- Home
- About
- Book
- Introduction
- Ch. 1: Business
- Ch. 2: Fundamental Theorem
- Ch. 3: Sales
- Ch. 4: Relationship Building
- Ch. 5: Branding
- Ch. 6: Archetypes
- Ch. 7: Consumers
- Ch 8: Our Products
- Ch. 9: Proposals & Figures
- Ch. 10: Papers & Conferences
- Ch. 11: Giving Talks
- Ch. 12: Internet
- Ch. 13: The Public & the Govt.
- Ch. 14: Science Itself
- Ch. 15: Starting a Movement
- Further Reading
- Workshop
- More Useful Links
Dear Colleagues,
Last year, I made three science-marketing new years resolutions: clean my desk, spruce up my webpage, and launch a citizen science project. The desk and the webpage—let’s say they are still works in progress. But I am proud to say that this week is the launch of DiskDetective.org, a new citizen science project where volunteers can help me and my team sort through data from NASA’s WISE telescope to find disks where planets form and hide. Disk Detective is a new collaboration between NASA and Zooniverse and, I hope, a seed of progress here towards a more open Federal government.
And, gee whiz, launching a new citizen science project was much harder than I anticipated.
First, there was the challenge of coming up with a project. I tend to feel that anywhere there is big data, there is a place for crowdsourcing. But humans have limits; the amount of data processing to be crowdsourced can’t be too large to manage or too small to be consequential. People’s time must not be wasted duplicating a task that machines can do better. We had to find the right balance and a way to make the task interesting but intuitive. But I am lucky to be working with a talented science team, with experts in infrared surveys like Deborah Padgett, Luisa Rebull, Mike McElwain, and John Debes who made short work of this astrophysical brain teaser.
Then there was the matter of finding funding for the project. First we applied to the usual NASA ROSES programs—for three years in a row we submitted 15-page proposals to the Astrophysical Data Analysis Program and to the Origins program, to no avail. One year we also applied to a NASA Planetariums program and to a Sloan Foundation program. We finally found enough funding to get the project off the ground through the Goddard Science Innovation Fund.
Then there were the many colleagues whom we had to convince that this was a worthwhile adventure. Nearly all had heard of the notion of “citizen science”. But most thought that citizen science was some kind of outreach or education. I had to explain to them that no, we are not launching some kind of make-work or “fun” science activity to entertain children. We are doing unique, novel, far-reaching science intended for publication in the literature.
Other colleagues had the opposite reaction: you’re taking away work from us professionals, work that we should be funded for! Now I had to remind people that part of what’s great about science is that as a community, we aim to pursue the best research methods, even if that means we enjoin people outside our usual community to perform the research with us.
And who does this volunteer work on Zooniverse and other sites? Surely, said my colleagues, it’s crazy people, obsessive-compulsive types. Or maybe it’s careless kids with short attention spans. Either way, the results could not be trusted. No, I explained. The bulk of the classifications are done by people who spend maybe an hour at a time working on the site, not by dabblers or obsessives. And we combine the results from multiple volunteers to generate robust classifications for every subject. And by the way, groups of professional astronomers are also subject to fatigue and biases when they try to make sense of vast libraries of images. With Zooniverse, we have enough manpower to search for and calibrate out many of these human errors.
Best of all, I told my colleagues, when you’re working with so many eager volunteers, there’s a chance they might invent or discover something that you didn’t expect. There’s a chance that they might be smarter than you! When I suggested this possibility, my most ornery colleagues usually shut up in a hurry, and probably went off muttering under their breath.

Anyway, I am proud and excited to have arrived at this day. I’ve sometimes wondered why I’m lucky enough to be employed by our citizens to work at NASA—how exactly do taxpayers benefit when I write another paper in the Astrophysical Journal on a topic they might find esoteric? I can certainly think of indirect benefits. But right now, I’m certain I’m doing something well matched to the role of NASA scientist: enabling the people of the U.S. enjoy the fruits of a NASA telescope, not just showing them pretty pictures, but including them in the process, the adventure of scientific research that I thirst for.
So I hope you have a moment to try DiskDetective.org and share it with your students. You might catch yourself thinking about how citizen scientists can help you with your research. The site is not perfect: the day before launch and we’re still fixing typos (and a random link to a scientology site that somehow crept in there!). But the science and the joy of collaboration are very real. There may be obstacles to launching a project like this, but I can already say it’s worth it for the excitement I’m feeling today.
Best,
Marc Kuchner
Twenty thirteen was another topsy-turvy year for scientists in the U.S. Many of us spent a good part of the year dealing with budgets slashed by sequestration. Government scientists, including last year’s Nobel laureates, spent October 1-16 on furlough. This year’s Nobel laureates were overheard telling their students that they would have better luck building a career if they left the country.
At the same time, 2013 saw shifts in the nature of our marketing tools, as social media outlets edged closer to market saturation. Teens began abandoning Facebook for Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. Popular Science turned off the comments on its online articles, to combat a “politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise”.
Despite these challenges, scientists kept on keeping on, finding creative new ways to market our work—new insights into our customers and their needs. Here’s a list of my favorite science marketing success stories of 2013. Let’s drink a toast to our colleagues who came up with these plans, and to ourselves for continuing to make new Earth-shattering discoveries this year. Here’s 2012’s list, and 2011’s for comparison.
purchase Pregabalin #5 Shot By Shot: Stories of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
Sick and tired of misinformed parents and lawmakers who rail against vaccination based on weak, anecdotal evidence? Vaccines protect us from meningitis, polio, and hepatitis, and a range of other horrible diseases; the statistics are clear. But for those who don’t prefer to think about numbers, ShotByShot.org is collecting anecdotes—stories told on video—from people whose lives were changed by horrible vaccine-preventable diseases. In 2013, storytelling remains a crucial marketing tool, and scientists are catching on.
http://nonprofit-success.com/tag/change-your-life/ #4 Climate Name Change
Why do terrible hurricanes bear the names of nice people? Glad your name doesn’t happen to be Sandy or Katrina? ClimateNameChange aims to right this wrong, petitioning the World Meteorological Organization to name storms after prominent Climate Change Deniers. Their hysterical, viral video (2.7 million views) shows newscasters tracking hurricanes named for Senators Marco Rubio and David Vitter. Add your signature here to the list of more than 100,000 signatures they have collected so far.
