It’s unfortunate, but somebody has to say these things. The March for Science was stunning in the size of the turnout, yet equally stunning in the lack of a message. No one wants to say this, but I will. The message is, “There’s no leadership in science.”  The march wasn’t the doing of the science “leadership” — it was organized by “the troops.” I discussed this on NPR on Friday. An absence of leadership wasn’t a problem in the 1950’s, but it is today.

WHAT DO WE WANT? SOMETHING! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? SOMETIME!

ONE FROM THE GUT

On Saturday I took part in the March for Science in Washington DC. The turnout, despite heavy rain, was stunning and inspiring. It hit me at the gut level — both humor and emotion. Clearly there is a ton of good will at the grassroots level of the science world. But there’s a problem. The leadership is lacking.

I’ve been hitting this note for years and even mentioned it in my 2015 book, “Houston, We Have A Narrative.” It bothered me in the 1980’s when I was a scientist. The profession is run by faceless committees. Which was fine in the pro-science 1950’s and 1960’s, but we’re now in a different era. It’s a problem.

I was on NPR on Friday talking about, “the message” of the March for Science. There was no message. Actually, as Ed Yong identified, there were at least 21 “messages.” But in a world of too much information, that ends up resulting in their being no overall message.

EVERYBODY GO HOME!

The absence of a message on Saturday was abundantly clear. It started in January when the march first arose, not from the ranks of leadership, but from the grassroots level on Reddit. I was on the periphery of the communications team since near the start. They never managed to decide on whether the event was a politicized anti-Trump rally or a happy fun science festival day for the family. It ended up being sort of both, and also neither.

The absence of a message was most apparent on the website where they never did post any sort of slug line or slogan within the artwork. The closest they had was, “Science, Not Silence” (I dare you to say that ten times fast).

The clearest demonstration of a lack of a message was two things:

1 THE END OF THE MARCH –  the march ended in front of the Capitol building. A friend who was at the front told me they got there, everyone was ready for speeches and instructions on what to do, but instead there was just a woman on a loudspeaker saying, “Thanks for coming, all done.” Basically, go home.  No one was told what to do (i.e. “Write your congressman, organize your colleagues”)

2 NO MEDIA TRACTION –  coverage of the march was ephemeral and kind of trivial. The main focus was all the funny signs and science puns. But there was no clear message. Having a message, means having a narrative, which is what the media world feeds on because “media is narrative” as I said in my Friday talk at the Earth Optimism Summit.

THE MESSAGE:  WHERE’S OUR LEADERSHIP?

Q:  What is the official policy of the science world on debating anti-science people?

A:  There is none.

Right now the American Psychological Association is doing a good job telling psychologists to remember The Goldwater Rule (to not publicly evaluate the mental health of politicians in office). That is leadership.

But for the science world, trying to stop CNN from including climate skeptics in their climate “debates” seems to fall on peripheral entertainers like Bill Nye. In 2010 I blogged the recommendation that no one other than comedians debate climate skeptics, but that was just me, not the appointed “leadership” of the science world.

NARRATIVE IS LEADERSHIP

This was the title of my talk on Friday. It’s my message for 2017. It’s what I spoke about to James Carville’s class at Tulane University in January. It’s what I’m preaching now through our Story Circles Narrative Training (which will launch 6 circles next month with National Park Service in Colorado!).

I spoke with a friend yesterday who is a geologist. She told me that only 10 of the 52 member organizations of the American Geosciences Institute (the big umbrella group for geology) supported the march. The others were “put off” by the political tone of the organizers.

Which just confirms the predicament. There is no clear leadership for the profession of science. And that’s a problem, given the anti-science tone of the current administration.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but the one thing I know well is that everything has to start by identifying the problem. Everyone seems to think “the problem” is Trump. But I feel there’s a deeper problem, which is the absence of effective leadership with which to defend the profession. It’s not the end of the world, but is definitely something that needs to be addressed.

The March for Science page should have had a clear slug line on it. It should have asked, “Oh, Leaders, Where Art Thou?”

Anyone surprised? Yes, she’s gorgeous, but when she speaks she ain’t saying much. At least not in narrative terms. The Narrative Index of her speech yesterday at the State Department was 0. One IF, 35 ANDs, no BUTs.

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY — OH, NEVER MIND.

