Blog
Tools & Resources
How to reduce friction in virtual events
Many challenges with virtual engagement come back to one thing—friction. Friction is that draggy, slow feeling when people talk over each other, or no one speaks at all, or everyone feels lost, and our brains take a vacation. Most folks are exhausted by endless Zoom meetings and (very reasonably) check out.
The good news is that friction isn’t a foregone con...
Leadership in Action
Coastal Conversations with Dr. Jenni Pollack (Video)
Science can have the greatest impact when scientists engage beyond the lab and field and build meaningful connections with the people who can most benefit from their work. But the path to connection isn't always clear or straightforward. What if there are existing challenges and tensions between different groups? How do we keep conversations from becoming polarized...
Announcements
My Last COMPASS Rodeo?
I recently returned from my first post-pandemic, in-person leadership training workshop with the Global Sustainability Fellows and Diana Wall, lead scientist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. What joy to be with these inspiring young scientists from all over the world – working on issues from infrastructure to pollinators and everything in b...
Bridging Communities
Community Voices: On Compassionate Communication with Just Moms STL
Karen Nickel and Dawn Chapman met at an air-sampling event created in response to alarming odors in their neighborhood. “The odors were unlike anything we'd ever experienced,” Dawn explained. “They were causing our eyes to swell and burn and our noses to bleed.”
Just a week prior, in the middle of planning her daughter’s fifth birthday party, Dawn le...
Preparing Science Leaders
Risk Communication: Helping Your Audience Make Informed Decisions (Video)
“Anybody who's trying to bring some information to a decision is probably on some level communicating about risk, because the decision's going to get made and there are going to be tradeoffs. Helping the person making the decision or the group making the decision understand those tradeoffs, to me, is part of risk communication.” - Sarah Sunu
As science communi...