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“For information to be really truly communicated it has to be put into a kind of pill…Stories are the Flintstone vitamins for knowledge” – Damien Wilpitz

Here are a couple facts about science in the US today: The annual NSF and NIH budget total around $37 billion. While that might seem like a large figure, public funding of science over the last two decades has decreased by more than 12% and scientists are leaving the field. 65-75% of a lead investigator’s time is dedicated to the business side of running their laboratories, however, this is a minor or absent part of training that scientists get in graduate school. Damien Wilpitz started Experimental Designs Consulting because he loves science and discovery, and no one was teaching business to scientists, so he decided to do it himself. This episode hits near and dear to my heart and I think you are going to be amazed at Damien’s process for helping scientists, and learn a ton about entrepreneurship as well!

What you will learn in this Episode:

-How entrepreneurship is like the science of discovery

-How we have to invest in all scientific research even though we don’t know in advance which discoveries will turn out to be beneficial

-How translational, or “bench to bedside”, research is easier for the NIH to fund, even while the fundamentals for translational work are created by the basic researchers

-How NASA does a great job of making their story cool

-How Damien treats labs like a business and comes up with repeatable systems and processes for researchers

-How Damien starts backwards from specific scientific aims and total lab budgets to figure out how to achieve those aims

-How pilot experiments in science are like minimum viable product (from lean startup terminology)

-How important emotional intelligence is to consider when recruiting scientific team members (not just technical skill)

-The power of the testimonial and how important proof of results is (in the form of early instant wins) for scientists who want to hire Damien – he starts with budgets because they are low cost to implement

-How working as a scientist gives him street cred as a science consultant

-How listening carefully to researcher’s stress and anxiety and applying action steps are Damien’s best traits as a consultant (to drill down to the causative effects of a problem)

-How he came up with his tag line: “Managing to make science easier”

-How every morning Damien “defragments his brain” by asking “What did I learn the day before, and how can I apply it to the future”.

Mentioned in this episode:

Damien’s science consulting comany: Experimental Designs Consulting, Inc. Managing to make science easier

Simon Sinek’s Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Csíkszentmihályi Mihály’s Flow (P.S.)

Stanford psychologist BJ Fogg

Thanks Damien Wilpitz!

If you enjoyed this session of The Art of Adventure Podcast, let Damien know by clicking on the link below and sending him a quick shout out on Twitter:

Click here to thank Damien on Twitter!

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