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00:01:31: Welcome to another episode of The Effective Statistation.

00:01:34: Today I talk with good old friend Steve Mallard, how are you doing?

00:01:39: Hi Alex!

00:01:40: Very well thank-you

00:01:41: very very good.

00:01:42: today we will talk about a couple of topics that have an interesting connection to each other but first let's talk about the role Steve has just started within PSI And maybe you can talk a little bit about your career, your very long career and how that led to accepting this role.

00:02:04: Yeah sure so I recently taken over the chair of PSI schools team which sits within the careers function.

00:02:13: but yeah it's not the first time i've been involved... I used to be in the old calc group just careers and academic liaison team probably about ten years ago then moved on to do other things mainly data viz, which we can talk about.

00:02:27: But yeah I've got a little bit more spare time on my hands at the moment.

00:02:31: so i've turned to school's team and now chairing committee just holding thoughts while Rebecca front hours on maternity leave.

00:02:40: So it is good for me back in leasing with schools getting involved in the schools outreach.

00:02:46: You have lots of experience you share from decades into industry.

00:02:52: you're not close to those that are still at school.

00:02:55: I've

00:02:56: worked in industry over thirty years as a statistician about half of the time, fifteen years so hopefully got a lot of experience and my belt.

00:03:05: As i say i have done quite alot of calls work.

00:03:08: i always been interested.

00:03:09: training communication visualisation is part of it means communicating with stakeholders whether there's students or classroom or scientists and a pharma company, there are some common themes there.

00:03:23: but in terms of the schools we focus really is on attending careers events.

00:03:28: And also going into schools running workshops.

00:03:31: so what we're trying to do there is help the students kind of make a connection between their academic studies.

00:03:38: Some other kids they like maths.

00:03:40: not all of them...some of them are good at maths But maybe don't necessarily see the point.

00:03:46: I did A level maths then dropped it because didn't really see the purpose.

00:03:50: So it's really helped to connect student studies with kind of, The World Of Work and the work we do And help show that maths can be applied in a real world.

00:04:00: It could useful for society Hopefully have some fun along the way as well.

00:04:05: For all these students who maybe are starting thinking about their options.

00:04:09: In UK there would be GCSEs A-Levels University courses.

00:04:13: They had lots of decisions to make.

00:04:16: We kinda helped raise awareness that you can be a statistician in the farm industry is the thing.

00:04:22: They may not even know it's a thing and then help them to map out kind of career pathway into that role, so its really informing them what options maybe ahead for their future.

00:04:44: They work at different levels.

00:04:45: When I was with Cal, previously we used to go to a big national event but i think more recently we tend to go some local or regional events.

00:04:52: so there might be a cluster of schools maybe organized.

00:04:56: it's bit like conference.

00:04:57: suppose you have exhibitors who stand and you'll have activities workshops.

00:05:02: So its really the day away from school for students and teachers And really chance them take part in hands-on activity along way.

00:05:11: just learn about.

00:05:13: We're not just going to show them some posters about careers.

00:05:17: that will be quite dull.

00:05:18: So usually involve some sort of hands-on activity, it's quite fun.

00:05:22: get them involved and then maybe give the flyer take away.

00:05:25: so both students I think have fun.

00:05:27: hopefully The teachers also gets some awareness of careers And probably a mixture of teachers and kind of careers leaders who again may not even aware what we do as a career option.

00:05:39: Yeah he works at different levels.

00:05:43: It has tended to be more local than national.

00:05:46: Sounds pretty cool and pretty sure.

00:05:47: in other countries things like that exist as well, And there is actually one of the things people reached out me says all this English material existing within your team with colleagues That can be translated into different languages.

00:06:05: Of course it's easy to use now but would be great if they were volunteers who work for these teams So that they check sets of translation actually makes sense and this make sense also from the different age group things like that.

00:06:21: Yeah, it's just something that came out at a conference recently.

00:06:24: so we've got very talented team within the schools group there developed an escape room which is aimed at primary school level up to year six.

00:06:33: really good quality, a really professional job.

00:06:36: And that would be showcased at the PSI conference and gained a lot of interest.

00:06:41: as you say people from other countries have shown an interest trying to find translators because we're trying not to make everything we do in UK-centric or English speaking centric but yeah I guess if we translate them probably need to be validated somewhere.

