Rani Ghazzaoui Interviews: Mathew Churchill, Bendigo Bank

(This interview was conducted when I was Head of Content & Communications for Echos - Design School and Consultancy)

Mathew Churchill is a copywriter at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, based in Bendigo, VIC. I first met Mathew when Echos conducted an in-house Design Thinking training at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank's head office.

RG - Tell us about yourself. Where are you from? What do you do for work? What are your hobbies? MC - I'm a copywriter for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. My job is to making banking sound interesting - no easy task! I fell into a job as a reporter for an online news service in Port Douglas on the Great Barrier Reef eight years ago. This quickly grew into the editor’s role and sparked my interest in writing. After returning to Bendigo and joining the bank as a Communications Manager, I took the role as a copywriter. Hobbies? My latest is the piano. Started lessons two weeks ago and have nailed ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’.

RG- When was the first time you heard about Design Thinking? MC - Through a colleague, but many of the principles of DT seem to align with copywriting techniques; understand the problem, research, build a persona, etc.

RG - How do you think DT can positively impact your industry? MC - It forces you to use your imagination. In an industry which seems completely bound by numbers and logic, imagination could just help us differentiate ourselves from the competition.

RG - What was your biggest learning during Echos’ Design Thinking Experience course? MC - That tight deadlines are a brilliant way to force decisions.

RG - Share a project in which you applied DT. MC - We’re on the hunt for our first problem to solve using DT. Right now we’re rallying the troops so there can be lots of ideas thrown around.

RG - Could you share a quote that inspires you? MC - “Nobody wants to read your shit.”; a great thing to remember when you’re a writer. Every job starts with this in mind. It forces you to think differently.

(This article was first published at Desired, The Blog on May 29th, 2018).