Special: #MyScienceMay

Transcript

Jen (00:00:00)
Hello everybody, I’m Jen. Welcome to a very special episode of this podcast.
And if you’re wondering which podcast is this, well, we have a very special surprise in store for you.
So you know me as Jen from Let’s Talk SciComm. And as always, I’m joined by my wonderful co-host Michael. Hello Michael.

Michael (00:00:22)
Hello Jen, what is this extra special episode that you speak of?

Jen (00:00:27)
Well, also here today is Amelia and you know Amelia from… drumroll please.
Amelia, introduce yourself.

Amelia (00:00:35)
Hey team. As you know, I’m Amelia from Avid Research.
And I am stoked to be here for an incredibly special crossover episode with the wonderful team from Let’s Talk SciComm.

Michael (00:00:45)
That’s right, we’re here to tell you something very exciting that we’ve been planning and we’ve been working on together, which relates to an important aspect of STEM which is being part of a community, and collaborating and sharing ideas and working with people with different training and perspectives to our own.
The majority of science now happens as part of a collaboration. But it’s not always easy to interact with other people and make those connections. Even though we have things like social media, you might be new to social media and be a little bit unsure about how do I share my work with other people.

Amelia (00:01:26)
So some of you might remember last year Avid Research started the inaugural SciComm September, which sort of went off a little bit online… which was very cool. It’s how I met Jen, actually.
And, what we wanted to do is …we’re having a bit of a chat after that more like. There was some really good energy. There was some wonderful connections that were made. How can we lean into that and really emphasise, I guess, collaboration? We thought well, obviously leading by example is a good start, so we’ll collaborate with the two podcasts.
And what we’re hoping is that by creating another awesome social media challenge, we’ll be able to help you all foster some awesome cross-pollination of ideas, energy and knowledge and create some more collaborations just like this one.

Jen (00:02:25)
I am so excited to be working with you both. So following from SciComm September, this time we have a new hashtag for you. The hashtag is #MyScienceMay. So you guessed it, it’s happening in May. And what’s going to happen is we’ve got 12 prompts for you that are going be coming out. And there’s gonna be one prompt for each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in May.
Because what we want to do is provide you with enough support to give you prompts to think about what you might share on social media, and to help you make new connections across the world of STEM. But we don’t want it to be a chore, so we’re not going to make you do it everyday, just three times a week. So each morning we’ll be sharing that day’s prompt if it’s a Monday, Wednesday or Friday on both Let’s Talk SciComm social media accounts and Avid Podcast social media accounts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Then we’d love you to respond to our prompt using the hashtag MyScienceMay. And basically, we just can’t wait to see you getting out there and being active on social media, making you new connections, thinking of new collaborations you might like to be part of. And if you can’t wait to start thinking about what you might share, we’ll be giving you a sneak peek of all of the prompts for May tomorrow, so please keep your eye out on both of our accounts to see what excitement we have planned for you.

Michael (00:03:39)
Fantastic! And look, you might have always wondered what you know, other people are doing 3 doors down from the room that you sit in in your office. It’s not always easy to know what’s happening around us. So I think this is a a great way of kind of reaching out and connecting and learning more about what other people are doing.
And I will say as well: if you are not experienced in social media that this is actually perfect for you, because it’s a great way to get started, having these prompts to share about what you’re working on is a great way to begin on social media, I would say.

Amelia (00:04:22)
Definitely, and you don’t have to be a researcher. You don’t even really have to be a scientist. We are all about gate opening here, not gatekeeping.
Anyone who is related to STEM or who can help STEM people collaborate, make things happen. If you’re in industry, that’s always awesome.
Everyone is welcome and we’d really love to see what you’re doing right now and what you want to do in the future and who you want to do it with.

Jen (00:04:53)
Absolutely. So please help us spread the word because the more people who get involved with this, the more fun we’re going to have and the more new friends we’re going to make online.
So we can’t wait to get to know you and we will see you online in May!