Book Report: What I learned from Connection: Hollywood Storytelling meets Critical Thinking

Connection: Hollywood Storytelling meets Critical Thinking, by Randy Olson, Dorie Barton and Brian Palermo

Scientists work with ever-more complex technical data, tools and theories to address important challenges in the world. And public support is critical to ensure this work moves forward. But scientists often find it difficult to connect with the public, especially when problems are complex and emotionally-charged. Therefore, we need to look broadly for new approaches to bridge this gap, and Hollywood-style storytelling can help!

I have been a big fan of Randy Olson, PhD scientist turned filmmaker, ever since I read his first book, Don’t be Such a Scientist, in 2009.  I have recommended and/or physically given copies of that book to more people than I can remember. My own copy has a big hole burned through the cover after I put it in front of a LCD projector lamp during a communication workshop in Nairobi five years ago.

This book has been around the world with me!

Although I had already worked with scientists for more than ten years when I read it, I learned a lot about the culture of science when it comes to communication within that community. It explains why scientists have the instincts and practices they have, and then tells them in no uncertain terms why those won’t work with the public. The chapter titles are good indications of what I want my scientist friends to hear from one of their own!

• Don’t be so cerebral
• Don’t be so literal-minded
• Don’t be such a poor storyteller (my favorite!)
• Don’t be so unlikeable
• Be the Voice of Science

It is an excellent, excellent book, and one that I still recommend and give as a gift to my favorite new scientists!

But back to Connection.  

No scorches or scars yet, but lots of notes!

This new book goes more deeply into storytelling as a key communication practice that has the ability to cut through all the distractions of our modern world. 

Working with Hollywood-type co-authors Barton and Palermo, Olson acknowledges that there are intuitive and cerebral approaches to storytelling, but believes there is an element of science to stories that work. He proposes a Word – Sentence – Paragraph (WSP) structure to get us started.

Find an evocative word that captures the core theme of the message to be shared. That part is pretty easy actually.

Then tell your story in a sentence that gives one fact AND then another, BUT introduces a point of conflict or contradiction, before resolving with a THEREFORE statement that can resolve the tension.  I recently shared this And-But-Therefore template with a group of nutrition experts at the end of a very intensive two-days workshop here in Singapore, encouraging them to think about summarizing their experiences in a word, and then a sentence. For example, “My job is focused on this challenge AND I usually approach it this way, BUT at this workshop I learned about successful experiences of others using different tools, THEREFORE I’m going to explore this area more.” It’s a perfect one-sentence summary for the seatmate on the airpline home and the boss back at the office. 

The third part of the WSP structure is creating a more detailed paragraph-long journey from the beginning of our story, through the challenge, and on to resolution. The ‘logline’ tool, long-used in Hollywood scriptwriting, is co-opted as a tool to make it easier for our audiences to navigate through our sometimes dense technical material into a story not unlike the classic ‘hero’s journey.’ As script consultant Dorie Barton puts it:

In an ordinary world…. A flawed protagonist gets their life upended when a catalytic event happens. After taking stock, the hero commits to action. But when the stakes get raised, the hero must learn the lesson in order to stop the antagonist, so the hero can achieve their goal. 

She breaks this classic storyline – which has informed countless novels, plays and movies – into 9 key elements. Any of us can use them to organize our message into a story that will capture our audience’s attention. And keep it. 

The final section of the book is written by improv actor Brian Palermo, and focuses on the more physical aspects of connecting with an audience. He explains how learning improvisation techniques can help us craft our stories by fostering creativity, and how improv can help us to be more relatable and therefore deliver our stories more effectively. It’s more about being relatable than it is about being funny. Anybody know of an improv class in Singapore? 

These are good books! And you should read them!! But you may not have time to do it right now. Therefore, I urge you to at least check out Randy Olson’s 2009 TEDMED talk (10 minutes) which focuses on the key elements.  

Enjoy!! 

Jill Kuehnert

Roads, refrigerators and the importance of wet markets

Two news items last Friday afternoon reminded me that there’s a lot more complexity to the world of agriculture and food than my own experience of it, especially in Asia and Africa.

1. Reuters reported on a new study from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for the Copenhagen Consensus Center. It calculates enormous benefits to reducing hunger and malnutrition from what might seem like an unlikely source: better roads and refrigerators (cold storage to keep food from spoiling). I’ve spent many hours bumping over roads and stuck in traffic across Asia and Africa, tending to dwell primarily on the inconvenience to me and where I want to go.  But all of that time also has an impact on the availability and affordability of important food products in developing countries, because of the cost of transportation and high rates of spoilage before it even gets to a market. 

