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Stories from the Interview Booth at #ASC14—They had to run, run, run…

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Stories from the Interview Booth showcases some of the most interesting tales presented at the #ASC14 Conference Interview Booth. Thank you to Michelle Wheeler for sharing these stories!

If you were at the ASC14 conference dinner, you’ll know Scottish palaeontologist Professor Flint as a man of brilliant lyrics and tunes you can’t get out of your head.

You’ll know he’s a little eccentric, passionate about the Australian story and has the kind of energy that gets hundreds of science communicators on their feet doing dinosaur actions.

But you might not realise Professor Flint’s creator Michael Mills has been on real fossil digs, spent time hanging out with one of the inspirations for Jurassic Park’s Alan Grant character and calls some of Australia’s leading palaeontologists friends.

Oh, and he’s not actually Scottish.

Mills, who is the creative director of Heaps Good Productions, said the character of Professor Flint came about after he read Tim Flannery’s book The Future Eaters.

He was Australian right up until the final dress rehearsal when Mills walked past a puppet wearing a Tam o’ Shanter and realised that if Professor Flint was Scottish the song “rocks and bones” became “rrrocks ‘n’ boones”.

“All of sudden it became funnier,” Mills said.

“It also allowed Flint to be an outsider saying how cool this stuff is because at times in Australia we’ve got this cultural cringe where we’re a bit shy about raving about some of our stuff.”

If making Professor Flint Scottish was genius, what happened next was just brilliant good luck.

The SA Museum decided to host a palaeontology week, bringing Australia’s best palaeontologists to Mills’ home town of Adelaide just as he had created the character.

Professor Flint became an important part of the event and Mills got to hang out with some of the leading palaeontologists from Australia and around the world.

“For me, part of the buzz was the privilege that you have of sitting in a room at dinner at night with guys like (Jurassic Park inspiration) Phil Currie, (Flinders University Professor) Rod Wells and (Queensland Museum curator) Scott Hocknull and all of the Australian palaeos that have discovered all the stuff because in the end it’s their stories that I’m telling,” he said.

“And they impressed upon me the importance of getting the content right.”

Mills has since gone on fossil digs at Emu Bay, been shown museum collections closed to the public and sends his lyrics to palaeontologists to check he has them scientifically correct.

In the process he has amassed a depth of knowledge that leads many to mistake his alter ego for a real person.

“We constantly have people seeing Flint as real and that’s because I’ve learnt enough about the palaeo to be able to talk the stuff,” Mills said.

They had to run, run, run, they had to hit top speed,

They had to run, run, there was a dinosaur stampede.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

President’s update

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Thank you to our President A/Prof. Joan Leach for the March/April update.
Not that there was any doubt, but the variety of evaluations coming in on ASC14 shows that the conference was definitely seen as a success by our members. Interestingly, 61% of colleagues we met in Brisbane were at their first ASC conference. The top three words used to describe the conference were “interesting,”  “fun,” and “engaging.” Finally, the nominations for ‘most useful session’ went on for 3 pages and name-checked just about everyone! Of course, we’ve learned some things, too. Our members want more professional development sessions, more time for networking (we are communicators, after all), are predictably savvy receivers of communication advice and don’t like to be told how to do it without evidence for why it works, and need fruit and not just cupcakes to function at conferences. So, the conference team and Executive are working through this data to help plan future conferences and events…and professional development sessions.
This month, I’m trying to get across the range of activities that are going on nationally and work with our volunteers to find ways we can support more of the activities our members want. I do want to send out a general ‘save the date’ invitation for 2 October for an “International Roundtable on Science Communication” to be held at Customs House in Brisbane in conjunction with the International Communication Association. I’ll send more about this out via SCOPE in due course, but this event is an attempt to highlight science communication activity in the Asia-Pacific region and Australia’s leading place in it.
Finally, I’ve had more than a few conversations in the last several weeks to bring me down from the conference (sugar) high. As the next Federal budget approaches some science communicators find themselves and their work not only under scrutiny but under pressure and threat. I’ve heard a range of interpretations of ‘what might happen’ (and what has happened) but I’m keen that, as a community, ASC supports our members and affirms the value of what we do. As ever, I’m keen to hear from members about how ASC might respond to our changing context and clearly assert our value.