#3 ComSciCon
This new series of workshops, launched by Harvard and MIT graduate students, teaches graduate students to become better communicators. The first ComSciCon, held in June, 2013, focused on writing. The 2014 workshop, June 12th – 14th at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center focuses on speaking. And get this: the founders scraped up enough funding that workshops are not merely free; they come with travel reimbursement. So there are no excuses not to apply.
#2 The Biotechnology and Life Science Advising (BALSA) Group
Many graduate programs talk about the importance of non-academic career paths. But graduate school remains an ivory tower experience for most. BALSA is working to change that situation in a unique and powerful way. This non-profit organization sends Washington University in St. Louis students and postdocs out into thebusiness community to serve as consultants and gain experience working with local startups. The startups receive help with market analysis, technology due diligence, and other tasks that demand research skills. The students network with industry professionals–and learn to think about Customer Needs and Market Receptivity. Mmm…customer needs!
#1 Citizen Science reaches the White House
It’s been 114 years since the first Audobon society bird count, and six years since launch of Galaxy Zoo. And now the federal government has come to see the importance of involving laypeople as participants in scientific progress. The new open Govenment action plan, released this December, fosters “incentive prizes, citizen science, and crowdsourcing to harness American ingenuity”. In concert with this plan, the White House recognized twelve leaders of citizen science this June for increasing public engagement in science and science literacy. I think citizen participation in science is an ideal way to heal the rift between scientists and the rest of the country that’s been spreading since World War II. Now that this movement catching on inside the beltway, maybe we’ll see more and more Americans in 2014 getting involved in doing science themselves.
Last week, I posted the first half of my interview with advocacy expert Stephanie Vance about how scientists can influence members of Congress. Here, in the second half, Vance goes into more detail about what to bring when you visit your legislator, what to say, and how to prepare.
Everybody walking into a legislator’s office has an “ask”–the favor you want the legislator to do for you, and the reason for your being there. Stephanie talks a bit here about different kinds of “asks”. I think her advice (always make the ask!) supersedes the advice I gave in Marketing for Scientists about asks.
Props, Pictures, and One-Sheets
MK: I often recommend that scientists use props as marketing tools. What do you think?
SV: Well, yeah. I think that works very well in the scientific community. For other advocates, it’s pictures. We do a lot of work with the American Library Association. If you’re a librarian, you bring in a picture from your library of kids sitting around a story circle or kids reading to dogs or people standing in line at the computer terminals or something that really tells the story.
Sometimes people bring props that actually work against their message. I remember when I was working on Capitol Hill, and someone was trying to make a point about clear cutting in forests. They were trying to say, “Hey, there’s a lot of stuff that’s cut out of forests and a lot of trees, and we brought you a board foot of timber.”
I was like, “OK, so you cut down a tree [laughs] to make the point that we shouldn’t cut down trees.”
MK: I see–it can’t just be a random thing. The prop has to contain the story that you want to tell. It’s also common to bring a “one sheet” to a meeting with your senator or representative—a handout they can keep that summarizes your key points. What do you tell people to put on their one sheets?
SV: What goes on a one sheet…
First, your mission. This may be two sentences on what your organization is and a sentence on how it connects back to the legislator’s district.
Too many people go into a legislator’s office and don’t ask for something.
The ask. Too many people go into a legislator’s office and they don’t ask for something, and that just begs a conversation that is, “Well, thank you for your thoughtful research on climate change. I agree that climate change is important, and I will be working with my colleagues in the Congress to address important issues that relate to whether the global warming trend is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” If you don’t make the ask, you won’t get a very specific answer to your concern.
I’d say include one paragraph on why you think that ask is important and why it matters. I’d say two or three one? or two?sentence examples that relate again back to the legislator’s district. If you can make those examples pretty, with pictures, that is very helpful as well. Then include you contact information, “If you have more questions about this, here’s how you get back to us.”
MK: Interesting! I had heard elsewhere that representatives are tired of scientists asking for stuff. They assume when you walk in the door that you’re going to ask them for money. How do you get around that when you’re asking?
There are relationship-building asks and there are policy asks.
SV: I hear that a lot, like, “Oh, you don’t want to always ask them for something. Sometimes you’re there just to educate them or build relationships.” I think that’s true, but the way I think about it is there are relationship building asks and there are policy asks. You always have, in the back of your mind, a policy ask. Let’s be honest. You’re in there to ask for money or ask for a program not to be cut, most of the time–that’s a policy ask.
If you’re feeling like the office is like, “OK, God, stop asking us for this money, it’s a difficult economic time, we’re not sure if we’re going to be able to get it for you,” that’s when I think relationship-building asks are important. You ask them to come visit the facility, ask them to come to a scientific meeting where you’re presenting a paper, to ask them to spend a little time talking to the other researchers that you’ve worked with, to ask them to have a meeting in the district, something that’s still an ask but is not constantly, “Give us this money.”
When you make the ask, you switch the little switch in their head that says, “I have to pay some attention.” Constantly going in and saying, “Hi, I’m here to educate you,” those words come out of your mouth in any form and the legislator and staff are going to be like, “Oh, good, it’s education, I don’t really have to pay attention to what you’re saying. I can think about all the 15 other decisions that we have to make in this particular day.”
[For more about relationship-building asks, see this article.]
Say, “Imagine a World In Which…”
MK: Some of the lobbying techniques that you recommend are really about connecting your subject to everyday life, right? What do you do if you’re working on the Higgs boson?
SV: [laughs] Yeah, it’s hard in the scientific community, and I actually worked for a member of Congress who was on the Energy and Congress Committee. There was a lot of discussion about DARPA and the scientific programs that were looking at very basic research that was not necessarily going to apply very specifically to something that would benefit mankind immediately. Those were always difficult arguments to make. I think for the scientific community it’s sometimes about capturing the imagination. One of the things I talk about in The Influence Game is capturing the ideological high ground. I think that for those longer?term projects, it’s all about figuring out a way to say, “Imagine of a world in which…” DARPA’s a good example. “Imagine a world in which everyone can communicate wirelessly. There’s no cords connected to anything if everyone is operating over the spectrum.”
MK: You’ve told me some good tips about how to handle a meeting with a member of congress—to lobby yourself. Now, when’s the time for scientists to go out hire lobbyists, and how do you do it?
SV: I think that most scientists can actually connect with an organization that’s already doing lobbying in Washington, D.C., or with their facility that they’re working at. There is pretty much an association for every branch of science that you could imagine [laughs] on Capitol Hill. Also, if you’re associated with a University, if it’s a large University, usually they do have a lobbyist as well that’s looking at all the different programs in the University and talking to the local elected officials about that.
