That will be led by our
moderator, Jesse Landman. So take it away. Thanks. Angela. Our panel is. Did, you've got our panelists over here. You all are gonna be the main event. My name is Jesse Landman. I am
a longtime pick practitioner. I am a social impact
consultant at TCC Group. I also have the honor of
teaching at UF in the online graduate program in public
interest communication. And what we're gonna do, we have two and a half hours together. Almost none of it will be us
sitting up here and
talking. But really our goal is to
address some of the themes we've been hearing about how can we
build connections and also do that translation work between
people who do research and people who do public
interest communication, knowing that a lot of us
do both and we wanna learn, you know, to wear multiple hats. But we're also gonna ask
ourselves to think a little bit about how do we engage best
with our counterparts to help make the change that we all want. That's the reason that we're all he
re. And so just to share a little
bit about my own personal interest, similar to Angela, I've been a public interest
communicator for longer than, than you might wanna know since before. That was actually a term
and I did a lot of work in documentary video. And at that point, best practice was did we
move the audience to tears? And if so, you did a good job. And that's a pretty blunt
instrument to be measuring the impact of your public interest
communication efforts. And so since then we have a
lot more nuanced content about what kinds of feelings do
we want to evoke in people? How do we reach the people
that we really want to evoke? How do we measure whether
they've moved or not? What have other people done
who have come before us that we can learn from and build on? And so those are some of the
reasons behind the session. We're gonna move right into action. And so the first is
gonna be an icebreaker. We're all gonna line up against that wall. So go ahead and get up and
we'll go over
here and get to know ourselves and each
other a little bit more. And for folks on Zoom, we have a, a modified version of this for you. Everybody in the room,
once they get to this side, it's just gonna take one
step forward when you hear a statement that applies to you
and everyone on Zoom is gonna raise their hand and you all
will be able to sort of see some of the shared
experiences that we have. You don't have to take the
biggest step ever cuz you don't necessarily wanna run into this. It is
a non-competitive
exercise. This is cooperative. There's no stepping backwards. We're all just moving forward
together in a literal way, in a metaphoric way. Okay, so I hope that we're ready on
Zoom cuz it looks like we're ready in the room. Oh, good. I see the zoom people.
Hello and welcome Zoom. So take one forward, step
forward if you've ever No, we can come. It doesn't
have to be a perfect line. Come on. If you've ever worked on a
communications project or campaign to achieve positive
social
or environmental change, all right, I would say that was maybe
80% of the in the room, if you've ever taught a class
or a workshop focused on communication. All right. A lot of educators, if you've ever conducted your
own research on behaviors or beliefs, if you've ever conducted your
own research on behaviors or beliefs, Matt, should I move? Or I'm like, okay, standing
here, stay this way. Okay, sorry about that. If you've ever used research
or insights from psychology or sociology to improve
the work
that you do, a lot of people, if you've ever used public
opinion or demographic research or data for your work, many of us, if you've ever conducted
message testing or wanted to, so we do not always have that
luxury or resource, right? If you've ever partnered
with someone outside of your professional discipline for
a social impact project, awesome. If you've ever wanted or
needed a thought partner from another discipline. Needed a. What? A thought partner. And then it's the last one. I
f you have ever wished that
your work reached more people and had more impact, okay, great. So we're all in the right place. Excellent. You everyone can, you can go back to your seats
for now, it'll be momentary. Thank you so much for that. So I'm gonna welcome our
panelists, come on up, we'll be on stage together briefly. Thank you everyone. All right, come on. So we're gonna hear a little
bit from these incredible folks about the work that they've
been doing that touches these themes that, tha
t we're starting
to explore in this session. So I'm gonna go in in order of the paper, which is not an order of this way, Teresa Gonzalez is an assistant
professor of sociology at Loyola Loyola University
Chicago focused on cities, public space and collective
joy within black and brown communities, among other things. Theresa, this year, your
research on narrative, the stories we tell colorblind,
racism, class blindness, and narrative framing in the
rural Midwest won the Frank Prize for research
that
advances public interest communication. How do you hope that this
research can be applied by pick practitioners? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. It's been a, it's been a great
long session and morning. So in thinking about both the
importance of research and, and how to apply it to communications, I wanna echo something that
Alvaro said yesterday that I'm still learning about public
interest communications. And so I'm grateful to be in this space, but there were two and, and
thinking about this question, there's kind of two overlapping areas. One is about process and method, and one is about kind of a
theoretical intervention. So when I think about process and method, and this is echoing a lot
of what's been said already, it's both about the importance
of speaking with talking to, but also listening to groups
that are often times either un underrepresented,
invisibilized or ignored. And that can mean a variety
of different things, right? It can, and it really is
im
portant for us both as research researchers, practitioners, people committed to social change, to think about who might those people be, who might those groups be? And even if when we're targeting
part particular groups, who might be the populations
within that are also going under heard or or ignored
within these spaces. The other thing is about listening
to understand rather than listening to respond or listening
to intervene immediately. And this can be especially
difficult if you're speaking
with groups, individuals, populations who have belief
systems or values that are very different from your own. And it doesn't mean that we agree, right, with what is being said, but rather really trying to
interrogate so that we fully understand what are the
stories, the narratives, the belief systems that are at play. Because in listening to
understand that's how we can start making interventions, right? If we go into a space
just listening to respond, listening to immediately intervene, it me
ans we're missing a lot of, of what's happening within these spaces. So that's in terms of like process method, kind of how we go into
spaces to really learn about, about what's happening within them. And then the other thing in terms of both process is also listening
to what's not being said, right? We go into a space we
wanna listen to understand, but then we also wanna
to pay attention to, as people are explaining processes, as they're explaining
their belief systems, what are they ignoring?