WA travel grant recipient – Tamika’s trip to #ASC14

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Thank you to Tamika Heiden for sharing her conference story.

Wow, what a great conference the ASC conference in Brisbane was. Being an ASC conference newbie I didn’t know what to expect. I had glanced through the program a couple of times prior to deciding to go to the conference and found that there were sessions within the program that intrigued me. One of those sessions was around Knowledge Brokering. Being a knowledge translation specialist I was interested to see how brokering was conceptualised within the science communication world here in Australia. Having been trained and worked with several Canadian KT organisations and knowledge brokers I had my own views on what this should or could be.

In my opinion the conference provided something for everyone. There were some very specific project examples of science communication from various areas, but there were also many sessions about ideas, different ways of communicating and examples of how to do this.

From start to end this conference kept me interested and informed. The opening address by Ian Lowe set the stage for what was to be an insightful and thought provoking conference. Geoff Garrett’s Ian Lowe address introduced the “baton of leadership” and inspired the audience through storytelling insights such as the video clip of “the girl effect”, an example I have since used to inspire scientists in ways of communicating their message. It was also on the first day that I went to Shawn Callahan’s Storytelling for Leaders workshop. I was uncertain of what to expect from such a session but believe that for me it was probably the most important and relevant session of the conference. Within this session Shawn so eloquently tied the content to examples of storytelling that we had seen that morning without realising they were in fact very powerful stories.

Other sessions of interest to me were the Impact session, where there was an interesting discussion around the use of communication to create impact from science. The particular focus was on the ARC’s definition of impact and the use of the term communication. Personally I believe that both the ARC and NHMRC have not yet hit the mark when it comes to their communication and expectation of research impact and translation. The other session on this day that I was indeed excited to attend was the Knowledge brokering session. It was interesting to hear people’s views and opinions within this area and although the discussion was very relevant, and indeed the use of knowledge brokers is important, there was no mention of an overarching model (knowledge translation strategy) that a knowledge broker could and should be part of within the research process.

I cannot stress enough how fantastic this conference was. I found the opportunities for networking, and the speed networking session in particular, to be abundant and positive. The variety of activities on the program from keynotes, to breakout sessions, and workshops, provided a great array of content. Congratulations must go the both the organisers and speakers for providing such a great event. I must thank the WA branch of ASC for supporting my attendance at the conference. I think I am hooked, see you in 2015!

 

 

 

 

 

Best Australian Science Writing 2014

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Thank you to Ashley Hay for letting us know all the details.

Submissions close March 31 – don’t miss out!

Submissions have been coming in for this year’s Best Australian Science Writing for the past couple of months now and there’s just over a month remaining for science communicators to submit their words for consideration. It’s a privilege to sit and read all the pieces as they come in – to see some clear themes start to emerge (stories about climate; stories about communication; stories about the scientific process itself, and the ways in which it might be communicated) and to read stories about new work, new people, new places of discovery.

When NewSouth Books asked me to edit this year’s anthology, I found myself thinking of that famous line from Joan Didion’s White Album: “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”. In many ways, it feels like this has never been more true, and it makes me hope that this collection can try to engage a few new readers with a few more of those stories – and entertain them along the way.

Science is full of extraordinary stories: stories of explanation; stories of innovation; stories of the microcosmic and the macrocosmic and everywhere in between. They talk about the past, the present or the future, and often with some of the most interesting and compelling characters you could find. They unravel our world as it is and help us see other ways it might be.

So if you have some science writing of which you’re particularly proud – a news story, an article, an essay, even a poem or a short story – please send it through. You’ll find information about submitting to the anthology at on the NewSouth website (http://www.newsouthpublishing.com/articles/basw-2014-call-entries/), and entries close on March 31.

