Mark Meloon

The Age of Authenticity

26 April 2012 By Mark Meloon

With the rise of social media comes an incredible opportunity to connect with large audiences quickly and powerfully, but if you aren’t careful they can be equally powerful at destroying your image. But ultra-sanitized social media content is too boring to be effective. And with so many people using social media, how do you make your voice/message/product/service stand out?

I have been referring to our current social climate as The Age of Authenticity. Over the last few years, I’ve discovered that when someone speaks authentically — simply for the sheer joy of contributing — that their audience will be fascinated and remember them for a long time.

Public speakers who come from a place of authenticity are memorable. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to hear Stedman Graham, successful businessman and long-time partner of Oprah Winfrey, talk at a boot camp for public speakers. He easily commanded the room even though he was the most soft-spoken speaker of the seminar, largely because of his authenticity. Actor Glenn Morshower also captured the audience and openly acknowledged he was making up his talk as he went along. A few years ago, I stood up in a seminar and shared about my neighbors inviting me over for Thanksgiving and the great time we had, in spite of our radically differing views. To this day, many people tell me they remember that simple story. And it shapes their opinion of me.

While speaking authentically sounds easy enough, it’s actually quite rare. Without even realizing it, most of our communications are actually designed to make ourselves look good, avoid (or provoke) conflict, achieve a desired result, get attention, and so on. Knowing this can give you a big advantage in social media.

I had an opportunity to speak with best-selling author Michael Drew about his upcoming book Pendulum. His historical analysis suggests there are four generational patterns that form the dominant world view through which society sees everything. A “Civic-minded” cycle started in 1923 and everything from the creation of the Salvation Army to FDR’s Fireside Chats reflects society’s preference for rawness and reality. In 1963, a 30-year “Idealistic” generational pattern started. TV commercials suggested that drinking a bottle of coca-cola would “teach the world to sing in perfect harmony”, Madonna was proudly a Material Girl, and Apple aired a famous Super Bowl ad comparing usage of their computers to breaking the iron grip of George Orwell’s Big Brother.

Drew argues that 2003 was the start of a new Civic cycle and I agree. Now, when celebrities screw up, they must get on the talk show circuit immediately and own it. James Bond is now a flawed, real person. Young Americans mostly get their political news from Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert.

Authenticity is key in a Civic pattern! You had better make good on your promises because social media has given word-of-mouth lightning speed. Be transparent. Use the Internet to build relationships, instead of self-aggrandizement or blatant selling. Today’s customers are hungry for the truth and you had better give it to them.

Which brings us back to the questions this article started with. Social media is exploding into the dominant communication channel of our age. If you want to stand out from the crowd and build rapport with your audience, you must strive for authenticity in your social media communications. Contrary to what you may have read, these new tools are not some magic pixie dust for suddenly making you, your cause, your brand, or your product/service influential, valuable, and relevant. You must practice the fundamentals of effective communication no matter what tools you are using.

As you use social media, ask yourself how authentic are you being? Are you tweeting to provide value or simply to get your hashtags to trend? (#patheticcryforvalidation). Is your YouTube video really going to help someone or do you just love seeing yourself on camera? By all means rack up the Likes, the comments on your Facebook updates, and the retweets. Absolutely have fun with social media! But remember: it’s no longer about the sizzle, it’s about the steak!

And you’ll make mistakes. Look, I’ve been caught by my friends using Facebook to brag. When you do, call it out to your followers and look hard to see what you can learn from it. Trust me, the big companies and special interests are moving into the social media space in a big way and they are better at the slick, polished stuff than you are. Authenticity and relatedness are how you’ll level the playing field and make your mark.

Filed Under: Authenticity, Impact, Social Media

Science Communication as Leadership

4 August 2011 By Mark Meloon

In today’s article I will start to expand on an idea I proposed in my last one, namely considering science communication as leadership. Note, I am not asserting that it is a fact that scientists who choose to communicate to the public are leaders. I am introducing a model. In future posts, I will expand at length on the use of models as an access to producing results. For now, just consider that when a scientist adopts the model ‘Leader’ their talks become more interesting, dynamic, informative, and impactful.

