And yeah, she’s very much involved in any major science. I call her my brand ambassador.
[00:29:36] Tullio
Yeah, because
[00:29:38] Tullio
she actually goes around with my business cards.
[00:29:41] Josh
Yes she would. Well, I know for a fact that she’s very passionate about science communication as well. And for those who aren’t
[00:29:48] Josh
familiar with the Adelaide science scene and
[00:29:51] Josh
doctor Academy director I believe you can correct me if I’m wrong. She organized many of the
[00:29:57] Josh
events in Adelaide about communicating science and I think it was like science at the pub. If I’m remembering correctly and it was a point of science. Thank you.
[00:30:07] Tullio
She still think last year she was the coordinator for South Australia and she,
[00:30:14] Tullio
she did that for many Years.
[00:30:16] Tullio
Yeah. She actually invited me to give a presentation there
[00:30:21] Tullio
that two Years ago.
[00:30:23] Tullio
Just over two Years ago,
[00:30:25] Tullio
and we had a lot of fun because
[00:30:26] Tullio
I did give a presentation about bioluminescence and
[00:30:30] Tullio
the science of bioluminescence in theOcean.
[00:30:32] Tullio
And she knew
[00:30:36] Tullio
a microbiologist who had bioluminescent bacteria
[00:30:42] Tullio
in the lab.
[00:30:43] Tullio
So we brought into the room flasks containing bioluminescent bacteria
[00:30:50] Tullio
living ones. We switched off the light we put these things in people’s hands and we told them,
[00:30:55] Tullio
OK, well the flask
[00:30:57] Tullio
and the whole thing lit up. Really.
[00:31:00] Tullio
If people were mind blowing it was the best.
[00:31:03] Tullio
I’ve ever had in any presentation, it was so much
[00:31:06] Tullio
fun. People were blown away. Absolutely
[00:31:10] Tullio
not even really cool.
[00:31:11] Tullio
It was the coolest and it’s one of my favorite topics. And one of the reasons why I became a Marine biologist is because I was, I fell in love with the phenomenon of bioluminescence
[00:31:22] Tullio
which I witnessed
[00:31:23] Tullio
when I was 15 and I was learning how to scuba dive.
[00:31:27] Tullio
I saw bioluminescence while scuba diving back then, and it was like, wow, this is the most incredible thing, is like swimming in like
[00:31:36] Tullio
being in the middle of the Milky way
[00:31:39] Tullio
with the ability of playing with the stars.
[00:31:41] Josh
So you were able to touch it and just to me,
[00:31:44] Tullio
Yeah I mean it’s, it’s tiny plankton you can’t even see by the naked eye.
[00:31:49] Tullio
But when you agitate the water, it glows. Yeah.
[00:31:53] Tullio
So it’s a bit like
[00:31:54] Tullio
microscopic fireflies swimming around.
[00:31:58] Tullio
You don’t normally see them when you agitate the water, they lit up, and that’s when you see them as
[00:32:05] Tullio
honestly one of the most magical things nature canoffer.
[00:32:10] Tullio
And so it’s always been a big fascination for me. I was very
[00:32:15] Tullio
happy to give a presentation about it in
[00:32:18] Tullio
doing the science festival,to
[00:32:20] Josh
my knowledge of bioluminescence, essentially extends to the movie moana.
[00:32:28] Tullio
Yeah.
[00:32:28] Josh
When she uses it to distract the, the giant crab. So
[00:32:33] Josh
apologies.
[00:32:35] Tullio
That’s OK, but I think my first time seeing it was the movie the beach with the
[00:32:42] Tullio
there’s a scene
[00:32:43] Tullio
where the narrator DiCaprio and
[00:32:47] Tullio
other kind of the female character the kiss on the water.
[00:32:50] Tullio
And there’s all these lights glowing around them and that’s bioluminescence.
[00:32:58] Josh
So
[00:32:59] Josh
are you into scuba diving and snorkeling and that kind of thing?
