The Vault — Free Resources

Interactive
tools

Small tools for thinking through your research, your audience and the way you present yourself.

SciComm Trainers works with researchers, institutions and professionals who need to explain complex work clearly. Many of the exercises we use in our courses turned out to work better on a screen than on paper, whether it was placing a project on a map next to its competitors or testing a SWOT against its own vague adjectives. So we turned them into tools you can open in a browser and use on your own project.

They are meant to be played with rather than read: you add your project, move things around, disagree with what the result suggests, and end up with something you can use, whether you are preparing a grant proposal, a pitch, a lesson or a CV. Each tool has its own page with a short note on when it helps and what to do with what you make. Start from whichever question is on your mind today.

Personal brand
Brand Compass
Map how you come across today against how you would like to be seen.
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Careers
CV wheel
Spin the wheel to discover the professional skills hidden in everyday life.
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Strategy
SWOT stress test
Turn your SWOT into a sharper analysis by separating facts from hypotheses and asking “so what?” of every entry.
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Strategy
Competitor grid
Map who you are really competing with, from direct rivals to the habits your audience would rather keep.
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Strategy
Positioning map
Place your project and its competitors on two axes of your choice, and see how the story changes when the axes change.
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Visual communication
Visual instruments
Pick the relationship you want to show and find the diagram that tells it best.
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