How to Hire A Lobbyist
MK: OK. Say you’re the head of a new lab that’s got 100 people in it or something like that, so you’re representing a large group and you have a decent budget, bot no representation yet. What’s the next move for you in terms of getting representation on Capitol Hill?
SV: If you don’t have a group in D.C. or if you feel like they aren’t adequately representing your interests and you want to hire a lobbyist, one of the first things I would do is go to some of the websites that list lobbyists. There is the American League of Lobbyists and they have a directory of lobbyists. I’d also suggest going to the House and Senate lobbying reports and if you just type in “House Lobbying Reports” into Google or a search engine of your choice, you can find who is already lobbying on particular issues. That will give you a good sense of some of the firms that are already working on the issues you care about and it allows you to check to see who is lobbying for your competitors.
MK: How much does it cost?
SV: I’ll tell you what, you can get someone, anywhere from $1000 a month to simply look at bills and tell you what’s going on and help you figure out what your next steps are to a $100,000 a month to take on your full campaign and to unleash a cadre of lobbyists onto Capitol Hill [laughs] to get as many offices talking about your issue or sometimes are not talking about it, as they possibly can. It really runs the gamut.
MK: Right. Are there any other websites that you recommend for scientists to look at to help them prepare an approach to Capitol Hill?
SV: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I talk about is how it’s so important to know your audience. They can go to congress.gov, they look up their legislator, and they see what bills he or she has introduced. Even if it’s nothing related to science or anything that scientists care about, it’s always good to know what the legislator cares about because it’s going to help them frame their message.
MK: Right.
SV: Then I suggest that they go a website like OpenSecrets.org, which helps them see who has contributed to a legislator’s campaign. Now, I hate it when people think that it’s appropriate to walk into a legislator’s office and say, “Hey, I saw so and so contributed to your campaign and so you should do x, y, z for me.” That’s not only illegal but it makes the staff and the member less likely to do what it is that you want them to do. That said, it is good to see that they contributed to legislator’s campaign because it gives you a sense of what issues interests them and you’ll see a very strong connection between who the legislator represents and who is contributing to the campaign.
It’s always good to know what their job was before they came to D.C.
I also suggest VoteSmart.org, because that’s a great website to get some biographical information on the legislator. It’s always good to know what their job was before they came to D.C. Were they a state legislator? Did they come from a small business background? Were they a consultant, were they a scientist, were they a doctor? If you know that background information, again, it can help you frame your message.
That website also has ratings from various groups, so a lot of groups will look at a legislator’s voting record and say, “Hey, we think he was 96 percent with us,” or, “We think he was three percent with us.” For example, if you’re trying to look at climate change, you might look and see what some of the energy and environment?related interest groups’ scores are, so that can give you a sense of what perspective they might come to the issue from.
_____________________________________________________________________
And don’t miss Stephanie Vance’s own website, with funny and useful articles like “Ten Things Not to Say While You’re Advocating.”
Speaking as a citizen of the United States, I can say that right now I am not happy with our Congress. If you’re in the U.S.A., I bet you’re not either. So I’d like to offer you an interview with advocacy expert Stephanie Vance about how we scientists can influence our legislators.
Vance started her career as a legislative aid in a DC law firm. She went on to work as a lobbyist for National Public Radio, as legislative director for Congresswoman Eshoo from California, and then chief of staff for Congressman Earl Blumenauer from Portland, Oregon. After a while, she realized that “I’m the person who people would come in and advocate at, and sometimes they would do it efficiently and effectively and sometimes not so much.” Since then, she’s written five books on advocacy, including Citizens in Action: A Guide to Lobbying and Influencing Government and her most recent book, The Influence Game: 50 Insider Tactics from the Washington D.C. Lobbying World that Will Get You to Yes. And for twelve years, now, Vance has run a business called Advocacy Guru helping people communicate with Congress and state legislators—so they will “not just be heard but agreed with”.
Let’s get to it.
Lobbying is Marketing
MK: So your father was a physicist?
SV: Yes, my dad was an optical physicist. He was, like many scientists, always believing that if he told people the most logical argument, that here’s Problem A and Solution B is obviously the thing that solves that, that’s what people should do. But logic never works on Capitol Hill. I think the scientific community always has a challenge in terms of recognizing that while their solution may actually be the best after extensive testing, on Capitol Hill you need to make your arguments in a different way.
MK: What would you say is the difference between lobbying and marketing?
SV: I would say there is virtually no difference. [laughs] Like in your book, Marketing for Scientists, you talk a lot about the structure of how to develop a marketing effort and really basic things like knowing what you want, knowing your audience, knowing how to develop a message. Those are just the basic tenets of lobbying. I think one of the key things of marketing is to try and talk about what you’re selling from the perspective of the person who’s buying it. In Washington, DC, we’re really selling ideas. We need to talk about that from the perspective of, again, the person buying that idea, which is usually a legislator or a staff person.
MK: Clearly, lobbying has a lot to do with relationship building. Do you ever talk about things like branding and positioning and things like that?
SV: I think that in the lobbying world, branding might relate to reputation. You want to brand yourself not just as an effective lobbyist or advocate; you want to brand yourself as a trustworthy one. That can be a challenge in Washington, D.C., although I don’t think it’s as challenging as people think it is. It’s really the exception rather than the rule when you’ll have any problem with someone being unethical.
MK: That’s great to hear.
SV: It’s true. Trust me.
MK: That’s a relief, at a time when Congress is obviously spending such a large fraction of its time in a stalemate.
Congress: It’s Like Having 535 People Peer Review Everything You Do
SV: Well, it’s true. I think people don’t realize that Congress is actually designed to be inefficient. It’s not a system that’s supposed to be constantly moving forward and that things are supposed to be getting done. The Founding Fathers actually set it up so that it would be very, very difficult to move legislative initiatives through the process. It’s very hard to get a member of Congress from very rural Alabama to agree with a member of Congress from urban New York. I think people a lot of times say, “Well, we want them to abandon what it is their districts want and come to agreement from a broader leadership perspective,” but that’s not what Congress does, especially the House. Both the House and the Senate are representative democracies, and they’re supposed to be representing the interests of their constituents. As you see the country more and more divided, that’s why you see Congress more and more divided. For the scientific community, I like to say it’s like trying to have 535 people peer?review everything you do.
