jerry: iãm jerry mcmahon with the u.s. geologicalsurveyãs national water-quality assessment program-- the team leader of a project thatã«slooking at the effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems. and iãm talking this morningwith vivek shandas, associate professor at portland state. and we are looking at thetopic not so much of urbanization as such, but another topic thatãs a little bit onthe side but i think very important to where we are in terms of our project. and that is: how do we communicate technicalinformation, scientific information to an audience who basically are non-scientists?but who maybe have some real interest that would be affected by that information, althoughthey might not know it.
viviek: so iãll start with a very generalframework and then try to work into a little few more details about the question aboutcommunication. itãs a question as old as the hills, and itãs a question that i thinkis particularly timely to get into at this moment as weãre thinking about whatãs happeningin congress as we speak, and about the communication failures that weãre seeing and the communicationsopportunities that weãre seeing emerge. in terms of science, this is a pretty broad field.iãll kind of set the stage maybe. the easiest way to set the stage is through a frameworkthat i found really helpful in a lot of my classes. iãm in the faculty as you were alluding to,jerry, in the college of urban and public
affairs, and while iãm kind of a social scientistby my institutional affiliation to this college, my background, my training as a natural scientistin biology and environmental science. i kind of have come into this world of urban andpublic affairs primarily because of the work iãve been trying to do in so far as, gettingthe information that scientists are doing, and the collective efforts for understandingphenomenon such as urbanization and the impacts on stream ecosystems, is a topic of keen interestfor me. iãm trying to get that to where the rubber meets the road. so what iãve been trying to convey in myclasses is this framework of this notion of believe ã± iãll get into the details of eachas itãs mentioned, believe, knowing and doing.
so the concept is simply put. believing isaround the idea of when weãre communicating information, scientific information, our ownbiases, really any information at all to a certain degree. that one asks themselves,what do we want our audience to believe? do we want to believe that usgs is an institutionthat conducts rigorous science and is able to have the legitimacy, credibility, and saliencyto its audience? and is that what we want our audience to believe? the second component is this notion of knowing,the idea of we would like our audience to know something about usgs. or, we would likethe audience to know something about the relationship between urban development, and stream ecosystems.whether thatãs related to the critters in
the stream, whether thatãs related to theactual land use patterns occurring in the upland areas of the watershed. what have you.so thereãs certain things i can know about that phenomenon that i deliberately detachedfrom this notion of belief. the last component, this notion of doing,while i can hope that you believe that i am presenting you with credible scientific information,and i can hope that you are understanding relationships between the biotic and the abioticcomponents of a watershed. when i start asking myself, what do i want you to do with that?it gets into a very interesting set of questions about poetically, from a policy point of view,from an individual household, from an individual citizen point of view, from an institutionalpoint of view, such as a university or a major
federal agency. the question becomes, what do we do? and thatcan take a range of scales whether thatãs come across in your lifetime or tomorrow,it can also take place and across, how does my action affect, whatãs happening in mybackyard versus whatãs happening globally. so thatãs this framework of believing, knowing,and doing is something that i found really helpful in putting together short descriptionsabout the work that somebody has done in a lab or in their particular research environmentand trying to communicate that to the community. jerry: iãd be interested at some point duringthe conversation to talk about what you might do with your students. who are going to beprofessional planners, and who are often times
going to be in that boundary in between scientificinformation coming across their desk, but they need to translate that into terms thatpeople in the neighborhood, or a region, or a county might have to either accept or notaccept, but do something with. but i wanted to start with the notion of believability.which i think in part has to do with trust of the person or the agency. trusting thatwhat theyãre doing is legitimate that this is ã¬science.ã® but also as par to f the believability thingto talk about the issue of, is all science equal, in terms of its believability. because,in the exchanges you see now on fox news versus, cnn versus msnbc, you get the background drumming,is about this question of whose information
is really believable; and almost adversarialscience. so can you talk a little bit about what makes scientific information believable?and also, about the issue of, is all science equal? vivek: thatãs a great question. thereãsso many ways to approach that. but iãll fall back on a comfortable place, and that is inthis place of the literature that iãm kind of steeped in, and the kinds of work thatscholars are doing all around the world in understanding this relationship between crediblescience, believable science, and best available science and these kinds of phrases that wehear kicked around these days, and not only united states but across the globe. i would,for convenience, i break the notion of belief
down into three ã±academics work in threes,and so three is a very convenient number in that sense. i think about the framework that folks thathave been thinking about this a lot longer than i have and have also examined this, andthatãs this notion, what you were getting at; a notion of trust ã±if you will. and tome trust is such a central operating dimension of believable science. and what that kindof breaks onto me is this notion of legitimacy. which i would start to ã± and thinking aboutmy students, and talking to them as well of this notion, how do you know that this particularpiece of scientific information is legitimate? or a global environmental assessment suchas millennium ecosystem assessment or ipcc,
how do you know that those are actually legitimatedocuments? whatãs becoming more and more apparent inliterature, and whatãs becoming more and more apparent in my work locally, and a littlebit more nationally and internationally is the notion that weãre moving from this atime of what might be called nubious legitimacy or mysterious, or expert legitimacy to thisnotion of civic legitimacy, or collective legitimacy. where who your partners are, whoyouãre engaging, the networks youãre involved with, how many groups are you connecting interms of examining your work and providing a set of eyes for your work; that notion ofcivic legitimacy has become very commonplace now, it seems to be becoming much more commonplacenow in the way believable science is delivered.