What is Leadership? Who is a Leader?

While the terms ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ typically conjure up images of powerful businessmen and heroic statesmen (please don’t get hung up on my use of masculine pronouns here), consider that these stereotypes are limiting. I recently attended a two-day leadership training that was a stripped-down, non-academic version of a course taught at the Harvard Business School and Air Force Academy. For the purposes of this article, I will adopt a modified version of the model we used in that course:

Leadership is about creating a context for others that is so compelling that people are naturally called to action. People take these actions because in doing so they see both the opportunity to bring into existence a future that inspires them and to satisfy their own personal concerns.

‘Context’ simply refers to the abstract space within which content (e.g., thoughts, actions) resides and has an enormous impact on shaping those actions. In the example of a workout, the content is the actions (sprinting, holding the ‘plank’ position, resting) and the context is the linguistic framework (e.g., “I can do this” or “I’m so out of shape”). The coach of an athletic team creates the context “You can do this and you’ll be glad you did” that empowers the team to perform drills and feats they don’t think they can.

Anyone who is willing to create a context for themselves and others, oftentimes in the face of opposition, can be a leader. That most certainly includes you.

What Can Leaders Do?

Leaders light the way to a future that is so compelling that people are drawn to it. They do not need to lay out a detailed plan for how that future can be achieved.

This ability to empower others to take action on their own is powerful. As any teacher will tell you, students get the lesson “in their bones” after the passive listening in lecture is over and they write the papers and work the problem sets. Generating something for themselves has them create ownership of the material and the result is even more powerful when the motivation is self-generated.

What about outside the classroom setting? What actions would a passive lecture audience take? When they are present to the excitement, inquisitiveness, creativity, and wonder of science they will start to see new things. And this can lead to them doing new things. Ultimately, what might be the most impactful part of a scientific talk, TV show, or book may not be the facts and figures (content) but the experience of discovery (context). Far too many scientists focus entirely on content. Create the context that provides them with a new vantage point and then let them generate new thoughts and conclusions that they will get “in their bones”.

What Must Leaders Confront?

Cynicism and resignation have become a part of the common discourse in society. By and large, the public feels – on some level – that science is beyond them. Like the athletic coach above, your leadership role can be to stand for “You can understand this and you’ll be glad you did”, no matter how much opposition you get. To do this, you’ll need to give up any feelings that you might have that you are “better” than them. You stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them and point the way, even if they refuse to look at first. Leadership will require you to confront the cynicism and resignation of the audience, society, and yourself. While this may seem daunting, the results will be worth whatever you have to go through.

The Opportunity of Leadership

“Wisdom begins in wonder”
– Socrates

Politicians use science all the time as a blunt instrument to make themselves right and others wrong. Others are content to enjoy science as a “high-brow” form of entertainment. In our society, it’s common to view science as a tool for getting a “good” job or for the advancement of our country’s economy.

At the start of this article, I asserted that a scientific talk given from the space of Leadership can be more interesting, dynamic, informative, and impactful. This type of talk goes beyond entertainment and education to become something else entirely.

Every scientist is very familiar with the experience of awe and wonder. The stupefying size of the cosmos. The precision of biological mechanisms. The sublime beauty of an elegant mathematical proof. A scientific talk that generates the context of wonder for the audience provides them with new access to generating excitement, hope, and wisdom. These are a few things the public does not get from very many sources these days. And when they generate it for themselves, instead of having it thrust upon them, it can have a profound and lasting effect. What will your talk, book, radio show, or documentary provide for others?

I’ve put forth a number of ideas here and we’ll explore them in future articles. For now, I’d love to hear what thoughts you had in reading this, what opinions came up, and what you see is possible. Please leave some comments below and thanks for taking the time to read this.

