Calling DIBS

Dilip Soman, Professor of Marketing at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, & Bing Feng, Manager of Behavioural Finance at TD Wealth. In our second episode on the Behaviourally Informed Organizations partnership , Dilip Soman and Bing Feng tell us about international collaborations to reduce sludge in governments and work applying behavioural science to poverty reducti...

Dilip Soman, Professor of Marketing at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, & Bing Feng, Manager of Behavioural Finance at TD Wealth. Dilip Soman and Bing Feng share the story of how BEAR's Behaviourally Informed Organizations partnership has both impacted people's day-to-day lives and advanced the field of behavioural science. Dilip and Bing tell us about a...

Rachel Yang, Senior Behavioural Scientist with Technical Safety BC. Rachel Yang rejoins the podcast to provide updates on how Technical Safety BC is integrating behavioural insights into their vision of "Safe technical systems. Everywhere." Rachel shares two examples: a project encouraging contractors to comply with new regulations, and a project encouraging skiers to ride chairlifts mor...

Kerstin Behrens-Bolt, Manager of Knowledge Management, Training, and Quality Assurance with the BC Ministry of Citizens’ Services. Kerstin Behrens-Bolt walks us through some of the intersections between service design and behavioural insights, including their shared goal of helping people. Kerstin also happens to have a fantastic eye for opportunities to use BI. She shares some of the opportunitie...

Shellee Ritzman, Division Manager for Corporate Communications with Metro Vancouver. Shellee Ritzman joins the podcast to help us explore the overlap between social marketing and behavioural insights. We discuss their shared goal of understanding and changing behaviour for good, their different approaches to measurement and evaluation, and our hopes for a future where the two fields come together...

Brent Novikoff, Public Opinion Research Advisor with the Government of Canada. Building on his background in market research and public opinion research, Brent Novikoff helps us explore those fields, their intersections with BI, and opportunities to use BI in different roles. Brent also shares his takeaways from the Advanced Professional Certificate in BI , including the importance of ethics and t...

Alan Shapiro, Principal with Shapiro & Company. Alan Shapiro has spent a decade working on the climate crisis and the related, but distinct water crisis. In explaining some of the challenges within the water crisis and possible roles for behavioural science, Alan introduces the idea of changing not only individual-level behaviour and system-level factors, but also network-level behaviour. Alan...

Jeff Mackey-Murdock, Senior Manager, Organizational Change Management with the City of Vancouver. Jeff Mackey-Murdock brings a combination of skills to his role at the City of Vancouver. We talk about how powerful it is when folks add BI to their toolkits and leverage the complementary strengths of their various skills. Digging into BI specifically, Jeff shares the many opportunities and challenge...

Rhiannon Mosher, Human-Centred Design Researcher with the Behavioural Science Office within the Public Health Agency of Canada. In our second episode on mixed methods, Rhiannon Mosher explains how mixed methods are a crucial part of an anti-racist, Indigenized practice of behavioural science. She shares the value of deep learning about people and their context and remembering that results don&apos...

Rhiannon Mosher, Human-Centred Design Researcher with the Behavioural Science Office within the Public Health Agency of Canada. Rhiannon Mosher returns to the podcast for a two-episode series about mixed-methods approaches. In this first episode, Rhiannon defines qualitative methods, shares examples of qualitative techniques, and explains the importance of doing them well. She also walks through t...

Meghan Martin, Regional Immunization Leader working in Population and Public Health. Meghan Martin discusses how the intersection of behavioural science and public health draws on the longstanding public health mantra: "make the healthy choice the easy choice". Meghan shares recent examples of how BI is influencing public health practice, including work on the pandemic response, legal su...

Stephanie Papik, the Moose Hide Campaign Society’s Director for the Public Service. Stephanie Papik returns to share how we can work together to simultaneously Indigenize behavioural science and use Indigenized behavioural science to tackle issues impacting Indigenous peoples. Stephanie discusses the power of two-eyed seeing and the ABCDE framework, which encourages us to consider our Assumptions,...