MK: When you work with people who have come to DC to visit their representatives, how do you help them prepare for the meetings?
When you walk in the door, you’ll meet a 14-year old staff person….They’re all 14. Your first words should be, either “I’m from your district” or “I represent people in your district”.
SV: Well, that’s a good question. We call them grassroots advocates—the people who are coming from around the country to meet with their legislators.
When you walk in the door, you will probably meet a 14?year?old staff person. Don’t be all insulted when that happens. They’re all 14. Your very first words should be, either, “I’m from your district,” or “I represent people in your district. I’m here to ask you about this program. Here’s how it connects back to the district.”
Then you continue the conversation, “Oh, by the way, I saw you introduce legislation on…” you know, something random, small whatever it is. Then you segue to your topic, keeping in mind how it affects the legislator’s district. “Small businesses are very concerned in how these contracts, or how these grants are given. I know that not only is it important to your constituency, but it’s important to a policy agenda you want to move forward. Will you support this particular level of funding in this particular program?”
Too often, people have all the facts and figures, they get nervous about them. They aren’t really sure, oh, what to say. “Oh, my god, I’m going to say the wrong number. Then, I’m going to screw up the funding for everybody on the planet.”
It’s not about whether you know all the facts and figures and statistics about the legislative process.
But the role of the grassroots advocate is really to make the connection between the crazy stuff in DC and back to the Congressional District. It’s not about whether you know all the facts and figures and statistics about the legislative process. That’s what the lobbying community is for.
MK: Are you likely to be able to get a meeting with a staff person from a representative from outside your district?
SV: If you can make a connection to the legislator’s district. If you’re a scientist and you are trying to deliver this message about how you want to keep a particular program funded, I would say you need to look at that legislator’s district, you need to look at whether any of the funding has gone to that district, whether there’s any university in the district that’s contributing to the research, whether there’s any facility in the district that sells some product that you need to conduct the research—anything that is even remotely connected to that funding level. Then, if you contact the Congressional office and say, “This particular widget in this district is very essential to this program. Whether this program is cut or not impacts you,” then you’ll have a, I’d say, maybe 60/40 chance.
It’s not enough to simply go to your representative and say, “Here’s the problem.” You have to propose a solution.
MK: OK let’s say you’re a scientist, and your models have just spat out some numbers predicting that something terrible is going to happen to the people of the United States. What would you say is your next step?
SV: I think the next step is to immediately develop a rocket and get off the planet. [laughs] Right after that, I think the step is to figure out very specifically what legislators can do to help solve that problem. It’s not just a matter of going to them and saying, “The world is ending. Hey, there you go, do something about it.” It’s really a matter of trying to figure out, OK, if the world is ending, what program can the federal government start, what policy change can they make, what provisions can they make for people to survive the destruction of the world. It’s not enough to simply go and say, “Here’s the problem.” You have to propose a solution.
_______________________________________________________________________
The interview with Stephanie will continue next week with more specific advice about influencing Congress—maybe the shutdown will be over by then!
(This article first appeared in Nature.)
Planetary scientist Heidi Hammel was at the telescope when Facebook alerted her to an important new target: a comet had just crashed into Jupiter.
“I learned about one of the impacts on Jupiter via Facebook while observing on Keck, and we were able to do immediate follow-up.”
It is no secret that more and more, scientists are using Facebook not just for outreach or for fun, but to do real, ground breaking, earth-shattering science.
But how does this work, exactly? There are so many websites devoted to science news and amateur science—but where do scientists go online to interact with their colleagues professionally? I asked my colleagues on the Marketing for Scientists Facebook group (mostly astronomers) to share their social networking tricks. I think their answers point to a fascinating shift in the social fabric of the scientific community.
The first “trick” I heard from my colleagues for harnessing social networks was the obvious one: if you have a lot of Facebook friends, you can have professional scientific discussions right on your wall. Angela Speck told me, “Since a significant fraction of my friends are scientists they do respond to science questions. And then the ensuing Wall discussion is like a chat over lunch.”
But it takes time and effort to build that long list of followers or friends, and then more effort keeping up with them and sorting through their status updates. Angela has more than 1100 Facebook friends, well above the median number (roughly 300). So that trick doesn’t work for everybody.
Facebook/LinkedIn Groups: A New Home for Science
Instead of building large contact lists themselves, more and more scientists are working with colleagues through a strange new underground network—Facebook groups. For example, Adam Burgasser told me,
“Our Low Mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs group has been a great place to post papers, promote astro apps, announce conferences, ask about a pesky references etc.”
Joining such a group is like instantly acquiring hundreds or thousands of high-powered new friends/followers. Burgasser said,
“I think such groups stimulate interest, facilitate feedback and provide quick answers to expert questions.”
I took a closer look at Facebook groups in astronomy to see how they work and how they manage to concentrate professional scientists. The “Astronomers” group seems to be the largest in the field, with over 7000 members—about as many as the American Astronomical Society (the largest U.S. professional organization for astronomers). I also found groups for Exoplanet Imaging, the Submillimeter Array, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory Users Committee, Jobs for Astronomers, and many other groups populated strictly by professionals.
These professional groups are mixed in, of course, with groups like “I Fucking Love Science” which is fun, but not meant for professional scientific discussions. So the information page for the Astronomers group contains a serious warning to non-professionals. “*****Note to people requesting to join***** This is an informal group intended for *professional astronomers*. For membership requests to be accepted, you must have a “web presence” that indicates you are involved in some aspect of professional astronomy.”
I myself spend most of my social networking time on Facebook or Twitter. But LinkedIn groups are also a fertile home for scientific research. As Mark Eisner told me,
“In my field of hydrogeology, or more generally environmental consulting, I belong to 50. So much I cannot keep up.”
Wanted: A Directory of Facebook Groups for Professional Scientists
Facebook and LinkedIn groups have become new incubators for scientific progress, important virtual places for scientists to work and to mingle. It sounds like a kind of online intellectual paradise. The trouble is: there’s no good directory of these groups of professional scientists on social networks. Your colleagues may remember to invite you to join, or they might not. The most reliable way to find the professional Facebook groups for scientists seems to be to “friend” lots of colleagues whose interests overlap with yours, and look at their Facebook pages to see what groups they belong to. Then you have to ask permission to join. Either that or you need to start your own group and hope one doesn’t exist already for the topic you chose.