[00:33:03] Tullio
Oh, very much so, but I’m a half fish
[00:33:06] Josh
and where are the best places that you’ve been personally to to dive will
[00:33:10] Josh
explore underwater. Oh,
[00:33:13] Tullio
there’s many for different reasons
[00:33:18] Tullio
for
[00:33:18] Tullio
Australia as amazing places. First of all was one of the
[00:33:22] Tullio
reasons why I love Australia is that the Ocean is stunning. Not only the Great Barrier Reef which was
[00:33:29] Tullio
my first ever tropical
[00:33:32] Tullio
coral Reef to
[00:33:33] Tullio
experience which was a life changing experience. When I was there probably 12,14
[00:33:43] Tullio
12 13 Years ago.
[00:33:45] Tullio
I always like to see it before it starts to get badly damaged
[00:33:50] Tullio
by hurricanes. For fish and
[00:33:53] Tullio
coral bleaching and so on.
[00:33:55] Tullio
So I saw it when it was absolutely stunning. It was amazing
[00:33:59] Tullio
Amazing, amazing, amazing.
[00:34:01] Tullio
But also the Salvin Reef which gets way more
[00:34:05] Tullio
attention.
[00:34:06] Tullio
You know the Great thousand Reef which goes from
[00:34:08] Tullio
W.A.
[00:34:09] Tullio
all the way to New South Wales.
[00:34:12] Tullio
It is amazing the
[00:34:14] Tullio
work when I’m in Adelaide,
[00:34:16] Tullio
there’s so many different places where to do
[00:34:18] Tullio
scuba diving and
[00:34:20] Tullio
is no
[00:34:21] Tullio
less exciting.
[00:34:23] Tullio
It might not be as colourful as a coral Reef, but
[00:34:26] Tullio
it is nonetheless very very beautiful.
[00:34:30] Tullio
And once you learn to appreciate it and
[00:34:33] Tullio
understand the differences between a temperate
[00:34:35] Tullio
climate and a tropical climate,
[00:34:38] Tullio
are
[00:34:39] Tullio
the places that stand out in my
[00:34:41] Tullio
experience. Well, the West Coast of Mexico, because I found myself
[00:34:46] Tullio
in between
[00:34:48] Tullio
nine whale sharks. Well,
[00:34:51] Tullio
you know whale shark is like the size of a bus. Imagine
[00:34:56] Tullio
nine of them because there was a plankton blooms of the world feeding
[00:34:59] Tullio
feasting on this planet. And
[00:35:03] Tullio
yet
[00:35:03] Tullio
there were nine of them in the same spot and we just jumped in the water at some point. I had one on my left one on my right
[00:35:09] Tullio
and I thought
[00:35:10] Tullio
I can get sandwiched between science. But the reality is that they’re very
[00:35:16] Tullio
gentle creatures. So the sharks and all fish, they have a perception of what’s around them.
[00:35:23] Tullio
They don’t need to see yet what’s behind them. They feel
[00:35:27] Tullio
they can have special
[00:35:30] Tullio
cells on their skin that measure pressure in the water. And so they can feel if there is something next to them
[00:35:37] Tullio
so that they don’t hit that thing.
[00:35:38] Tullio
And so it was actually quite amazing to see how even being
[00:35:43] Tullio
just a metre distant from this massive thing
[00:35:47] Tullio
they never touched me know,
[00:35:48] Tullio
even by accident
[00:35:50] Tullio
they are really
[00:35:51] Tullio
gentle giants.
[00:35:53] Tullio
And another
[00:35:55] Tullio
highlight probably was the Maldives in the Indian Ocean
[00:35:59] Tullio
a lot, lots of sharks that I remember very
[00:36:02] Tullio
thrilling night dive
[00:36:04] Tullio
with sharks out hunting in the Reef
[00:36:07] Tullio
and there was so much action and it was
[00:36:11] Tullio
very, very exciting.
