Robbie Tilleard on a Behavioural Scientist's View of COVID

Exploring COVID from a Behavioural Scientist’s perspective.

As COVID continues to dominate our lives, there’s no shortage of information about the virus. But often it is presented from a national or global perspective. Yet, if you or someone close to you catches the virus, it’s a deeply personal experience. Given Behavioural Science is all about understanding things from the perspective of the end-user, is there something it can teach us about experiencing COVID?

On this episode, Behavioural Scientist Robbie Tilleard helps me to think about COVID from the perspective of someone who has had it. Robbie recently contracted the virus and, after suffering symptoms, went for a test. That came back positive. As a result, he went into isolation. During that experience, he discovered that there was information he’d wished he had to help him during his recovery. So he documented them in a Twitter thread to help others. You can read that thread here: https://twitter.com/rtilleard/status/1348331850150907906

What he had to say about the patient journey was really interesting.

So I asked him onto the show to hear more. In our discussion, Robbie explores his COVID experience through the lens of Behavioural Science - what was it like and what information or support would it have been useful for him to have? In simple terms, how could we make the experience of someone having to manage the illness at home, easier? Robbie used to work at the Behavioural Insights Team, the UK governments Nudge Unit, so has experience thinking about how to engage large populations more effectively.

He now works at Humu - a company that looks at improving employee effectiveness in the workplace. That’s something we also talk about later in our discussion. What emerges are some fascinating insights from someone who understands behaviour and the experience of having COVID.

For more on Humu, visit -https://humu.com/

To learn more about Robbie’s former employer, The Behavioural Insights Team, visit - https://www.bi.team/

Other Human Risk podcasts on a COVID theme:
Luca Dellanna with some early insights into COVID that turned out to be highly accurate and insightful - https://www.spreaker.com/episode/23229479

Mark Heywood on how COVID impacted the Creative Industries - https://www.spreaker.com/episode/24201065

Ricardo Pellafone on how COVID is impacting Ethics & Compliance -
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/24677995

Social Media Star Eggsy on going viral in a pandemic - https://www.spreaker.com/episode/25527513

Pooj Morjaria on holding companies to account under COVID -
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/26091563

Professor Benjamin Van Rooij on Compliance under COVID -
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/26091563

Sexologist Jill McDevitt on how our experience in managing HIV, can inform our response to COVID: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/37619266