This will be the anthology’s fourth year (earlier volumes were edited by Stephen Pincock, Elizabeth Finkel, and Jane McCredie and Natasha Mitchell) and the third year that the Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing is also on offer. (Jo Chandler and Fred Watson are the previous winners of this prize: details on the prize, which has slightly different entry requirements to BASW, can be found here: http://www.newsouthpublishing.com/scienceprize.)

To revisit those past volumes is to get a particular snapshot of each year’s findings, concerns and ideas. I’m looking forward to seeing the final shape this year’s selection of words creates. ­–Ashley Hay

Please send submissions to basw2014@gmail.com for consideration

#ASC14 interview booth – FAQs about the mainstream media

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Thank you to Michelle Wheeler for sharing her answers to these FAQs with us.

As anyone who attended the ASC Conference in Brisbane this year knows, there was an awful lot going on. So much so, that even as you grabbed a quick coffee or bite to eat during the breaks, you may have noticed science journalist Michelle Wheeler still hard at work in the ‘Interview Booth’.

This new component was designed to give ASC’ers a chance to sit down with a working science journalist, to discuss ideas they might have for a story, get advice on media releases or simply to ask questions and gain some insight into what today’s journalists are up against when it comes to getting a science story out there.

For those who missed out, here are Michelle’s answers to some of the more frequently asked questions at the booth.

What is a typical day like in a newspaper newsroom?

A day in a newsroom can vary a lot depending on the organisation, the day of the week and whether there is late-breaking news, but here’s an example from one newspaper.

Most journalists arrive between 8am and 10am and immediately start ringing contacts, going through emails and generally checking to see what stories might be around that day. Before 10.30am, journalists brief the chief of staff on what is happening in their round and pitch the stories they are planning to focus on. The chief of staff will give some basic direction on which stories they think should be followed up, how long they should be and whether photographs are needed, and may give journalists stories they have come up with as well.

At 11am the chief of staff goes into a morning news conference with the senior editors to discuss the stories journalists are pursuing that day. The section editors, such as the sport, world and business editors, all report on the main stories they are looking at that day and the editor of the paper will add a few stories he would like looked at as well.

About 2.30pm journalists are required to send “newslist messages” to the chief of staff for each of the stories they are working on for the next day’s paper. These notes contain a mock first sentence for the story and the key points as well as the author, length and whether there are any photographs or graphics to accompany the article. These messages are taken into an afternoon news conference where the editor plans out which stories will go on which pages. This finishes about 4pm, at which point the chief of staff often gives final directions to the journalists about their stories.

The absolute latest a journalist would generally be able to file a story and still make the first edition of the paper is about 7pm, with the earliest copies being printed by 7.30pm.  There are later deadlines throughout the night for different editions of the paper to allow for late-breaking news. At any point during the day almost everything planned can go out the window if a huge story breaks.

When is the best time to send a media release?

The best time for most reporters to receive a media release is first thing in the morning, when journalists are calling contacts and looking at what is happening that day. If the release is sent out late in the day it has to be good enough to replace something else for the story to be written because by the next day it is often considered old news.

 

Should I call journalists to follow up if they haven’t responded to an email release?

This is a point of contention among both journalists and PR professionals and there are going to be plenty of people who disagree with me. As a journalist it is very annoying to constantly receive cold calls from PR officers you don’t know asking why you didn’t call them about a media release for an event totally unrelated to the round you cover. For some reason people organising charity luncheons are particularly bad at this.

On the other hand, it’s great to get calls from media managers you know or have worked with on stories before. Sometimes it’s handy to be able to chat about different angles for new research and even if I know a story isn’t going to run I’ll often ask the media manager about other stories coming up in the future (such as upcoming research or papers and reports due to be published) that I have in my diary.

Be polite – ask if there’s any extra information the journalist needs rather than demanding an explanation for why a story hasn’t been picked up. Don’t call on deadline and don’t get disheartened if journalists don’t always have time to chat.