What kinds of questions are
they particularly kind of trying to evade? What is it that's not being said? What is it that's being redirected
in very interesting ways and why is that occurring? Right? So part of what I found in the paper, the stories we tell is that as I, I was working within a
small rural town and, and the rural mid, I wanna be very careful
because rural spaces, everybody knows each other, right? So it's, this is the rural
Midwest, and I'm part, I'm especially big for
a variety o
f reasons, but as I was talking to
decision makers there, and I was asking questions
about race and class in particular, these decision makers would
purposely evade a lot of these questions, would purposely not want to
talk about issues of race, would purposely not want to
talk about issues of class one, because if we ignore the problem, then we don't have to address it. And two, because these are very
difficult conversations to have. And for many folks, if they start unpacking
the ways that the
y're also perpetuating many of these inequities, they have to interrogate
themselves. And then they think, well that must mean I'm
a bad person, right? And so if I don't talk about it, I don't have to deal with
a lot of kind of these, these uncomfortable feelings. So be really careful in terms
of thinking about what's being said, what's not being said. And then also m an
ethnographer by training. That means that I, I enter into spaces with the
intention of becoming embedded within those spaces,
putting a lot of my own
preconceived notions aside to see how folks are making sense
of social processes and the worlds around them. And so what that also means
is that we oftentimes see, and it's not that people are lying, it's that we create these
stories in our head and we think it's absolute fact. So people will say one
thing and then do something completely different. So also pay attention to what's
happening in those spaces. Where are those disconnects
between how people are making sense o
f things, how they're responding, and then also the actions
that, that they're doing to, to couple with that in terms of theory, we have to think about, and this goes back to
something that IRMI said in the previous session regarding
dominant narratives, ideology frames, how we
think about the world, right? Those are those meta narratives,
those dominant narratives. It frames how we make sense of things, it frames how we view
ourselves within the world, but it also frames how we're
viewing other
s and then the decisions that we're making. So a lot of those, those
ideologies go unseen, right? That's, that's how, this is what Gramsci says
where ideology is unseen and that's how it's able to perpetuate itself. So if it's unseen and
we don't talk about it, then we don't have to acknowledge
that white poverty exists. If we don't talk about it, we don't have to acknowledge
that this is a country that's built on white supremacy
because we don't talk about it. If it's unacknowledged, then we do
n't have to address
the fact that we have vast inequality that's rooted within
the very structure of this nation, right? If we don't actually think
through it, talk about it, because that's the ideological framing, then it just kind of, we just
kick the can down the road, right? So in the paper very, very briefly, I'm talking about colorblind
racism and class blindness as ideologies. If we don't talk about race
and we don't talk about class, we can continue to create
policies that perpetuate rac
ism and classism in the
intersection of those two into perpetuity, right? We're seeing this overtly
in Texas and Florida. We saw this in Arizona,
right in 2010 with the, the very similar crackdown
on Mexican-American studies education within the state.
We've seen this consistently, right? Rear its head over and over
throughout American history and then overtly, but then also
inadvertently and implicitly. People think my, I, I worked in Massachusetts for many years. They think it's a very progres
sive state. In many ways it is. It's also
a deeply racist state, right? But because we don't
talk about these things, we have these ideologies in our head, we kind of just keep it moving. It's all in. There. Thank you so much for that. Kristen. I'm gonna go to you next. Kristen Buckley will be teaching
at University of Florida starting in the fall. Her research ranges from how
to communicate in response to backlash and the
commodification of protest. So I wanna ask you, Kristen,
about this appli
cation piece. When you think about research like yours, research like Teresa's, how can it be applied
by pick practitioners? How would you hope for the re when you're, when you're dreaming up your
research and we're thinking about, you know, what we heard about, there's the sort of
incentives within academia, but there's also the social
impact you wanna have. How do you think about that? Well, I, most of my work is quantitative. So it's, it's not coming from an
embedded place where I'm really sp
ending a lot of time with
communities finding out what they need. It's usually
more in the abstract, which makes it a lot more
difficult to be applied with the metrics of success for
academics to, you know, publish in journals that
have formulas that are very different from actual
change on the ground. It's hard to translate
that into something that's constrained by a theory or you know, the scientific method and
having it be resulting in actionable change. So that's, those are the main issues
t
hat come up with my work. Specifically how to make it
useful to the people that might be employing it is a question
I ask myself all the time. And I think a lot of times
with taking this, you know, very tiny finding that doesn't
really mean much on the ground and trying to apply
it isn't very useful. And that goes back to the
concept of trust that we've been talking about a lot. How am I useful to a practitioner
who wants to employ it if what I'm coming to them coming, bringing to them is not
ne
cessarily useful for them to, to employ. So the goals and the, the steward stewarding of
knowledge versus the actionable change can sometimes be at odds. So that's something that I think
will hopefully be addressed in the years to come. Yeah, well hopefully, we'll, we'll start to dig into that
in some of the small groups, cuz I'd love to hear, and I'd love for the group
to hear sort of some of those examples of, and and share ideas of how
people have negotiated that. Cause it's a very common set
of challenges that you're describing. I will go to Jaime next. Jaime Gonzalez is a
conservationist educator and communicator with the nature
conservancy here in Houston focused on equity and community
partnership. So Jaime, you mentioned that in your
organizing for climate justice here in Texas, you've used research from
the Yale program on climate communication. How did you apply this national
level behavior and opinion research on the ground with
communities here in Texas? Yeah, just to, to,
and
can you guys all hear me? Just to give you some context
about what I do on a daily basis, my measure of success is, is a tree planted to protect
community members from change uplift health and uplift
biodiversity. That's my measure of, and I, so I get to work in a number
of different planning processes with the city and the county. I get to do community and
foster community based science. I get to do restoration ecology. So I get to see how all of
these ecosystems kind of work together to ge
t something on the ground. And that's the whole point of, of my job in terms of climate. I'm not a climate justice activist. I am, I work with climate justice
folks for sure and environmental justice folks. But in terms of like how do you
bring down national research and make it local, you know, fortunately Yale does a great
job of bringing that data down to the, the county level. And lemme just explain one
of the complications of communication that we're
seeing on the ground right now. So Houst
on and Harris County are amongst, it's gotta be in the top five
areas in the country that are climate damaged. We've lost billions of dollars
here and anybody who has been through Hurricane Harvey knows how. We've had over a hundred
thousand structures flooded. We have people literally with
half their house still intact today. And that was in 20 seventeen's,
massive climate, injustice, dislocation, creation of
climate, refugees in the city. And then we have refugees from
other parts of the world
that have been pushed out by climate change. So there is a complication
right now in that if you look at the communications from Yale
and the polling that they did, we have this really weird juxtaposition. We have a highly damaged
community from climate change and supercharged storms and
flooding and drought. And yet if you look at the data, there's only a marginal
increase when the question was asked, have you or somebody, you know, been personally injured or
impacted by climate change? The na
tional average is
hovering around, I think 49%, don't quote me on this, but our average in Harris
County is floating around 53%. Even though people literally,
as I did in my neighborhood, saw people being picked off
of ruse by the Coast Guard. We had a mini drought that
was like the hottest may the second hottest June, the hottest July of last year is brutal. I've worked on the climate
plan with the city. We see what the climate forecasts
are. So I think, you know, as I tend, as I'm trying to wo
rk with
communities in Houston to bring nature interventions with many partners, including those community members, but with the city and the
county and other players, that translation of,
there's a huge climate risk. Nature can be part of the
solution for not just climate, but public health and equity
is, it's a broken story. And so without a bro, without a whole story of the
urgency of action in terms of closing health disparities, using nature and providing
more climate adaptation for communi
ties, it's very hard to push for
decision makers to spend the sorts of monies that they need
to get communities activated in that way. And to get the kind of funding
that spurs the action that makes a difference in
people's lives. So the, the national data modeling, infographics and things are
great when they're put in the hands of good communicators, right? But the data, it's what I tell people is like
the data and the research is the fuel, but it's not the vehicle. So you need stories as
the v
ehicle for that, particularly with communities.