jerry: can i interrupt, just for a second,around that point? vivek: yeah. jerry: within the science world, whether itãssocial science, or natural science, physical science; that credibility or legitimacy isbased on objective, searching, critical peer review. you make some knowledge claims, youwrite them on paper, you circulate them through the literature, and you get a response. sometimespeople give you a claim, and recognize these are good ideas, other times they find theholes and shoot holes, in that stuff. the state of science advances that way. how is that going to happen, you talk aboutthese networks and so iãm thinking of my
usgs project locally; and typically i wouldessentially sit in my office with a group of peers and design projects to meet certainknowledge objectives, and figure out protocols for doing data collection and data analysisover six months or a year, or multiple years implement that design and come up with a knowledgeproduct or some knowledge claims that i put into the literature. so how in this new worldof civic legitimacy what does that mean for a scientist sitting in an office in raleighor portland, or milwaukee, even if the design fits; do we need to be talking to some additionalpeople beyond scientists when weãre even framing what the questions are? does thatmake sense? vivek: yes, yes it does make sense. it actuallyã± i just want to touch on a couple of aspects
of that question. first, is the notion thatcredibility and the system of checks and balances that you outlined about the peer-review process.that in a sense is a little bit different in my mind than the notion of legitimacy.we can start thinking about civic legitimacy at least in the sense of being more alonglines of isolated lab work. this is what weãre seeing across the university in the directionthat a lot of research is happening-- i can speak specifically to university systems. that isolated lab work thatãs occuring inthe lab, one that has kind of removed the pressing questions that a lot of decisionmakers are posing. their number of aspects of the system of rewards and penalties thatwill alienate that type of work ã± further
alienate this type of work. that is work thatãsoccurring in an isolated sense. what your question, in my mind is getting at, firstparsing out credibility and legitimacy piece. credibility- we have this system of checksand balances, and while it might not be fool-proof; itãs a human construct in many ways, we dohave this notion of saliency that comes up in terms of the believability in science. as i was recalling, work that iãve been involvedwith, and the work that i feel that has had an impact it the miniscule number of timeswhere i feel that iãve had impact. it might be that yes, i am considered credible becausei have published in the peer review process and seen as having contributed to that discourse.but when i think about the work that iãve
had any say on, direction, or influence ã±itãsa powerful word, has been really around the trust that i have created that iãve developedwith particular decision makers. and people who were saying, hey we want tofigure out whether the nutrient load in this particular stream is higher than; lower than;is related to ã± something going on, in around this particular area. jerry: so how does the trust thing happen?when you talked about your sense was it that youãve had the most impact in these occasionswhere there was some trust, most believability connection. so how do you foster that? vivek: and thatãs exactly it, this isolatedlab approach, where iãm not talking, and
this is one archetype ã± if you will. theresearcher whoãs working moved from the discussions that are happening in capitol hill, city hall,that are happening at the county commissionerãs office. there are probably multiple ways thatthis can happen i could speak personally to what i found to be effective and helpful.first off, meeting some of these folks, participating in various advisory boards, by engaging myselfin activities in public discourses thatãs occurring within and around the region. and this can be everything from the urbancanopy plan thatãs being rolled out to larger scale watershed plan. in portland we havea watershed plan thatãs in place and the question is, what aspects of that watershedplan do i feel like i can contribute to? and
so to actually start a discussion with thepeople involved in that, and to in the sense, participate in a number of opportunities tostart to talk to those people who are in those positions of decision making. even over lunch,itãs not necessarily a formalized technical advisory meeting. but, as iãve developed those relationshipsiãve found that the interest and the willingness of decision makers to listen to what i haveto say is very different from when i send them from my office a paper iãve writtenon a topic that theyãre deliberating. jerry: right. vivek: so that relationship building, andagain coming back to the notion of civic legitimacy,
i feel likeã³paul sabatier, in california,he refers to this as the era of collaboration. and that weãve gone through a number of erasthat heãs chronicling in ã¬swimming upstreamã® a recent book that heãs written. it reallycomes back to this notion, what are the collaborations that weãre involved with, how deep are thosecollaborations, how much trust has there been built in those collaborations. so, itãs notrocket science, in that sense but it does take time, it does take a lot of sincere andhonesty, willingness to accept criticism about a plan that youãve worked so hard on; a particularpaper that youãve been working on. jerry: i kind of want to ask the same questionagain from a different angle because, i can anticipate and i may well have had this reactionmyself in different points in my career; but
you roll out a phrase like civic legitimacyto some scientists and the best reaction you might get is eye roll, and it might go downhillfrom there pretty quickly. again in the overall topic of believability and legitimacy, whatãsthe downside, of not putting in the effort to develop a certain baseline measure of civiclegitimacy for science work in general that usgs might be doing? vivek: yeah, thatãs a tricky question. thebaseline measure for civic- jerry: well, whatãs the downside of not havingsome measure of civic legitimacy? i can know that if i do what i usually do itãll getpublished in this particular journal. whatãs the downside of that? if thatãs all iãmdoing.