According to the Copenhagen Consensus Center, the needed investments in road, rail and electrical infrastructure:

… will cost $240B over the next 15 years but reduce the number of hungry people by 57m, and avoid malnourishment of 4m children. This generates $13 of economic benefits.

2. The other report I saw, which came from another one of the terrific family of international agriculture research centers, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), calls attention to the importance of the ubiquitous ‘fresh markets’ (or ‘wet markets’) that are found in every village across Asia and Africa. 

Commonly found in the form of open air pavilions housing a collection of small stalls, these informal markets sell fresh fruit and vegetable produce, as well as fresh poultry, meat and seafood. They are usually chaotic and very ‘fragrant’. Before I moved to Asia, I’d only ever seen meat wrapped tidily in plastic, well-chilled or frozen in a supermarket. But here whole or half-butchered animals often hang near a small portion of meat available to purchase. Sometimes a fan has been rigged with small ribbons overhead to keep the flies off.  

This important (and fascinating) research shows firstly, just how important fresh markets are for income generation and food security in developing areas. The second key finding is that policies designed to ensure the safety of food available in informal markets must be very carefully crafted and implemented so that they do not cause more harm than benefit. According to ILRI:

...A new compilation of 25 studies in Africa finds that informal markets provide essential sources of food and income for millions of poor, with milk and meat that is often safer than supermarkets.

Misguided efforts to control the alarming burden of food-related illnesses in low-income countries risk intensifying malnutrition and poverty — while doing little to improve food safety. Blunt crack-downs on informal milk and meat sellers that are a critical source of food and income for millions of people are not the solution. 

More reasons to want good roads, more reasons to support wet markets!

It’s a presentation! It’s a document! No, it’s a slidedoc!!

The new Slidedoc tool can be helpful in organizing complex information for maximum impact -- an important goal in communications and advocacy for technology, agriculture, food and international development work.

About six months ago, I came across an interesting new communication design approach – Slidedocs --  from my favorite guru on this topic, Nancy Duarte, author of Resonate and Slide:ology.

At the time, I was studying Resonate for the second or third time. Her call to tune our messages so that they resonate with the audience, rather than trying to tune them to us, has become part of the bedrock of my own communication philosophy, as has her idea of taking the audience on a journey that moves them from one way of being to another.

Duarte makes a clear distinction between oral presentations that activate, motivate and engage people, and report documents intended to convey information and facts more exhaustively. Presenters sometimes try to do both, and accomplish neither.  Garr Reynolds, my other presentation guru, refers to presentation slides containing too many words as ‘slideuments’, to be avoided at all costs. Audiences cannot listen while reading.  

However, Duarte’s new concept of slidedocs is built on a recognition that complex topics in today’s fast-moving world need to be organized in ways that are easy to grasp and refer to quickly. Because it fosters an ‘at-a-glance’ succinct format and use of visual elements, presentation software can be helpful in achieving that. 

Duarte's Slidedocs website explains the tool and offers a free 160-page e-book that describes the rationale and step-by-step advice for writing, designing and delivering a slidedoc. You can also download two free templates for making your own slidedoc in Powerpoint.

A slidedoc is a document

• created using presentation software
• where visuals and words unite to illustrate one clear point per page
• intended to be read and referenced, instead of projected

Slidedocs are designed to be easily skimmed, read, shared, and referred to (especially electronically). Think of it as a ‘pre-read’ or ‘leave-behind’ on steroids, with a structure and look & feel that is complementary to more cinematic slides that are optimized for in-person delivery.

From http://www.duarte.com/slidedocs/

The slidedoc approach can be helpful in organizing complex information for maximum impact -- an important goal for those of us involved in communications and advocacy for technology, agriculture, food and international development work.

Last year, a client asked me to prepare a report for one of their flagship projects, operating in several countries for several decades with important impacts on the lives those they serve. There were so many possible ways of organizing this material that I got stuck trying to decide how to organize the sections in my Word document. 

So I spent a day plugging some of the text into one of the Duarte slidedoc templates, along with pictures and graphs that I’d gathered during the research. After just a few hours of work, the client and I were stunned to see how the words came to life with a completely fresh energy in this format. I could easily see how the pieces of our story fit together most powerfully, as well as the places where we went into too much detail, or not enough. 