And they need to right, co-create this narrative with
you because a lot of what I do is try to weave expertise,
community expertise being super, super important in that
scientific expertise, sometimes indigenous knowledge
planning, urban planning, you know, all of that stuff. So I think that national research
in terms of communications and science is really critical, but you have to bring it
down to a level where people understand that it's importa
nt
and understand it culturally. So, you know, I think that's one of the
big things that I'm always thinking about is how does
this land in a particular community with a particular
cultural outlay, right? And I always have to be mindful
of the fact that if research is done in other places that
I have to, as a communicator, I have to translate it
for a southern city. We are, you know, we're
not floating in space. Nobody is floating in space.
Everything is context specific. This is southern city w
ith
everything good and bad. That means, and so it needs to be told in
ways in which it is culturally competent, right? So anyway, I hope that helps, but it, it is a communications is the
only way we're gonna get to a better world and it plays a, a seminal role in getting
things done on the ground when it's done. Well. Thank you. I appreciate that. In terms of the weaving, especially of these different
kinds of knowledge, right? Cesar, you are the executive
director and co-founder of the immigra
nt rights organization
feel here in Houston, and I know that you've participated
in numerous national and local advocacy campaigns
for student rights and for immigrant rights. How has research about behaviors
and beliefs shaped the ways that you communicate with
your own community or with decision makers? So, well, well first of all, I wanna start off by saying
that usually when we think of the experts, and I'm not trying
to downplay anybody here, but our experts are our community
though they ar
e the ones that know best, number one,
what's what's good for them. And number two is what they
need to have a better life with that being said, one of the biggest things that
we have changed in the last five years has been the
narrative around citizenship and what people actually really want. When we have folks in DC
talking about citizenship or nothing in that narrative
space, we're left with nothing. And we've had 30 years of nothing. When, when we talk to people, when we talk to decision mak
ers, when we, but specifically when we
talk to community members, they want the ability to be here. They want the ability to be
able to travel back and see their family and just
continue to, to work. So I, I think that that
puts into context a lot of, of what it is. But also the
way we approach people is, is, is super fundamental in all of this work. Oftentimes we, we want to
get something out of people, but you have to realize that
in a lot of these vulnerable communities, you're talking to peo
ple who
don't want to talk to anybody. I am the anomaly. I myself
an undocumented immigrant, I was brought here when I
was five and have lived, have lived here. I was one of the first people
in Houston to say that I was undocumented out loud at the
expense of my mom getting very mad at me because in our
entire lives, we were told, don't talk to anybody, don't
share your, don't share. This is, this is sacred space. And not just because it it's our lives, but it's because it
could have consequence
s. I grew up, I grew up in
a, in a household where, where we were told to not
speak openly about our status because if the neighbor
were to get mad at us, they would call immigration on us. I grew up in a household where
we had a plan, there was a, a little booklet like this that
had a numbers and addresses on who to call and, and
who to, and you know, what to do in case mom
and dad didn't come home. So all of that you have to take
care of first before we even begin to ask the first question, ri
ght? We have to put ourselves in
that space so that we can be able to, to not only begin to
approach those communities, but how do we approach them and, and what and how we frame the
questions that we're asking as to not trigger people and
make people freak out. One of the things that we've, that we've done through fi has
been that we've created that trust in communities by
being there for them. And when we're still very old school, we're still a lot of
people, I, I love Zoom, don't get me wrong
, but, but
a lot of people, you know, align, who's my partner in
crime and he's our campaigns coordinator. He'll call
me at 11 and say, Hey, this just happened in Cleveland, Texas, which is about an hour and a half. Can you get in the car right now? And more than likely
the answer is, is yes. And we're at people's homes at
midnight talking and guiding them through, through
processes and things like that. And so meeting people where they're at, speaking their language,
knowing their culture, I me
an, is super, super important. And one of the ways that we've
been able to do that through fi is by creating that community
trust by being there for community for over 15 years now. And, and we have, and it's, and it's interesting because
during Covid we did a study and I always tell people, be careful what you ask of us
because we might just do an incredible job. And I'm not, I'm not saying that in the most
humble way possible because we were asked to do a study
around Covid and they said, you
have about a month. And so we hired canvassers and
after hiring and onboarding and stuff, we have 20 days left to, to, to figure this project out.
And with eight immigrant women, we were able to knock on
7,000 doors and garner 3000 responses to a survey that
completely changed the way the county approached people
around covid and vaccines and outreach. But at the same
time, we were, we were very, we were very deliberate in
not just taking from people, but also offering the help. And you would be
surprised at
how many people we were there and they had no idea what was going on. And we were the first people
to go and knock on the door, but they opened the door
because they saw the t-shirt, they saw our, our logo, they, they knew who we were and they said, these are folks that we can trust. Albeit though, it is very
expensive to do that. And so that's the other thing that in, in all of research and all of this, one of the things that we
encourage folks to take into account is, is, is supp
orting those organizations
like FI and other folks that are on the ground so that
they can continue to work. Cuz we get calls all the time
from universities and colleges and, and they, they are
researchers in general, and they tell us, we need 30
participants for this study. And we're like, that means we have to, that means we have to do the three times, which means that we have to
secure 90 people and contact them three times and make
sure we contact them in three different ways. So if my maths
, my math serves me right, that's about a thousand
contacts that we have to make. And that's a lot to ask from
an organization who's community funded, who's community based, who's rather small when there's
other people out there that have massive, massive budgets. So I always encourage people to, to take that aside from
everything that you are already doing, take that into account and
make sure that's part of the process. And in some way, you leave something behind with
the folks who are providi
ng you with your test subjects
or with people that you're talking to. Thank you. Thank you all for sharing a
little bit more about your work and where you sit in this
web of impact that we're all creating together. One of the things that keeps
coming up for me is how all of our work is deeply embedded.
