Episode 190: Level up your workshops by thinking like a gamer with Marvin Fox
This week I’m chatting to someone who has an extremely cool role in the university sector, in fact he works at my old university, The University of Queensland. I so wish he was in this role when I was there!
His name is Marvin Fox and he’s the Senior Program Officer for UQ Ventures, leading the Validate pre-accelerator program and running Design Sprints for research and industry clients.
In this episode, Marvin shares his incredible career and life experiences travelling around this amazing world with a serious dose of curiosity and wonder.
As facilitators, we are in the business of experience design, and Marvin brings in an analogy I’ve never even thought about before, drawing parallels between gaming and workshops.
In this conversation, Marvin shares how creates welcoming workshop experiences for his participants to drive word-f-mouth referral. He also talks about the role of human centred design in teaching and learning.
Marvin has loads of cool catch phrases and ways of thinking about workshop delivery, design, engagement, which I’m sure will plant a seed in your brains to how you rethink your approach to sessions.
Throughout his career, Marvin has championed the importance of enterprise skills growth and development. With his background in International Business, he’s built a career in business and education in China and Japan.
He’s also developed a strong focus on social entrepreneurship, recently designing and delivering programs at QUT Creative Enterprise Australia and QUT Entrepreneurship, focusing on the quality of the learning experience for students, creatives and emerging leaders.
Not only that, he’s a cool bloke - funny, great sense of humour, deprecating, calming - you’ll hear that in this conversation.
About our Guest: Marvin Fox
Throughout Marvin’s career, he championed the importance of enterprise skills growth and development.
He worked in marketing, advertising and promotions for JLL, Pacific Highway Marketing and later for UNSW in Sydney. He then worked at the QUT Business School in Brisbane, where he facilitated the engagement of current students through co-curricular activities that consolidate their skills in preparation to take on the future workforce. Through this experience in learning, teaching and student support, he became an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
He also developed a strong focus on social entrepreneurship. He was the Faculty Advisor for Enactus QUT, a student association at QUT that runs social enterprise projects to make a sustainable difference in the community. After winning the national championships in Sydney, he took the team of students to represent Australia at the Enactus World Cup in Silicon Valley, USA.
Recently, he designed and delivered programs at QUT Creative Enterprise Australia and QUT Entrepreneurship. In 2019, he delivered entrepreneurship programs throughout South East Asia and also led the delivery of "The Refinery", a creative incubator held in the Sunshine Coast.
He is currently the Senior Program Officer at UQ Ventures, leading the Validate pre-accelerator program and running Design Sprints for research and industry clients.
In this episode, you will learn
How to create value-adding engagement in your workshops, to supercharge your participation
Marvin’s take on authentic messaging
How to incorporating the mindset of gamers into your workshop experiences
Focusing on the things that you can provide to others
Here are some questions I asked Marvin during the interview
What does the phrase “beyond the classroom” mean?
What do you do to get people interested and show up in your workshop?
What are the techniques, tools you use during the workshop?
How do you design what a workshop would look like?
Do you have any favourite activities you’d like to share?
Resources mentioned:
Connect with Marvin Fox on LinkedIn
Watch the episode now!
About About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 14 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and is a finalist in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.