00:06:56: just make sure that workshops still work properly.

00:07:00: So it is great to have that interest and we can go global.

00:07:03: It's quite exciting!

00:07:05: Connect with Steve on his homepage, which will be linked in the show notes or on LinkedIn Or check out the PSI Calc page of our careers page And you'll find always a correct person if you listen to this much later than we record this kind of middle of twenty-twenty six.

00:07:25: The other point is translation was one thing, but execution as of course another.

00:07:31: So there's an opportunity for you to work with your local schools and school events to roll these things out.

00:07:40: I think it a great investment in our community And so far what i've seen most companies are really happy.

00:07:50: Yeah, something we've found is in recent years.

00:07:53: that's another difference I've found since when i used to do the careers work.

00:07:57: We have a lot of volunteers who put themselves forward.

00:08:00: they're interested in schools outreach but maybe don't yet have the confidence to actually come forward and run a workshop.

00:08:07: And so what were trying to do?

00:08:08: In fact we ran an workshop earlier this week where had a group more experienced presenters running their workshops and then me brought some volunteers just help provide support.

00:08:18: So thats our model way moving forward with so that people want to help but they don't actually want quite a responsibility.

00:08:24: You're standing in front of the classroom and leading your workshop, there's few of us who will do that But we always need all hands-to-pump To facilitate the workshop.

00:08:32: answer questions talk to students when you look at larger team.

00:08:36: So this is cool for yet People have volunteered interests, but they haven't quite made that jump yet.

00:08:41: Please contact us or maybe buddy you up with someone more experienced And give you an experience.

00:08:46: Or

00:08:48: if you're experienced, we can buddy up with someone that has less experience.

00:08:53: And not a huge amount of work definitely doable and really nice activity.

00:09:00: It's great that PSI provides this opportunity.

00:09:03: You also don't need to be the PSI member.

00:09:06: To do so would be great If you become a PSI Member.

00:09:10: That is another topic.

00:09:11: By the way it was something around one hundred pounds per year, it's really not a lot.

00:09:20: And you get lots of very nice loads or kind of different activities reduced price at the conference access to journals and whatsoever.

00:09:30: that's an easier investment.

00:09:33: most companies even reimburse for that.

00:09:35: so That's another topic.

00:09:37: You also talked about these classroom events where you actually go to school.

00:09:46: How does it look like?

00:09:54: Old-fashioned and they were quite cumbersome.

00:10:18: I remember working with player Britain years ago on a kind of Coke taste test, we had to carry all these bottles of coke across London from Schuven!

00:10:26: And it's very scalable now... All the students have their tablets so you just connect them into the shiny app.

00:10:32: You can move classrooms or whatever doesn't matter.

00:10:33: So its alot easier to run.

00:10:36: We basically ran couple workshops one thing called The Stroop Test which was great fun clinical trial simulation together after break and they're the kind of speed networking session, but we got to speak to us about what we do for a job.

00:10:51: And that has questions and so on... So yeah I think it was quite successful because there's kind of mayhem at times!

00:10:56: Yeah so that gives you a flavour.

00:10:59: as you'd expect not all students are hundred percent engaged some aren't?

00:11:02: You can get wide variety of interests or abilities But hopefully we were planting a few seeds even if there is a few students in their years come when they make choices or they go to our websites, but then I think it's worthwhile.

00:11:17: Yeah completely agree!

00:11:19: It also shows that what kind of people work actually in the pharma industry?

00:11:25: The Pharma Industry from outside is this monolithic block and very often doesn't have best branding.

00:11:34: to be honest although we always think about the people who take care of their patients We should do very noble things.

00:11:42: But from the outside, people look at.

00:11:45: those are the things that the pharma industry has done wrong or is still doing wrong.

00:11:50: Just talking about prices and things like that yeah?

00:11:54: And so connecting with people in the industry I think it's good for the overall industry not just our function.

00:12:01: Yeah i think its two parts.

00:12:02: really there does a stereotype of statistician.

00:12:06: what people thing if they had to draw a statistician might be somebody level of patches on the beard or I don't know, it's kind of an academic.

00:12:13: So when you have people young that are volunteers there is a lot variety and diversity And people look like them but just few years older i tend to step back because I've got gray hair.