[00:36:13] Josh
Now you say thrilling, that sounds absolutely terrifying to me but
[00:36:18] Tullio
Well,
[00:36:20] Tullio
once you
[00:36:22] Tullio
get to learn sharks you understand that they’re not all the same
[00:36:25] Tullio
that
[00:36:26] Tullio
hundreds and hundreds of species of sharks in the world and only a handful
[00:36:29] Tullio
that are dangerous to youmans.
[00:36:32] Tullio
For example when you’re on the
[00:36:34] Tullio
Great Barrier Reef for the most part, you see
[00:36:37] Tullio
why tip sharks and Reef sharks and those are harmless, really, they never bothered divers. And so that’s also what was there in the Maldives. So I knew that I didn’t have to fear with sharks. Just mind their own business.
[00:36:54] Tullio
In South Australia is a bit different.
[00:36:57] Tullio
When I’m out
[00:36:58] Tullio
diving or snorkeling, sometimes I get the thought of
[00:37:02] Tullio
meeting a white pointer. And it, it, it sends a shiver down my back.
[00:37:09] Tullio
But then I
[00:37:10] Tullio
tell myself, what are the chances so slim? So
[00:37:14] Tullio
keep going, keep swimming.
[00:37:17] Josh
Not. You’ve got to enjoy yourself.
[00:37:20] Tullio
Yeah and I love my Passion to the Ocean is bigger than my fear for sharks. Yeah,
[00:37:25] Josh
that’s a good way to put it
[00:37:26] Tullio
though, so I still do it.
[00:37:29] Tullio
And you know, I understand
[00:37:31] Tullio
these animals, even though my point is not that they’re not in many cases that
[00:37:36] Tullio
they have a really bad rap.
[00:37:38] Tullio
You eat most of the time, even when there’s an encounter between a man
[00:37:42] Tullio
and one of these sharks.
[00:37:43] Tullio
The just passes by ignores the person
[00:37:47] Tullio
and that’s it. Nothing happens.
[00:37:49] Tullio
They have to be Super unlucky for the shark the mistake you for food. So usually what happens is the shark will have a test bite
[00:38:00] Tullio
to understand what this thing is and usually then the shark leaves.
[00:38:06] Tullio
But the problem is that this test by bias is often
[00:38:09] Tullio
enough to,
[00:38:11] Tullio
you know,
[00:38:11] Tullio
chop your leg off. It’s
[00:38:14] Josh
a pretty hectic,
[00:38:16] Tullio
that’s fine. Yeah. So if,
[00:38:18] Tullio
if you pay attention,
[00:38:21] Tullio
there are no instances of sharks eating humans
[00:38:26] Tullio
that just bites and then leave.
[00:38:29] Tullio
But is often the bite is dangerous enough to then cause problems.
[00:38:33] Tullio
So they’re not man eaters in any way.
[00:38:36] Tullio
Yeah. I
[00:38:38] Josh
like that.
[00:38:39] Josh
So this is why we need science communicators.
[00:38:43] Tullio
I agree.
[00:38:45] Josh
Speaking of science, communication, the importance of it and
[00:38:50] Josh
you know, it kind of us question the right way, but I’ll ask it and you can. So you make it more eloquent, but does it kind of drive you a little bit bonkers if that better phrase than that when people are spreading information on social media or even at the
[00:39:10] Josh
pub wherever it is that climate
[00:39:13] Josh
and
[00:39:14] Josh
conspiracy theories and that kind of stuff and
[00:39:17] Josh
when you think the information’s out there just needs to be communicated better to the general punter.
[00:39:23] Tullio
Yeah. So he opened a massive can of worms.
[00:39:28] Tullio
So yes, it drives me crazy when I meet. For example,
[00:39:33] Tullio
climate change deniers that
[00:39:35] Tullio
tries to convince me that it’s all a hoax,
[00:39:38] Tullio
and we’re not the cause of climate change, blah blah blah. It drives me crazy but
[00:39:45] Tullio
I also understand that
[00:39:48] Tullio
Even if the instinct will
[00:39:50] Tullio
be all we need to show them
[00:39:53] Tullio
the real the science based information and throw facts of them
[00:39:58] Tullio
as a communicator. I also know that that doesn’t work. Yeah.