Filed Under: Science

Lessons from the 2011 Science Writers Workshop

10 June 2011 By Mark Meloon

Last week, over 50 men and women dedicated to making science more accessible to the public gathered for a week long workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico to learn from some of the best science reporters and editors in the business. Some were seasoned reporters, some were new in their careers of science writing, and some were scientists simply interested in developing new communication skills. All came away with valuable information on what it takes to create a story about scientific research and advances that the average reader finds understandable, interesting, and compelling.

I was one of the fortunate ones who attended the Santa Fe Science Writers Workshop and definitely found the experience worthwhile. Interested readers can find detailed information on what was covered at a blog created by some of the participants. In this article, I will share some of the lessons of the workshop that are directly related to the issues we’ve been exploring here on this site.

Be a Leader

I will write an article on this topic in the near future, but I want to say a few words about it here. We got to hear two researchers at the Santa Fe institute, a center that specializes in the study of complex systems, describe their research. The first discussed his work on novel mathematical models of the growth and death of cities and corporations by adapting results derived for biological lifeforms (interested readers should definitely check out this article). The second researcher provided an overview of the field of epigenetics, which explains how the actions of genes corresponding to sections of the DNA can be independent of the genotype.

What was of particular interest to me was the difference in effectiveness of the two talks. The second speaker did many of the things that typically work well in public talks. He was focused on the audience, not his slides. He was articulate and passionate. Yet I enjoyed and understood his talk far less than the speaker who spoke to his slides (flipping through some far too quickly) and didn’t budget for the time allowed. Most of the others in the audience also enjoyed the first talk more.

Part of the problem is that the second speaker assumed a certain level of knowledge that many, including myself, didn’t have. But a bigger reason was that he wasn’t leading the discussion. At the start of his talk, he encouraged us to interrupt with questions. I knew immediately what was going to happen and, sure enough, the talk meandered all over the place. There wasn’t any underlying narrative. That made it difficult to follow along, and I really wanted to! His engaging personality made it seem like he was having a party and I wasn’t invited.

The qualities that make one a leader also make one a great public speaker. You want to have a clear direction and give the audience a sense that they will be taken care of so they can enjoy the ride. You want to be open to questions and contributions from the audience and still maintain clear leadership of the discussion. And it is especially powerful when the speaker points the way towards an exciting future.

A Journalist’s Allegiance is to the Reader

While some scientists and engineers relate to journalists as though their mission is to promote their research, others are much more cautious and may even have an adversarial relationship with them. After hearing from several journalists and editors, it became clear that their credo is that their allegiance is to the reader and almost everything else is irrelevant, except for standard journalistic practices. They are fully prepared for scientists to dislike them. They consider a reluctance to interrupt someone speaking as the sign of an amateur. They are also prepared to put themselves in uncomfortable and dangerous situations to get the story.

When writing their stories, they will do so in a manner they feel will get people to read the story and have an understanding of the science and issues. Since they are coming from the world of mass communication and you are coming from the world of science and technology, you may have differing opinions on what is important.

I believe it is important for any scientist who interacts with journalists to have an understanding of them. You can have all the opinions you want about whether journalists should or should not act that way; however, that doesn’t alter the fact that they do. They are not your enemy. They are not your friend. You want to be clear what they are after.

Journalists Deserve Our Respect

There are many differences between scientists and journalists but there are a number of similarities as well. As Nancy Baron, an expert on scientific communication points out in Cornelia Dean’s book “Am I Making Myself Clear?”, scientists and journalists both thrill in discovering new things and sharing them with others.

It’s easy to forget the pressures that journalists are under. These can stem from the difficulties of fitting a complex story within a specified word count, achieving compromise with an editor, or simply submitting something they can be proud of within a tight deadline. For some stories, journalists may even risk their safety.