00:12:25: You still have hair!

00:12:26: I don' t have any hair

00:12:28: But I'm probably gonna think of my granddad to them.

00:12:31: It's important for someone that looks like they're more relatable and then thinking, oh that could be me because a lot of choices come down the self image or what?

00:12:38: That sort of person.

00:12:39: so it's breaking down their stereotype around statisticians.

00:12:42: And as you say people probably need a lot things online about the farm industry A lot of misinformation.

00:12:47: So i think its both those things.

00:12:50: You just mentioned our shiny interactive data visualization.

00:12:55: How has this changed, improved the way you communicate data to your students.

00:13:02: One of the workshops they'll draw a histogram assimilating some data and then can play with the sliders change the probability on them that can look at the histogram changing.

00:13:09: if I may have done it in my classroom They might not quite understood The idea variability.

00:13:14: but then by this side there's all these emoticons.

00:13:16: It's basically the patients and their funny faces And show how much pain they're into.

00:13:21: Some of them are smiling.

00:13:23: And so it's kind of making that link between the abstraction, which is a histogram and real-world patients.

00:13:30: I know we asked them questions about if you're patient how do you feel?

00:13:33: You compare two groups but there's bit overlap.

00:13:36: So compared to means not all the patience through wealth We ask them are fewer patient.

00:13:42: How would you feel about this medicine?

00:13:43: It was really connecting what they may have learned in classroom Which might be quite dry with something that's quite visually appealing and relatable.

00:13:52: This is linking data visualization, SIG work because quite often we want people to look at.

00:13:57: some might have some modeling results or something but distribution.

00:14:00: But you also wanna see the patient level of data as well and make that connection with different levels of abstraction available.

00:14:06: so yeah I've been borrowing some thinking from a wonderful Wednesday webinar that we're doing.

00:14:12: obviously audience is very different just trying to borrow my ideas simplicity's important clarity removing any clutter making screens where it looks And it's also, we talk basically about knowing your audience.

00:14:25: So you're audience might be clinicians or decision makers of managers who have to think about getting into their shoes and look at... Think about what they level of understanding is?

00:14:36: What the level of motivation is?

00:14:37: The same applies to a bunch as children in school as well.

00:14:39: Why should they be interested if its fun They are going take part In?

00:14:43: what do they know already?

00:14:44: Maybe they've seen an histogram on there last lesson Now see something that recognise them That can now play with this.

00:14:50: It was all about relating to your audience, that's a kind of common thread I suppose between all these different things.

00:14:55: That is very important point.

00:14:57: and for those listeners who don't know about the Data Visualization Special Interest Group shortly called Data Vizsig it's a special interest group that's organized by PSI and FSB and runs now for a couple years at six or seven months monthly data visualization challenge And that is called a wonderful Wednesday webinar series.

00:15:24: So if you go to the PSI homepage, rpsi.org You will find all of these special interest groups and there you can also see the Data Visualization Secrets probably last one on this page.

00:15:38: By the way... ...you'll find here also Korea's page which presents schools outreach as well as other groups more about university and other career stuff.

00:15:49: So I really love the idea of interactive data visualization, that you can for example play with assumptions so as to see what is changing.

00:16:01: What does doubling these standard deviation means if you change the baseline distribution?

00:16:07: If it's happening or if you changed correlations and what was happening other things could have a better idea in terms of your design or for your analysis part.

00:16:18: I have completely the same experience.

00:16:22: when you use tables, yeah it's usually pretty boring and people don't see changes so much.

00:16:30: because making calculations in your head is maybe easy for us but not easy for non-statisticians or for people that are not so easy with mathematics.

00:16:41: very often we have such people when we talk to physicians and other people.

00:16:47: They studied these kind of things because maybe they didn't like mathematics, And there explaining things in visual things is so much easier for them also too.

00:16:57: For example understand formula.

00:17:00: We might see a formula then understand what's happening There but most people don't.

00:17:06: by far Most People Don't.

00:17:08: So just bringing complex formula.

00:17:12: The last time they have seen an integral is decades ago.

00:17:15: So you also have a lot of experience and training non-statisticians, physicians colleagues within your company but outside off the company.

00:17:26: how do you typically approach such a training?

