Science is a bit like a tree falling in the forest. If nobody knows what you’re doing or why it matters, odds are they won’t notice you.
In 2010, ACS relied on a mixture of old, but dependable, and new, cutting-edge techniques to reach as broad an audience as possible and to teach our members the value of simple, straight-forward communication.
ACS issued more than 1,000 print, electronic and social media news items in 2010, reaching an estimated potential audience of 3.1 billion people per month. In addition to a Press Blog, which highlights prominent research from ACS' 39 peer-reviewed journals and other interesting scientific developments, we expanded our Digital Services Unit. This unit created popular general audience videos about the Chemistry of Fireworks, the Chemistry of Barbecue, Chemistry of Sourdough, the Chemistry of Thanksgiving and other topics. These videos received tens of thousands of views on YouTube and Vimeo, as well as coverage on Time, Wired, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, AOL News, LiveScience and many other sites.
Video also had a prominent role in the Chemistry Ambassadors program. Founded in 2009, the program helps connect our members and their messages with the people who live in their communities. It’s about encouraging our members to be compelling spokespersons for their profession, whether they have a lot of time, or a little. It’s about connecting ACS’s many and excellent resources with the audiences they are intended to serve. And doing it with a human face and voice.
To encourage that, we conducted more than 300 mini-media training sessions at ACS National Meetings in 2010. These 2- to 5-minute sessions helped members develop brief, effective “elevator” speeches they can use to describe their work to friends, neighbors and others. In many cases, the results as shown in this short video are truly remarkable.
More than 6,500 ACS members became Chemistry Ambassadors in 2010, nearly quadrupling the reach of the program since it began in August 2009.
In October, we revived the “Sparkle” communications workshops, which were a once-popular ACS fixture in the 1990s. This two-day seminar immersed local section participants in hands-on activities, including writing press releases and speaking with the media, that familiarized them with ways to put chemistry into the headlines. Among the speakers was Ron Seely, a journalist at the Wisconsin State Journal and recipient of the 2010 Grady-Stack Award. In all, 25 local sections sent public relations chairs to be trained—to speak and write compellingly on behalf of chemistry, and to use those skills to build greater community awareness for their local sections through the news media. These workshops are scheduled to continue in 2011.
Finally, good leadership begins with good communication. That’s what nearly 300 ACS members learned in Fort Worth in 2010 at the ACS Leadership Training Institute. This comprehensive curriculum that provides practical courses, including developing communications strategies, will help these leaders of the future advance their careers, and equip them with tools to more effectively take charge of ACS volunteer initiatives.
The net result of all of these efforts is this: The next time a scientific “tree” falls in the ACS forest, we will be heard.