Meteor

We had a come-to-reality moment and concluded that what the world needs right now is not another scicomm podcast episode from us. So, we are pausing what would be our next season of Meteor, indefinitely. We have several reasons for this decision, which we discuss in this brief episode: The book Bethann mentions in this episode is Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Now workbook (socialchangemap.com). It helps identify lots of social change roles, emphasizes how important it is that people fill all sorts of roles, and underscores that we should not try to fill every role on our own. Take good care, fellow scicomm folks! Thanks for your support over the past 4 years! If you’d like to connect, you can reach us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org.

As we both hit our 40s, we’re embracing the “lost all our f*cks” part of aging. That means we’re crying, we’re snacking, and we’re eye-balling this season’s wrap-up questions from a little different angle. So, join us as we consider: areThen, we ask you to dig in for yourself: what’s something you’re looking forward to, personally or professionally? Thanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, Twitter, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org. P.S. If you missed it, we’re going to try something new next season — guests!!! Deets here if you want to join. And, if anyone listening reading has funding to help us compensate guests, please let us know!

Doesn’t “in it together” mean…scicomm groups? Isn’t that obvious? Well…actually. Scicomm community is not the only community or type of relationship that helps us be good, beyond-beginner scicommers. So, we talk this week about OTHER spaces and relationships that serve us as whole humans: https://www.commnatural.com/post/get-yourself-a-no-buddyThen, we ask you to dig in for yourself: what’s a non-scicomm community or relationship that helps you feel like a full person? Thanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, Twitter, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org. P.S. If you missed it, we’re going to try something new next season — guests!!! Deets here if you want to join. And, if anyone listening reading has funding to help us compensate guests, please let us know!

We are building, maintaining & running facilitated settings/communities. It’s different to work hard to make a safe, productive scicomm community space (vs. just showing up and glorying in such a space). These spaces don’t just happen. This week, we tackle what it feels like to be that someone who has to step up…and what’s possible, in a good way, when we do step up! However you answer these questions, we decide that doing the hard work is what makes a community worth joining. Then, we ask you to dig in for yourself: What’s an aspect of managing or running a community that you find challenging…yet still rewarding? Thanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, Twitter, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org. P.S. If you missed it, we’re going to try something new next season — guests!!! Deets here if you want to join. And, if anyone listening reading has funding to help us compensate guests, please let us know!

We find we have predictable periods of “now what”, with the podcast, Meteor, as well as in our own, separate professional endeavors. And we’re trying to embrace these cycles as one of the indicators that we are in an advanced stage of our scicomm careers. The symptoms of our identity crises depend on our circumstances, like: and may display in recognizable ways, like an itch to update our websites, change our profile pics everywhere, or overhaul our bios. While we used to anchor ourselves first by asking whether we were doing the things that meet (external) expectations, now we’re asking: how does this work serve our communities or this stage in our careers? Then, we ask you to dig in for yourself: What are you trying to decide in your scicomm life right now, and what sort of reflection questions do you use to navigate that decision? Thanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, Twitter, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org. P.S. If you missed it, we’re going to try something new next season — guests!!! Deets here if you want to join. And, if anyone listening reading has funding to help us compensate guests, please let us know!

Genuine community and relationships make everything else possible. You want to change something? You can’t change it alone. You want someone to whisper-network vouch for you? As we said in the last episode, you don’t build professional community and relationships by lurking. But that’s not all of it. There are a *lot* of payoffs to having strong professional ties. In the interests of being (overly) honest, this week we asked ourselves: what’s the hidden curriculum of the success we’ve had in scicomm? And…it’s COMMUNITY!!! But, what’s that actually look like? This week, we tell you exactly what kinds of good things have come from having strong professional relationships. (And we ponder the downsides of the amount of time, effort, and perhaps money that it may take to build these relationships.) For example, we cover: Then, we ask you to dig in for yourself: What’s the hidden curriculum that you think is responsible for your success in scicomm? Thanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, Twitter, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org. P.S. If you missed it, we’re going to try something new next season — guests!!! Deets here if you want to join. And, if anyone listening reading has funding to help us compensate guests, please let us know!