NOT YOUR BEST BEDTIME STORYTELLER

The First Lady gave a speech at the State Department yesterday as part of presenting the International Medal of Courage Award to 13 women. I’m sure it was well received, and it’s not to say that the simple Narrative Index of BUTs to ANDs (times 100) is the definitive word on content, but really … zero?

That’s what she scored. She never said the word BUT though she said AND 35 times. It was pretty much of a perfect And, And, And, (AAA) presentation.

The deeper question is who wrote it? Which of course was the same question raised for her RNC speech last summer, part of which was plagiarized from Michelle Obama. That speech at least had 5 BUTs for an NI score of 7 (though none of the BUTs were in the plagiarized part).

The bottom line is that she speaks the same as she looks. Beautiful but kind of shallow when it comes to content.

If Michael Crichton were alive today he would look at the news of President Trump and just say one thing, “Yep, figures.” His 1999 AAAS keynote address was titled, “Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities.” Among many things, he was offering up advice on how to deal with fake news. He tried. No one listened.

Michael Crichton gave a speech filled with practical advice for the science world. This is a line from his speech. Which fell on deaf ears.

WHAT ARE SPEECHES FOR, WHEN NO ONE LISTENS ANY MORE?

That’s a paraphrasing of “Words,” the old 1980’s song from Missing Persons. And is what Michael Crichton must have felt in response to his 1999 keynote address to the AAAS meeting titled, “Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities.”

The title referred to “ritual abuse” meaning the anger of the science world in feeling misunderstood, “hot air” the fact that most media is just that (so what), and “missed opportunities” — that it really isn’t that hard to use of the media, you just need to do it.

Michael Crichton was a giant of a man, not just physically (at 6’10”) but intellectually. He was a smart guy who left a burgeoning career in medicine to become a bestselling science fiction writer, reaching a peak with his landmark novel, “Jurassic Park.”

Over the years he kept in touch with the science world and by the late 1990’s had plenty of smart things to say given that no one in science had his understanding of mass media. He offered up his wisdom in 1999 as the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of AAAS.  He ended his talk by listing 4 problems and their possible solutions.

He started the last bit of the talk saying, “If I were magically put in charge of improving the status and image of science, I’d start by using the media, instead of feeling victimized by them.”

Look at the quote above in the photo. He knew what was coming. He could have predicted that one day the Presidency would be won by a master media manipulator. He tried to instruct the science world on how the system works. But scientists don’t listen.

CRICHTON’S PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Here’s his specific itemization of major media/image problems faced by science and how to deal with them. Just about none of this was heeded.

THE EARTH OPTIMISM ABT: Earth Day is the largest secular holiday in the world, AND since 1970 has presented the bad news of how we are destroying the planet, BUT bad news takes a toll, THEREFORE this year the Smithsonian Institution is presenting The Earth Optimism Summit which shifts the focus of Earth Day to stories of success.

TIME TO ADVANCE THE NARRATIVE

ALL WE ARE SAYING, IS GIVE OPTIMISM A CHANCE

“We’re destroying nature.”  “We’re killing the planet.”  “Everything is dying.”  “We’re all horrible people.”

That’s been “the narrative” for the environmental movement for over 45 years — since the first Earth Day in 1970.  It was needed in the early days to motivate and light the fires needed to defend the planet.  But there’s an air of pessimism that inevitably arises from so much grim news. That pessimism eventually saps the life out of even the hardest workers.

Two scientists who figured out this problem more than a decade ago are coral reef ecologists Drs. Nancy Knowlton and Jeremy Jackson.  I watched their awakening over the course of several years when they were professors of marine biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

By 2010 they were both starting to work to change the tone of ocean conservation from constant kvetching to focusing more on “where things are working.”  They launched a series of symposia around the title, “Beyond the Obituaries for the Oceans.”  Their feeling was, “We’ve read enough obituaries for parts of the ocean, let’s shift our attention to the pockets of success in saving the oceans.”

Nancy launched the hashtag for #OceanOptimism which rapidly gained popularity.   A couple years ago she then began spreading the theme to #EarthOptimism.  From there she took the idea to the top of the Smithsonian Institution, where she is now a senior scientist.  They got behind it in a big way, and voila …

THE EARTH OPTIMISM SUMMIT APRIL 21-23 IN WASHINGTON DC — YOU CAN ATTEND!