[00:40:02] Tullio
When you have somebody entrenched in a position,
[00:40:06] Tullio
for example,
[00:40:08] Tullio
antifascist which is you know,
[00:40:10] Tullio
current day
[00:40:12] Tullio
during the current day
[00:40:16] Tullio
When somebody is entrenched in that position. If you throw at them
[00:40:21] Tullio
graphs and evidence and scientific paper it just bounces back.
[00:40:26] Tullio
It doesn’t stick. So
[00:40:30] Tullio
a much more personalized and complicated approach is needed.
[00:40:38] Tullio
So you need to, for example, the first step is to actually listen to this person and understand
[00:40:46] Tullio
what thought processes brought them where
[00:40:49] Tullio
they are.
[00:40:50] Tullio
So what is the thing that made them
[00:40:55] Tullio
Not trust science?
[00:40:58] Tullio
What is it, was it a Facebook post or was it? Was it something that happened to their friend or, you
[00:41:04] Tullio
know, there’s always a story behind it or why people lost trust in the institutions and science.
[00:41:11] Tullio
And then from there was understand how they got there and understand what they value. And then you need to work on their values and trying to bring them back
[00:41:24] Tullio
through that. So an example, let’s say you have a,
[00:41:27] Tullio
an entrenched
[00:41:30] Tullio
but
[00:41:30] Tullio
a right wing
[00:41:33] Tullio
climate change Denier saying dealing with climate change is expensive.
[00:41:41] Tullio
It’s not worth it.
[00:41:44] Tullio
What do these people value, maybe the value of free market
[00:41:47] Tullio
that lets you know
[00:41:50] Tullio
the thing for them. Everything has to be free market. The
[00:41:54] Tullio
regulations are evil,
[00:41:57] Tullio
all men they be, that’s the
[00:41:59] Tullio
starting point for the conversation and maybe the about, you know, but if we do this now it will cost X.
[00:42:06] Tullio
And we were still trying to actually avoid the worst of climate change.
[00:42:10] Tullio
While if we
[00:42:11] Tullio
wait and do nothing
[00:42:13] Tullio
in 20 Years it will cost 10 times as much.
[00:42:17] Tullio
So
[00:42:18] Tullio
understand free market by the same time free market
[00:42:22] Tullio
sometimes needs a
[00:42:23] Tullio
little nudge and some checks and
[00:42:26] Tullio
balances in place
[00:42:28] Tullio
to
[00:42:29] Tullio
you know, to do the right thing.
[00:42:31] Tullio
So yeah, it’s a,
[00:42:33] Tullio
it’s complicated
[00:42:35] Tullio
dealing with
[00:42:37] Tullio
situations like climate change deniers or
[00:42:40] Tullio
whatever is complicated it can be done but is not as easy as we would like it to be. Let’s just throw more facts. Yeah.
[00:42:50] Tullio
It actually is not. That is
[00:42:52] Josh
not a good point. And it kind of reminds of what you said earlier about content marketing and your business. You can’t, you’re
[00:42:59] Josh
putting out lots of different content, I imagine not just the one content for the one type of target audience. Just as you said it’s complicated to
[00:43:08] Josh
communicate with people when you need to get to their level what are their problems? What are their
[00:43:13] Josh
pain points? And it sounds like
[00:43:16] Josh
you’re very rational guy. You
[00:43:18] Josh
friend, your business and the way you communicate with people in the same way, which is the awesome
[00:43:25] Tullio
Appreciate that.
[00:43:27] Josh
So Tullio, what’s, what’s next for you? I know you’re going to get married next year which is very cool. And that’s about one thing heading back to Adelaide and then back overseas to get married. But what’s next? Maybe animate your science
[00:43:41] Josh
and you professionally.
[00:43:43] Tullio
Definitely still
[00:43:45] Tullio
up until now for the most part, any major science
[00:43:49] Tullio
as being a service provider. So
[00:43:53] Tullio
let’s say a researcher Comes to us
[00:43:55] Tullio
and done this research.