vivek: yeah, so an important distinction iwant to draw in just responding is, the notion of civic legitimacy and the way thatãs beingdiscussed in literature does not need to in any way detract from the rigorous system ofchecks and balance that the scientific process thatãs been in place for eons. itãs notto direct science in a particular direction, itãs not to send it in a specific agenda,itãs more to contextualize that particular investigation within a broader system of politicalwrangling that weãre all a part of. and to really not be involved in that broader contextualdiscourse about how the science is going to be used, or when it can be used. the field of, for example, implementationfidelity which is about a piece of scientific
information being ã± or a scientific investigationis being done for a specific purpose, being used for a variety of other purposes. thereare some great studies looking into scientific genealogy where you can trace back how piecesof scientific information; where you really look back to see where it was generated. itãslike the joke about the person sitting in a circle, whispers something to the personsitting next to their ear. jerry: the telephone. vivek: the telephone. come all around itãsa pink elephant car wash. or something like that. itãs very different from when it began.so the context from where that science is occurring is essential. the downside of actuallynot engaging in the context-rich platform
in which all the science is actually happening.on the one side i think weãre all participating in the system that serves up the science.when i write a paper and send it out for publication, in part because iãm rewarded to do, iãmserving up some science. do i always write a one page memo and send it to all the interestedparties that might be affected by, or could find this work interesting? no. do i always go out on a dog and pony showto the agencies and to the decision makers in or around the region or across the countryor the conferences? no. to not be doing that is probably fine. i think when a catastrophelike, letãs say the oil spill disaster, deep sea horizon in the gulf; there were volumesof research on the implications of deep-sea
drilling. there were volumes of research ofã«what would happen ifã and how to mitigate the impacts of. and it was pretty much shelvedfor a long time. but all of a sudden when this event occurred all that came to the frontand it was immediately looked into, examined, criticized, applied, in many instances. so, for me to be doing science and to haveit shelved at some decision makersã table-- okay fine, thereãll be a time when this mightbe of pressing concern. and thatãs at least what i fall back on in terms of the work thati do. the research that usgs does, whether we know, whether you have a gage for whenitãs being applied, how itãs being applied, where itãs being applied; those are measuresfor me in terms of the perceived legitimacy
of the work. and i imagine that local fishand wildlife agencies and what have you, one could assess the types of literature theyãredrawing on, the kinds of relationships they have with usgs. to have a pretty good sensewith how the organization is perceived and to what extent the implementation is actuallybeing directed in such a way thatãs specific to how it was generated. jerry: my guess is that the usgs is probablypretty long on credibility among our peers who might be used to using whether itãs dataor interpreted reports produced by usgs and feel like what theyãre getting, whatãs gettingserved to them ã±if you will is stuff that they can kind of rely on and go on and dotheir thing. maybe itãs more problematic
in terms of the legitimacy for a broader audiencethan a non-scientific audience. and maybe thatãs where a little bit of work and effort,and thought would need to occur. if that makes sense. vivek: so then, now weãre getting a questionknowing. jerry: okay. vivek: what would you want as an institution,as an agency ã± what would you want the audience, the broader ã± in this case the community,the civic leaders, whether it be the county commissioner, or a citizen; what would youwant them to know about the work that usgs does, and how that potentially could affecttheir--?