The plans are now set for a gathering of over 200 conservationists ranging from scientists to economist to lawyers to communications folks to tell stories of conservation success from around the world.  I’ll be one of the speakers.  And here’s the good news — it’s open to the public for a modest registration fee.

Actually, here’s the very best news — the event has a clear narrative.  Unlike too many gatherings these days where people don’t really know what they’re trying to say (they’re just angry) this event knows EXACTLY what it has to say.

What the organizers and all the participants have for a message is laid out clearly with ABT structure in the subtitle above.  In fact, you can even boil it down to a single word, reflecting a clarity of purpose that’s essential for people to dedicate their lives to a mission and remain inspired over time.

That word is OPTIMISM.

A friend who attended the Oscars complained to me, “There were so many amazing stories for the night, I can’t believe the only thing the media talked about was the Best Picture mistake.” Actually that was the ONLY real story, and that’s why it dominated everything. The starting point for understanding storytelling is to understand what is, and is not, a story.

A STORY NOBODY ASKED FOR

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY …

Rick Nelson, our wonderful Story Circles aficionado with US Fish and Wildlife Service likes to tell about his buddy in graduate school who, “always said he was gonna tell you a story … and then he never did.”  Let’s consider this basic dynamic for Sunday’s Oscar’s debacle.

An actress friend of mine called me yesterday to tell me about what she saw at the Oscars, which she attended with her husband. The first thing she said to me was, “It was such an amazing evening — there were so many great awards given out, great speeches, and great performances — I can’t believe the only thing the media is talking about is the big mistake at the end of it all.”

Well, I can believe it.

Everyone is indeed still talking about “the big mistake.”  It’s Wednesday and I just listened to Jim Parsons (who was in “Hidden Figure”) on a radio show. The host asked him if everyone was talking about the big mistake at the post-Oscars parties. He said, “Yes, of course, non-stop, you couldn’t quit referencing it.”

In fact it was a real story because there was a genuine real PROBLEM/SOLUTION dynamic to it. Nothing else in the evening — none of the awards, award speeches, performances, jokes — none of those things presented a real problem that needed to be solved, and especially not at that level of importance.  The result was there were no other significant stories to tell.

In “Houston, We Have A Narrative” I defined the word “narrative” as “the series of events that occur in the search for a solution to a problem” and explained how that is the dynamic at the center of a story.  Now, think of the Oscars evening in those terms and you begin to see why 100% of the major media coverage focused on “the mistake.”

THE BORING FACTS

Yes, there were lots of great awards given out and honors paid, but those are, by comparison, pretty much just facts — of interest to some, but not to the masses.  The one thing that interests everyone is THE STORY of what happened at the end.  A problem arose — wrong winner announced —  a solution was found — gave it to the right winner.  The story that interests everyone was THE SERIES OF EVENTS THAT OCCURRED IN THE SEARCH FOR THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM.

That was the only real story.  The media knew, the people involved knew it, and the general public knows it.  The rest, as Joe Friday used to say on Dragnet, is just the facts, m’am.

Australians inspire me to make trouble.  If you’re going to South By Southwest Education Conference in a couple weeks, come hear me plus three crazy Australians on March 9.   We are presenting a panel on, “Science Refugees.”  Also, Jayde Lovell is giving her own talk at SXSW Interactive on “narrative selection.”

THREE AUSTRALIANS PLUS A WANNABE. Jayde Lovell, Bec Susan Gill, Rod Lamberts and I will talk about life as “science refugees.”

The lovely and talented Jayde Lovell will introduce the concept of “narrative selection” with this talk at SXSW Interactive.

JAYDED

My Story Circles Narrative Training co-conspirator Jayde Lovell is the ring leader responsible for getting us to South By Southwest in a couple of weeks.  For over two years I’ve been working with her and going from fan to loyal follower.  She is now the head of her own science PR agency named ReAgency, runs Sci Q, her own science channel on The Young Turks Network, her own space at the Youtube Studios, is the head of social media for the Tyler Award for Environmental Science, is Chief Storyteller for The Science March, won the National Academy of Engineering’s Next MacGyver contest, and is the funniest person I’ve met in decades.

Suffice it to say, we’re gonna have fun in Austin.  Come join us if you’re there.

If you’re giving a talk or teaching a class and want an amusing analogy for the Narrative Spectrum here’s a little thing we did with an Ikea desk.  Feel free to put it into your presentation.

THERE’S A RIGHT WAY AND A WRONG WAY. Which do you prefer?

