BIG e-news : Issue 3 - November 2007

This year is flying by - the clocks have gone back and the nights are drawing in so we hope to bring some sunshine and warmth to your desks with this Autumn issue of the BIG ebulletin. As well as some BIG announcements about next year's event and the potential for a forthcoming Fabricator's workshop, we are pleased to include some excellent ideas for creating shows by Paul McCrory by popular demand. Mark Lewney, continues his controversial ‘How to argue with...' series, this time with a dig at psychics. We welcome comments and articles, long or short, to include in future bulletins. Please send them to admin@big.uk.com

BIG Event 2008 is go!

Techniquest@NEWI, Wrexham, 23rd -25th July 2008

After much listening, consideration and debate, your Executive is pleased to announce that the next BIG event will be held at TECHNIQUEST@NEWI.

Your committee wanted a location that was small enough to have the special BIG atmosphere that was firmly in the South this time, had sufficient accommodation for up to 120 delegates, offered value for money and had a Godfather (or Godmother) on site to ensure the success of the event. As you can imagine, none of the possibilities managed to meet all the criteria.

Several locations were suggested for the 2008 but in the end, only three were available; ThinkTank, The Observatory Science Centre in Herstmonceux and TQ@NEWI.

Herstmonceux has been advocated by several distinguished and long-standing BIG members but as BIG membership has increased the demand for places at the event may have exceeded Herstmonceux's current capacity. At the end of the day, practical considerations mean that it is likely to be more suitable for a fabricator's event and the Exec have already put wheels in motion to gain funding to make this happen in the future.

ThinkTank had the advantage of having a well-oiled corporate machine and offer more flexibility and value for money, for the size and style of the conference, and certainly could create the friendly atmosphere required for a great Event. We felt it was good to visit a smaller centre, good to visit Wales and very useful to have a trusted BIG supporter on site. We are confident that we have secured a great deal which will help move BIG's activities forward in the future.

Your Exec has already started to tout for session proposals and we will start to plan the programme straight away. We intend this to be the best BIG Event ever, so let us know what you want, let us know what you can offer and most importantly, put the dates in your diary NOW. Keep an eye on the BIG website events section as a call for session proposals and registration will be opening soon.

Creating shows – an art or a science?

Paul McCrory, think differently

As science communicators we sometimes ignore how creative our jobs require us to be. Every time we develop a new show or programme we use a range of creativity techniques to stimulate and then evaluate new ideas.

At the BIG event 2007 I delivered a session on how we create shows. Below I've summarised some of the key ideas from the presentation. You can download the full creating shows article (PDF) .

Being creative

• creativity = producing ideas that are novel and appropriate.
• you are as creative as you believe yourself to be.
• give your self time to be creative – be patient.
• experience as much as possible – feed your creativity.
• two main phases in the creative process - mining (explorer and artist) and refining (judge and warrior).
• the stages within each phase:
  • the explorer – research as widely as possible for raw material;
  • the artist – generate as many new ideas as possible;
  • the judge – evaluate your ideas and decide which ones to implement;
  • the warrior – turning your idea into reality - ruthlessly refine and improve it; simplify it.
• adapt and combine existing ideas – it doesn't have to be original, just original to you.
• lower your expectations – the "rule of nine". The process of failure is vital to the product of success.
• record every single one of your ideas.
• establish and exploit your creative environments - everyone creates in slightly different ways and in different places.
• protect your creativity from negative people (including your own self-doubt) - it is one of the most precious things you have.
• synchronicity – you appear to start noticing solutions to a problem simply because you are looking for them subconsciously.
• wear your "demonstrator glasses" all the time – see the inspiration all around you everyday no matter what you are doing.

The rest of the article explores some specific issues relevant to developing shows. We will each have a particular way of developing shows. Hopefully though the discussion around these topics will highlight some processes I've found useful in creating shows.

• decide your limits
• what kind of show?
• marketing a show that doesn't exist
• hook, build and finale
• know what you are talking about
• know your demos
• vary your presentation plots
• it seemed really easy in the book...
• give demos a twist
• think "routines" rather than "demos"
• he steals, you borrow, I get inspired
• outlines vs scripts
• find a place to be bad
• evaluate and evolve

Contact: paul@think-differently.co.uk

Fabricators' Workshops?

Noel Jackson, BIG Chair

Long, long ago, when people called Ian had hair, people thought moving grey smudges were entertaining and the big, regional science centres were still a twinkle in the Millennium Commissioners' eyes, BIG used to organize Fabricators' workshops.

These were very popular and were supported from overseas, particularly from the US. They helped shape the way that way that British interactive exhibits developed. Anyone who has seen a Bermuda Triangle demo will have seen just one of the exhibits that were developed at some of the early workshops.

There have been calls for several parts of BIG to run fabricators workshops again, but what has become clear is that people use the term in different ways. What kind of Fabricator are you?

1) The Philosopher.

This is a serious week-long event facilitated by the grand old men or women of the interactive science world which encourages people to think with their hands. Participants hang out in a workshop for a week and attempt to build a prototype of a new interactive. It is not about craft skills but it is about the way one has to think to create novel exhibits. The audience would be drawn from across the world and include museums as well as science centres. The heavyweight is the nearest to the original Fabricators' Workshops of the sort organized at Herstmonceux, Snibston and Techniquest. This workshop is an investment for the future for people going to play a leading role in the interactive world. There are fears that the Philosophers'' workshop may have become extinct as the millennium demand for new exhibits has slowed but there is perhaps an even greater need for the kind of thinking it engenders to carry science centres forward in the 21st Century.