jerry: well i know thatãs kind of a rhetoricalquestion, but also i can respond out of the context my study. and that is, we know fromthe studies of the effect of urban development around the country. nine or ten differentlocations, thereãs two main findings. one is that there doesnãt appear to be a safezone of urban development; at least in terms of the macroinvertebrates that live in thestreams. as soon as you get some impervious cover develop; put in a street, or put ina bridge crossing youãre going to start to see effects down the stream. so no safe zoneurban development. and the second is that what happens as urbandevelopment occurs the impacts in the stream vary around the country. so what happens isthat the signal in dallas is different than
the signal in portland, or raleigh, or theboston area. so we have scores of journal articles and usgs reports from the last decadethat have ways of measuring stressors and ways of measuring responses in the streamin terms of physical, chemical and biological effects. and weãve communicated that in theliterature at conferences and so forth. it seems to resonate with people; they find thissomething useful to know. the claims weãre making are implying informationthat is useful to them. but i donãt know that weãd have a good handle on communicatingthose two bits of knowledge; as things that we want people to know-- that we have a goodhandle of doing that with this broader, civic concept that youãre talking about. it mightbe a planner, it might be a county commissioner,
it might be a citizensã group, and even inthe watersheds where youãre working. so the thing weãre grappling with is how do we helppeople know this fact that thereãs no safe zone in urban development, and that what youcan expect to see following urbanization is going to really vary depending on the partof the country. so itãs not just a rhetorical question itreally gets to the heart of what weãre trying to do at this stage of this project whichis to create ã±using different media, create some products that help people know thingsabout those two findings in a way that is either interesting or that can connect ina way that theyãre interested in terms of financial effects or whatever.
vivek: when iãve seen the study and iãveseen local examples of it and national examples of it-- first i must commend you as usgs,on conducting a systematic assessment nationally, and on an issue that i think is of an increasingimportance. not only in the united states, but where my work in china, in india, andother parts of asia; scholars are looking to usgs from what i can gage, and these studiesthat are coming out about urbanization and the impacts on local rivers and water bodies.and theyãre in many ways repeating similar studies. and so i think in that sense, just in my gageof whatãs internationally moving forward, and i imagine you all have a better senseof this than i do in my kind of pockets of
research, peppered across asia. itãs surprisingto me that there have been so few systematic assessments. so i think in that sense, justa major hurdle and a major contribution that usgs has made in and of itself. there aretwo other quick points about the study, i find really interesting in that context thatweãve been talking about. the first result in terms of no safe zone for urbanization;i find that, in the policy context that would be a very tricky place for an urban plannerto begin with. so if i were to talk to my students aboutthe study that youãve all have been working so hard on. iãd say, ã¬well, you know, urbandevelopment is going to create problems to the biota.ã® so, theyãll immediately wantto know, and the rigors of the study i can
dig into that; and when iãve had local usgsresearchers come in and speak in my courses; the questions that they ask afterwards is,ã¬so, what do we do about that?ã® ã¬does that mean we canãt have any urban development;well thatãs not a possibility.ã® so this is where we get in to the questions that planningstudents tend to want to know. they want to know, okay these studies are rich, theyãrerigorous, theyãre credible, but are they salient? and thatãs where it starts getting to beã± and in the research weãve done in the northwest, talking to planners about whatinformation theyãve drawn, we did some studies on whatãs been called in washington statefor example, best available science. so we
went around and asked a number of planners,ã¬what are the characteristics best available science to you? can we see your bibliographyof ordinances that youãve written on protecting critical areas in and around your urban area?to get a sense for where youãre drawing your information many usgs reports and what haveyouã®. and i found a few responses ã± and i thinkthis is going to come as a surprise to you, i found a few responses from the ã± actuallyit was more than a few, it was pretty overwhelming actually, and one quote, iãll paraphraseit: ã¬i donãt want some researcher coming in from harvard with a 500-page report onstreams published in science or nature to direct what i do in my municipality. i knowthis creek better than anyone knows this creek.