THE IDEAL FORM

In “Houston, We Have A Narrative,” I presented The Narrative Spectrum.  It’s the central tool for our Story Circles Narrative Training program.

Think of the Narrative Spectrum as being like assembling an Ikea desk.  If you just stare at the parts and never even start the journey, that’s the AAA (And, And, And) form.  It’s non-narrative — you never even started the narrative process.

If you throw the instructions away, over-think how it all goes together, then just do it yourself, turning your nose up at 4,000 years of narrative selection, you end up with something like the DHY form (Despite, However, Yet) — a confused mess.

But … if you heed the age old powers of narrative (i.e. you read the instructions/learn about the ABT), take the time to do things right, then you end up with the ABT form (And, But, Therefore) and everything works properly.

Yes, it takes time to do it right, but do you really want to bore or confuse people?

THE NARRATIVE SPECTRUM. Respect it’s authora-tie.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine just announced they are releasing a report titled, “Communicating Science Effectively.” A quick search of the report for key words reveals a number of biases in the thinking behind it. I’m sorry, but this is a sad case of the blind leading the blind. Truly it is.

SCORE NONE FOR SIMPLICITY.

LET THE NUMBERS DO THE TALKING

The numbers say it all.  How can you talk about communicating anything effectively and never mention the word SIMPLICITY?  Any mathematician, for starters, will tell you the key to solving problems effectively is to find the simple solution. There’s the age old adage that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” And yet here is a report from the National Academies that doesn’t have even a hint of that thinking?

How can you talk about communication and not mention the word INTUITION? Communication isn’t something that robots know how to do. It’s done by humans. They draw on intuition when they communicate. Even if they are scientists. Even if they are scientists speaking at the most intense of scientific meetings. I know this, I was a scientist once.

There is nothing in this report about the need to find singular, unifying themes, or consider science as a journey. There’s not even a nod to the IMRAD template that lies at the heart of the effective communication for research scientists.

How does something like this happen?

And yet … what you do see in the numbers is the word FRAMING mentioned 67 times. What is framing? There’s not even clear agreement on what the term means, much less agreement that it leads to effective communication. It was debated hotly in 2007. It may be the cutting edge of debate among theoreticians, but then if that’s so, the report should have had been called “Communicating Science Theoretically.”

This report is so vastly mislabeled. I don’t want to ridicule it, I just want readers to know that as the science community complains about not being heard, this is where large amounts of effort are going.

It’s tragic.

Having trouble sleeping?  Here’s three hours of my droning voice, going on and on about the ABT, that’s a guaranteed cure for insomnia.

Trump, Coral Reefs, and the ABT.

It’s been a busy past few months for me on the podcast circuit (with a couple more in the works). Here’s three I’ve done since the election.

THE BUSINESS OF STORY:  TRUMP HAS NARRATIVE INTUITION

My buddy Park Howell is a professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University.  He and I connected nearly four years ago when he read my second book, “Connection,” and instantly grasped the power and importance of the ABT Narrative Template.  He listened to me try to warn about the power of Donald Trump as a communicator, but when my warnings proved correct he had me appear on his podcast the morning after the election.

AMERICA ADAPTS:  CORAL REEFS COMMUNICATION IS BAD NEWS

Doug Parsons was part of our Connection Storymaker Workshop in 2011 when he was working for the National Park Service on their climate team.  He eventually branched off on his own and started this excellent climate podcast, American Adapts.  We had a few discussions last fall about climate issues, but when I started ranting at length about the poor job that’s been done in communicating about the worldwide decline of coral reefs he demanded I put my mouth where my mouth was by being a guest.

NEW BOOKS NETWORK:  HOW THE GREENHOUSE MANAGER PUT ME IN MY PLACE

Bob Wilson of Syracuse University hosted me in 2010 for a two day campus visit to show my movie, “Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy,” and speak to their sciences programs. I gave what I thought was a respectable talk, but a member of their audience didn’t think so. What transpired in the Q&A was the greatest public humiliation of my speaking career. It’s a great story that helped inspire much more effort and conscientiousness on my part and contributed to my third book.  He gave me the chance to tell the story in detail and lots more about what we’re doing with Story Circles and the ABT these days.

A TRUE VISIONARY. This is the man who got Bill Clinton elected. At 72 he’s more alive and electric than ever. The Democratic party needs to recapture voices of leadership (and narrative) like his.