[00:43:57] Tullio
And they hire us to
[00:43:59] Tullio
create an animation that explains that research in two minutes.
[00:44:04] Tullio
That’s been most of our business
[00:44:07] Tullio
until now, but I also realize that
[00:44:10] Tullio
there’s also a need
[00:44:12] Tullio
of teaching skills
[00:44:14] Tullio
because you know, we want to help all researchers not just professors. We also want to help the graduate students,
[00:44:21] Tullio
graduate students more
[00:44:24] Tullio
cash poor and time rich. So it makes more sense that
[00:44:27] Tullio
we teach them the skills that they have for the rest of their career rather than we do it for them. So
[00:44:35] Tullio
for Years have been teaching science communication here and there a few workshops,
[00:44:39] Tullio
but it was more on the side.
[00:44:43] Tullio
Now I want to scale that part of a
[00:44:45] Tullio
business up and we started doing that doing korona
[00:44:49] Tullio
way, where I actually
[00:44:51] Tullio
finally got the side of myself to
[00:44:54] Tullio
sit down and record my first ever online course.
[00:44:58] Tullio
- Yep.
[00:45:00] Tullio
So there’s not a
[00:45:01] Tullio
live presentations of pre-recorded,
[00:45:04] Tullio
and my first one
[00:45:05] Tullio
teaches researchers how to make scientific posters.
[00:45:10] Tullio
The thing with scientific poll is that every researcher
[00:45:13] Tullio
needs to do them at some point in their career. Usually during the day. Nobody teaches them how to do them. And the result is that
[00:45:22] Tullio
for the most part they look absolutely terrible
[00:45:25] Tullio
because they are like,
[00:45:27] Tullio
they come across as walls of text. Yeah,
[00:45:30] Josh
I’ve seen some of
[00:45:32] Josh
the Awards nominations over the Years, so I know what you’re talking about.
[00:45:36] Tullio
So
[00:45:37] Tullio
for the most part, they’re really bad. And so one of my
[00:45:41] Tullio
personal battles in this life is to improve
[00:45:45] Tullio
the way scientific posters are made here.
[00:45:49] Tullio
Because they’re really as they are right now, they don’t work, they put people off, rather than starting a conversation. The real
[00:45:57] Tullio
purpose of a scientific poster is to start conversations and networking tool. When you think about conferences, poster sessions are a place of exchange of information of meeting new people of networking. If you have a wall of text people, one
[00:46:13] Tullio
is like, oh, that’s
[00:46:14] Tullio
way,
[00:46:15] Tullio
way too much
[00:46:16] Tullio
right now. I just want to relax and drink a glass of wine at the end of the day. I’ve been listening to boring presentations all day.
[00:46:22] Tullio
I don’t want to do more work. So
[00:46:24] Tullio
we need to rethink posters
[00:46:26] Tullio
in a way
[00:46:27] Tullio
that they don’t put people off. They actually attract people
[00:46:31] Tullio
and start those conversations so that, that’s one of the things I teach. And I start, I,
[00:46:36] Tullio
you know, from a live workshop. I turned it into this online course, which is now starting to
[00:46:42] Tullio
gain momentum.
[00:46:44] Tullio
And just recently, I got into an agreement with
[00:46:48] Tullio
the University of Adelaide where they offered these calls to all graduate students. Wow. At the moment we’ve got about 70 plus
[00:46:57] Tullio
new students from Adelaide Uni and that they’re going through the course and
[00:47:01] Tullio
feedback and is coming back really, really positive. But ideally I want to offer this to more university.
[00:47:09] Tullio
It can be a global thing because the
[00:47:12] Tullio
big advantage of science that it’s all in English,
[00:47:15] Tullio
English is the language of science so
[00:47:19] Tullio
almost no language barriers.
[00:47:21] Josh
So I know I never knew that. So conferences in various countries, they have their conferences largely in English today.