Mutual respect between a scientist and a journalist can go a long way towards having the story be effective. This may require both sides to put aside their preconceptions of the other and approach the interaction with respect. For those individuals who have had bad experiences in the past, this may really require something. But it can be done, and the results will be worth it.

Scientists Should Share the Burden of Storytelling

If we look at the above lessons together, something interesting starts to arise. Some of the instructors at the workshop noted that collaborations with scientists seem to take the form of a scientist performing a “brain dump” and expecting the journalist or author to weave a compelling story around it. If this is how you approach it, you may be disappointed by the results.

Given that you know journalists are looking for a compelling story, starting thinking in advance of the interview what a possible story might be. Randy Olson’s book “Don’t Be Such a Scientist” devotes an entire chapter to storytelling and I’ll write more about this topic in a future post myself. Be unattached to your story – they may have a very different idea – but it’s useful to be in that mindset.

A conversation is a dance, but even in dance one partner will lead. Why not choose to lead the discussion? Be open to the inputs and desires of the journalist, but far too many scientists simply sit back and passively answer reporters’ questions and are then shocked by the results. Since you made no attempt to lead, why would you have any expectations how the finished product will look?

And all this comes back to the first point: be a leader. A true leader inspires others to follow. Respect others. Be clear on what your audience is after, but continuously be listening for more hints during your conversation. Make sure you are taking the journalist and reader on an interesting story.

And have fun with this! Communication is a creative process. This is your chance to play a major part in having your interests and work become available to a wide audience. Take on the model that the reporter or co-author is your teammate in having this happen. They may approach this from a different perspective than you, but their perspective is equally valid and together you can create a compelling story that informs, entertains, and inspires.

Filed Under: Journalism, Science

Effective Science Communication: Relevance or Escapism?

29 May 2011 By Mark Meloon

In today’s article, I’m going to propose something that is directly at odds with one of the fundamental tenets of traditional science communication. Next week, I’ll have my opportunity to share my idea with some of the nation’s most respected and influential science journalists.

Consider the title of this recent article on science communication: “The Key to Communicating Science? Connect to People’s Daily Lives, Experts Say”. Here’s the first few paragraphs:

For years, researcher Scott Doney has been tracking an alarming rise in ocean acidity and its effects on marine life such as clams and lobsters. So when he wanted to bring more attention to the links between pollution and acidification, he spoke with shellfish harvesters and seafood wholesalers whose livelihoods depend on healthy waters.

Restauranteurs are next on his list, said Doney. But to engage these diverse audiences, the senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution knows he must adjust his arguments and the language he uses to convey his concern.

For Doney, the lesson is clear: To communicate science effectively, it’s best to engage people in ways that reflect and affect their own lives.

My first thought was that this approach might – and I strongly emphasize “might” – have some merit for environmental issues, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and a few other oft-reported topics, but I have a hard time seeing how a cosmologist would connect their research on black holes to people’s daily lives. And yet Steven Hawking manages to draw huge crowds every single time.

Science as escapism

The reason, of course, is that Hawking is a bona fide celebrity. People are inspired that this guy, who has been almost completely immobile for over a decade and cannot even speak without the aid of a synthesizer, beat a diagnosis of early death at age 24, became a great scientist, and now goes through the extra, tedious process of composing talks for the public. You can’t help but feel it’s worth your time to try to understand what he’s saying. In fact, he’s such a rock star that the public is willing to overlook his more controversial comments and actions, since as when he refers to the popular belief in afterlife as a “fairy story”. Not too many scientists would get a pass on that.

The key word in the previous paragraph is “inspired”. Hawking’s research cannot possibly be connected to “people’s daily lives”, but it doesn’t need to be. Hawking gets people present to something beyond their daily concerns, and that is nothing short of magnetic. Movies do this. We refer to it as “escapism”. Could popular science be considered a form of escapism?