Should I worry about pictures?

Yes! A fantastic photograph can easily bump a story from page 15 of a newspaper to page three, get it featured online or determine whether the story runs at all. Pictures are particularly important for newspapers in tabloid (compact) format, which the vast majority of major papers in the country now are.

Newspapers will generally choose to take their own photographs if they can but that doesn’t mean they won’t run supplied images occasionally if they are particularly good or of something they couldn’t usually capture themselves. For television it’s worth mentioning any vision opportunities or scientific visualisations you have in the release.

#ASC14 wrap up

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Thank you to Claire Harris for preparing the ASC2014 wrap up.

Well it was an amazing, full on four days for the Australian Science Communicators National Conference held in Brisbane at the beginning of February.

The Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre welcomed 372 delegates through the doors.

The Sunday Storytelling of Science event — featuring Prof Peter Adams, Prof Tim Flannery, Prof Jenny Graves, Lynne Malcolm, Dr Jesse Shore and hosted by Dr Andrew Stephenson — attracted 266 people in the audience.

The conference featured more than 65 sessions from plenary talks in the auditorium to workshops in the smaller concurrent rooms, speed networking and an Australian and New Zealand breakfast.

We had many lovely volunteers who helped the event run smoothly and this included four reporters/bloggers and people helping to livestream the event to 13 subscribers from around Australia and one in New York.

Some key links to re-live or explore what happened:

Media and other stories:

SURVEY

Post-conference surveys are always interesting and we know from past surveys and feedback, gathered over the years, that we can expect a range of opinions. This is understandable when you consider the diversity in job roles, experience, needs and interests. So far, we have received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with people telling us the conference was extremely valuable to them. A couple of people told us that it was their best conference experience ever (and they’ve been to more than a dozen in their careers). Wow.

The survey recently closed and so we will be busily combing through all the feedback and passing it on to those who will benefit in coming weeks, once all the data is in. However, we thought it might be timely to share just a few of the comments with you below.

If you feel that you could have offered a better session than what you saw, or an important aspect of the science communication landscape was missed, then the ASC would love to hear from you.

ASC2014 Program Committee

Any comments about the professional development sessions?

We encouraged a range of PD sessions with a whole stream devoted to them. Some hit the mark and some didn’t. The ASC would be very interested to learn more about what PD and training needs you feel you need to support you in your work, so please get in touch.

  • “The editing sessions were excellent – I really enjoyed the little games and exercises and the presenter was very knowledgeable.”
  • “Mind-blowing”
  • “Hands-on, interactive, information-rich sessions were valuable and I got a lot out of them. It is easy to tell the well-prepared sessions from the ones with no content at all to those that were mere presentations. More activities that really make you think and learn are most effective for these PD sessions.”

What were the best aspects of the conference for you?

Networking of course came through as the best aspect of the conference. Some of the comments:

  • “Feeling and being part of the Australian Science Communicator’s community – the opportunity to meet friends and acquaintances and make new ones, and to find out about science communication activities and research around Australia.”
  • “Sense of community spirit. Presence of younger, less jaded folks.”
  • “Networking and the opportunity to exchange ideas with peers.”
  • “Learning about all aspects of science communication from all over the country. Networking opportunities.”
  • “The Plenary sessions with Drew Berry and Lloyd were fantastic and inspiring.”
  • “Hearing creative ideas put into practise and seeing the evaluations of how these have worked.”
  • “Thanks again for one of, if not the, best and inspiring professional conferences I have attended.”

Speakers

Some speakers rocked attendees socks off and some need to develop further (including improving their presentation skills). Some people said that the sessions were great, but they did want (or were expecting) something more or different. All feedback is valuable so thanks again. Some comments:

  • “Ian Lowe was fantastic!”
  • “I will never look at WWE wrestling the same way again!”
  • “The vast majority of the sessions I attended (if not all) had really good speakers and were really engaging and informative sessions.”

President’s update

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Thank you to Joan Leach for the President’s update.