It's deeply embedded. In order to be effective, we need to be embedded with community. We need to be building
trust on the ground. And so next we're gonna break
into groups and talk about how we'r
e gonna translate that for each other. And so this activity, if you see there are
easels set up around here, we're gonna bring around some whiteboards. And what we wanna do first
is for folks in the room and folks on Zoom, think about the hat that you
primarily wear as either a communicator or a researcher. And so you can think about
maybe some of the icebreaker questions we did, or maybe
that's very clear for you, acknowledging that we
are all multiple things. We wanna think in our lane, are we
communication practitioners? And so I'm gonna send the first
group off with you, Jaime. So will you raise your hand
in the room if you primarily identify as a practitioner,
you're a communicator. Okay, wonderful. Can you all, we're gonna get up and go to
this wooden easel in the back, And Jaime is gonna lead you all there. And there's whiteboards
right over here next to the cartography exhibit. Wonderful. Our next group will be researchers
that can go with Kristen. Researchers stand up. And we
have an easel here. And I wanna say thank you
Lori and Piper on Zoom. Please go ahead and, and
make groups there as well. We've got four questions
here that we're gonna answer. So folks who didn't get up yet
are, are, are we researchers? Are we practitioners? We're hybrid. Educators. Educators. Okay. So for educators,
I want you to like, we're gonna think about which
one of these lenses you want to take on because educators,
you're sitting in the middle, right? You're, you're often doing
a lot o
f these things. And so we can, the questions
kind of overlap, but Theresa, would you mind leading some
educators over here in this activity? And whoever's left, let's come to this ISL
right here in the middle. And so we have some whiteboards. If you're on a practitioner
table back here with Jaime, if you look on the left here,
when and how has research, either opinion, research, messaging, social or behavioral research
helped your public interest communication projects? How did
you identify and
apply that? What barriers are you facing? And what would you like
to ask researchers for? We have ourselves right here
in the room where we can make a wishlist and actually let folks
know what is it that we need for the research groups When
and how have connections or collaborations with communicators
helped your research project. So not just community members, we wanna think about
communicators specifically, folks who are engaging
in projects where as, as Jaime discussed, right, where we want,
we need to communicate in order
to achieve the change that we're trying to get as a community. Think about the barriers and
then what wishlist you wanna make. So we have about 20
minutes for this exercise, and I'm gonna come around if, if groups are a little
bit larger than we need, we've got some extra easels. Hey everybody, we're gonna
take five more minutes. I think most folks have gotten
to their wishlist so far. So five minutes from now we're
gonna report back to each other. So please make
sure you have
your wishlist ready and that someone in the group other
than the facilitator is gonna report back. Okay? All right. You all will get to keep
talking to each other in these groups in the next round. So make sure you capture those,
those thoughts on the board. You can stay where you are. We're gonna report out from the groups, we're gonna hear from each other. So I actually want to go to
Lori and Piper first on Zoom. Me too. And ask you all if we can hear back. All right, I'm gonna g
ive us one second
in the room to just kind of get settled in for the conversation. The facilitators, you can
stay with your groups, keep it casual. All right, thanks everyone. Okay, I think we're, I
think we're getting close. So to start out, I wanna hear from the
practitioner group on Zoom facilitators, just help me get your groups
ready and listening mode please. All right, so on Zoom, Lori or Piper, can you ask someone from the
practitioner group to answer what you guys found for these
first
two questions about how and why you are using research
for communications projects? Oh, they need another minute. Okay, we can start in the room. Great. Let's see. So can the
practitioner group, Nicole, I see you back there.
I'm not sure if you are. And Ginger are appointed reporters. So how did you all answer
those first two questions? When and how has opinion messaging, social or behavioral research
helped your pick projects and how did you identify
and apply that research? Okay. Yes. There we
go. Okay, so why we came up with it helped with speaking to
executives, that was a, a, a big one. Also understanding insider
language collaboration and it, it helped build credibility
and allowed for really informed storytelling through that research. So I think the three step
process that was written down was research opinion and then action oriented. So you go through those three
steps and research helps lead to those and understanding opinion. And then the second question,
you want me to go
with that? How was it identified and applied? Primarily we came up with two things, building networks and improving systems. Wonderful. How many do you wanna share
any more on those first couple questions from your group? So Ginger's doing a great job,
but there's a couple things. I think that that three step
method is really important. You, you do the research, but I tell people all the time
that that communities are not maps, not polygons on a map,
they're actually people. So aligning the rese
arch, which is often based on big
data with personal stories about impact and also, and, and one of our folks talked
about always put action steps, bright spots and empowerment in with that. Don't give them terrible news
and say, have a nice day. Yeah, that's so important. And that's actually something
that in, in my work, I learned in parallel both just
from working with folks and saying, Hey, you can't keep
telling these stories like this. It's exhausting and people
are getting demoralized. An
d then lo and behold, there's also research that
has rigorously tested, proven that hypothesis for
our other communication practitioner groups. Are we ready on Zoom to
report back on the first two questions? Thank. You for We don't have to our. I would like to, no. Is there somebody from our
researcher group who would like to, to share out? I'm putting folks a little
bit on the spot here. I think so too. Oh wait, are you asking for the three
of us that were in the research room to, to talk about
what we talked about? Yes. Carrie, would you like
to, to share for the group? Oh yeah. But Brandy and Jack
can also kind of chime in. Oh, was there a particular question
you wanted us to focus on? Yeah, we were looking
at the first question, so not the barriers yet, but just sort of when and how
are you making this bridge happen? Yeah, I think It was easier for Jack because
he's part of an institute for the, for public communication. They work all the time
from what I understand with nonprofits
. For me, a a as a researcher, I tend to like reach out to
people who do communications who are activists or they, you know, they work at Greenpeace or
PETA or Human Rights Watch or something, or the Nature Conservancy. And I talk to them and then
I put their input, you know, in my books and, and this is usually done with
me analyzing also the content of what they're producing
on their websites or their persuasive materials. And then getting, then finding out from them
as the producers of those
materials, like, why are
you doing it this way? Or what values are you
interested in appealing to? And so that's the way that I've
done is like trying to learn from them, but then I'm also making
recommendations in any article or book about what I think
is the best practice, which usually goes along
with what they said, but might be something additional
or maybe even contrary. So that's how, anyway, that's
how I, I was talking about it, but I'll let Jack or Brandy chime in. Yeah, I'll, I'll just
add, working with the Center for
Public Interest Communications at uf, we work really closely with a
lot of the communicators and really design research with
them from the start middle stage and then talk about findings.
