## ![](media/image1.jpeg){width="1.0in" height="0.8465277777777778in"}

## NASA's Earth Sciences Division

## Excellence in Outreach Workshop

## June 15-16, 2006

### Summary Report

> *(Last updated August 30, 2006)*

*Prepared by:* David Herring, Earth Sciences Division Outreach Program
Manager (acting)

*Submitted to:* Dr. Jack Kaye, Director of Research and Analysis
Programs

> NASA Headquarters Earth Sciences Division

*and*

> Dr. Lucia Tsaoussi, Deputy Director of Research and Analysis Programs
>
> NASA Headquarters Earth Sciences Division

# EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

On June 15-16, 2006, NASA's Earth Sciences Division (ESD) sponsored a
2-day "Excellence in Outreach Workshop." The purpose of the workshop was
to provide a detailed qualitative review of the ESD's outreach programs
and products. The design of this review was unique and experimental in
nature. Two teams of senior science communications experts --- four
panelists on each team --- were asked to find their own information
about NASA's ESD, wherever they could think to look for it. Then they
were to report back to NASA on where they looked, what they found, what
they learned, what attitudes and opinions they formed, what they
*didn't* find, and what recommendations to NASA they would make based
upon the experience. One team was very well informed about NASA's ESD at
the outset of the experiment and the other team was deliberately chosen
because they knew little or nothing about the ESD before the experiment.
Care was taken *not* to bias the "less-informed" group so that NASA
would get the benefit of their fresh and initial impressions of our
outreach programs and products. The agenda for the workshop, and all the
panelists' presentations, can be found on-line at
\<http://esdepo.gsfc.nasa.gov/calendar/calfiles/20060615-16.html\>.)

In addition to soliciting experts' opinions about the ESD Outreach
Program, another objective was to bring together all the ESD outreach
personnel into a facilitated dialogue about what constitutes an
effective science communications strategy and how the ESD's Outreach
Program can be improved. Through the two days of open, informal
dialogue, the aim was to articulate a common understanding of our goals,
interests, and values as well as ways of achieving them cooperatively.
Beyond that, the goal of the workshop was to formulate a more cohesive
outreach strategy. In this regard, the Workshop was highly successful.
The participants shared a wealth of information, ideas, and feedback
that should help pave the way for refinement, fine-tuning, and better
focus for the ESD's Outreach Program. Ultimately, the goal is to
*improve the effectiveness and efficiency for all our outreach efforts
with measurable outcomes that we can monitor over time.*

As one might imagine, the perceptions of our distinguished panelists
contained a mixture of praise and criticism. Unanimously, they were
enthusiastic about NASA's Earth Science; and they felt that most people
in the U.S. public would be too. Moreover, the panelists all agreed that
we have compelling messages and stories that the American public wants
to know about. In general, the quality of the textual and visual
information available from NASA's ESD was deemed "good" or "excellent."
At the same time, they believed that much of it is hard to find and even
harder to use. This problem seems to stem from the fact that there are
many messages going out from NASA's ESD about our missions and research,
and also many messages going out about NASA more generally. Our
panelists felt this "plurality of voices" coming from the agency makes
it hard for people outside the agency to ascertain what our main
messages and resources are and where to go to find them. In short, they
said, NASA's ESD suffers from both an *accessibility problem* and a
*branding problem.* Our agency's organization is too large and the scope
of our Earth science research is too complex to effectively communicate
it all to the lay public through many small, disconnected, dispersed
packets of information. Our attempts to do so thus far have likely been
perceived by our publics as "cacophony" or "white noise" (to use two
different participants' terms). We need more broadly integrative
information resources to help our audiences put our ESD missions and
research programs into proper perspective. Further, specialized
stakeholder audiences such as the scientific community and policy
leaders in government have very different needs from those of the
"general" lay public, and a single set of messages or vehicles may not
effectively serve all of these needs.