You might call this system “informal” or you might see it as a kind of underground network—a circle of insiders that can needlessly exclude scientists with less web savvy.
Perhaps one day, the AAAS or another organization will maintain a directory of Facebook and LinkedIn groups where active professional scientific collaborations are taking place. It would take a bit of work to build this directory—to separate the groups of professionals from those meant for entertainment. But building such a directory would help young scientists meet established scientists, and help established scientists move into new fields where they don’t already have contacts.
In the meantime, the rise of this informal network of professional scientist groups makes it more clear than ever: in science, it matters who your friends are.
(Originally published in Nature.)
The hero, the outlaw, the caregiver—which one of these roles do you play when you’re at work? The theory of archetypes, originated by Carl Jung, fascinates me as a way to understand works of fiction, marketing campaigns, and also the roles we play in the academic workplace.
The theory explains how a short list of roughly twelve staple characters appears over and over in movies, novels, songs, and so on. These characters, like the hero, the outlaw, the sage, and the wizard, are so common that there must be something permanent about them; the characters live in our minds, waiting for an author to evoke them with a slight gesture or prop. Place a wand in the character’s hand, and he becomes a magician. Place a crown on his head, and he becomes a ruler.
The same thing can happen while you’re at work. Place a coffee pot in a woman’s hand and in the eyes of some beholders, she can become a caregiver. Trade that coffee pot for a pinstriped suit, and she becomes a ruler. When you’re watching a movie or reading a novel, the archetypes in your mind help you understand the writer’s shorthand and identify with the characters in the story. But the natural tendency of humans to see certain kinds of characters in everyone we meet affects many aspects of our daily lives.
I met with the Women in Astrophysics group at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in December to talk about the roles we play at work and at home. I chatted for two hours with this group of mostly junior scientists with PhDs in planetary science, astronomy or physics. We studied a list of twelve common archetypal characters (below) and we took turns telling each other what archetypes we saw in one another. Everyone filled out a short, anonymous survey form about archetypes, which I collected at the end. What I learned from this process surprised me.
Women scientists in my group aimed to display a wide range of archetypes at work, but they generally tried to avoid the “caregiver”.
I asked my female colleagues: what archetypes do you aim to display when you are at work? The answers covered a wide range: hero/warrior, outlaw, explorer, creator, sage, wizard. To me, these archetypes seem collectively well matched to the job of a scientist, who must do some exploring, some thinking, some overcoming of adversity and rebelling against the status quo, and maybe even appear to do a bit of magic. But none of my colleagues admitted to projecting the joker, the lover, the everyman/everywoman, or the innocent archetypes. And when I mentioned the caregiver archetype, my female colleagues seemed repulsed. Certainly they would try to avoid that!
In her 2004 book, Nice Women Don’t Get The Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers, Lois Frankel more or less warns women against projecting the caregiver archetype, suggesting that it hinders women’s careers. I suspect that the women in my group were heeding the warning from Lois Frankel and others to avoid playing the caregiver at work: to avoid making the coffee at meetings, to avoid keeping food in your office or decorating it with children’s drawings, and so on. Lois: we read you loud and clear.
Nonetheless, women scientists see one another as “caregivers”.
When we asked each other what archetypes we saw in one another, we heard a surprising answer, over and over. Almost all the women in my group found that their female colleagues saw them partly as caregivers—despite their efforts to avoid this role.
As you might imagine, discovering this trend made many of us uncomfortable and provoked some discussion. Now, as far as life experience goes, no one archetype is better than any other. Indeed, the theory says that you haven’t lived a full life until you’ve tried on all of those roles. But in the workplace, it’s a different story; you have to develop a personal brand that will take you to the next stage of your career. And it seems that young women in science—trying to avoid the “caretaker” label, but branded with it anyway—are generally struggling to define their images.
Just being a woman in science makes you a bit of a “hero”.
A third trend emerged from our discussion—a trend that may help with this struggle. We all agreed during our discussion that succeeding in science as a woman means overcoming some adversity. Well, the hallmark of the hero/warrior archetype is the ability to take on challenges and overcome adversity. Therefore, we all agreed, the hero/warrior archetype was associated to some degree with every woman in the academic workplace, intended or not.
What archetype do you aim to project at work? And what archetypes do your colleagues see in you? Do they match? Please write and let me know.
_____________________________________________________________________
Here’s a list of common archetypes and famous women who project them, adapted from The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes by Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson. See, for example, theherowithin.com.
- The Ruler: The Dean, the CEO, the boss. When you use your American Express card, you’ll feel like you’re in charge. Microsoft. Hillary Clinton. To play the ruler, wear expensive clothes, especially those with some shoulder padding. Try a fancy watch; the Rolex watch company even has a crown as its logo.
- The Creator: With Legos, you can build anything you can imagine. Home Depot. The Blue Man group. Apple. Google. Martha Stewart. To play the creator, aim to create tools for other people in your field to use, software you give away on your website, for example. Dress with a flourish that shows you are little bit different than everyone else.
- The Sage: The sage dispenses advice. The sage can be a regular pedant or a know-it-all, like Sheldon on the television show Big Bang Theory. But some sages are hip and kind, like Oprah Winfrey. Props that make the sage are books and papers—or perhaps an article in Inside Higher Ed giving tips on workplace strategies. The sage is a typical archetype for professors; in academia, you may have trouble avoiding it.
- The Outlaw: Outlaws can be good or bad, but either way, they hate authority and the status quo. If you want to feel like a rebel, you can wear black and leather, like a Harley Davidson leather jacket. Maybe try a tattoo. This archetype might make you unpopular with your stodgy department chair, but it sure sells books. Patti Smith.
- The Hero/Warrior: The hero is the character that faces challenges and overcomes adversity. Justice clothing for girls. The Army. Sally Ride. The rock singer Pink. I think this is a good archetype for someone competing on the job market—because it shows that you are ready to compete. (See above for more about the hero.)
- The Explorer: Always ready for adventure, the explorer is discontent to sit at home. Indiana Jones. Amelia Earhart. U2’s song, “Where the Streets Have No Name”. The explorer is a good archetype for geologists, anthropologists, and other academics who want to emphasize field work. To play the explorer, keep travel photos in your office, wear a backpack and ride in on a Jeep.
- The Wizard: The wizard creates real change seemingly out of nothing, and appears to command the supernatural, like Oil of Olay, or Lady Gaga. A good archetype for consultants.