Hawking’s talks are very popular. But is he doing anything beyond entertaining? And is Doney in the linked article doing anything beyond educating people? If you’ve read some of my other posts here, you probably know these questions are of great interest to me.

Can scientists learn anything from athletes?

What about professional sports? A great many people – men and women alike – have deep emotional investments in their favorite teams and players. There may be some aspect of pro sports that “reflect and affect” the lives of those who follow it, but a much more significant reason for its popularity is that people are inspired by qualities of their favorite players and teams. A “come back” team, a player being competitive at a relatively senior age, a coach that is uncompromising in his demanding greatness from his players. People love this stuff!

Scientists have many admirable qualities, too: a relentless search for the truth, patience to endure hours of tedious experiments, the ability to balance creativity with objectivity. What would happen if scientists spoke about their work in a way that had these qualities become as clear as the qualities of popular athletes or movie stars?

My upcoming week at the Science Writers Workshop!

For those of you who are wondering what I’m doing next week, I’ll be one of 50 scientists, writers, journalists, spokespeople, and educators selected from around the world to participate in the annual Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop, led by top people in the field of science writing. I’ve been looking forward to this for months and felt fortunate to be accepted into the program. And you can absolutely count on me to bring up this issue of relevance versus escapism to the group. I’m sure I’ll write a few articles here on my experiences at the workshop.

For now, however, I’m curious what you think about this issue. Does popular science need to be relevant to your life for you to pay attention? If you don’t buy the escapism/inspiration angle, how do you explain the popularity of Hawking over the countless other cosmologists? Leave some comments here and toss out some ideas to get the rest of us thinking!

Filed Under: Passion, Science

Gauging the Public Conversation of Science

24 May 2011 By Mark Meloon

This weekend I had an opportunity to present a poster about communicating science at a conference filled with individuals who are committed to making a difference in the world. For those who haven’t experienced a poster session, it is an unstructured event during a conference where you stand by a poster summarizing your research, ideas, interests, etc. and people mill around, looking at those posters that catch their eye and trading ideas (and business cards) with the poster presenter.

I had a number of grand visions for my poster. Then it occurred to me that I was at risk of falling into many of the common traps that afflict science communicators (and ones I’ll be discussing at length in future postings). I was trying to impress people with how smart and insightful I am. I was going to push information at them and they would going to receive it (and be appreciative!). It was going to be my opportunity to grab the spotlight. I realized I was about to miss a great opportunity to listen.

What is the public conversation of science?

I like the term “public conversation” to refer to what people as a whole are saying, thinking, etc. about a subject. Put together, these linguistic constructs are not a conversation in the traditional sense, where multiple parties are directly communicating with each other, but the interconnectedness of our lives results in an exchange of ideas, nonetheless.

I have a pretty good guess what the public conversation of science is, but in the end it really is just a guess. Oh sure, I have lots of reasons why I think my guess is good, but a scientist collects data. So I scrapped my plans for the Mother of All Science Communication Posters and set up two simple ones. The first introduced a few of the themes about communicating science to the public that you’ll find on this website. I also displayed the differential form of Maxwell’s equations to see what people’s immediate reaction would be (very few of the conference attendees had a background in physics). My second poster was blank except for three questions:

What do you say about science?
What could you say about science?
What would this make available?

Next to this poster was a set of Post-it notes in various sizes and colors for people to write down their thoughts and attach them to the board. The result was an interesting look into how people currently relate to science and scientists and how they would wish they could.

Truth? Beauty? Interest? Fear?

I expected that the sight of Maxwell’s equations — four partial differential equations describing the relation between electricity, magnetism, and optics — would produce fear since the equations contain symbols that would be foreign to most, yet clearly express some simple relations between a few select quantities. So I thought it would produce a sense of “I should be able to appreciate this, but I don’t” apprehension. It did exactly that, but among people who had some passing familiarity (engineers who had forgotten their electro-magnetism courses) and not among people who had no background with differential equations. Next to the equations, I wrote a short blurb explaining why these equations were so profound (they are considered one of the greatest triumphs of physics) but didn’t receive a single comment appreciating the beauty of these relations. This was a bit surprising to me.