[00:47:30] Tullio
Yes, yes, the only
[00:47:32] Tullio
exception to that rule is China and Russia. They tend to have their own
[00:47:38] Tullio
science ecosystems systems in their respective languages. Everything else? Well,
[00:47:47] Josh
I never knew that that’s amazing.
[00:47:49] Tullio
Yeah, so that’s a big advantage for, for, for
[00:47:53] Tullio
business like us, because we can work with
[00:47:56] Tullio
people globally
[00:47:58] Tullio
without having a team that speaks in Spanish and German and so on. Yeah. So
[00:48:05] Tullio
the average
[00:48:06] Tullio
scientist globally
[00:48:08] Tullio
can speak English
[00:48:10] Tullio
and can write in English. Yeah, it is pretty much a requirement
[00:48:16] Josh
if you want to be a scientist,
[00:48:18] Josh
get some very exciting things on the horizon there with personally and professionally and yeah, it’s really, it’s been
[00:48:27] Josh
so eye-opening this chat just to learn more about it.
[00:48:31] Josh
And I hope a lot of our listeners have learned some things about it as well. Is there one question I like saving for last is the inspiration of australian’s podcasts.
[00:48:41] Josh
I think what you’re doing
[00:48:43] Josh
for your business is quite inspirational.
[00:48:45] Josh
But what is it that inspires you Tullio
[00:48:50] Tullio
inspires me. Well.
[00:48:53] Tullio
What I find the most
[00:48:55] Tullio
inspiring and rewarding is really empowering researchers
[00:49:00] Tullio
to have an impact
[00:49:02] Tullio
to realize the full potential impact. Because the same way I fell doing my dfl,
[00:49:08] Tullio
the full potential impact of my research was
[00:49:11] Tullio
trapped on a leash.
[00:49:14] Tullio
What I want to do is to unleash that impact by teaching them the skills they need to have or doing it for them. In case of videos and graphics,
[00:49:25] Tullio
but it’s about unleashing that impact so that that research
[00:49:29] Tullio
can really flourish and
[00:49:31] Tullio
change the world.
[00:49:33] Josh
That’s fantastic. Well,
[00:49:34] Josh
training young researchers out there,
[00:49:36] Josh
make sure you put a nomination to the young achiever Awards and do tullius course. And you’ll be setting
[00:49:44] Tullio
Thank you for the plug, Josh,
[00:49:46] Josh
totally, if people want to. And if they want to
[00:49:49] Josh
connect with you and animate your science where would you direct them to go?
[00:49:53] Tullio
Yeah so they can just go and Google search for any make your science.
[00:50:00] Tullio
We come up with number one.
[00:50:03] Tullio
Otherwise our EURail is
[00:50:05] Tullio
einem, your dot science there’s no dot com. Yeah, we go to the dot dot science domain and email your dot science is our
[00:50:13] Tullio
website and there you can find everything
[00:50:16] Tullio
from the courses to the services to the blog which is
[00:50:19] Tullio
100 percent for free.
[00:50:21] Tullio
Awesome. So everything on our
[00:50:24] Tullio
blog is free and
[00:50:26] Tullio
it’s not, you know,
[00:50:29] Tullio
quick blog, the Deep, they go Deep and they teach skills.
[00:50:34] Tullio
So I got several people
[00:50:36] Tullio
saying oh only by reading your blogs on poster design I was able to change the way I do post.
[00:50:41] Tullio
And I won a prize. Thank you so much.
[00:50:43] Tullio
That happened multiple times.
[00:50:45] Josh
That’s all.
[00:50:46] Tullio
Even if you just consume our blog for free, I’ll
[00:50:50] Tullio
be happy. Yeah.
[00:50:51] Josh
Well yeah,
[00:50:52] Josh
I feel like I’m really backing off
[00:50:54] Josh
backing up your words of wanting to change
[00:50:57] Josh
posters and help people communicate by putting out that free content. That’s really cool. Tullio, thanks for your time this morning. Appreciate you taking some time out of your day
[00:51:07] Josh
and I hope you get the time for some more espressos. Now. At
[00:51:12] Tullio
a later time, I try to limit myself to a they,
[00:51:15] Tullio
they’re pretty strong. All right, so
[00:51:18] Tullio
you know, I found if I had
[00:51:20] Tullio
three or four but they was not so good.