and iãm going to use what i know about thiscreek to essentially safeguard it to development. and so the broader context again being, whatare the opportunities of making work that youãve done salient to ã± these plannersiãm talking to are saying, ã¬i want local information; i want work thatãs salient toand perceived as.ã® thatãs the importance. whether itãs salient or not, you and i canagree and say yes of course it is, weãve done it across the country; weãve lookedat a variation of geomorphological characteristics of these systems. does that matter to susie planner, whoãstrying to think about whatãs going on in their backyard? thatãs where the civic legitimacycreeps its way into the discussion because
itãs where we start saying, how have we connectedour work and tailored it to the work occurring in it. jerry: well, the worst case scenario, in asense, from a plannerãs perspective is that you have ã± it might be usgs, it might bea consulting firm, a university department, produces this brilliant report. there areall these nuggets of scientifically validated information and they are on target with concernsand questions people have. but they hand that off to the planner and then theyãre gone.and the planner is then left with a sales and education job. and all these documentsthat they have, their engineering department that they need to talk to, they have the planningboard, they have the county commissioner or
city council, and they have neighborhood groups. so right there are four different constituenciesand they have to take this report which has knowledge something that they can know, buttranslate that into a form for four different audiences, for example. all of them may slightlydifferent things that theyãre curious about, and also different things that motivate them,that interest them in this thing in the first place. so, could you talk a little bit aboutthe ã± there two boundaries that need to be crossed, you have the scientist deliveringsome information to a planner, and then you have a planner thatãs further distributingthat information. so in that journey, or quest carrying informationout to the public; what does the scientist
need to think about? in particular about,when theyãre handing it off to the next stage in the process to come up with knowledge thatmight be useful. i guess weãre getting back to this thing of understanding the audience. vivek: understanding the audience ã± but ithink thereãs another piece that i probably want to touch on there. this is the, in thedimension, of uncertainty, and the communication of uncertainty, is something i think itãsundervalued in this first stage of transferring, or of serving information. how is uncertaintycharacterized in for example, the variation that occurs across the biophysical ã± andbiomes across the country for your urbanization in streams study. how does one characterizethe uncertainty? could that uncertainty be
cause for, or reason to, set aside or notconsider the study at all? so being upfront about where this study isrelatively ã± where the study can provide guidance, where the study falls short of beingable to provide guidance. and that transparency allows the scientist, in a sense, to conveyinformation thatãs more or less bounded in what we can consider as legitimate, and whatwe can consider as credible. but, uncertainty, as we all know, has been the harbinger ã±ifyou will, or the rationale for discrediting just about some of the best science that ithink, has been produced. and so how we go about thinking through theã± thereãs a field of uncertainty science, when weãre talking about measurement uncertainty,or communication uncertainty we can get into
various types of uncertainty. to get at thatfirst stage ã± getting at this concept of how does one convey uncertainty in the sciencethat they do and in the context in which it can be applied. jerry: thatãs a great point because, i thinkin my career when iãve talked with decision makers, for instance, or even a member ofthe public who is interested in a particular study; thereãs almost the sense that theyview these pieces of scientific information that weãre providing as the truth. itãslike a point estimate ã±if you will, and thatãs whatãs true. and thereãs no appreciationfor the fact that this is just an estimate of maybe the most likely outcome of a wholeset of outcomes. and that set of outcomes
also have some likelihood of occurring aswell. and when something happens thatãs different from that point estimate, the most likelyone; that can be occasion to call into question the whole ball game. vivek: thatãs right. thatãs great. thatãsa central point. jerry: yeah. what have you found? what areyou telling your students ã± in terms of this whole issue? part of the knowledge that youãrecommunicating to the city council member, or whatever-- one characteristic of that knowledgeis that in fact, thereãs uncertainty associated with this one particular estimate. how doyou ã±? vivek: so, thereãs a second phase of thescientist and the position, the chair the
scientist is sitting in and handing over theinformation over to the planner. as consultants do, as agencies do, as researchers in theuniversities do. the second stage of, okay, now thereãs a planner sitting on my environmentalplanning boardã± with my environmental cap on; trying to develop coordinates protectingparticular sensitive species within my municipality. what do i ã± how do i think about that? interms of training students, and in terms of what could ã± what would i like to see happening?maybe thatãs a question iãm going to get at before anything else. my personal cap, not my psu cap per say but,i think weãve done a massive disservice to training of planners in their capacity tounderstand both the social and the technical
dimensions of the field. weãve tended toemphasize one or the other, and rarely have we been able to really integrate the two.and i see even our cohort of students that come here ã± talented we get 350 plus applicantsto this program. we get 35 to 40 students that come to the program and we get to pickof the litter. and they come here super talented and they start to slowly bifurcate into thisgroup thatãs very technically savvy, capable, interested in those areas. and then this group thatãs, ã¬iãm a littlescared of thatã®. and whether thatãs because of their high school training, or grade schooltraining, their parents; i donãt know. but what i see here is that weãve rarely beenable ã± particularly my environmental planning
methods, courses and things, planners to beconversant with engineers, with scientists. in a way that both challenges the assertionsmade by the scientists and also, understands the uncertainties, understands the applicabilities,understands the kind of context that can be applied. the training of students, at least in thecourses that iãm in, i find myself being a little bit of a challenging instructor inthe sense of wanting to really engage students in the technical dimensions of it. we usein my class, for example streamstats, which is a product that emerged out of usgs andthis is to delineate basins, to understand hydrographs, these are for usgs scientistsprobably bread and butter, probably the kind