Today, we're doing the big sister thing and sharing some straight-up advice: actually get involvedWe also get real honest: you have to interact with people and build relationships if you’re going to feel like you have found a scicomm community where you belong. Lurking ain’t working. Then, we ask you to dig in for yourself: What’s a scicomm community that you are in and want to gush about, or one that you’re working your way into? Thanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, Twitter, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org. P.S. If you missed it, we’re going to try something new next season — guests!!! Deets here if you want to join. And, if anyone listening reading has funding to help us compensate guests, please let us know!

Generosity is about a lot more than just money. We pondered this reality from a few points of view. And we found ourselves thinking through a lot of questions. For example: all mutualBottom line: Generosity doesn’t always have to focus on financials. So, how else can we create abundance, together, beyond the bounds of money? Dig in for yourself: What’s a non-montetary form of generosity that you practice professionally? Thanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, Twitter, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org. P.S. If you missed it, we’re going to try something new next season — guests!!! Deets here if you want to join. And, if anyone listening reading has funding to help us compensate guests, please let us know!

First, we have a big announcement! We’ve not previously opened the show to guests because we can’t monetarily compensate anyone for being on the podcast (even ourselves). But, we’ve heard from people that y’all would like to join the convo anyway. So, let’s do this! If you want to join the possible guest pool for next season, visit meteorscicomm.org/podcast. And, if anyone listening has funding to help us compensate guests, please let us know! Now, on to today’s episode! We’re kicking off SEASON 4!! 🥳 We’ve been hearing from you, listeners, for four years now. Together, we’ve gone from advanced how-to’s to hope is an action to systemic change, and we love feeling like we’re really in this together. So, this season’s theme is “We’re in this together, now what!?” Today, we're taking a look at the risk there is, in the scicomm field, to see everything (and everyone) as competition, as a limit on what’s possible. This scarcity mindset dominates when we perceive a scarcity of resources. The tricky thing is, we’re often operating in situations where there are — actually — plenty of resources! It’s just a question of how we (or folks in charge, when it’s not us) choose to allocate those resources. All of this leads to some real potential for issues among scicomm professionals and organizations. For example, we think: As always, on this “overly” honest podcast, we talk through several examples in our personal and professional lives. Then, we ask you to dig in for yourself: Thanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, Twitter, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org.

REMINDER: We’re running another cohort of SciComm STEP next spring! Applications are live right now on our website (MeteorSciComm.org)! 🥳 In this fast-paced episode (with a few audio flickers, boo Wyoming wind that knocks out the internet), we make this honest podcast about scicomm with impact a bit #overlyhonest. We tackle: Dig in for yourself: We love you for being part of the Meteor community for another season! 💖 Stay connected with us on BlueSky at @bgmerkle.bsky.social and @vgwschutte.bsky.social.

First - two big announcements: MeteorSciComm.orgTruly, yelling and naming is how we process, cope, and then work toward action and change when we’re facing schtuff that’s inequitable, obstructionist, or devalues work in scicomm. We talk through a lot of layers on this one: vitalAnd all the time, we need community that can validate us when we are angry, and hold space when we are furious. We also talk about a couple of books that have been a valuable frame for us: The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End WorkGood and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s AngerDig in for yourself: Thanks for listening! Get good and mad! 🤬😤 You can holler at/with us on BlueSky at @bgmerkle.bsky.social and @vgwschutte.bsky.social.

First - two big announcements: MeteorSciComm.orgWanting to get paid real money (plenty of it) is OKAY. Full stop. And, we argue it’s also important if we’re all going to do the collective, hard work of making the world better through scicomm. In this episode, we talk through: isn’t Dig in for yourself: know Thanks for listening! Money, honey; let’s actually talk about it. 🍯💰Connect with us on BlueSky at @bgmerkle.bsky.social and @vgwschutte.bsky.social.