So it really, it differs, but we're kind of lucky to have client, like they're almost like our clients. So if there's any way you can
get practitioners as clients, that works for us. And there's lots of different
ways that we try to do it, but when you get them, it's great. Eve
ryone, I would just chime in from
the practitioner's side in our breakout room. We had a lot of great conversation
mainly around some of, some of the questions around
ethical questions that come up when you're working with research. And, and again, not to put
anyone on the spot, but Peter, do you wanna quickly flag the
question you had just asked at the very end before we ran outta time? Because I think it's a great
question that's on the mind of practitioners often, if you're still on maybe. Al
l right, so, so the question Peter had at
the very end was kind of around the, the ethics that come up,
I think for practitioners, particularly when you go into research, do you have a framework in mind, particularly those in PR agencies, do you already know what you
want? Are there push pulls? Are you going into it knowing
exactly what results you want and how do researchers push
back on that kind of mindset or approach and practitioners? Great. Anyone else on Zoom wanna share
either from the r
esearcher or practitioner point of
view on those first couple questions, sort of how and when you're
making those connections? All right, we'll come back in person. Kristen's group, would you all share what
you found on those first two questions? The first two. Questions? Yes. Okay. Sure. Thanks. Okay. Okay, first question. We said if you can find like
an authority figure in the community who can help to get, who can help garner like
respect and trust and, and also help you get
interviews and ma
ke people feel comfortable talking to you, respecting their ways of
designating authority. So it might be rude and you
might kind of burn bridges if you just go in and start asking
people if you can like do research with them instead
of, like, for example, like when I do things with
like indigenous communities, I didn't know at first that like, you're supposed to go to a
specific person to ask if you can ask other people or
they might ask for you. You can't just go around and
start asking people
and then don't just assume. Yeah, don't just assume you
can talk to anybody you want. And then if you can show how
similar work that you've done in your own community or in
other communities has worked out well, I think social media
is really good for that. Or sometimes I'll bring like
recordings of other interviews and stuff I've done, or maybe you can like explain
or show them like a paper that you've written that was like
received well and that like you write in, in a positive way so that
th
ey know what this could look like later so that you're, they don't just have to trust
that you're gonna do something that's not like a negative
outlook on their community with this. That's awesome. There was, we
also identified media outlets, both formal and informal, mainstream community based ones
for finding people and also locating the big mouths, the people in the community
that would be willing to participate and engage
with you is another key, key way to do that. And then
for the second q
uestion, as far as what we can do
to show and build those, those relationships is just
showing up, investing interests, identifying those local authority
figures as well as media and news that, that people actually consume
and getting the word out there. That way. We also, we thought, we thought established one. We thought establishing trust
between researcher and his, their team and the
community is very important. Sometimes depending on the topic, that might be a sensitive topic, they might ha
ve to talk
about personal experiences. So we thought it's important
to establish that trust and that doesn't come suddenly. It has to be established
probably over a long time or with shared experiences staying
with them for some time or through the leads from the
own their own community. Great, thank you. Over here with Angela and
Theresa, our researcher, educator, multi hyphenates, how did you all, is there anything else that
came up in your group around how and when you're collaborating
with c
ommunicators? So we in, oh, I have this one. So in, in true open-ended
focus group format, we allowed the conversation
to take us in a different direction and had a robust
conversation really focused in on interventions and ways to
kind of, for both researchers, practitioners, and people
who navigate multiple, I think areas. So I'm happy
to share that now or later. Yeah, now go for it. Okay, so just, we have a whole list. Part of it is simplifying
language theory and ideas. And so that includes
knowing one's audience. So on the part of folks who are, you know, researchers who are faculty members, that's knowing that and
understanding making our work more accessible to a broader audience
is a completely different genre of writing. And this is where public interest
communicators are key and can do a lot of work in both
guiding us in making that that work more accessible,
but also training us in, in ways to do that. And also collaborating with
us and making that work more, more accessible
. That might include news stories
that boil down research, learning to write op-eds right
to get stuff out to a broader audience. One member suggested having
departmental money to hire a departmental PR person who
could do a lot of this work because as right as Natalie mentioned, faculty are pooled in a
multitude of different directions and may not have the time
or the capacity to add an additional thing, right? So having someone paid to, to assist us in doing that
work can be really key. The ot
her issue is evaluation
pre-tenure faculty, right? And E had mentioned this yesterday, pre-tenure faculty are not
encouraged to do this kind of work. That's not part of
our metric for evaluation. And so if we're in those positions
that are tenured track at many, not all but many institutions, I'm lucky to be at one
that does include this, but many institutions do not. And so if it's seen as
something that's not moving our career forward in
a very particular way, it can feel like an additional
bu
rden or added, added work. So just having folks that, that we could work with at the university, at the department can be really
helpful while simultaneously training graduate students
and faculty on how to do this. Another great idea was to use
many universities that are land grant universities have extension. So collaborating with extensions
to do a lot of this work to get our research out because
they're supposed to be community based in this way. Building a network of
researchers, practition
ers, people who kind of move through these, these variety of spaces so
that they could do the work. For instance, if I knew I could
connect with this network, say I would like to get
this work out in this way, I don't know how to write in this way, you have training sessions
that I can attend great. Or can connect me with folks
on how to do this. Great. That's one way of bridging that gap. And then also folks who
are doing, you know, activists at community
based nonprofits policy, whoever it is
who wanna get
access to research also know I can go to this place to find
folks who are doing this work. It just, it makes it a little bit easier
than trying to write folks that, you know, putting
calls out on, on Twitter, putting calls out on
ResearchGate using Facebook, just like doing cold calling
that can be both burdensome in terms of time, but also weird, right? Because you don't know if cold
calling is really even gonna work. We also had a really great idea here for, as folks are writing
more
research academic based articles at the end in the conclusion
also say, all right, what are some of the best
practices that we can learn from this in terms of how this
can be implemented, right? Not just thinking about, I have
concluded this is like what, whatever blah, blah, blah with my article, but also now what does this
mean outside of this space? What does this mean on the
ground in our communities? How can this be implemented? And things like challenging
paywalls for academic researc
h, simplifying our abstracts, right? So it was mentioned that
oftentimes communicators are looking at the abstracts of
research and if they're very convoluted, which I hadn't
even thought about, I'm just, I'm thinking this is abstract
for people who are reading this stupid paper, right? That, that are other, right? Academics or graduate
students, not outside of it, but I'm like, oh it, it is
accessible to everybody. And if that abstract is simplified
in terms of this is what this is, this is wha
t we're doing, this is the importance of it, that also makes things a
lot easier for everyone. And then finally just recognize
that this is education for everyone and that we should
really try to be more useful and intentional in our work. Does
anybody wanna add anything? Wonderful, thank you for that. So the next question I think that we want, we've been hearing from
each other about barriers, but that doesn't mean that
we've heard all the barriers, right? Or we've heard exactly
how they apply
to each of us. And so I wanna do a roundabout
barriers and then we're gonna go to our wishlist for each other, which you all started to move us into. Cesar, would you mind having someone
from your group share what are some of the barriers that
you named as practitioners in applying research to inform
your communication projects and decision making? I think I got it. Yes. Thank you. Okay, so we had a small but mighty
group and we had an awesome conversation and there were
several things discussed
about barriers and I think one of
the key things was trying to, we looked at what is the purpose
of the research and that's very important also, who the
researcher is writing for. And I think that group
touched a bit on that is like depending on the audience
they have in their mind, that's the how accessible the paper is. So accessibility is important. Also, how centered and representative
is it of the communities that the research is, you know, based on, that's an important context too. Also,
I guess some of the
other barriers we talked about. I mean, I guess, so we need to understand where
the research is coming from to be able to use it because
our group was a mixed practitioner group mostly
doing translational work. In addition to that, I guess it's the cost of
accessing the research such as paywalls time because there's
a lot of time invested in trying to understand
the research to use it. And that was that. Those
were the main points. Anything you want to add? I think the final
one was
addressing questions that are not just interesting to, to us
or to the, the researcher, but that are relevant to the community. Like what needs to be asked. Not just saying we want to do
this because we want to do it, but rather is it, what's
the purpose of it? Yeah, how useful is it
and what's the context? Thank you. Ginger, did you all have anything
different than that or that you wanna add on from the other
practitioner group? Yeah, yeah. Just a moment. If you do the mic then
they'll
hear you on Zoom. Yeah, you'll see we have a lot more
for barriers in our wishlist. So the practitioners over here, but one of the things that
stories that was told was a woman from Egypt talking about
research papers that she's having to digest, she's here to
understand the, the western lens, the global north lens, and then has to try to not only
translate it language wise, but then go back and
translate it into her society, how that research applies. So
that is definitely a barrier, which goes
back to representation, which I think was mentioned
just a little bit of another access of that and, and speed
also speaks to accessibility, so equity, that kind of thing. So yeah, everything else
we are with you on that. Please. Yeah. Just real quickly, I think that there was a really
great comment that if you're doing a body of research that
you think is a real aha moment for the community, maybe talking ahead of your
ahead of time before you publish that paper with your local
communications
folks, if you have any, to create a set of infographics
or easily digestible social media content that goes with
that so you don't release the paper and then think the
world's gonna change, but rather work with communications
professionals to have a lied content that you can
push all out at the same time. Yeah, that's such a good point that
that translation work that we need to do often also needs
to be collaborative so that we can be speaking to everyone
that we want to engage. Lori and Piper o
n Zoom, do you all have any
more barriers to share? We're gonna move into wishlist next. Hey there. No, I don't think so at this time. I think we're good. Okay. Do you all want to kick
us off then for the wishlist? What did you all, will you let us know, which you can either speak from
the researcher group or the practitioner group and
let's hear from each other. What is it that in our dream
world we would get from each other in order to, to
start making this bridge? I don't have anything from
t
he practitioner list to add. Does anyone in the research
group have anything to add? I don't think so. No, I
think we're good for now. Okay. Yeah, we didn't get to this
wish, the wishlist question. We didn't either. Probably cobble something
together, but Yeah. Well we ran. A time, we talked a lot
about the barriers of like, we'll do research and then
we can't get it at or, or we might send it to some people, but we don't know that they ever use it. Or sometimes we feel
like, like we're trying.