The other archetypes on the list, not preferred by the women in my group for their office personas, are the Lover, the Innocent, the Caregiver, the Everywoman, and the Joker.
Studies show that how we dress generally affects what people think of our personalities and capabilities. For example, women are more likely to be hired if they wear more masculine clothes to an interview (such as a dress suit). People who wear conservative clothes are seen as self-controlled and reliable, while those who wear more daring clothing are viewed as more attractive and individualistic.
It seemed to me that scientists are unlikely to be immune to these biases. So last week I posted an interview with image consultant Kasey Smith, who offered me her professional advice about what image consultants do and how to dress to improve my image. To my delight, this interview received more comments than any of my previous posts. I learned quite a bit about my colleagues from these comments, and picked up several more good tips about clothing and fashion in the scientific world that I’d like to share with you today.
Scientists Dress Up for Interviews and for Meetings With Non-Scientists
It’s probably no surprise that we like to dress up when we give talks and when we want to impress non-scientist decision makers. “I think it’s very important to be cognizant of these kinds of things, especially when we meet with VIPs such as Provosts and University Presidents and the like, not to mention potential donors to the college or university,” said one department chair. So apparently there’s a time and a place to kick it up a notch and add that third piece, as Kasey suggested—perhaps a scarf or a jacket.
But Know Your Audience, and Don’t Overdo It.
So as a scientist, it seems you’ll probably need at least one formal outfit. But be aware that when you’re dressing to impress, it’s possible to overdo it. In one email, a biophysicist told me, “I’m more likely to believe the science of somebody wearing a nice pair of khaki pants and a shirt than somebody wearing the whole ‘CEO costume’”. In another email, an astronomy professor reminisced about watching a job candidate botch his interviews by failing to observe the casual dress code at the institution where he was interviewing. “He gave his talk in a suit, which in any other environment, would be perfectly appropriate. However given the laid back nature of [our institution], it was really overkill and actually was distracting.”
Also, if you’re planning to buy a special outfit for job interviews, remember what another scientist told me. “Once you’ve bought your clothes, wear them a couple of times before your interview. Clothes just out of the rack are rather stiff, and (at least to some of us) it’s very obvious when somebody is wearing a suit that he just bought.”
Some Scientists Use Consistent Signature Outfits to Brand Themselves
Another trick of some successful senior scientists is to use clothing to help boost their personal brands. “I have taken to wearing white. It is a way for people to easily recognize me,” said an astronomer who is also a filmmaker. “Everything I own is grey, black, or a pattern with both,” said a physics professor. I also heard from scientists who consistently wore Western wear and scientists who were proud of their tattoos.
Certainly, cultivating a distinctive look can help you connect with the public. “When I meet a scientist with say…Bobak Ferdowsi’s hair, I think I probably pay more attention,” said a postdoc. Ferdowsi served as flight director on the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity mission. You may remember how his remarkable mohawk won him reams of media attention when the cameras spotted him during the rover’s landing on Mars.
But Postdocs, Beware: The Wrong Image Can Turn Off Your Mentors
Personal branding is always important, and choosing recognizable clothing can help you create your brand. But if you are at the stage of your career where you mainly need to impress senior scientists to get your next job offer, it may be safer to dress conservatively. That’s you, postdocs. One senior planetary scientist told me that she takes the outfits of her colleagues very seriously. “You can get away with looking like Einstein if you ARE Einstein, and otherwise, you just look like a loser.”
Sometimes this message gets passed along gently to postdocs and graduate students. “When I really wasn’t in the mood to think about appearance and showed up in jeans and hoody or all black, people came and asked me if everything was ok,” said one researcher about her postdoc experience. Another postdoc told me that he felt like he fit in better with senior scientists when he dressed more like one. “Dressing like an ‘adult’,” he said “made me feel like an adult who was ready to be a professional scientist.”
But sometimes the communication doesn’t go as as smoothly. The senior scientist above told me, “A female [foreign] postdoc I had working for me who came to work dressed like a teenager on vacation, and complained that people weren’t taking her seriously — when I said something to her about it, she got VERY angry with me.”
Yes, your appearance does count, but there’s plenty for room for fun.
Charles Day commented on my interview with Kasey in a Physics Today blog post called “Dress for physics success!” To me, this article seemed to sum up some common misconceptions about scientists and clothing. “We wear what we like when we like. What matters is our work, not our appearance.”
The many comments I received on my interview with Kasey send a very different message: our appearances sometimes do matter to our scientific colleagues, even when it’s a reverse kind of bias, like a negative reaction to business suits.
But the good thing is that being a scientist—a senior one at least—comes with tremendous freedom to decide what image we would like to project. Dressing more formally may win us points in administrative and political circles. Wearing more daring clothing can help you make a strong impression with the public. Thankfully, there’s more than one way to do it right.
As one scientist from the Netherlands told me, “I think the biggest difference is made if your outfit shows that you take care of your clothes and yourself.” That sounds like good marketing advice. Thanks to everyone for the feedback!
P.S. For more thoughts about how women scientists should dress, you might enjoy this article about a double standard for men and women in science.
(This article originally appeared in Nature)
I went to a scientific talk the other day that seemed to leave half the audience inspired and the other half frustrated. My frustrated colleagues insisted that the speaker did not present any true “results”. However, he did make some fascinating predictions about what would be discovered ten or twenty years from now, predictions that may be crucial for marketing exercises and expensive experiments.
Was this a good talk or a bad talk? Science or marketing?
Maybe just it’s a matter of taste. Some of us will never be satisfied by a talk unless we see a hypothesis confidently confirmed or discarded. Others may find the realm of topics subject to such clear decisions too limiting and yearn for a glimpse into the more distant future.
Still, we often argue over the quality of our colleagues’ presentations. When it is hiring time, for example, and faculty candidates are parading through your department, no doubt a common topic of conversation is who gave the best talk. And the maturity level of the research is often a contentious point.
With these conversations in mind, I’d like to suggest a numerical scale we can use to describe scientific talks. This scale is not meant to weigh the overall quality of a talk, only to resolve some of the tension between those who prefer solid conclusions and those who enjoy more nebulous forecasting. The first steps are about development of an idea by an individual scientist or research group; the last steps are about the acceptance of the idea by the community.
Science Maturity Level (SML)
1. This talk presents a path that might one day lead to a testable new hypothesis or new data. An SML1 talk does not even strive to present scientific conclusions. Nonetheless, it can surprise and delight by illuminating a new research avenue that has become within arm’s reach, and it can shape the future of the field by its creativity and prescience.