Our panelists recommended strongly that the ESD should stake out its own
intellectual territory in a way that concisely conveys our uniqueness
and relevance. They zoomed right in on NASA's planetary perspective as
something unique and which establishes NASA's ESD as a world leader.
However, they cautioned that different audiences look for different
types of information in different ways, and with different motivations
for looking. Their needs range from actual data, or the conclusions from
them, to evidence of a per-dollar impact of our programs and missions.
Other audiences want pretty pictures, or an entertaining narrative of
how our scientists made a new scientific discovery. There was debate as
to whether the best way to serve this diversity of audiences was through
the use of multiple Web portals / products, or through one very well
integrated portal with clearly defined sections for our various
audiences. Either way, everyone agreed that we should spend more time
and effort to better define our audiences, including what they want and
how they look for it. Moreover, it was recommended that we work harder,
and through our scientists, to cultivate better relationships with
scientific professional societies. Such societies can serve as advocates
for our work and as "validators" of our results in ways that NASA's ESD
cannot.

One panelist expressed concern that NASA's Earth science might be
identified with "liberal" causes, which is a danger to be avoided. One
way around this might be in the branding of NASA's ESD as standing only
for top-notch "agenda-less" science. If the overall brand identity
further celebrates the beauty of Earth and promotes a fascination with
its processes then it can have a more universal appeal. Likewise, any
data or stories or new science results that show ill effects of human
influences will have the "pure" motives, that the brand implies, backing
them up.

Perhaps most noteworthy, our panelists voiced surprise and concern over
the fact that NASA's ESD lacks mechanisms to test the effectiveness of
our programs and products. One panelist wrote, "Active feedback is
essential to successful outreach." Another panelist suggested funding
further research into who our priority audiences are and what *they*
feel are their needs, wants, and expectations for Earth science
information. We could then "reverse engineer" our efforts to ensure they
are well matched to our target audiences' needs and ways of looking.
And, more to the point, we could begin with a baseline of what our
audiences know and think about NASA's ESD, and then we could measure how
their knowledge and perceptions change over time. This is precisely the
feedback our panelists and participants felt is needed to guide the
evolution of the ESD's outreach programs and products into the future.

**1.0 INTRODUCTION**

About three years ago, NASA commissioned two independent reports to help
the agency ascertain how well it is fulfilling its mission and mandates
to share new mission results and the new knowledge that the agency
generates with its stakeholders and the American public. Both reports
were received in 2004, and both contained invaluable data about NASA's
overall public communications efforts---some encouraging and some quite
concerning. One report was produced by Harmonic International and it
addressed the agency's brand equity among the at-large American public.
("Brand equity" refers to the awareness, attitudes, and emotions that
people possess toward a product or an entity.) The second report was
produced by Dr. Jon D. Miller, professor of science communications at
Northwestern University, and it provides a detailed characterization of
space policy leaders and science policy leaders in the United States and
their attitudes and opinions toward NASA.

The programs and missions conducted as a part of NASA's Earth Sciences
Division (ESD) are one of the agency's best-kept secrets from the
perspective of the American public, despite NASA's best efforts to date
to share with the public information about its ESD programs and
missions. As evidence, in a random sample survey conducted by Harmonic
International, less than 1 percent of the public mentioned Earth science
when responding to an "unprompted" question about what they thought the
most important things are that NASA does.[^1] Similarly, when asked
"What does NASA offer?" only 4 percent responded "Earth Science," which
doesn't compare at all favorably to the 20 percent who answered "Space
Exploration," to the 17 percent who answered "Nothing," or to the 12
percent who answered "Don't know."^1^ Ironically, when presented with
the list of the twelve main benefits that NASA reports returning to the
public, and then asked "what is *essential* for NASA to do," four of the
top five responses had more to do with Earth science than space science
or manned space exploration.^1^ In short, the American public feels that
Earth science is among the most important things NASA *should be* doing,
and yet the public doesn't know that the agency is doing it and,
therefore by extension, the public doesn't know how the programs and
missions are directly and indirectly benefiting them.

Jon Miller proffers that space policy is a "low-salience issue" in the
United States. That is, space policy has low visibility among the
American public and receives little political discourse.[^2] Most space
and science policy is made whenever there is good agreement among
decision makers and policy leaders, and generally there is no wider
public participation in the policy process. However, if there is
disagreement and debate about a given science or space policy, then our
leadership may appeal to *attentive publics* to weigh in on a specific
issue. There are almost 12 million (6 percent) American adults who are
attentive to space policy---that is they routinely seek information
about it, consider themselves to be knowledgeable about it, and are
willing to participate in policy-relevant dialogue about it.^2^ When
asked what they think should be NASA's top priority, 35% of space policy
leaders indicated that they would like for NASA to place its top
priority on science-based programs, such as the space telescopes and the
monitoring and study of planet Earth.^2^ More than 90 percent of space
policy leaders and science policy leaders agree that "current orbital
technologies such as weather satellites and communication satellites are
essential economic resources and should be continued and improved."^2^