But with our limited resources and time, we're not marketing our
own research that well. Although Jack had put some
links in the chat and mentioned several organizations that are useful. Jack, if you, I don't know if you wanna
mention those organizations to us again as a, at least for the nonprofit
world to reach other like activists. Sure, yeah. We've had success going through
the conversation and S S I R I can drop the L links in the in the chat. Yeah. And op-eds are are great as well. And the
n nonprofit quarter. Mentioned other one that
we talk about as well. Nonprofit quarterly. Yep, that's okay. Conversation.com And SSIR
stands for Stanford Social Innovation Review. I didn't know that. Yeah. And then having your
stuff be open access as much as possible or having open
access versions of things. So it's not, it's not behind that paywall, which you all mentioned. And then having updated
contact information on our own websites for when practitioners
do wanna reach us, that it's easy f
or them to get
to us or find out what we're doing. And also go, like for us going to conferences
that are for practitioners is good. It's sometimes it's difficult. We have such limited funding, like to actually make the time
to go to those conferences in addition to scholarly conferences
is, is difficult to do. But sometimes conferences
overlap like this one is doing, or like I was just at the
conference on com communication and the environment that's
from the International Environmental Communi
cation Association. And that is an association
for both environmental communicators and people who
work in academia in that field. So I think the more, we also have professional
organizations that bring us together like, hey, we're all
environmental communicators, whether you teach it, research it, or you work at Greenpeace
or something like that. Anyway, that's good as well. Those kind of organizations. I think that's so important
when we think about the spaces, right? Cause we've talked about
the
paywalls and maybe peer review journals are not necessarily
the space where we're looking for that. Do we need to create additional
spaces online and in person where we're able to come together
and do that translation or we're able to go and know
someone has done that translation work and they've left it
here for me and that's the resource. Or I can go there and say, oh, I really need someone, as you said, with contact information,
it like, to be honest, as a practitioner, it
didn't even occ
ur to me. I heard a colleague saying,
oh yeah, like, you know, she calls the researcher and
asks them and I was like, you're allowed to just call. Like how are you finding the researcher? And then you say to
tell them to like, yeah, that sounds like a dream. And
that's just something that, you know, hadn't even occurred to me. I'm trying to do those
translations on my own own as a layperson. So I think you all are, you're
giving me a lot of ideas, which I appreciate. So let's move into our, our,
the rest of our wishlist. I know that that's been
kind of woven in already, but I wanna go around the room
and hear what are the things that we wanna ask each other
for that would be helpful in our work. And I'm gesturing
towards questions group, so let's just start there. Well, before Angel reads our. Before Angel reads our, our wishlist, I wanted to shout out one
other barrier that researchers have, which is the potential
for, for harm of, you know, the people that you're,
you're speaking wit
h, the fatigue that they have, any sort of burnout and bureaucracy
that researchers have to deal with. I think that's something that
comes up quite a bit with being able to make those
relationships last and sustain them. But over to Angel with our wishlist. Okay, time help with access to
donors and funders telling the, the stories with dignity, authenticity, and honor education from them
so that we're not just stuck in a literature bubble. Ask us the questions they want
answered and connections
with community members
identifying education gaps. Mm. So you all wanna hear the
questions that we want answered? Huh? I'm, I am curious to
put someone on the spot. What is, what is the right moment in
your research process to be like, how do I get to you
all as researchers in time? Right? To, to help shape that question. We. Would probably reach out. Well, okay. I would probably reach out like
in the beginning before I go to the community to start the research. Like that's how I would go
about
formulating my research questions is I would know
the community ahead of time, reach out to some people in
the community ahead of time and then say like, what are some questions that
you have that you would like answered? And then I would probably
incorporate that into the overall set of questions. Yeah. So it has to do with those
ongoing relationships that over time we're able to kind of be
go-tos for each other to kind of shape that. Yeah. Sorry, I was just gonna add that
sometimes I approach
it too as a, like when I did, when I was a journalist and
sources would reach out to me with story ideas and if
somebody from a community member reached out to me and and said, you know, that they had X question, I'd think about whether or not
that fit within my particular research trajectory and if it did, I'd be interested in talking
to them more about it. And if it didn't, maybe I could direct that
person to somebody else who actually did that kind of research. So I think that if you have
som
ething that you think needs to be answered, reach out to any researcher
that you can find that does something similarly or you know, just something related to
whatever it is that you're interested in. And don't feel like you can't
reach out because I mean, I think I speak for a lot of
us when I say please we'd love to hear from you. Thank you. Yeah, let's just go freeform. I think all of us have wishlists
and we also have things we can commit to. And so yeah, please. Okay, so following up on wha
t Summer said, which is an excellent
point, I'm coming from, I work for university marketing
and communications and all of your universities has
a similar department. It's probably called a different thing, public affairs or you know,
media relations, whatever. But I'd like to reiterate
summer's point that is you can reach out to us, you as researchers know when
you have something that is exciting you and you want to
share it, well give us a call. We are always looking for
great stories to tell.