2. The speaker presents a testable hypothesis with no constraining data or data whose interpretation is beyond the reach of state-of-the-art theoretical calculations. Such a talk can be boring, or it can be trendsetting, pointing the community to a fruitful direction for new work.
3. An SML 3 talk applies the full scientific method to the problem at hand, in whatever form the method is customarily used in the field. It compares a hypothesis to a data set and derives an unambiguous interpretation. However, so far the conclusion has garnered only limited attention from the scientific community, perhaps because it mainly confirms or reproduces previous work—or perhaps because it is new and thrilling.
4. This talk compares a hypothesis to a data set and appears to derive an unambiguous interpretation. Crucially, other researchers have confirmed or disputed this result in their talks and publications.
5. The speaker describes data and calculations that the community recognizes as part of its culture and history. Perhaps it describes the roots of a research paradigm that continues to spawn textbooks and doctoral theses. Perhaps it is about an old paradigm that has since been superseded. Attending such a talk can provide new insights, or it could be more about the pleasure of simply meeting a scientific celebrity.
It’s tempting to say that talks in the 1-2 range are more about marketing than about science, but I’m not sure that’s the case. It seems to me that science is the process of moving from 1 to 5—and that this progress emerges from the community as a whole, not from any one scientist. So you can’t really describe a single talk as more “scientific” than another.
Also, it seems to me that talks at all points on the scale can be engaging and full of useful information, or dull and tiresome. The “marketing” is ultimately about whether the talk meets the needs of the audience—whether the needs are for information about the natural world, or for inspiration about future projects. So a talk on any research at any stage can be good marketing or bad marketing.
Curiously, I’ve found that different kinds of scientific institutions seem to prefer different kinds of talks. Perhaps academic departments tend to prefer talks with higher SMLs, while government labs tend to prefer lower SMLs. Maybe that’s because government labs often focus on big projects that require lots of planning. That seems to be something to keep in mind when you are applying for jobs.
Ultimately I think there is a place for all kinds of talks in our scientific universe. Perhaps the 4s and 5s belong at the beginning of a conference session, while the 1s, and 2s belong at the end. Talks about String Theory are often 1s. Review talks are often 4s or 5s.
What do you think? Should your department focus on 1s and 2s, or 4s and 5s? Or should it aim to hire scientists who operate at both ends of the spectrum. What is the SML of your scientific talks?
How is a scientist supposed to dress? I posed this question in an interview with professional image consultant Kasey Smith. My last post contained the first half of our interview, where Kasey introduced herself and explained what image consultants are, and why scientists need them. Here, in the second half of the interview, are some of Kasey’s specific fashion tips. Take these to heart and you’ll kill ’em at the next AAAS meeting–or at your next faculty interview.
MK: I remember when we were talking earlier and I first asked you for advice on how to improve my image. You looked immediately at my outfit and said, “Your jacket’s too big.” [laughter]
KS: It wasn’t even your jacket, right? It was your brother’s jacket. It was the wrong color for you as well. You looked frumpier than you should. Because when you were in that gray jacket, that dark, dark gray jacket, you looked stunning. You just look taller and thinner and younger and more professional when you’re in the right color and the right style and the right fit.
MK: Well thanks, Kasey. This may seem like a basic question to you, but we scientists are so clueless in this regard. How do you make sure that your clothes fit?
KS: First of all, the shoulders. Your jacket’s shoulders, your seams on your shoulders are falling off the edges of the tops of your arms I believe. I think there was a lot of extra fabric in the arms. We don’t want that tight, but we don’t want it so loose. We want to see some definition between your side and the arm. If there’s so much fabric around your arms, it just makes it look more bulky. That would be one thing.
The length of your pants are another, you want them to break right there on your shoe and not be too short. Not too long, but not too short. If things are too baggy, then you just look bulkier. It needs to look good and it needs to feel good.
You could take your clothes to a tailor shop, or when you buy new clothes have them tailored to fit you. Men know this already. Men’s clothes come with the hems not even in there. They know that they have to mark the hems. Women just think that clothes should fit them off the rack, but that’s not true either. Just like men have to do these alterations, so do women.
MK: Doesn’t it cost a lot of money to have custom tailored clothes?
KS: Not really. I think that Nordstrom’s does it for free if you buy their clothes from them. It’s surprising. It does not cost a lot extra.
MK: How should we choose the color of our clothes?
KS: One of the things that I do is professional color analysis. However, it’s all based on the three dimensions of color. The first dimension is the name of the color, if it’s red or blue or green or purple. The next one is the intensity of the color. Is that blue a warm blue? Is it a dark blue? A warm blue? A sky blue? That’s the intensity of the color, from the brightest that it could possibly be to the dullest that it could possibly be. That’s the second dimension. The third dimension is the value which is the lightness to the darkness. It’s on a scale of one to 10 where white being one and black being 10.
MK: So how can we pick colors that are right for us?
KS: That’s based on your skin type–if you’re cool toned or you’re warm toned. Cool means that you have cool undertones to your skin like a pink blue undertone. Warm would be more yellow golden. Then there’s neutral. There’s people that are neutral that don’t fit into warm or cool.
The next thing I would look at is eye color. If your eyes are blue, then you look fabulous in blue. If your eyes are brown, you probably really look good in the right tone of brown.
If your eyes are green, you’re going to look good in green. Also, your hair color. If your hair’s brown, you’re probably going to look good in brown. If it’s red, you could use some red tones in your clothing. There’s a lot of factors to determine what the best colors are.
(Note: some classic books that you might not hate about chosing what colors to wear are Color Me Beautiful and Color for Men, both by Carole Jackson.)
MK: Now, a lot of scientists where I work tend to wear the same khaki pants over and over and polo shirts. When we give talks, we wear the same khaki pants but we put on a jacket. We know we’re supposed to wear a jacket when we dress up, but that’s about it. If you put on a tie, sometimes you feel out of place in the scientific lab.
KS: Mm-hmm.
MK: Sometimes people work in jeans and t-shirts. I might go into work in the summer wearing shorts and flip flops.
I see you don’t approve. How do you suggest we improve things?
KS: I would wear the best looking khaki pants that fit me the best. I would pick polo shirts that are the right colors for me. I would not wear shorts and flip flops. You can look really casual, but look neat and presentable and put together. You trim what needs to be trimmed. You shower and shave or whatever you do. Wear casual clothes, but make them look the best that you can and that fit you well.