Miller further points out that it is often taken for granted that U.S.
leadership well understands scientific concepts, but often they do not.
For example, he found that only 52% of the space policy leaders and 51%
of the science policy leaders said they have a "clear understanding of
the electromagnetic spectrum," whereas 20% and 24% of them,
respectively, said they were less familiar with the concept.^2^ The
numbers are worse for Earth system science concepts. When asked of their
understanding of "the concept and causes of global warming," 43% of
space policy leaders and 41% of science policy leaders said they had a
clear understanding, whereas more than half of each group said they had
a "general sense" of it.^2^ Regarding the "concept of ozone depletion
and recovery," 43% of space policy leaders and 36% of science policy
leaders said they had a clear understanding, whereas again half or more
of both groups said they had a "general sense" of it.^2^ Miller said
this insight points to a clear need for agencies like NASA to better
communicate with our nation's leadership.

Therefore, in light of these reports and other similar findings in the
science communications literature, the NASA ESD's Acting Program Manager
for Outreach recommended conducting a detailed qualitative assessment of
its Outreach Program. But, in lieu of the more traditional NASA Program
Review, it was recommended that a new and experimental approach be
taken. Rather than carefully select our best examples, data, and
anecdotes for presentation to a review committee --- so as to avoid
deliberately or inadvertently fostering a biased favorable impression
--- there was interest in finding out how a review committee would
perceive the ESD if they had to go out cold and find their own
information and form their own opinions based upon what they found,
without any other biasing information. Permission and funding to conduct
this experimental review was granted by the NASA ESD's Director of
Research and Analysis Programs.

**1.1 Workshop Overview**

The purpose of this workshop was to conduct a qualitative review of the
NASA Earth Sciences Division's Outreach Program. The design of the
workshop was experimental. The objective was to solicit feedback from
senior communications professionals who know a great deal about NASA's
ESD and how the agency goes about communicating about it to the public
(i.e., the "well-informed" team), and to solicit feedback from senior
communications professionals who know virtually nothing about NASA's ESD
at the outset (i.e., the "less-informed" team). The experiment
culminated in a 2-day workshop on June 15-16, 2006. The workshop agenda,
and copies of all the panelists' presentations are available on-line at
\<http://esdepo.gsfc.nasa.gov/calendar/calfiles/20060615-16.html\>.)

Four weeks prior to the workshop, the Acting ESD Outreach Program
Manager briefed both teams of panelists about the terms and conditions
of this experiment, and the parameters of their assignment. Great care
was taken to present just enough information to whet the appetite of the
"less-informed" team but not to bias them in terms of their information
seeking. Conversely, the "well-informed" team received a very detailed
presentation about NASA's ESD and the public outreach strategies it
currently employs. Each panelist was paid an honorarium of \$500 per day
(for 5 total days) plus travel expenses to participate in this
experiment, except Gail Porter, who could not accept an honorarium
because she works for NIST and therefore donated her time and expertise
*gratis.* (Thank you, Gail!) The total cost of the workshop was about
\$33K.

Both teams of panelists contained four senior communications
professionals with varying backgrounds and audience expertise. Care was
also taken to ensure there was good symmetry between both teams in terms
of the panelists' expertise and backgrounds. Their assignments were to
spend no more than the equivalent of 3 workdays (24 hours) seeking
information about NASA's ESD --- whatever they could find, wherever they
could think to look, or from whomever they could find to ask. They were
asked to pay particular attention to whatever information sources they
would imagine their assigned target audiences would be likely to seek.
Then they were asked to answer the following questions for presentation
on the first day (June 15) of the NASA Excellence in Outreach Workshop:

*- Where did you look and what did you find?*

*- What did you learn about NASA's ESD from what you found?*

*- What attitudes or opinions did you form about NASA's ESD?*

*- What did you not find that you thought you would, or should?*

> *- Based upon all of the above, what recommendations to NASA would you
> make?*

NASA ESD Outreach personnel from across the agency were invited to
attend as each panelist from both groups reported their answers to those
questions. Then, on day 2 (June 16), we held a series of facilitated
roundtable discussions involving all participants (panelists and NASA
personnel together) to address the following topics:

-   *What are the NASA ESD's strengths and weaknesses?*

-   *What should be our main communications goals and objectives per
    target audience?*

-   *How should we go about building healthy relationships with our
    priority target audiences?*

-   *How should we measure the success of our outreach programs /
    products?*

-   *How can we work more cooperatively together to achieve our outreach
    goals?*

**1.2 About our Panelists**

Eight distinguished science communications professionals were selected
to serve as panelists in this experiment. Listed in alphabetical order,
they are:

# Rick Borchelt

Rick Borchelt is an award-winning science writer with experience in
arranging and coordinating workshops for scientists and science writers
to help them better understand public communication of science. Borchelt
currently serves as the Communications Director for the Genetics and
Public Policy Center at The Johns Hopkins University. He has had a
distinguished career in science communications and science public
policy, including serving as media relations director for the National
Academy of Sciences; press secretary for the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology under the
chairmanship of the late Rep. George E. Brown, Jr.; special assistant
for public affairs in the Executive Office of The President during the
Clinton Administration; director of communications for the Department of
Energy's Office of Science; and director of communications and public
affairs at The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT. He
chaired a three-year study, funded by NASA and DOE, on best practices in
communicating to the public about science, technology and health. The
study, by a blue-ribbon panel of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalists,
scientists, public affairs officers, and science writers, culminated in
the March 2002 conference "Communicating the Future," the first
peer-reviewed international conference of its kind. He was elected a
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in
2004, and is chair of AAAS Section Y (General Interest in Science and
Engineering). He also serves as reports editor for the peer-reviewed
journal *Science Communication.*

# Jon Franklin

Jon Franklin is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (for
feature writing in 1979 and expository journalism in 1985) and a pioneer
in literary nonfiction writing. He is an expert in unraveling complex
scientific advancements for the masses as Franklin's work frequently
focuses on the human side of science and technology. In a career that
has spanned more than four decades he has written five books and a
variety of magazine articles and newspaper stories and series. He has
taught at the University of Maryland, Oregon State University, and the
University of Oregon, where his duties included the directorship of the
creative writing program. He also has written four books on science
topics, including: *Molecules of the Mind,* which details the revolution
in neurochemistry and predicted the Prozac class of mind-healing;
*Guinea Pig Doctors,* about scientists who experimented on themselves;
*Not Quite a Miracle,* about brain surgeons and their patients, and
*Shocktrauma,* about the first shock-trauma unit. Another Franklin book,
*Writing for Story,* is widely used in advanced journalism classes
around the world.

# Kendall Haven

The only West Point graduate to ever become a professional storyteller,
Kendall Haven also holds a Doctorate in Oceanography and spent ten years
as a Senior Research Scientist for the Department of Energy before
finding his true passion for storytelling. Haven has performed for more
than 4 million people in 42 U.S. states and four foreign countries, and
he has won numerous awards both for his story writing and for his
storytelling. He has conducted workshops for over 40,000 teachers and
190,000 students from over 1,200 schools in 30 states on the structure
and architecture of narratives and on the writing process. Haven has
published five audiotapes, ten collections of original historically
themed stories, two children's novels, one picture book, five classroom
story/activity books and three instructional books on the use of story.
Haven is a nine-time winner of the Storytelling World Silver Award for
best Story Anthology. He won the 1993 International Festival Association
Silver Award for best Educational Program at a major national festival,
the 1992 Corporation for Public Broadcasting Silver Award for best
Children's Public Radio Production, and the 1991 Award for Excellence in
California Education.

# Susanna Priest

Susanna Priest is Associate Professor and Director of Research in the
College of Mass Communications and Information Studies at the University
of South Carolina, in Columbia. She had previously directed the graduate
program in science journalism at Texas A&M University and the Center for
Science and Technology Policy and Ethics, also at Texas A&M. Priest has
published more than 40 book chapters and articles, primarily on the
media's role in communication of science, risk, and uncertainty. She has
also published more than 50 research articles and book chapters,
primarily in the area of science communication and public understanding
of science, and is Associate Editor of the journal *Public Understanding
of Science*. Her recent projects have considered risk communication in
contexts ranging from Hurricane Katrina evacuation to public
understanding of nanotechnology to terrorism threats and collective
behavior. She has recently finished serving on a National Academy
Engineering committee on assessing technological literacy, and continues
her membership on NASA's Planetary Protection Advisory Committee.