of the everyday speak around the office atthe watering hole and what have you. so for a planner however, it might not alwaysbe the case when ordinances, city council, particular neighborhood community groups,this might be the everyday speak. so when we start linking together, hey, thereãs ahydrograph from johnson creek, that suggests certain changes that are occurring, to eithercommunities living next to johnson creek that might be affected by this change in hydrograph,we can start to weave together ã± and this is my idealized notion of integration of scienceand integration of natural and social sciences. we can start to then say, thereãs certaincommunities affected, thereãs certain scientific information that we understand. and that wecan start to engage in these communities in
understanding whatãs happening in or aroundtheir physical place that they live. so in that sense itãs really kind of steeping themin the link of where the science can be of value, when your primary interest might becommunity development and to know where science could actually have some value. jerry: it seems like one of the challengesis really, at least within the planning world, and perhaps for usgs; but you always needa cohort of practitioners who are bicultural. in the sense that; they can communicate inthe language and appreciate the concepts of the world within which scientists work. butare as comfortable with their other language- the language of the community, or the decisionmakers and then they appreciate the words
and the nuances and can help bring informationback and forth. ideally scientists can do all that, and the other people could do allthat too. but thereãs a need to be bicultural. vivek: youãve really hit on that. notionof cultural competences has been talked about in so many different ways, but weãre talkingabout disciplinary competence in a sense, and the direction of where funding agenciesare becoming for university settings, where weãre looking at national science foundationand environmental protection agency etc.; they are funding things that are interdisciplinary. and that where my students in planning wouldbe working very closely with students in aquatic sciences, or hydrologists, or a botanist,and trying to ã± fluvial geomorphologist , and
trying to get planners before getting outinto the field and testing a lot of the ordinances or policies that theyãre developing, removedof this kind of input of understanding. to actually test that prior to getting out thereis a service that weãre trying to weave into the instruction and the curriculum a lot more.and well itãs kind of all the buzz word right now; itãs a lot easier said than done. but this notion of cultural competence orbi-cultural communication i think is ã± itãs actually polycultural because there so manydisciplines and all have their own language, their own language, their own epistemologicalgroundings, their own purpose. trying to get some familiarity with that and the willingnessto explore that. itãs at least a step that
weãre trying to muddle through at this point. jerry: vivek, iãm wondering if we can movefrom the ideas of believability, credibility, knowledge; transferring some knowledge tothe whole idea of what we might want people to do with this believable knowledge. froma usgs perspective we typically wouldnãt be advocating that they do any particularthing, in terms of a policy option, a or b. as much as we would like them to take thisknowledge and use it to become more aware participants in the policy making process.so anyway iãm wondering if you could talk a little bit about this whole notion of peopletaking this information and doing something with it.
vivek: in the broader discussion that weãvehad so far, if we have some information about what impacts a stream, then the ostensibleresponse, that if iãm so interested in improving the condition of that stream, and not havinga stinky stream in my backyard; then i will take some action to improve the conditionof that stream. while i understand that usgs may not be in the position to direct actionper say, there is an ã± i have possibly a bias in the sense that, how the informationand how the awareness is translated into action is again a whole set of, an entire disciplinean entire area of investigation. but to kind of summarize some of the aspectsof it, i come back to this notion of what would be in response to what usgs has, wantsthe audience to know about a phenomenon, whether
thatãs urbanization in the streams, or whetherthatãs general volcanic activity occurring in and around the northwest or what have you.the question of implementation of how to actually go about seeing something happen will takeroute in a variety of different contexts. so you serve up the report and county commissionerwill use it one way, a state agency will use it in another way ã± possibly another way. a community group advocating for clean riversuse it in another way. a particular citizen owning a home in a riparian corridor, theyuse it in yet another way. so to try to track all those different ways and to try to predictand anticipate all those different ways that information is going to be used, is as weknow impossible. itãs a no-win situation.
so the question then becomes, how can onepresent information in such a way that allows the audience to go in the direction that theywant to go with it, but yet bound the information in such a way that allows it to be legitimatelyapplied. jerry: responsibly ã±. vivek: responsibly applied, right thatãsa better phrase. so i think in those realms we have in a planning context, the goal ofmaking a plan. weãve gotten a plan in place. and this is what i talk to a lot of my studentsabout and discuss with them, is this notion of we have a plan in place, thatãs our mandate.weãve created a watershed plan for the city of portland or the metropolitan region. theextent to which that plan is actually implemented,
monitored, and adaptively responding to thechanging environment; thatãs a system thatãs either broken, nonexistent, or really, reallylimited. so the doing is probably the most complicatedpart of the work i think, not only usgs does, but in terms of the planning endeavor is probablythe most complicated parts of the puzzle. from my own work in the science that iãvebeen engaged with, iãve often found avenues to identify where would be ã± iãve oftentried to identify after the results have come in and even as the study is being designedpotential constituencies that might be interested in this work. and what iãve often done istried to couch the work in such a way that would be of value to them.