What do you say about science? Would could you say?

The post-it notes were fun to go through. The colorfulness and interactivity of this poster made it a big hit. Here’s a selection of some of the many notes people left (punctuation and spelling left intact)

Science is just common sense
Science is important, yet like statistics different conclusions can be derived at (apparently)
How can science acknewledge that which is not presently measureable?
Science can be better explained
Not enough scientists get that science is related to spirtuality
Science is hard. I can’t do science. I’m not smart enough to understand this integrals.
As a scientist, I see Science has become disconnected from a bigger picture of the world. Limiting to facts + reproducible + missing a whole world of what’s possible.
its the truth
Science is so far advanced by now that few people can reach the present limits, much less advance those limits
Science is sexy!
I’m fascinated but I’m not a scientist
Science? Mixed — the science is fine, the way its used can be (…can’t read handwriting…)
Could be inspiring + passion-filled!
Science: the disciplined application of spirit, world, other in a measurable and repeatable manner.
Science is the best!!

In going through these, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Carl Sagan’s book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. In one chapter, he reprints some of the mail he received as a regular columnist for the sunday paper insert Parade magazine. I think it’s useful for anyone interested in the popularization of science to perform some form of opinion collection to see what people are really saying and thinking.

What would this make available?

Thought, feelings, and opinions are one thing. The people attending this conference were focused on creating real, measurable results in the world. So I was curious to see what they would come up with. Here’s a sampling:

Less controversy around actions in the environmental realm
The language of science available to all
a new reality
No hesitation to investigate! Excited learning!
expand availability + understanding for all.
Scientists being the new “rock stars” of the universe

I rather like the “rock star” angle! Any why not? Part of the appeal of rock stars is that you get the sense that in an alternate universe that could have been you onstage. For some people, that feeling is so overwhelming they start to play air guitars and air drums while they listen to the music. What would society be like if instead of “Science is hard. I can’t do science.” being part of the public conversation people were saying “Science fascinates me”, “When I go to a public lecture on science, I leave blown away”, and “Science is an invaluable tool that mankind uses to solve problems”? Maybe that would be a world in which kids listen to their teachers or see scientists on TV and say to themselves “That could be me!”

What to make of all this

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my thoughts with a new audience and get their feedback on what science means to them. I was a bit surprised to see so many comments about the shortcomings, perceived or actual, of science. I’d like to believe this is an indication that people are grappling with determining how they can use science to better their lives or fulfill on their goals for humanity, although I also openly concede that’s just one possible interpretation. One of the keys to understanding how others think is to continuously ask yourself how they see the world. You come up with conclusions, and then set those to the side and adopt what the Zen Buddhists call “Beginner’s Mind” (assume you don’t know). So I’m not going to end this post with any conclusions, just a promise to continue to tell people about my interest in science communication and then sit back and listen to what my declaration causes them to reply with.

Filed Under: Science

Three Tips for Effective Science Communication

22 May 2011 By Mark Meloon

Do you want to be the person who gets others excited about the methods and discoveries of science instead of the boring lecturer or blowhard at the cocktail party that everyone fears getting stuck in a conversation? The following tips will go a long way towards having you make this happen.

I will elaborate on each of these in future posts, and add many more tips, but for now look through these and let them stimulate your thinking.

By the way, these tips are applicable for more than public lectures on science. Start trying these out when talking about your interests and hobbies any chance you get a chance to meet a stranger. Make note of what happens in the conversations and your own ability to use them. In other words, experiment with them, collect data, and refine your approach.

1. Tap into your inner passion

Combining this tip with the next one will have you go a long way toward being an effective communicator. Biologist-turned-filmmaker Randy Olson talks about this in his excellent book Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style. I assert that scientists, engineers, inventors, hobbyists, etc. are passionate people at heart, even if they don’t always express it.

