The way we unravel the complexity of our work- whether it is in front of one person or of 1000 - is crucial to the development of the audiences’ understanding of the thing that we are trying to communicate. The ability to turn years of research into a succinct narrative that can be communicated in the form of a story is nothing short of a craft and a skill that many scientists lack. The few scientists that manage to become popular to widespread audiences are usually deprioritizing the complexity of their scientific methodology and promote a superficial distillation of their work’s outcomes and conclusions.
I personally find this a very important topic to talk about and one that I feel is not addressed adequately in the scientific and academic community. Today’s popular opinions on topics like climate change, space exploration, renewable energy, automation, artificial intelligence, are shaped by the collection of short, bite-sized pieces of information that are haphazardly scattered around the internet, its websites and social media platforms. As a consequence, people have exchanged the limited but deep understanding of science for the unlimited collection of shallow information.
In the academic, the scientific and the professional world of urban sciences we are seeing two extremes. One the one side professors, students, researchers and professionals who are driven by a scientific, rigorous method, they write papers, publications and focus on accurate, deep and complex descriptions of reality. They see beauty in this complexity and are not afraid to show it even if it means that they will be blamed for being uninspiring, cold, and making endlessly boring papers and presentations.
On the other hand, are the ones that are driven by a passion for communication, creating an emotional response in an audience and finding the hidden story within the research. They are the orators, the storytellers, the ones that spend time debating which is the right font and animation for a 15 minute presentation, whether their tone should be compelling or convincing, and whether they should present sitting down or standing up. They see beauty in the reachability of this simplification and are not afraid to show it even if it means that they will be blamed for attention grabbing, clickbaiting and dumbing down work that they didn’t even produce.
By the way, I’m more often than not in the second category and have huge appreciation for the ones in the first. However, I really can’t stand watching their presentations even though I know there is real value behind their scientific work.
Now, the really good ones are the ones that are able to adapt their communication techniques according to the audience. They are the ones that know 15 different ways of explaining the same thing to 20 different people coming from a variety of ages, backgrounds and interests.
To better illustrate how difficult it is to do this, Diego Giron and Christos Grapas, decided to explore this with me. With their help we will see how a notoriously complex issue such as “Urban Vulnerability” would be deconstructed and eventually communicated to different audiences.