First off, a hearty thank you to those who joined fellow ASC members in Brisbane for the 2014 conference.  I’m still buzzing after the conversations I had and the presentations I heard.  Claire Harris and Kali Madden, joined with countless volunteers, put on a conference to remember.  We’ll be looking at the conference feedback/evaluations to help us plan for the future.  If you didn’t get a chance to do the evaluation and have something you’d like to tell us about your conference experience, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Given that this is our 20th anniversary year, we’re planning a few more events around Australia over the next 10 months.  As these plans solidify, I’ll make sure they are advertised in SCOPE as well as on our social media platforms and website.  We are hoping that these events will be low-cost for members but will be useful as well as engaging.  Again, if you, your local branch of ASC, or your organisation is interested in partnering with ASC to explore some area of science communication, I’d like to hear about it and try to make it happen.

At the conference, I mentioned a book that I read late last year that pretty much blew me away.  That is really saying something as I can be as jaded as the next academic!  Several of you have followed up with me to say that they, too, found it powerful or wanted to seek it out (at their local independent bookshop, of course).  The book is Global Crisis:  War, Climate Change, and Catastrophe in the 17th Century and the author is Geoffrey Parker.  It was published in 2013 with Yale University Press.  The book explores the ‘little ice age’ of the 17th century and the political, social, and human costs of climate variability–not only for the Europeans, but also for those in China and South America (where extensive records were kept).  Even if you’re not a history buff, the stories that Parker relates about how some of the greatest thinkers and communicators of the age despaired are quite moving and remarkable.  And while it would be too easy to draw direct comparisons with our age, Parker’s use of data and storytelling are models for science communicators engaged in climate adaptation.  I don’t recommend too many books as ‘must haves’ but this one is worth sharing.

In closing, I’d like to encourage you to revisit the ASC website.  We’re trying to set up some ‘interest group’ areas for discussion of topics that interest you.  If you’re considering setting up an interest group, we’d like to help.

#ASC14 Are we asking the wrong question of the ‘disengaged’?

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An early morning Conversation article from ASC President Joan Leach and University of Queensland Research Fellow Fabien Medvecky is giving us something to think about as we embark on the Australian Science Communicators National Conference in Brisbane.

Despite our best efforts to engage the public with the message of science and technology, statistics show that the number of public who are staunchly stuck in the ‘disengaged’ camp is simply not changing.

Does this mean we are not doing a good job, or does it mean we are not asking the right question? Is there such a thing as the truly disengaged, or rather, do we have clusters of people with specific interests and concerns but that do not identify themselves in having an interest in science in general.

Joan and Fabien have put together some thought provoking suggestions on this enigmatic group of people we have previously called the disengaged. Read the article here and catch Joan at the ASC National Conference!

#ASC14 Past (current) presidents – Joan Leach

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Thank you to Simon Chester for providing us with this president’s article.

With 2014 marking the 20th anniversary of the Australian Science Communicators (ASC), it’s a worthwhile time to talk to some of its past presidents, and find out some of their fondest memories, what drew them to science communication, what the big issues where back when they were steering the ship, and what issues remain now and into the future.

joan leach

Joan Leach is the current President of ASC, and Convenes the Science Communication Program at the University of Queensland. She is also Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Deputy Head of the School of English, Media Studies, and Art History at UQ.

Joan believes that there are 2 sets of issues for Science Communication as a field of research and professional practice.

“First, there are the communication issues that arise because of the directions that science is taking. So, climate adaptation research, neuroscience, particle physics, and the wide diversity of research challenges science communicators to come up with strategies for dissemination, for engagement.

“But also, there are a range of issues that emerge about science communication itself. Should it be a field of advocacy or/and criticism about the role of science? When is communication most effective? How do we evaluate our effectiveness? To be a successful science communicator, you need to engage both these issues and that’s a big ask—basically, you need to be a reflexive practitioner.

Likewise, the issues facing science communication in the future will also fall into the two camps of research and communication.