Of course, many reports will eventually be given to graphic designers for publication, but for a writer or project manager, developing a slidedoc as an interim step can identify ways to boost the impact of material in the meantime.

Interestingly, about the time that I was reading up and playing around with this tool, I found the annual reports from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), which appear to use the slidedoc design approach. It is highly visual, and even though it’s pretty long and text-intense, I find it easy to skim and navigate both in hard copy and electronically.

GAIN's Slidedoc-style Annual Reports

A well-organized slidedoc can build understanding, support and broader awareness for our work, and we need all the help we can get!

Gates’ big bet in farming increases the odds that poverty will lose

This week the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released their annual letter.  In it, they make a ‘big bet’ that the lives of the poor could improve more in the next 15 years than at any other time in history. 

As we’d expect from those who bet on the transformative potential of personal computing 40 years ago -- and then made a bet that their wealth could make important differences the world when they established the Foundation fifteen years ago --  this big bet is based on a lot of data. 

It’s also based on hope that a few key accomplishments in development will trigger others. One of those areas is particularly close to my heart – Farming.

The Gates Letter headline in this section is “Africa will be able to feed itself”.  Increasing the yields of staple crops, such as maize, will feed people directly but also enable farmers to grow a greater variety of food.  Nutritious vegetables, eggs, milk and meat are crucial sources of micronutrients, which will also help achieve the Letter’s first goal of decreasing child deaths.  The Letter focuses on the importance of agricultural extension to help farmers, especially women farmers, get better information about how and when to plant.

In short video about his own bet for the future, Harvard’s Calestous Juma eloquently goes even further in connecting agricultural technology innovations with a growing potential for young African entrepreneurs. In turn, they will contribute not only to Africa’s food security and economy, but to the world at large. 

For my part, I’ve had the honor of working with many dedicated people in nutrition and agriculture research organizations that have received grants from the Gates Foundation in pursuit of healthier, hardier crop varieties.  The Foundation’s sustained vision, attention and investments, even when faced with inevitable research and policy challenges, makes it possible for the rest of us to make our own contributions to the ‘big bet’.   

So here’s my little voice, added to those of Bill & Melinda Gates, Calestous Juma and other global citizens:  Let’s all do our part to make sure that the lives of the poor improve faster in the next 15 years than ever before. 

Jill Kuehnert

How do you say 'I don’t know'? That’s a good question!

This week’s episode of the very excellent Freakonomics podcast is a fascinating quest to understand why so many people – especially experts in interviews – begin their answers by saying “That’s a good question.”

Host Stephen Dubner looks at a couple of possibilities. Experts commonly learn to say “That’s a great question” in media training. Why? To buy a little time to think about their answer, or to bridge to a response that leads to a different topic. Some people may just say it out of habit or to flatter their interviewer.  For others it is a genuine expression of admiration for the thoughtfulness of the question.  

Dubner even talks to Charlie Rose about this phenomenon in a delightful little segment that also emphasizes the importance of preparing good questions to foster genuine interaction. Also, we learn to notice President Obama’s verbal tics (“Look…” and “Listen…”) when he think the question he’s being asked is not a great one! I highly recommend listening to the entire episode.

I think people often say “That’s a good question” as another way of saying “I don’t know”. How to say I don’t know is routinely one of the most popular segments of communication training I give to science communicators and policy advocates here in Asia and Africa. We’re all uncomfortable when we’re asked a question we don’t know the answer to, and experts most of all. 

What I teach is based on the principles of risk communication, as I was taught years ago by Dr. Vince Covello.

1.       Repeat the question, without repeating any negative allegations that may have been in the question. For example, if the question refers to  a claim of danger reported in a new paper,  

“You’ve asked me about…(a specific aspect of the safety of …).”

2.       Say you don’t know.

“I wish I could answer that”

“My ability to answer that is limited by…(my expertise in a different area).”

“I don’t know”

3.       Say why you can’t answer.

“We’re still looking into that.”

“I don’t have that information.”

4.       Provide a follow-up, with a deadline if possible.

“I expect to be able to tell you more by….”

“I will ask the expert on that specific topic to respond to you....”

5.       Bridge to what you can say

“What I can tell you is….”

Of course, you can always just say “That’s a great question” and then go on to bridge to another topic. The risk communication approach can still be a little awkward, requiring some practice beforehand and courage in the moment. But going through the step of explaining why you can’t answer the specific question that was asked -- and committing to follow-up with more information --  builds  trust and credibility more than bridging directly to the answer you can give. 

Next question??

Jill Kuehnert