Communicating Science

'Engage' talk given in Oxford on Nov 18th 2013.

Transcript

1. C O M M U N I C AT I N G S C I E N C E R O B E R T S I M P S O N - @ O R B I T I N G F R O G
2. A B O U T M E Work at the Zooniverse creating citizen science projects from astronomy to zoology (zooniverse.org) Run the .Astronomy conference series (dotastronomy.com) Tweet a lot @orbitingfrog Podcast at recycledelec.com (Do some research too!) orbitingfrog.com
3. B L O G A N D T W I T T E R Blogging irregularly since 2006 on orbitingfrog.com Currently get ~1k visitors a day. Was ~10k at its peak in 2010 Tweeting from @orbitingfrog about lots of things Prefer Twitter for 90% of time orbitingfrog.com
4. W H Y D O T H I S ? Inspiration and Motivation
5. C H R I S T M A S L E C T U R E S M I C H A E L FA R A D A Y
7. T I P S Lighten up.
8. I F U C K I N G L O V E S C I E N C E • 8.4M Facebook followers • Started ‘for fun’ by Elise Andrew • Now doing live shows and original content • Growing rapidly • Can kill your website :) facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience
9. 6 . 5 K L I K E S 1 . 9 K S H A R E S ! + 4 K U S E R S + 1 0 0 K C L A S S .
10. 2 3 K L I K E S 3 K S H A R E S ! + 1 K U S E R S + 5 0 K C L A S S .
11. T I P S Be consistent.
12. T I P S 9k followers in a year, 6k in six months
13. T I P S There are many publics.
16. S P L A S H O . C O M / U P G O E R 5 A N E X E R C I S E : B A C K T O B A S I C S
17. T I P S Tell stories.
18. T H E S T O RY C O L L I D E R • Stories about how science has affect people’s lives. • 1M downloads of podcast • Touring live events with storytellers from across society • Based in NYC storycollider.org
19. T I P S No one cares about your science as much as you (probably).
20. T I P S No one cares about your science as much as you (probably).
21. T I P S You can do substance and style. In fact, you must.
22. R A D I O L A B • Airs on 300 US radio stations • Internationally known as a podcast • 1.8M regular listeners worldwide • 58 episodes, began in 2002 • Partially funded by the Sloan Foundation • Public donations keep it alive radiolab.org
23. T I P S Content is king.
25. T I P S 90-9-1 Rule
26. T I P S 90-9-1 Rule Creators 1% Contributors 9% Lurkers 90%
27. T I P S Social means social. It’s a conversation sometimes.
28. N O T C H O I C E S : C H A N N E L S S O C I A L M E D I A
29. G E T T I N G S TA R T E D Get online and start creating. Sign up for everything, drop those that don’t work Put aside some time to do it every day/week/month Say ‘yes’
30. Easy to use; interactive Follow not ‘Friend’ High signal-to-noise if you grow a community 57% of UK population on Facebook Many open communities on topics Good analytics for pages Quick, easy and widely-used platform Integrates with many other tools Good statistics on readers and posts Growing platform with large science community Includes Hangouts feature for live video Built in to many other, common services Easily handles multiple content types Artistic, young community About making, not just sharing twitter.com wordpress.com tumblr.com facebook.com plus.google.com
31. O T H E R T O O L S T H AT I U S E Buffer Evernote RSS RSS+Reeder+Buffer=Awesome! Google Analytics Flipboard (iOS)
32. E A S Y A C C E S S O U T R E A C H Local Press Interviews, etc. Festivals Guest blogging Small public groups Schools Stargazing Oxford (i.e. departmental stuff)
33. S U C C E S S M E A N S W H AT, E X A C T LY ? Set goals: be realistic. Look at your peers to see where to aim. Measure but don’t obsess. How much time can you give? Time invested vs. impact
34. C O N C L U S I O N S ? There are no gurus There are no quick fixes There are many publics Set goals, measure success. ! Have fun!
35. T H E E N D Lighten up.