“On the issues that research brings to the table, climate adaptation and our post- or trans-human future that I think are the biggies. And, they are related issues. With climate change a reality, alongside the real changes technology can bring to our brains and the rest of our bodies, there are some serious questions about what the future of humanity looks like. This also covers questions of our relation to each other and the planet. Framing these questions is a huge task.  And these ‘big’ questions relate to how we see smaller research results and communicate those. And, if we want to upstream some of these questions and engage larger audiences before crises loom even larger, we have a huge task in front of us.

“On the communication front, I think questions of interdisciplinarity are increasingly important. By that, I mean synthesising insights from across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. A lot of lipservice is given to interdisciplinarity, but to really achieve it is a huge challenge that includes synthesis, but also knowing when approaches from one discipline are compatible (or not) with those from another.”

Joan is optimistic about her time ahead as ASC president.

“I’d love to look back at this time and see the growth of the ASC and an increase in the organisations relevance to the big questions of science in Australia and the region.”

Science communication has always been an interest of Joan’s, and her broad training complements it well.

“I’ve always been drawn to science communication because of the mix of intellectual and practical challenge directed at things that matter. Also, this field means that I don’t have to ‘turn off’ bits of my brain; science communication is creative, critical, analytic, and practically challenging. In my education, I’ve formally studied biology, biophysics, philosophy, rhetoric, classics, and history and philosophy of science. And they all matter to science communication (if you buy me a drink, I can tell you how!).

#ASC14 Past presidents – Jesse Shore

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Thank you to Simon Chester for providing us with this president’s article.

With 2014 marking the 20th anniversary of the Australian Science Communicators (ASC), it’s a worthwhile time to talk to some of its past presidents, and find out some of their fondest memories, what drew them to science communication, what the big issues where back when they were steering the ship, and what issues remain now and into the future.

Jesse shore

Dr Jesse Shore is the Principal of Prismatic Sciences, and was ASC president from December 2009 to November 2012. He noted that science was becoming increasingly politicised during his tenure.

“In 2010 the ASC welcomed the increased emphasis by the federal government to engage all Australians with science. In stating their intentions they recognised that effective science communication would play a central role to achieve their goals.

“Science and technology became increasingly politicised as diverse commentators and various experts took opposing sides on issues such as climate change, stem cell research, nanotechnology, medical practices and other usual suspects. Many science communicators found that their usual approach often couldn’t compete with the emotional rhetoric of high profile, but misinformed, voices.

“Other influences during 2010-2012 were the rapidly evolving forms of data visualisation, apps and games and their increasing use as a tool to communicate science. Social media continued to grow in importance, and the NBN offered future hope – but not short term use.

“I’m pleased that [during my time as president] the ASC developed increasingly closer working ties with the Inspiring Australia Strategy of the federal government. The ASC partnered with various groups to carry out projects funded by Inspiring Australia.”

Dr Shore believes that technology will shape science communication in the future.

“Science communication will have to adopt and adapt to new technology such as 3D printing and people’s increasing interconnectedness though mobile media. We’ll need ways to reach audiences who are becoming increasing fragmented into smaller and more diverse niches (many of which overlap in some way).”

Jesse’s interest in Science communication grew out of a practical need early in his life as a scientist.

“I wanted to be a scientist ever since I was 12 years old and I succeeded, becoming a geologist. As a post-grad in California, I enjoyed my research but found that talking about its arcane details caused instant ennui in the listener.

“So, I gradually learned that whenever a pretty gal at a party asked me if I studied earthquakes I would lie and answer ‘yes,’ which would generally develop into an enthusiastic conversation. After many dates I am still improving how to lie about what I do.”

Jesse will be speaking at the BrisScience Storytelling of science event on Sunday 2 February. http://2014conf.asc.asn.au/the-storytelling-of-science/

“I’ll talk about my circuitous path to becoming a science communicator (theatre was involved), my approach to creating a story, and go through one or two science stories from my museum exhibition work. I think a tennis racquet may be involved.”