again it might not be in the direction thatusgs wants to go with the reports and with the research thatãs being done. but iãvefound that having these kind of pithy, responsibly, applied memos that are essentially disseminated--targeted dissemination-- tends to be more effective in terms of whether the worth isapplied, whether itãs applied in the context that iãve actually conducted the work. soitãs a very slippery slope to try to direct exactly how itãs to be applied. but i would fall back on some work thatãshappened outside of my own field, and maybe the work of usgs; in public health, oftenpeople are ã± thereãs an enormous body of literature thatãs emerged in the last decadeor so, around implementation fidelity. and
that is the notion that when a study is doneabout mosquito nets and malaria, the relationship between mosquito nets and malaria are ã± anda policy or a program are set up where sub-saharan africa households are given mosquito netsbecause, we want to reduce the prevalence of malaria. with the studies in some of the research thatiãve found is that these nets are often used as completely different instruments and tools;for fishing, for games, and for other activities. they found that when theyãre sold to familiesand to households that thereãs actually a monetary value and a cost attributed to theparticular item that the fidelity, so to speak, or the implementation of what they were intendedfor was actually much tighter than when they
were just provided free. and so thatãs alittle bit of a tangent, but at the same time it comes back to the question of what do wedo, and how do we know whether our work is being in some way acted upon. the only way that i can kind of come backto is targeted dissemination of the work. whether congress is looking into a bill aroundurban development and stream condition and that theyãre deliberating that. that theseparticular reports be made available and that people are reminded of their presence. i thinkis a very helpful action. just doing and getting the work out there is maybe the bottom line. jerry: in a sense, for this particular studyof effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems
it is making sure that the various productsget into the hands of people who you think at least logically might have an interest. vivek: exactly. and there may be others thatare not your usual suspects that actually may end up using it ã± iãve seen this actuallyoccur in one study around urban heat islands that iãve been involved with about how communitieshave just taken this research and just run with it. i never thought it would be the statepublic health agency. but it turned out to be a number of ngos and community organizationsthat have taken this and started these heat advisories on their own. so it wasnãt whati thought it would be necessarily the direction of the research, but again.
jerry: iãm curious on your take ã± one lastquestion here about the use of alternative media ã± or at least alternative media forusgs as a way to cast the net a little wider in terms of the potential context that mightbe made with audiences we donãt even anticipate as having interest in this stuff. the useof video, podcast, and twitter, and facebook; from your perspective as someone whoãs teachingplanners and people that are younger and really facile with these tools, do you see that theseother media as being useful in terms of outlets. vivek: yeah, itãs an interesting question.as someone who doesnãt tweet, someone who is not on facebook, someone who is still sendingletters to my ã± snail mail letters to my mother because, thatãs what sheãll acceptas a legitimate form of information about
me-- i would think that the pulse that iãmpicking up on from the students that are moving through our university and from the generaldiscussion about the region thatãs littered with our graduates. that they seek information in a variety ofnontraditional sources ã± at least not traditional in my perspective and many of these have todo with, ã¬hey i have this problem with a particular ordinance that iãm trying to write,ã®and this is put up on a professional facebook page. anybody ã± and they have a network ofmany professionals and their similar cohorts, and similar counterparts around the country.and they end up being able to pick up on these bits of information that somebody in wichitahad somehow worked on; lo and behold, somebody
in portland is starting to kind of work withit. the field of research that a lot of that fallsinto is diffusion of innovation. and often what weãre getting at in these nontraditionalsources of information and alternative media is this notion of horizontal diffusion whereitãll be people who have a particular concern about a problem that theyãre working on andthey look to the global web of potential ã± as we know as the research suggests, peopletend to not just respond necessarily to that one response, but they look at the whole suiteof possible scenarios and kind of pick and choose what might work best for them. andso if a podcast in this sense lends itself to a tight informative discussion then i thinkitãs all the more important that we find
the way to get the work out there. jerry: yeah i think that the whole notionof diffusion of innovations is actually a good wrapping-up point to our conversationtoday because to the extent that our conversation is really focused at; usgs scientists andoffice of communications, people who work with these scientists to get the word out.i think that many of the points that you have made today really involve innovations andhow we picture the information that we develop being used. part of what we are trying todo is spread out, diffuse some of these ideas to our colleagues within usgs. are there anycharacteristics of the early adopters, or the successful adopters of these innovationsthat we can think about in terms of encouraging
people to be open to these innovative andeven challenging notions that you presented? vivek: yeah, the earlier adopters have thehighest, steepest learning curves. jerry: in what sense? vivek: in the sense of trying to adopt newmedia. jerry: okay, right. so they have had the experienceof failures probably. vivek: yes i think that tends to be the case.thereãs the three part model, there are the early adopters that tend to adopt a lot ofthings early, there are those that wait until the information or the technology is matureand gets to a point where we can actually go in, and there are others, luddites or holdouts whether it be the iphone or the new information
thatãs emerging about urbanization and streamhealth. so in terms of lessons to take away-- the work weãve done on climate-change planning,alan basset and i wrote a paper for the journal american planningassociation looking at a couple of dozen land use a climate change plans, climate actionplans, that cities have adopted and evaluated them for different characteristics that werein the plan. and what we found is that when a lot of information emerges and thereãsa field of planning that hasnãt been responsive to climate information for the history ofthe field, in a sense, that suddenly thereãs this fervor in planning agencies that we haveto do something about it. so letãs do anything ã± letãs do anything and get all the informationout there.