First - a big announcement: we’re running another cohort of SciComm STEP next spring! Applications are live right now on our website (MeteorSciComm.org)! 🥳 Articulating and providing evidence of success is reliably hard in scicomm. At the systems level, it can feel swampingly abstract. That’s why concrete examples are super useful. So, in this episode, we dissect how we articulated what success would be for the SciComm STEP program (Sparking Transitions for Experienced Professionals). We talk about: to track metrics we’d articulated would evidence success Dig in for yourself: our report on STEPyouThanks for listening! Let’s holler about success, together! 📢🥳 Connect with us on BlueSky at @bgmerkle.bsky.social and @vgwschutte.bsky.social.

First - a big announcement: we’re running another cohort of SciComm STEP next spring! Applications are live right now on our website (MeteorSciComm.org)! 🥳 In the mid-to-advanced career stages of scicomm, we’re all routinely making things up. But even if we’re good at that, we can’t accomplish real scicomm systems change solo. So, this week, we get into: harder accept Put another way, we assert that shouting at each other about new (fun, fancy) underpants can be a model for reciprocal relationships that have a shot at changing the world. Dig in for yourself: what kind of reciprocity (or underpants!) do you feel you need right now? Thanks for listening! Hop into something fabulous and let’s jam. 🤩 Connect with us on BlueSky at @bgmerkle.bsky.social and @vgwschutte.bsky.social.

First - a big announcement: we’re running another cohort of SciComm STEP next spring! 🥳 Apply here Dealing thoroughly with a system -- enough to rise to power within it -- can prevent us from changing it. How? So, we’re talking today about overcoming all that inertia, handling FOMO when you wanna say no, and, also, reckoning with when you might just want to jump ship. Dig in for yourself: Thanks for listening! Let’s do some benevolent empire-building! 👑 Connect on BlueSky at @bgmerkle.bsky.social and @vgwschutte.bsky.social.

First - two big announcements: Join our email listToday, we’re getting real: Doing big things, like trying to tackle systems-level change in scicomm, is a heavy lift. This week, we discuss: Dig in for yourself: Thanks for listening! Grab your hot drinks and let’s have a chat! 🍵☕ Connect on BlueSky at @bgmerkle.bsky.social and @vgwschutte.bsky.social.

First - two big announcements: Join our email listToday, we’re reckoning with reality: lots of us have anxiety about our careers. And that’s probably related to anxiety we have about our personal lives. AND there are whole lists of the most common ways that human brains add anxiety to our existence, which just feels totally unfair! Luckily, if we can identify what’s happening, we can combat it. So, this week, we discuss: Dig in for yourself: how have you had success reframing your mindset? Thanks for listening! Autumn still feels warm where we live, so come sit in the sun with us! 😎🍂 Connect on BlueSky at @bgmerkle.bsky.social and @vgwschutte.bsky.social.

First - two big announcements: Join our email listThere’s a lot going on underneath the phrase “scicomm system”. Today, we're taking a look at the state of the field and how that shapes those of us who work in scicomm. For example, we think: reaaally In short, the scicomm field has not been professionalized. At minimum, we lack: What this means is that the scicomm field is at the mercy of and beholden to other systems with other priorities. (And, ahem, that puts field-leading beacons of scicomm at massive risk of vanishing.) At the same time, the gaps in professionalization mean anyone from any corner of the worlds that intersect with scicomm can join the profession, influence it, reinvent themselves within it, and have substantial, positive impact on science and society through scicomm. This week we also tackle: Dig in for yourself: youThanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on BlueSky at @bgmerkle.bsky.social and @vgwschutte.bsky.social.

Per Meteor tradition, our last episode for this season was an open Q&A. This week, we tackled some questions and provocations from y’all! They fit into a loose theme of sustainability, including topics like: Aaaaand, we got a little personal with some family relationship strategies that we thiiiink could have relevance for scicomm professionals. Here are the two resources we mention in the episode: https://bgmerklecommunications.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/20200511_academic_productivity_time_tracker_resource.xlsxhttps://bgmerklecommunications.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/typology-for-public-impact-focused-research.pdfhttps://scholars.unh.edu/research_scholarship Dig in for yourself: What are you looking froward to saying yes to or working on for the rest of 2022? Thanks for listening! Keep in touch... we’re working on another Meteor project this fall, and then we’ll be back with season 3 in 2023! See you at https://www.twitter.com/meteorscicomm until then.