When we interviewed scientists in San Francisco in December, John Cook
had the brilliant idea to ask each of them one last question –
“Ok, you’re getting on an elevator with someone, and they say, –
“So you’re a climate scientist – what’s all this about climate change and
global warming?”
“You’ve got 10 floors. Go.”
We got a range of answers from some of the best known minds in the
world, as well as a number of ‘not the usual suspects”.
I’ve pulled together two of these so far, and have posted Katharine
Hayhoe’s first, here.
More to come…
open to suggestions about frequency.
Oh, by the way, a little bit of history behind how I ended up with the elevator pitch question. Over the course of several months, we interviewed over 60 scientists for our MOOC. When we started (in England, interviewing scientists in Bristol, Reading and East Anglia), I would ask them for a short quote summarising the climate change issue. Those “short quotes” would often end up 5 minutes or longer.
Over time, I learnt that providing a concrete constraint like “you get in an elevator, you’ve got a few floors to answer” was effective in extracting a concise, powerful answer out of the scientists. 🙂
You may recall that I pitched this idea to you several years ago, to make short vids that you could play on a smartphone in 30-60 seconds. Not sure why we never did it, but there you go.
Best,
D
“<More to come…
open to suggestions about frequency."
One a week?