Lindsay Miles-Pickup, Methods Specialist with the BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG). In part two of this two-episode series inspired by Michael Hallsworth's " Manifesto for Applying Behavioural Science ", Lindsay Miles-Pickup and I continue our conversation about the evolution of the practice of behavioural insights. In this episode, Lindsay walks us through a recent BC BIG pro...

Lindsay Miles-Pickup, Methods Specialist with the BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG). In part one of this two-episode series inspired by Michael Hallsworth's " Manifesto for Applying Behavioural Science ", Lindsay Miles-Pickup returns to the podcast to talk about how the practice of behavioural insights is changing and improving. Lindsay uses a recent project with BC Transplant...

Ammaarah Martinus, Senior Program Office at UNESCO MGIEP. Ammaarah Martinus has applied BI in large organizations based in South Africa and India. Ammaarah shares how starting small, but strong helps build the necessary BI appetite and awareness for project success. She also shares other key requirements for rewarding BI project partnerships , including having unlike minds at the table, being will...

Meera Paleja, Program Head for Investor Research and Behavioural Insights at the Ontario Securities Commission. Over the last decade, Meera Paleja has worked in academia, management consulting, and different levels of government. Drawing on her diverse experiences, Meera shares a high-level look at BI in Canada and walks us through the similarities and differences in BI challenges and methods acro...

Jordyn Hrenyk, Michif researcher & PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University. Jordyn Hrenyk uses her background in strategy and entrepreneurship to study behaviour, business, and society at both the micro and macro levels. Jordyn's research portfolio questions a variety of implicit and explicit assumptions, such as how values are communicated through everyday business decisions, how entrep...

Brett Cloutier, Senior Research Manager at ATB Financial. From the BI perspective, personal finance is a classic example of an intertemporal choice problem where spending tomorrow depends on planning and saving today. Brett Cloutier is a UX/CX researcher who has added this type of BI lens to his work exploring barriers and solutions for financial planning. We talk about the importance of financial...

Britt Titus, Behavioral Insights Lead with the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Britt Titus applies BI to wicked problems in humanitarian settings around the world. These problems and settings require modifications to the standard BI approach to problem-solving. Britt walks us through how her team at the IRC has expanded the problem scoping phase to spend time: (1) validating assumptions with...

Craig Hutton, Senior Behavioural Scientist with the BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG). In a great BI project, the behavioural and decision sciences provide the questions and data science provides the tools to answer those questions. As someone who is both a data scientist and a behavioural scientist, Craig Hutton is the ideal person to talk us through similarities, differences, and complement...

Brianne Kirkpatrick, Principal Advisor with BIT Canada, & Ansley Dawson, Senior Manager, Financial Empowerment Program at WoodGreen Community Services. Ansley Dawson and Brianne Kirkpatrick tell us about their joint work using BI to support folks on social assistance. We focus on the innovative Income Transition Project, which is free social worker counselling to help folks understand the fina...

Stina Grant, Methods Specialist with the BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG). Stina Grant joins us for a deep dive on secondary research. Stina walks us through the importance of understanding the existing evidence base -- what has been done in which context and to what effect. She shares tips for how to conduct good literature reviews, how to synthesize information from across sources, and how...

Stephanie Mertens, Behavioural Scientist at the Ontario Behavioural Insights Unit. Foundational research developing new theories. Applied research testing solutions in the field. Stephanie Mertens helps us explore different ways of contributing to the behavioural and decision sciences. She also shares her takeaways from her meta-analysis of BI's first decade: Nudges work, but we still have a...

Yarnel Bender, Associate Vice President, Corporate Change Management & Communications, at TD Bank. Changing behaviour and managing change are two inextricably linked processes. As someone who is both a change management expert and a BI practitioner, Yarnel Bender is the perfect person to talk us through how these two tools complement and enrich each other. We also talk about how to use BI in e...

Jennifer Parisi, Manager of Marketing and Communications with Michael Smith Health Research BC. In her work across organizations in the health sector, Jen Parisi has come to appreciate the role that behaviours by patients, doctors, nurses, administrators, and others play in health outcomes. And, where there are behaviours, there are opportunities to use BI, from hand hygiene to program uptake to c...