[00:51:24] Tullio
So I scaled back to two, one in the morning, one after lunch, and that’s,
[00:51:29] Josh
that’s my struggle optimal.
[00:51:31] Josh
That’s my struggle. I’m working from home.
[00:51:33] Josh
So I’m home all day
[00:51:34] Josh
every day and the lockdown is nowhere to go.
[00:51:36] Josh
And I just love making coffee. Like actually
[00:51:40] Josh
making it I love as much as the, the taste. So as of recently making my fourth copy of the day going, I don’t actually want this copy.
[00:51:47] Tullio
I’ve made it
[00:51:50] Tullio
probably all the struggle,
[00:51:52] Tullio
but it’s the
[00:51:54] Tullio
caffeine depending on the person can be really powerful. And I realize that the more coffee I had, the more tired I ended up being
[00:52:06] Tullio
and it was like a spiral
[00:52:07] Tullio
downward. So that the time periods where I was drinking for coffee is a
[00:52:11] Tullio
day where the periods where I was the most power to the point where people were looking at me and telling me to you look tired.
[00:52:19] Tullio
Now that I have two coffees a day,
[00:52:22] Tullio
I feel so much better.
[00:52:23] Tullio
So you live in
[00:52:26] Tullio
cutting down on coffee can be good also for your productivity and overall. I
[00:52:33] Josh
guess the
[00:52:33] Josh
last approach it from Tullio for the, for the day.
[00:52:37] Tullio
Well, it said by Italian and Italian and usually you know, we drink a lot of coffee, you
[00:52:44] Josh
know, I’m talking about Yeah, well thanks again to you. I really appreciate it say hi to Katerina for me as well. And we’ll have to reach out to her and if you’re going to be stranded for lack of a better word for a little while, then maybe we’ll reach out and get Katerina on the
[00:53:00] Josh
podcast as well.
[00:53:02] Tullio
Absolutely. I let her know. Thank you so much. Joshua was
[00:53:06] Tullio
really fun to be on this chat with you.
[00:53:09] Josh
Hope you enjoyed that interview. If you liked it or any of our other episodes, it would be Great if you can write and review inspirational australian’s podcast. It really helps us out if someone, you know, it’s a little dose of inspiration. Why not
[00:53:23] Josh
let them know about this podcast?
[00:53:24] Josh
And if you haven’t already, make sure you subscribed, so that you won’t miss an episode. Join us each week as we talk with ordinary Australians, achieving extraordinary things. You
[00:53:35] Josh
can
[00:53:35] Josh
always head to our website at Awards Australia dot com slash podcast for more information and details on each guest. Now before we go, I’d like to thank Annette our producer. Here’s a fun fact, and that is my mum and our other hosts, Geoff is my dad. This podcast is brought to you by Awards, Australia, a family owned business that proudly uncovers the stories of people who make a difference for others. We can only do this with the support of our corporate and not for profit partners
[00:54:05] Josh
as they make our Awards programs possible.
[00:54:08] Josh
So do you know someone making a difference? If you’d like to recommend someone to be guest on the podcast, get in touch through our Instagram page, inspirational Australians, or
[00:54:19] Josh
maybe your business might like to sponsor the podcast
[00:54:22] Josh
or get involved with the Awards. We run head
[00:54:25] Josh
to
[00:54:25] Josh
website Awards Australia dot com for more details until next week. Stay safe
[00:54:31] Josh
and remember together
[00:54:32] Annette
we make a difference. Thanks for joining us today on inspirational australian’s podcast. We hope you enjoyed listening and have been inspired
[00:54:42] Annette
by ordinary Australians achieving
[00:54:45] Annette
extraordinary things. So it’s goodbye for another week. Remember together we make a difference.