There is a culture of willful removal of passion from scientific communications that does not serve technical people well when speaking with the public. Even if they are not formally instructed to be dispassionate, many feel that speaking with too much passion will distract from the data, have their students lose respect for them, or is a sneaky trick used only by salesman and marketers to compensate for a lack of substance.

The truth is that people respond strongly to passion. And passion is complementary to – not at odds with — good data, intriguing theories, and paradigm-shifting results.

2. Don’t focus on impressing others

The popular view is that one must be a technically flawless orator to be considered a great speaker. Many people have a strong fear of public speaking; in fact, most surveys rank this fear as one of the biggest people experience. With all eyes on you, you are the center of attention. These are just three of the many reasons why most speakers fall into the trip of trying overly hard to impress their audience.

Something tremendous is available if you resist that temptation. I’m not suggesting you should purposely make mistakes or diminish your accomplishments, but focussing on impressing others will have you come off robotic at best and as a self-promoting blowhard at worst. Be confident enough in your ability to provide value to the audience that you don’t need to manage the image you are presenting.

Let’s watch a clip of famous astrophysicist and popularizer of science Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about meeting Carl Sagan as a young college student:

It’s a great story and it’s clear Dr. Tyson is not making any attempt to generate admiration here. This is a famous scientist telling a touching story of himself as a star-struck student and it serves to make him easier to relate to. While he’s not giving a scientific talk here, it’s a clear example of how having a desire to share a true story with no thought to how much or little respect it will get him makes him an effective communicator.

3. Let the audience discover for themselves

The two previous tips are useful for any type of public speaking. Here’s a tip that is especially useful for presenting scientific or other technical material to audiences: give your audience the opportunity to make connections and see patterns for themselves. At one of noted information designer Edward Tufte’s talks on effective technical graphics he pointed out that when a plot contains a data point that people can immediately connect with, such as spike in the temperature graph corresponding to a infamously hot year, it increases their confidence in your material.

I believe it also assists the listener in linking what you are saying to their own lives and experiences. And it does so in a much more subtle and elegant way than the blatant “this new discovery could lead to more advanced cell phones” approach that is so common. Don’t force the connection; sprinkle some clues and let them connect the dots for themselves.

And when you think about it, what better way to give your audience a taste of the excitement of scientific discovery than giving them the opportunity to discover something in your talk? A common pitfall of scientific speakers is to assume that the audience must “get” every single morsel of information. A powerful technique is to weave some subtlety into your talks. Let your audience discover hidden gems in your talk and form connections with the material for themselves. Those that do will appreciate it and those that do not will never know what they are missing.

Here’s a non-technical example. Ever watch the Kevin Costner film “Waterworld”? Set in the near-future when global climate change has melted the icecaps and the world is covered with water, mankind of forced to live on ocean ships. The bad guys, led by Dennis Hopper, live onboard an enormous oil tanker. At one point, the deranged Hopper discusses his evil plan with the oil painting of the previous captain of the ship, one Joseph Hazelwood. Now, either you get the joke here or you do not. For those that do not, no big loss. For those who do, the finale when the oil tanker capsizes and the identifier “Exxon Valdez” is clearly visible is overkill. It’s like a “Get it? Get it?” sledgehammer and spoils the joke.

More to come…

Future posts will explore these topics more thoroughly and will introduce may more. I hope these start to get you thinking about new ways of communicating technical material to non-specialists and open a new realm of possibilities for you. Public speaking can be fun and give you the opportunity to provide great value for your audience when you know how types of communication go beyond entertainment and education. Check back in the next few days for my next post.

Filed Under: Authenticity, Impact, Passion, Science

What’s Next in the Popularization of Science?

20 May 2011 By Mark Meloon

A few years ago, I dated a young woman who had worked for a time as a Park Ranger. One day, she was leading a tour group and pointed out a geographical feature that had formed slowly over the course of millions of years.

