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First, a reminder - applications are open for the first cohort of SciComm STEP! Listen to this episode for details and visit our website to apply!  https://www.meteorscicomm.org/scicomm-step   We’ve been talking a lot, without the recording button on, about when it’s time to stick our necks out to try to spin a negative situation into something positive.  Basically, when’s it time to raise a rucku...

First, a reminder - we launched applications for the first cohort of SciComm STEP last week! Listen to this episode for details and visit our website to apply! https://www.meteorscicomm.org/scicomm-step Now, change is basically a whole genre of opinion pieces, workshops, and podcasts right now. But, there are some specific, mid-career scicomm aspects of change that we want to tackle.  So we’re put...

First, a reminder - we launched applications for the first cohort of SciComm STEP yesterday! Visit our website to apply! https://www.meteorscicomm.org/scicomm-step   Now. Collaboration is about so much more than finding people to collaborate with.  There are hard decisions we cannot put on autopilot, no matter how a collaboration arises.  Our theme this season is saying yes makes room for action,...

First - two big announcements:  Season 2 is all about finding hope through action and saying yes. ✔  We’re running the first cohort of SciComm STEP this fall! Listen to this episode for details and join our email list (https://www.meteorscicomm.org/scicomm-step) for a ping when the application goes live!  Now, we’re gonna say it. Finding and picking your people is not just nice, it’s crucial. Ther...

In this episode, we’re really talking with you about scicomm. We are answering YOUR questions, and we’re excited to rove widely through topics and questions you’ve sent us.  We touch on the big picture and the nitty gritty of:  How we approach the on-going work of staying on top of convos around justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion and how they relate to scicomm.  Framing up a scicomm CV (or...

We (Bethann and Virginia, not the collective ‘we’) actively resist the notion of “work-life balance”. It has too many vibes of work and life being mutually exclusive, as if they’re balanced against each other on a scale. And, in a lot of #SciComm, work and life are already so stinkin’ integrated. So, we lean into the framework of “work-life harmony”. We aim for getting work done and fulfilling our...

Our last episode for this season will be an open Q&A. Send us your questions, ideas, puzzles and dilemmas by November 22, and we’ll fit in as many as we can for the December 2 episode!  There’s a lotta baggage around being someone’s partner, especially a wife, especially in science. These issues leak over into scicomm for many folks, whether you’re a ‘science wife’ or navigating some other kin...

Our last episode for this season will be an open Q&A. Send us your questions, ideas, puzzles and dilemmas by November 22, and we’ll fit in as many as we can for the December 2 episode!  There's a whole sticky mess of having time vs. making time, and it can drag you down, make you question your sense of accomplishment, and even put you at odds with folks you care about. This week, we tackl...

No one can decide what you do for free but you.  Volunteering is often a portal into relationships and career experience. It’s also a way to give back to our community or professional environments. But, unpaid labor is often exploitative (or not possible for some of us). It’s a rotten conundrum. ⚖  An equitable system should do away with volunteer opportunities and every opportunity should instead...

Being a good person means helping people for free and being a good business person means NOT helping people for free. So there has to be some kind of middle ground here for professionals. But how do you decide who you help and when?  Saying no is complicated. You’re weighing a lot:  You might need to make money, or typically do make money, from this activity.  Giving advice for free risks limiting...

We are going to assume that #1: you agree that we could all benefit from expanding our networks, but #2: there’s a cultural treatment of networking as if it has a bad aftertaste. 🤢  There are some real challenges here:  How do you find people, or pick people to contact? Especially if you’re offering even a pipsqueak-sized platform or you’re inviting them into a space that will reflect on you or y...

We have a love/hate relationship with branding, as in: we love to use branding to share the goods while we loathe some aspects of the system branding happens in. But we talk to lots of people who feel that branding themselves or their work is moldy-peach gross.  Plus, branding seems to run counter to traditional science assumptions:  Results are supposed to speak for themselves.  Spinning someone’...

Instead of CVs and resumes being a tally, how can we think differently about CVs and resumes to get an extra career boost out of them?  Lately, we’ve tried:  Using these documents as self-assessment tools to encourage positive self-evaluation  Crafting our own job titles and definitions of ourselves so they reflect our motivations rather than the tasks we perform for a paycheck   Two tips to shift...

How can we set and use scicomm goals so they lift us up instead of drag us down? We suggest:  Clearly articulate your goals from the beginning of any scicomm project or whenever you have an inflection point in your career.  Give yourself permission to give self-reflection the time, energy, and respect it needs to serve you well.  Allow yourself to use your goals as a “living document” and recogniz...

We want to talk more with fellow science communication professionals (like you!), and we have lots of opinions!  We think scicomm needs:  More funding,  A reliable way to hold people with power accountable,  Leadership and development opportunities that extend beyond basic skill-building,  More integration between practice and research, and  Buy-in and formalized support from those with funding an...

Where are mid-career science communicators (like us) supposed to go to level up? We crave deep conversations about advanced scicomm so we can grow and check ourselves when people disagree with us.  And talking to each other and our peers helps us grow. So, we are opening up our conversations so that we can learn from folks with other perspectives and other folks can potentially grow with us.  Whic...