PROFESSOR RAGIN’ CAJUN

Every college student in America should be jealous of the lucky 50 students enrolled in James Carville’s political science class at Tulane University.  On Monday nights they meet at the home of Mr. Carville and his legendary Republican wife, Mary Matalin, to have him present a guest speaker. It’s the way that college ought to be — a chance to hang out with awesome and innovative professors like that.

I got to know James last year, as I talked about on Park Howell’s Business of Story podcast which I recorded the morning after the election. From my work with narrative structure I came to realize that Donald Trump had an unfair advantage in the political world. He has deep “narrative intuition” — the term I coined in “Houston, We Have A Narrative.” In the podcast I told about my journey of frustration during the months leading up to the election.

I set to work starting in the summer of 2015 trying to publish an editorial titled, “Trump Knows Narrative,”(a broader version of this in-depth essay) showing how the ABT Template can be used to quantitatively show how much of an upper hand Trump has with communication. I drew on every contact I have at the NY Times (which was a lot), as well as contacts with 538 Blog, Slate, The Guardian, The Upshot Blog — on and on, pounding on the door of every possible journalist and news pundit, BUT … in the end I hit a complete brick wall.

Finally, a year ago I searched simply HILLARY CLINTON BORING. The first result that came up was an article with the headline, “James Carville Admits Hillary Clinton is Boring.”

I set to work and by April was on the phone explaining the ABT to James Carville himself.

He got it, immediately.  For the man who coined the term, “It’s the economy, stupid,” it didn’t take any explanation for him to see the power and importance of the simple ABT Template.  He tried to get the folks at Hillary Clinton’s campaign to listen to me.  BUT … they didn’t.  Just as they didn’t listen to a whole stack of people with good ideas.

The rest was sad history.

THE RIGHT WAY TO TEACH COLLEGE STUDENTS. Incredible night. Fifty incredibly bright minds. Far more questions than we had time for. There is hope for this country!

THEREFORE … LET’S HAVE FUN WITH CARVILLE AND THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

So Mr Carville invited me to give the second lecture of the semester to his class at Tulane. You can see the setting from the photo above — James and I seated on the landing with me showing slides to the right. Every few minutes he would interrupt with some hilarious story or gem of wisdom. The man is a gold mine of political wisdom, as well as communications savvy.

In fact, he opened the evening with a brilliant introduction that he said to me, “Once you hear this you’re gonna want to use it for every talk you give.” Which is true.

He asked the students if anyone knew who Edward Everett was. No response. I should have known — the name even rang a bell — but I was still lost. He explained.

Everett was the famous politician who spoke before Lincoln at Gettysburg in November, 1865. As Carville pointed out, Everett’s speech was two hours long, Lincoln’s was two minutes. “Which politician do you remember today?” Carville asked the students.

In fact, this is the famous quote from Everett after their speeches, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

And just to get didactic for a moment here, he was absolutely right. Lincoln had a super-clear theme of “unfinished business” which underpinned the 270-some words of his powerful speech. Lincoln had deeeeeep narrative intuition.

And the Everett anecdote is doubly fitting given that Lincoln’s speech, as first noted by Park Howell, is itself nothing more than a three paragraph ABT (basically “We have a great AND mighty nation, BUT now we’re in a civil war, THEREFORE it is up to us, the living, to make sure these men did not die in vain.”).  Mr Carville included that in his introductory comments as well. As I said, he gets it on the ABT.

DINNER WITH A LIVING LEGEND

After the two hour class we went to dinner at a quiet, local upscale restaurant. Every head turned as we were seated, and before the evening was done there was a line of people coming to the table to beg Mr. Carville to do something about this horrible new President, to have their photo taken with him, or to tell him stories about their parents having worked with him.

He laughed and joked his way through every autograph and photo, truly a man of the people. It was a fantasy night starting with his house which you can see looks like it’s straight out of “Interview with a Vampire.”  What a great, great professor, political strategist, and all around excellent fucking guy. Who has the foulest mouth you’ll ever hear. And the students, being from New Orleans, absolutely love him for it.

You can read about Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock bemoaning the sad state of college life these days in America, BUT … I can assure you students are still alive and kicking ass at Tulane. THEREFORE, that one night in New Orleans made the entire journey of rejection with my Trump editorial worth it in the end.

Yay.