2) The Stage Manger.

An event where each person has a specific prop that they want to create. The basis of this workshop is that the shared skills and experience of the group enable participants to manufacture props that individually they would not be able to make at their own centres. The workshop would perhaps run over three days and the costs would be covered by the savings against having the prop made elsewhere. This is the workshop to keep the accountants happy. There would be some useful learning and fun to be had on the way but the main thing would be a useful prop.

3) The Developer.

This is a workshop aimed at delivering specific skills such as using hand-held power tools, modeling in latex, brazing and soldering, origami, choosing the right glue, etc , etc. It would probably be a day-long event, instruction in the morning with a little project to use the skills in the afternoon. This type of workshop is the antidote to the TV makeover programmes which rely on MDF and staples. It CPD for all those young explainers who suffered CDT lessons at school where you spend lots of time thinking about the design but don't actually get to make anything .

So if you identify with any of the above characters, please let Noel know and we will see if we can organize the workshop you need.

Engineering Explained

Huw James, Science Made Simple

Engineering Explained is a brand new project for Cardiff-based science communication company, Science Made Simple that started in August of 2007.

As part of this scheme we're going to completely redevelop an existing show which lends itself to engineering and looks at role models in the world of Science and Engineering, and also design a brand new show all about how Engineering helps human life in all forms of its glory, which looks to be a show called EXTREME Engineering; a look at all forms of engineering from an extreme sports point of view.

As well as this, we will be hosting Madlab Cymru! These are sessions in the form of electronic workshops in Schools and other relative centres across the UK.

The whole project is co-ordinated by Huw James, a Science and Engineering Communicator for Science Made Simple. Even though he's a scientist by trade he's a keen engineer, interested in all walks of engineering.

When asked about the project, he said "I can't wait for the project to get up and running! Engineers are really under represented in the communication game! I just hope I can get people as excited about engineering as I am!."

We also want to see how children's attitudes toward Engineering changes over time so we're going to look into forms of evaluating peoples opinions about Engineering and hopefully make everyone more aware of what Engineering is all about; voting systems being one of them.

"We want to give the audience a chance to give us their opinions and attitudes towards engineering, we really want to know if they know what engineering is all about!"

Lastly, we're looking at developing an Engineering Communicator Development Scheme, where we train engineers up to communicate their field to others, just as Science Communicators do for scientists today.

"We currently run these kind of training courses for scientists and we're really keen to find out what engineers want."

Madlab bookings should be available by December with the new show touring from National Science and Engineering Week in March!

How to argue with ... Psychics (in 300 words)

Mark Lewney, Freelance Science Presenter

Colin Fry appears regularly on Freeview channel FTN, just after reruns of Bullseye. Psychics are incredibly clever at presenting the illusion of amazing accuracy in their "readings". In reality, they're as aimless as a non-darts player trying to win a speedboat.

Some examples from one show: "Who fell out the window?", "When did you get rid of the floral wallpaper?", "Whose father worked in the Welsh coal mines?". Of course, everyone has fallen out of a window, and hardly anyone has floral wallpaper any more, but the last question received no takers. Until a woman said "Yes. He worked in a Cheshire salt mine", whereupon Colin asked why poor old dad had burns on his hands. Duh.

This questioning routine is an unimpressive demonstration of Nobel prize-worthy skills. The bereaved's selection bias will remember relevant questions, while wrong turns are either forgotten or fudged as in the Welsh mines example. Here's how Colin could be more convincing:

Select 20 women of similar age and ethnicity from his large audience and ask them to supply photographs, medical details and a CV of the four dead people closest to their hearts. Veil their hair and faces so that Colin can't see family resemblances. And, of course, he can't talk to them since they're still alive.

All he has to do is match the file with the person. If he really is talking to the dead, who are so forthcoming with names, jobs, ailments and preferences in home furnishings, he should easily get at least 7 correct matches. It would be tricky to eliminate cheating, but just a few such trials would quickly yield statistically convincing results even if he's usually wrong.

Until then, Jim Bowen will remain correct in his assertion that you can't beat a bit of Bulls*** on a Sunday.

TextWorkshop writing course for people working in museums

Rebecca Mileham

The latest TextWorkshop text-writing course took place on 10 October 2007 at Weston Park Museum, Sheffield.

Delegates from Manchester, Halifax, Bridlington, Birmingham, Winchester, Oxford, London and even Plymouth gathered for a course in writing text for museum audiences.

Dea Birkett, of Kids in Museums, and Rebecca Mileham, formerly of the Science Museum, led an intensive day full of ideas, examples and activities to help people write text that meets visitors' needs. Ann Clayton, head of learning programmes at Weston Park, led an inspiring tour looking at the museum's text strategy.

The next course is scheduled for February 2008, at a London museum venue. Please see www.textworkshop.co.uk or email contact@textworkshop.co.uk if you'd like to join the mailing list.

Time for a change?

There are lots of lovely new jobs out there on the BIG website. Take a look or add your own vacancy - free of charge - to www.big.uk.com/jobs

With best wishes from the BIG Executive 2007-08

Noel Jackson, Chair
Karen Bultitute, Vice-Chair
Rachel Mason, Treasurer
James Piercy, Secretary
Savita Custead, Event Organiser
and Sarah Vining, Administrator

Contact BIG