You know, I've personally, well a lot of my team has alerts set up. So whenever a paper with you, university of Houston is published, we get an alert and I'll
tell a quick story because it really makes a point. So there was this great
paper that was published, very exciting research. I sent two emails to the
researcher, no response. I tracked, well I, to know the husband of the
researcher and forwarded my e one of my emails saying, can you
please make sure she sees this? And I have a response.
A lot of times we don't have
the time to go to those lens to track it down. So if, so, a lot of times I get the question as, when should I tell you? Well,
as soon as you, you know, get a paper accepted by a publication, let the university media
relations person know. Let someone on your team know
and they'll work with you, because then the next question
is, well, we have an embargo. We'll work with that. We
can get a lot of work done. We'll be respectful, but we need to know so that
we can help
translate your research into narrative. So. Thanks. Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, Teresa. Just to add on to, to both of these, these amazing things that
were said is that in addition, as researchers, we should
also be reaching out, right? We shouldn't just be waiting
for folks to reach out to us. We should be reaching out to
institutional resources, right? Like marketing, npr, if there's a center for
community engagement or community and research, reach out to those as well
to see is there any ove
rlap, not just in terms of the
research that I'm doing, but in terms of training students. And maybe we can do right, more community engaged work
with our students as well, that are answering some of the
questions that are happening within the communities around us. Reach out to, you know, area nonprofits and
activist groups and say, this is the kind of work that I'm doing. Is there any overlap?
Can we work together? One of the projects that
I'm working on through being connected with the Center
for Community Research and Engagement, I was able to tap into a
mayor's health task force, which seemed like it had
nothing to do with my research, and then ended up having
everything to do with my research, right? And so I, I was able to work with and
work alongside local nonprofits and Lawrence Mass, get
feedback on, you know, survey instruments, incorporate questions that
were meaningful to not just the local municipal government, but also area nonprofits
doing similar work. And in trying to
, to, you know, raise awareness about particular things. So there's ways that we can
also be a little bit more proactive and terms of, of
initiating those conversations, engaging those conversations, and, and making people more aware
about the work that we're doing. And then the, the only other thing I'll say
is that never underestimate the power of just being in community and, and talking to people about
the kinds of work that you're interested in and the kinds
of work that you're doing. Becaus
e I can guarantee as
much as, and this has said, been said so many times this conference, I appreciate it as much as
academics like to think that we're experts and we don't know
everything and there's a lot we don't know, and so many other people are
doing similar work just from different angles and collaborating
on those projects makes the work much more impactful, right? And long term, and ensures
that it's sustainable. So just I think opening up some
of those parameters a little bit. Thank yo
u. What other ideas came
up? Yeah, Giselle, oh. Well I just, There were just
two things I wanted to share. One is, I, I had a question that I haven't
really heard answered during the conference, which is
how, well, how often and how, and how well do researchers
go back and share with the, the communities they have
obtained their information from, the results of their research
and not just the results of their research. And, and of course in
a way that a community, whatever way a community
needs
that presented. And then not just that, but
also how, if say, not, you know, it's being utilized by nonprofits
or other groups for policy advocacy or other terms, is that also being shared
back with the community? That was the origin of the
information in the research. And, and I just wanted to share how
I think how easy it is to do that and how much respect
and credibility it creates. I've even done it with farmers
in southern Nigeria via phone when I finally, pre after I've got gathered
their
stories and then they're gonna be on the internet,
which they may not even see. You know, the other thing is, is it possible to create a
list of vetted practi public interest communications
practitioners that researchers can go to, you know, look up and maybe ask to assist
them in any of this kind of communications? I mean, I'm just wondering if the
Public Interest Communications Institute or some other
body could establish that. I, I love your question and I
would love to respond to it, to both
of them, and I invite
others to do so as well. One of the most effective ways
that in my community engaged research, which is about
sexual health and h i v, has been communicated back
to the folks who shared their stories was actually through theater. So we did a report for
nonprofits so that they could understand how, you know, have the insights about
community that we had gathered in these different listening
tours. And then we said, okay, this is useful for the
nonprofits and the social serv
ice organizations, however, what
about for the actual people? And so we made an ethnographic
play and it became a way to bring stories to life,
to engage, to bring joy, to bring the community back
together and continue the conversation in a way
that was relevant there. So I really appreciate the question. And then my, my next, you set me up right for
the very next piece, which was to think about what
are the commitments we can make as well as the wishlist. I wanna keep going on
folks wishlist an
d the, this fabulous brainstorm. But one of my commitments would be to, I'd be to offer myself to
partner with researchers to do sort of what Teresa was
describing. Is it a, is it a one pager? What is the translation
work of your research? I think that myself and lots
of others in this room would be interested in doing that,
either as a conversation series, as a, you know, a blog series
or something like that. I think it's a fantastic idea. Yeah. Hi, I am something on my
wishlist as a practition
er. I am a journalist, I work for a journalism support
organization and the way I use public interest
communication research is to, I inform other journalists about the, the research that's been
done on narrative change and language and framing and how
it impacts the communities that they're reporting for. And so often I am trying to
communicate research about language and framing to
journalists to convince them to use one thing or another. And I'm lucky that in
journalism there is a, a very hig
h efficiency
business to business journalism market. There's a lot of
reporting on reporting research, which is great, but man, I
would kill for researchers, especially if you have your
own website and you can find it to just have, you know, some social media graphics
with the highlights of your research that can be easily shared. If you use Canva, oh my gosh, it's the easiest thing in the world. You can make a template with
just some highlights and it makes it so much easier to
share with other
people so that you're, you know, some of, of the work isn't
translational as much as it is, as it is just putting it
in a different format. Thank you. Yes, please. In the front. Thank you. I think for
the first question is for, for us like community organizers, we trying to build a
community and research, Meg help us to build a community. I think science start
working in the field with the research. My wish list is every research
intentionally and with the expectation, talk to the people and sa
y, but this time we gonna present
the results and we want you to be part of the results. And that make community and
that make more strong or communities in any research
you, you, you can do. I think that's the two words
always I want to hear like intentionally with expectation.
