One issue TCF is working on is childhood obesity. "Everyone knows you have to eat less and exercise more," says Duschinsky, "but that doesn't shift people's behaviour." This is an issue where a lot has been tried and almost nothing has worked. so they are trying a different approach – putting creativity instead of programming at the heart of their solutions. Watch this space...
As we talk, Duschinsky looks at my unlined notebook. If I had a notebook with wavy lines, he tells me, I would remember in images. And because most people are visually dominant, that means I would remember better.
This leads us into a discussion about Alzheimer's. The Conversation Farm was asked to create a global campaign on the disease that could raise $1 billion. "Chump change," he says. "What's important is creating a paradigm shift in people's attitude to the disease, not just throwing money at it."
When patients with Alzheimer's get their diagnosis, family and friends abandon them. From the 55-year old woman in India who is locked up in a room by her family who throw away the key to the forgetful grandfather in Seattle, research showed that the attitudes towards the disease are pretty universal across the globe.
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"With cancer," says Duschinsky, "you want to hold people close and comfort them. With Alzheimer's you push them away."
But Alzheimer's is a ticking time bomb that it gets one per cent of the funding cancer gets.
When discussing the campaign with his two partners, what they realised was that no one knew anyone's phone numbers, not like when they were at school. "We realised that we were," said Duschinsky, "all forgetting to remember – whether we had Alzheimer's or not. So what if people with Alzheimer's could gently bring this to the awareness of the rest of us, and give us tools to help us remember better? How would that change the conversation around people with the disease? How would that reduce the stigma and the fear?"
The wavy line notebook developed by The Conversation Farm in collaboration with neuroscientists and mnemonics (the science of remembering) experts actually helps you remember things better. What if school kids had notebooks that helped them remember better and that were brought to them by people with Alzheimer's?" The conversation would change, attitudes would change, and behaviours would change. nail that and raising $1 billion is no longer a problem.
When the unlikely pair of Gorbachev and Reagan, who suffered from Alzheimer's, met in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1986 the two men decided that neither country would seek military superiority. A great idea – Glasnost – had changed the conversation, changed attitudes and changed the world. As the world embraces a future driven more and more by social media and the ability to share, it is time to realise that if you can change the conversation you can truly change the world.
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