“Kids won’t read.”
How we partner with the academy to communicate impact to the masses.
Recently, I spent nearly a week on campus with my colleague and friend Savannah Lee Coco at a public R1 university, co-leading intake discussions with faculty, staff, and deans. This university has a comprehensive campaign on the horizon and we are helping them not just build a compelling campaign brand to raise more than a billion dollars, but connect the campaign to the impact made by the school to boost public sentiment and reputation. One of the biggest challenges in these conversations is conveying complex scientific research and academic concepts into understandable and compelling messages.
If you’ve spent time with faculty, you’ve encountered complicated conversations. As communicators, we want to translate what they do into simple concepts a broader public will understand. This can feel frustrating, but we first need to understand faculty need to communicate the way they do to reach their goals. Their target audiences differ from ours in marketing and communications. Every day, faculty have to defend their research, build interdisciplanary collaborations, and recruit future faculty to secure grants, build on current research to create new knowledge, and ensure the academic product is preparing students for their future.
So, how do we meet the academy in the middle and distill their complex work into messages that the general public will understand, seeing the obvious value? First, let the faculty cook for a minute. Ask them what they do and why it matters. They are highly passionate about their work. And we should be, too. It’s exciting because it improves lives. Let it get scientific. If we are open to listening, they’ll eventually open up, and the simplicity will begin to shine through.
During the visit I mentioned at the beginning, Savannah and I had some great moments and some challenging moments. Like the particle physicist who, when I encouraged them to simplify the concepts, began to break things down to the simplest molecular levels. Basically, a lesson on electrons. However, our shining moment came when speaking with directors from various centers and institutes (arguably the most challenging aspect of an institution for external audiences to understand). While we had a broader discussion guide, we emphasized one simple question with every group.
“If what you do did not exist, what do people lose?”
One of the center directors spoke up almost immediately. “Kids won’t read.” Three words and a world of opportunity. She understood the assignment and others followed suit.