And that can be awesome. Thank you. Yeah, say sorry. I don't know if this, this
has been said already, but I think it has to be said
too that a lot or most of this, I would say maybe
99% of it is English only. And physic
ally translating
into a different language is, is is something that we highly encourage, but in a way that people can understand. I was just telling the story
to my group that the Spanish that I use is not the proper
Spanish that my mom uses, but we use that Spanish cuz
for folks in my generation, they understand it. Whereas if you start using
like super huge words, I have a hard time saying
them in Spanish. And so I, I think, I think that's interesting
in, in it reminds me of, in 2010 I was wor
king with
day laborers and I made the assumption that day laborers
spoke Spanish and without realizing that they spoke
dialects of Chen and different dialects from Guatemala. And so that was a learning experience. But then that also taught me
to not like clump everybody and say, okay, all Latinos speak Spanish. Cuz that's probably one of
the biggest mistakes I made at that time. Yes, A hand in the back. I'm a money person, so
I'm, I'm in fundraising and so I'm gonna just talk
about the elephant
in the room, which is people getting paid, academics being paid for their work. Our research is a reflection
of our brains, right? It becomes like a part of who we are. It is giving the world our knowledge. And in the academy that's
supposed to be free, but it shouldn't be, especially given the fact that
folks in industry can make a tremendous amount of
money from our brains. So if you are using our facts
and figures and numbers and you need us to make money on
your end, then just, you know, I'l
l give some folks a
little bit of change. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. I just wanted to reiterate the
issue around language justice and how important it is
for us to center, you know, both as a barrier but also as a wishlist. I think we often tend to see
that as almost as a problem that has to be dealt with
rather than taking more of a, you know, a universal design
approach, if you will, where language justice is
centered and, you know, what would our work look like
if it didn't just be
come like, oh, we have to translate it, you know, like both languages are in
all of these other ways. But if that was a commitment
that we made to ourselves and how would that reflect in our, in our ethics and the way we do our work, in the ways we disseminate, you know, whether it's research or, or other things. So I just wanted to reiterate. Yeah, language justice
is not an afterthought. It's not just a, a Google
translate at the end. Absolutely. Do folks have more
thoughts on their wishlist?
Because our final topic is
gonna be around what we can commit to, which has started
to happen in the conversation, both as individuals and also
as a whole, as a community, as groups. Thank you. One of the things we came up with and, and there were several already mentioned, but was a repository of some sort and the, the idea could AI be used to leverage tools and resources and research. So. Folks have other ideas
or offers in the room? Yeah. I mean, and it came up
organically in our conversation
, but I think one of the most
important points was I think to keep in mind the humanity and
the context in all our, you. Know, work. So. Yeah. Hi me. Yeah, I think we had a really good
conversation about like a, a wishlist and I would just wanted to add, like you were talking about
researchers getting paid for their time and community
members getting paid for their time. Yes. You know, not assuming that they can be
volunteers for the research, but one thing that kind of was
starting in our group
was I'm thinking that, you know, we need to weave together
different disciplines, but we're also trying to weave
together different knowledge systems and value those expertises. It's not just community knowledge. So when we think about research, we always think about western
research, but for instance, in the world that I work in, we're trying to really weave
together as well traditional ecological knowledge, which
has a lot of resonance, but it's different than
western research. So, so this is
called two eyed,
seeing when you actually merge. No, you're not merging these two systems, they're running in parallel,
but it's helping to inform, and I think with community
knowledge it needs to be seen as being equally or if not more
valid than western research so that you're weaving
knowledge systems together. They're not gonna be the same. They're gonna walk in
parallel to increase the, the efficacy of those
changes that you want. Yeah. Over here. Yeah. Just to speak off the point I was, I
was also in the group in the
corner and I didn't like know how to say this in a tangible way. And I don't come from the
research world and if I do come from data, you know, soft data around storytelling
and honoring the whole person behind the data. And I often think about
when we do social research, like how is the framework one
that promotes and enhances the colonial framework and how do
we decolonize that and what methods, approaches,
strategies, trust building, relationship building, like a
re we using to interact with people, especially marginalized populations, especially populations that
don't have privilege and access. And then do we honor and
respect that they don't? And do we have the cultural
humility to approach it from a lens that doesn't reaffirm, you know, cast power and and whatnot. And I didn't like have a tangible
ask and I also didn't want to have it come across like,
I assume that all researchers, you know, are colonizing
the people they work with. That's not my, I
don't think
that's the intent, but I, I often, I don't know what the request
is and I don't know if I have a request or I'm just
talking in circles, but like, how do we move in a direction
that allows people to be fully honored in their experiences
in the way that they're valued and use our whatever we have
intellect experience to merge with theirs rather than to
be at a level that is high, you know, at a higher level of hierarchy. Right? So I think we often like
assume that people we research d
on't see it like that, but I often don't think like
we do operate from like the lens of liberation and solidarity
and like that's maybe a lot of my intentionality about
how I work with people and who I work with and if I'm
not honoring their experiences and who am I tapping into in
the neighborhood or community that is honoring their experiences
and their way of life and their method of communication
without judgment. So that's kind of, I don't know what the ask is
or if somebody else wants to p
iggyback on that, but yeah, that those were like the
thoughts flowing through my mind, like how do we take research, rearrange it in a way that
honors the people that we're engaging with in a way to liberate them. So part of my thoughts. Thank you that I, I did get it. And that is on my wishlist as
well. Thank you for adding it. Yeah. Oh great. Yes. All right, friends on Zoom. I'm happy to read this one
in, but Jack, I'm not sure if, if you'd like to, we had your
wish for fellow researchers. Oh
go. Go for it. Okay, well all that, the
credit goes to Jack here. Great idea for fellow researchers, a wish is to make your website
or social media easy to find and follow and keep up updated
with research you want to be found for. So let, let us as practitioners find
you and Jack notes that a lot of times the Center for Public
Interest Comms has trouble finding researchers updated
contact information in their latest research. So if there
are ways that we can, you know, have our, the conversatio
n between
practitioners and researchers, you know, keeping that more open and
knowing to whom we should go when we've got questions about
particular areas of research, that'd be super helpful. Great. Well I blew right through our
brakes. Oh, do we have more? Do we have a final, oh, I'm sorry. So I blew right through our brakes. This has been really
fantastic. I've learned a lot. I stand by my commitment to
help do that translation work and I just wanna also say a
huge thank you to the organizers
of this conference because
this space really is creating that and allowing us to do that
translation cuz it does take us being together in real space, in digital space with each
other to build our field of practice. So thank you all. Great. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. I thought we were gonna have
a another round so we can continue the conversation. We have a little bit of extra
time because we have lunch coming soon I believe. Right? So lunch is at 1230. That's a good idea. In the
meantime, it'll be super helpful because
we are of course thinking ahead to next year,
Wonderful people outside FA, faith and Mel who have been
our student assistants and they're working on social media
and they would love to get some testimonials from you. So if you want to go on video
and just for a short time say why people should come to
this next year and what you're getting out of it, that
would be super helpful. Just check in with, with
Mel and Faith outside. And if you are doing social
a
nd you want some fabulous photographs, Joe Newman has been taking
photographs and he has been putting them in a place where
you can access them and it is bitly slash P P c. It'll be, yes. Okay. I think it's P IIC 23. Sorry about that pi. Yeah. Anyway, look up here shortly
and there will be a link. So if you wanna access photos, feel free, please Just credit Joan Newman. So let's continue chatting, take a break and we'll have
lunch here at 1230. Thank you. So if you want lunch, it'll be ready in
the
next 15 to minutes. Thank. You. So we'll thank you. And we'll see folks back
online here at one 30.
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