00:17:30: Yeah as I said before always been quite interested in explaining been part of my day job, I suppose.

00:17:37: And now...I've not left employment so i'm working on freelance capacity.

00:17:42: So developing kind of training for other statisticians is what I quite enjoy doing.

00:17:48: Like you say it's this common thread which they're attempting to create all these slides that are looking really cool data visualizations and animations.

00:17:55: but the key is turning things around saying What do their stakeholders need?

00:17:58: Sorry if I am presenting to MSLs or medical writers or understanding one of those thing a struggle with because they might put a lot of effort into explaining what p-value is.

00:18:08: They know that, but they don't know...they struggle with something else.

00:18:10: A lot of the challenge is really understanding one of the pinch points from their perspective and building the training kind of really around that.

00:18:18: again it comes back to similar to in a classroom.

00:18:20: or it's a person's motivation.

00:18:21: why do they care?

00:18:22: Because if you're not addressing that becomes your agenda rather than theirs.

00:18:25: I'm gonna switch off.

00:18:26: But having said that i'm quite interested In.

00:18:29: my favorite new word is pedagogy which as I understand it It's the kind of science or study teaching methods.

00:18:35: How do you convey, how'd you teach something?

00:18:38: It might be kind of stepwise... You really want to anchor an important concept first have lots of exercises so that's secure in that concept before we move on to the next one using a lot of interactivity.

00:18:49: I'm quite interested in animation because as statisticians were very familiar with say probability distributions.

00:18:56: but a lot people they look at bell shape curve and draw oh that's mathesie!

00:19:00: But if you simulate draws from population.

00:19:03: So these could be your studies, each one of them is it could be a study and you see they're moving around.

00:19:07: then he can talk about what standard ever means?

00:19:10: And the how you construct confidence interval on what actually means hopefully through in such way step by step that finally I understand it That's the aim!

00:19:20: Also for interactivity there will be tools to explore power just by increasing subject sample size so we can see curves get tighter critical value changes which is on a scale they understand, oh yes the patients don't need to achieve so much that hopefully pennies will drop when they get their hands on the tools.

00:19:40: So yeah I've given a lot of thought to teaching methods but i think for me the next stage would be to get lots of feedback from people and see if I'm in the right track.

00:19:48: And it laughs at you always start with your audience Yeah?

00:19:52: It's so easy to assume the audience needs X Y and Z Or as to assume It doesn't matter whether I talk to diabetologists or oncology people, or neuroscience people whatsoever.

00:20:09: But actually they care!

00:20:11: Yeah?

00:20:11: I can't use a neuroscience example with oncology-people... ...I can't using an oncology example with diabetesed people.

00:20:21: They will say well i don't care about survival at least not in my area where patients survive.

00:20:27: yeah diabetes is largely under control.

00:20:30: Why do we want to talk about survival data?

00:20:33: And so you always need to make it specific for the different people, and then training becomes much more effective.

00:20:43: now of course that is more work yeah...and also preparing in such a way.

00:20:49: what you just talked about with interactivity was good data visualization fine-tuned slides that are not overloaded with all kind of different things, but fun to look at.

00:21:03: That is quite a lot of work and it's very often easier actually to call someone in to do that.

00:21:11: I know also statisticians.

00:21:13: i Know when I talk to them they say I am buried in the world.

00:21:18: Yeah And for them The next FDA response Is much more important than giving you training or getting the publication out of the door is much more important than some training.

00:21:29: Or designing and study isn't much more importance in their training, yeah?

00:21:33: And all these kind scenarios.

00:21:37: it's really great to have someone like Steve that can help you support better your training because there are huge training needs.

00:21:47: as soon as you start speaking about data with clients so... with treating physicians, with QAPN leaders.

00:21:56: The MSLs.

00:21:58: you have usually hundreds of people that you need to train on your data and not just on YOUR data but also on the competitor data sets.

00:22:10: the other part yeah?

00:22:12: And of course these kind things change all the time.

00:22:14: there's always a new depending on which area also a little bit more crowded areas.

00:22:21: There's always new publication coming out and then people will think, oh why do these data look different than ours?

00:22:30: Why does they appear to be different from our own?

00:22:33: They have used the different way just for multiplicity.

00:22:38: how that relates with ours?

