BES Centenary

Just as I was organising the final parts of this new site, I get an email about our  centenary. What a milestone. Sadly, being one of the Antipodean set, I won’t be around to celebrate but I can fly the flag from here.  If you want to see more, try the festival site.

One part of the site raises issues I will no doubt be coming back to. Head over to the scientists page. It shows the vast range of work that our ecologists are doing but it also highlights one of the key issues troubling us today (or at least, it should be troubling us!). The site talks about publications (I’m waiting to get a copy of the 100 papers book when it comes out) and yet science writing and science communication has never been under more public scrutiny, largely because so few people outside science understand how scientists communicate. Whose fault is this? Perhaps fault isn’t the issue; perhaps its communication. We are so used to writing to a science audience that we forget that most don’t work our way. Just as in education, the aim is to get the listener to understand what they need to know. We need to remember that attention spans are shorter, that expectations of a quick pay-off are higher and that, generally, people don’t stick around to see what happens in the end.How log do they say you wait for a website? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? Next time, think how little you can get through in that time.

What am I doing here? I’m in the middle. I can and have researched at high levels; I get paid everyday talking to school students about a range of issues so I can see both sides. Part of the reason I wanted to start this site was to improve communication both ways.

If you like, join me on the journey – I’d appreciate the company!