so what we generally found is that anything,falls into an innovation, in a sense, anything falls into a climate-action plan, and thatwe can call everything from a street-corner trash compacter that many cities are puttingforward to changing everything into compact fluorescents in your office. anything andeverything can fall into a climate-change plan. the lesson that we learned from thatwas more or less in terms of diffusion of innovation, it can be broadly defined, itcan be broadly applied, it can be very uncritically evaluated and itãs a wide open field in termsof the information disseminating out there. i think itãs a pretty open field of how onecan engage in various forms of technology, various forms of communication and to getthe word out there. kind of a clunky response
to what youãre asking, but at the same timeitãs a tough ã± thatãs one of the trickier questions in terms of what are lessons tobe learned about getting information out there in the early adopters. jerry: it seems like part of what iãm takingfrom what youãre saying is that youãre going to need some group of people who are probablya little more adventuresome and bold who are trying some new things. but you also needan evaluation structure to make sure that if theyãre off track, or in a non-productivetract, that you catch that before too many resources have gone in that direction. andthat you just have to be deliberate and stay on top of whatãs going on.
vivek: yeah, exactly i appreciate that synopsis. jerry: good.vivek: great. all right. jerry: well vivek, great to talk with youi really appreciate this chance to have a conversation. pretty wide ranging but i thinkin many senses on target for the challenges that we face as an agency to do a little bitbetter job in this whole area that youãre describing as civic legitimacy. vivek: not my word, not my phrase, but stilla phrase that i think is honestã± jerry: yeah. developing information thatãsconsidered to be trustworthy and useful or salient in terms of concrete interest thatpeople have, and also maybe that stretches
their imagination a little bit and helps themto learn about the connections between people and these different systems that usgs describesand analyzes. vivek: needless to say i applaud the workthat you guys are doing. itãs a privilege to be chatting with everybody here but atthe same time itãs also going to be really neat to watch this next generation, if youwill of not only communication, networks emerge, but how agencies go about. either capturingsome of those communication channels, or dismissing them, or finding ways to adapt them to theirown mission within their agencies. i think it would be a really neat next decade. jerry: before we finish also; to see if iunderstood something you had said earlier.
which was, that all this communication stuff,if you will, it doesnãt mean that we stop doing good science, it means in some wayswith the implication iãm taking from what youãre saying is that the job isnãt donenecessarily when you get to the point of having done good science and published that someplace that you weãre hoping to publish it; but maybe there are a few more steps to getthat stuff out into an arena where itãs useable by someone-- we donãt necessarily controlthe use-- but where there is some interest in it; beyond the interest of our peer sciencecolleagues. vivek: now, just to refine that even a littlebit more, it is not just to stop doing or even refrain from doing good science, butto recognize that the science is going to
be even further evaluated, analyzed and criticallyassessed. and so, itãs to ensure that the science is even more tight, because, of themultiple ways in which it can be interpreted, ways in which it is applied. yes, to continuedoing science is a key part of all of this. because without it many of us are going toã± yeah without it many of us will not only miss the connections between urban developmentand stream degradation, but ultimately end up living in a place that we really donãtenjoy. jerry: thanks. [end of audio] duration: 62 minutes
1vivekcommunication 2.mp4 a conversation with vivek shandasã³how to communicate science jerry mcmahon, vivek shandas 1filename speakersã names _____________________________________________________________________________________ www.gmrtranscription.com
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