00:22:41: Ah!

00:22:41: They stopped early.

00:22:44: Does it mean there are better hundreds of questions, and it's really good to have someone that can talk with different people.

00:22:54: That is a great way also get more relationships from the overall stats department through all these marketing people, salespeople, MSL people.

00:23:05: so there are medical scientific data zones usually in the medical affairs area.

00:23:10: Yeah, I mean i have found there's enormous appetite.

00:23:12: You might think people that don't get statistics or struggle with statistics then they might turn off.

00:23:17: but in fact they understand certainly roles like MSLs who are maybe the commercial organization and they have to de-aze with sales force.

00:23:24: so... They want to get it right!

00:23:26: They have to say things about clinical trial results very anxious not to say the wrong thing And they won't have to keep referring through a statistician.

00:23:33: The one will be able to stand on their own two feet and speak confidently About what is multiplicity.

00:23:38: So..I've found an appetite for people to build their confidence as part of that professional development.

00:23:44: But yeah, like you say I found this myself when i worked in Big Pharma.

00:23:47: there quite often it's under resourced in a few projects statistician or no.

00:23:51: You don't have time To talk to the MSLs where we knew In the middle of pain paying from that board or something like That.

00:23:57: so Yeah So its interesting.

00:23:59: The other point is It usually not A question Of money Its a Question of headcount The marketing and sales organizations.

00:24:07: They Have more than enough Money to spend for a couple of hours for training and things like this.

00:24:13: That is lost in the roundings, obviously overall marketing budget I can tell you.

00:24:18: so it's really fun activity.

00:24:21: when i was freelancing the last couple of years ,I've done that as well.

00:24:25: always a really really fun thing to do.

00:24:27: And As a statistician if you work on the global team there's no way You can respond to every request Austria and Sweden, Argentina Japan South Korea somewhere in the US.

00:24:44: That's impossible!

00:24:46: So for that purpose it is really good to have someone like Steve.

00:24:51: To connect back into the scores again there are a theme however presented.

00:24:56: we're helping them build or demystify statistics and help build confidence.

00:24:59: whether you were year eleven working at a pharma company statistics is a mystery to me, it's mathematical formulas and Greek letters.

00:25:08: And It's not actually that difficult if you look at in certain way or You know?

00:25:12: You can build confidence with it get confident some people how people view it and help interact with.

00:25:17: So yeah I do see common thread even though its very different level That How People Perceive Statistics Even The Word Quite Often Puts People Off Its.

00:25:26: Something I'm certainly passionate about is breaking down those barriers.

00:25:30: To sum it up, there's a couple of key learnings I would say.

00:25:33: The first is you need to always start with your audiences for any communication presentations especially or trainings.

00:25:43: What does their pain point?

00:25:44: Start from there!

00:25:45: Second in order to explain these data and more difficult concepts data visualizations are really good tools And if you want to go through different scenarios and things like that, interactive visualizations could be our shiny.

00:26:04: Could something else super helpful?

00:26:07: In the end it's all about good communication skills.

00:26:13: You need to stand there confidently talk about your thing Then create these aha moments That make us much easier for people to then also confidently talk about what they have learned.

00:26:30: Absolutely, and a big shout out for the school's team because even though I'm chairing the committee my life has made so much easier by having a really talented team.

00:26:38: So i'm working with Alex Spears who is an ex-teacher.

00:26:41: he taught me the word pedagogy.

00:26:42: He just thinks that way like a teacher.

00:26:45: That's really helped.

00:26:46: We've got some placement students Who are really talented And very energetic.

00:26:52: Not easy.

00:26:53: I'm just kind of at the helm that they're doing a lot of real work, yeah?

00:26:56: Just wanted to give a shout out for this school's team during their great job!

00:27:00: Thanks so much and i have some feeling we'll probably have you again on another podcast maybe when we talk little bit more about data visualization because we've talked a little bit about what the Data Visualization SICK is doing but that will be a lot fun.

00:27:15: Yeah...I'd love to come back.

00:27:21: This show was created in association with PSI.

00:27:25: Thanks to Rain and her team at VVS, who help with the show in the background.

00:27:29: And thank you for listening!

00:27:31: Reach your potential, lead great science and serve patients.

00:27:35: Just be an effective statistician.