“That can’t be,” one man interrupted, matter-of-factually.

“I’m sorry…?” April replied. What was this man getting at?

“What you said about this forming over millions of years can’t be correct. After all, the Earth is only 6000 years old.”

What’s so about science communication today?

Today is an exciting time for scientists, engineers, and anyone else who deals in heavily technical topics. YouTube, blogs, podcasts, and an explosion of cable television stations provide a vast array of communication channels for people to get their message out. The popularity of TED talks, best-selling books on science, science-themed television shows, public lectures, and even appearances by leading scientists on late-night television show that people are hungry for science.

At the same time, public understanding of science and the scientific method remains very low. We are all painfully aware of America’s ranking in the test scores of children in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects. How people relate to science and scientists range from a deep-rooted belief that science is used by the “educated elite” as a tool of oppression, to a helpful grab-bag of ideas to use in winning arguments against others, to a near reverence as the answer to every question (sometimes referred to as scientism).

It’s easy to come up with explanations of what’s wrong. How can scientists be expected to compete with inflammatory political pundits, explosion-laden TV and movies, and Snooki when their material requires focused concentration to appreciate? Teachers haven’t done their jobs in providing the required scientific literacy. Scientists will always be at a disadvantage in communicating in a sound-bite media landscape. Those who eschew scientific methods or the scientific consensus are cheating, using communication techniques that have nothing to do with facts. People are close-minded: that park visitor wasn’t interested in a free exchange of ideas with April. And so on.

Independent of the actual reason(s) — and it’s not clear that there is such a thing – many who have an interest in the relationship between scientists and the general public are left with the experience of being frustrated, concerned, antsy, bitter, accusatory, and resigned.

Magical moments of wonder

But we’ve all had the experience of a new world opening up for us. As a 10 year old child, I delighted in watching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos TV series. In one episode, he introduced the number “googolplex”, a number so enormous that if you wrote it out as a “1″ followed by “0″s the sheet of paper “could not be stuffed inside the known universe”. Really? Isn’t this the same guy that said the universe was full of “billions and billions” of stars? And you couldn’t write out a googleplex in all that space? That blew my mind.

I still own the diary I wrote that year. One passage states “Tonight I saw a TV show that convinced me we will never make contact with aliens”. The show in question was an episode of Cosmos were Sagan goes through an explanation of the Drake equation for estimating the number of extraterrestrial civilizations. Here’s the clip, and it’s worth watching if you are unfamiliar with the equation:

In the clip, Sagan uses some reasonable, admittedly crude, estimates of various factors leading to civilizations to come to a guess about how likely it is that we are not alone in the universe. Again, the idea that you could actually estimate something that seemed unknowable — and there was a step-by-step method for doing so! — opened my eyes in a way that fundamentally changed what I thought of as possible.

Opening the door

You’ve probably had experiences like this. What was that like for you? Maybe you’ve explained something and knew that your sharing had opened up a doorway for someone. Beyond impressing them, beyond entertaining them, how did that make you feel? What if these things could be done reliably? For you? For the world? Imagine a world where people do not shy away from science but are excited about experiencing that feeling of wonder once again. And that wonder leading to shifts in their thinking and acting in the world.

An exploration of the world of technical communication

On this site, we will investigate what it will take for the general public’s perception of science to shift from what it is today to one in which people see science as a crucial tool for generating new results in the world, both for themselves and for humanity. We will consider what makes science communication effective and that will require us to define what results we are looking to cause.

To join us in the exploration, please visit this site often and add your comments to posts that interest you. For those of you who would like to stay abreast of the conversation, please fill out the information in the Contact form and we will inform you about new topics and other updates.

Thank you for reading this article and for your interest in what’s next in the popularization in science. We hope this is your first of many visits.

Filed Under: Impact, Mass Media, Science