You could also start up scaling incrementally. Maybe instead of those khaki pants you add a pair of dark pants, a little nicer quality pair of pants, or a dress shirt instead of that polo shirt.
The tie and the jacket is the professional look, but if you take that tie off that just downgrades it a little bit. The jacket is considered the third piece and when you add a third piece, that adds professionalism to your wardrobe. That’s why I said you can wear jeans and a stylish t?shirt and wear that jacket over it and you’re going to look fantastic and more upscale than without it.
MK: In general, what do you mean by third piece?
KS: The piece that goes over your top and pants. That’s the piece that adds the extra business professional look to your outfit. A third piece could be your jacket. A doctor’s lab coat could be his third piece. It depends on what industry you’re in.
MK: OK. So I could try adding a third piece.
KS: For a woman, it could be a sweater over a tank top. It could be a jacket. It could be several things. For men, it could be a jacket or a sweater. It could be a lab coat. It could be a lot of things.
MK: Does being fashionable necessarily mean that you have to spend a lot of money?
KS: No, no. Being educated in what looks good on you and the style that you need to look for in stores. You can shop sales. You can shop online. There’s a lot of ways to build a wardrobe. It doesn’t have to be designer labels and designer price tags and even it was designer labels, you can still find them on sale. An example would be Off Fifth. They have major sales. Nieman [Marcus]’s has major sales. Macy’s and Nordstrom seems to be really good places for men to buy clothing because they have a lot of price points and they have a lot of good quality stuff for very good prices.
_________________________________________________
Make sure your clothes fit, that the colors of your clothing complement your skin, hair and eye color, and try adding a third piece. This has got to be easier than quantum mechanics; I’m going to give it a shot. See you on the runway, colleagues!
An image consultant for scientists? I only recently got into the habit of tying my shoes and combing my hair in the morning. But some scientists clearly do know how to look sharp—especially when they are giving talks, running meetings, and so on. And from a marketing perspective, the way you look becomes part of your personal brand, which bears on whether people seek to hire you, collaborate with you and so on. So I asked image consultant Kasey Smith for some basic advice about how scientists can present themselves better.
I met Kasey at a meeting of the National Speakers Association. She took one look at me and told me (gently) that my sport jacket was too big. So I knew she would be the right person to ask for advice. Her consultancy is called ArtistryofImage.com
MK: What is an image consultant?
KS: An image consultant works with people to help them create a wardrobe that works for them rather than against them. Everything mixes and matches built on the anchor of one or two sports coats and several different pants and shirts and accessories. It just saves time and money and you don’t have to think about what you want to wear, you just grab things and they’re going to look beautiful together. Then, you can focus on the things that are important, which is your work and the people that you work with and their needs.
MK: Do you work with people on all aspects of image?
KS: Yes. I focus mostly on the appearance piece, which is color, style, fit to create the wardrobe that works best for the client, the individual. I also have a lot of information on behavior and communication skills. Behavior would be like the proper way to shake hands, the different cultural etiquette. Then the communication would be non?verbal as well as verbal communication.
MK: Fantastic. How does one get to be an image consultant?
KS: By many different routes. We have image consultants all over the world and they all have their specialty and their expertise. I happen to have a background in fashion merchandising and a degree in apparel design and pattern drafting. I’ve always been interested in clothing. I came into image consulting to add that extra piece to my education level, so that I could do one?on?one consults. Other image consultants specialize in the etiquette piece, the behavior piece, speaking about the four generations of the marketplace, couture designing, making clothes for clients.
MK: You were telling me about these various professional organizations that image consultants belong to, and degrees of certification and things like that. Could you explain that to me?
KS: Yes, I belong to the Association of Image Consultants International. We have three levels of certification. The first one is called FLC [First Level Certification]. The second one is CIP, which stands for Certified Image Professional. You have to be an image consultant for at least five years to get that. The next one is Certified Image Master. That, there’s only seven or eight of those in the world, because you’ve been in it so long you’re a master at it. There’s lots of criteria that you have to pass to get to that level, and image consultants are working towards all those levels all the time.
We also have to maintain our level. We have to get CEs [Continuing Education credits], so many CEs every year to maintain our status.
MK: What would you say is the image of scientists in general?
KS: In general, everybody has their reputation. I would think that scientists are so in their head that they don’t really care about their image. I think, as a general rule, they might come off a little frumpy or techie, or nerdy, or whatever.
I think that could change. I think that when people consider their branding of how they look, and they have a consistency with that, their self?image and their self?confidence rises. They are seen as more successful, more effective, more responsible.
The attention is taken away from their appearance and then it’s on what’s important, the present moment, whatever that entails. It’s all about being present. When you don’t feel comfortable your attention is on the uncomfortableness that you feel, rather than being in the moment.
MK: Interesting. You’re saying that part of image is taking people’s minds off of your image?
KS: Right, because just like the cell phone ringing in the meeting, people’s appearance sometimes can be very distracting. If you’re trying to get a message across and all people in your audience can think about is, “Well, that outfit doesn’t look good” or whatever the judgment is. We all judge because it’s hardwired into us to judge. It’s the bite, the fight or flight mentality. In our subconscious mind, it’s the friend or foe. Or which one are you, can I trust you, should I not trust you? Those are all immediate, intuitive, under the radar judgments that we don’t even realize we’re making, but we are making them.
When things are off, people can tell. They don’t know that they can tell, but they can tell.
___________________________________________________________________________
Tune in next time for part 2 of the interview to hear Kasey’s specific tips for us scientists about clothing color, style and fit. I can’t believe I’m actually writing about this!
Improve your skills! New Workshops Available Now.
Marketing for Scientists is a blog, a Facebook group, a series of professional development workshops, and a book published by Island Press, meant to help scientists, engineers, and doctors build the careers they want and shape the public debate. Because sometimes, unlocking the mysteries of the universe just isn't enough.Or read reviews of the book at Astronomy.com, Chemists Corner, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ecology or Research Explainer
Stay in touch...we'll send you a useful marketing tip every now and then.Posts
Blogging Branding and Archetypes Citizen Science Getting a Job Hollywood Leadership Marketing To Our Colleagues Mobile Barcodes Open Science Policy and Policymakers Salesmanship Science Education Social Networking Speaking and Presentation Skills The Press The Public Uncategorized Videos Writing a Book