# Thomas Lucas

Producer and director Thomas Lucas has been creating award-winning films
on science and natural history topics for over two decades.  This year,
with funding from NASA and NSF, he completed a full-dome planetarium
show titled "Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity" and a NOVA
production "Monster of the Milky Way." Among his other recent
productions are two for NOVA: "Hunt for the Supertwister" and the
acclaimed cosmology story "Runaway Universe"; and two for Discovery:
"Unfolding Universe" and "Cannibalism: the last taboo." He has completed
three specials for PBS. One, titled [*Beyond
Human*](http://www.ddegroup.com/DDE/Catalogue/Science/beyond+human.htm),
is a fascinating two-hour look at the growing merger of man and
machine.  He also produced *Voyage to the Milky Way*, an examination of
the future of space exploration, and [*Mysteries of Deep
Space*](http://www.ddegroup.com/DDE/Catalogue/Science/mysteries+of+deep+space.htm),
a three-hour series revealing recent breakthroughs in the field of
astronomy.  He specializes in HDTV productions that make use of high-end
graphics and special effects. Lucas received an M.F.A. in Film from
Columbia University in 1977.  He currently lives in Armonk, NY, where
his production company, Thomas Lucas Productions
([[www.tlproductions.com]{.underline}](http://www.tlproductions.com/)),
is based.

# Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally is a speaker, consultant, writer, and coach for
foundations, corporations, public agencies, and non-profit
organizations. His work focuses on the mastery of message and media and
the power of storytelling. A graduate of Harvard, where he won its
highest academic award, McNally hosts interview programs on radio and
television. Guests have included Norman Lear, Ken Burns, Lester Brown,
Bill Joy, William McDonough, Jeremy Rifkin, Eric Schlosser, Andrew Weil,
Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Jared Diamond. His interviews also appear on
the web at
[[http://www.AlterNet.org/]{.underline}](http://www.AlterNet.org/).

# Jon D. Miller

Jon D. Miller is a professor in the Medill School of Journalism and
director of the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern
University in Chicago. Trained as a political scientist, Miller brings
the social science skills of survey research and quantitative analysis
to the study of the public understanding of science and technology. For
two decades, he has designed and conducted the biennial national studies
of the public understanding of science and technology for the National
Science Board, published biennially as Science and Engineering
Indicators. His work in the measurement of scientific literacy and
attitudes has been replicated in more than 20 countries. Miller also
serves as Director of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY)
and as Director of the International Center for the Advancement of
Scientific Literacy, both located at Northwestern University. Prior to
joining the Northwestern faculty, Miller served as Vice President of the
Chicago Academy of Sciences for nine years. He has published five books
and more than 40 articles and chapters in the area of the public
understanding of science and technology and in the development of
science and mathematics skills during secondary schooling and college.
He is a member of the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science
and Technology of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, and he is a member of the editorial board of Public
Understanding of Science.

# Gail Porter

Gail Porter has been a science writer and editor, communications
manager, and public information officer for the last 28 years. She
currently serves as Chief of the Communications and Inquiries Group for
the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where she is
responsible for central coordination of NIST's external and internal Web
sites, publications, exhibits, speeches, and other communications
products. In her spare time Porter moonlights as President of the D.C.
Science Writers Association, a group of writers that hosts monthly
lectures and other types of events for journalists and press information
officers in the D.C. metropolitan area. She co-organized a 2002
conference with 300 attendees on Best Practices in Science
Communications and has served as a workshop speaker or organizer for the
National Association of Science Writers on topics such as Thinking
Visually, Evaluating Public Affairs: How to Know if You're Doing a Good
Job, and Mastering the Editing Art. From 1981-90, Porter handled media
relations for the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering,
including five years as director of the Office of News and Public
Information.

**2.0 SUMMARY OF PANELIST'S PRESENTATIONS**

Given the diversity of the panelists' backgrounds and audience
interests, it was fascinating to hear their interpretations of NASA ESD
outreach materials, and to look for commonly recurring points on which
there was good agreement among them, and for points on which there were
differences of opinion. Overall, the overlap in agreement among them was
excellent on most points; and those points on which they disagreed
mainly stemmed from their audience assignments. The point was made
repeatedly that different audiences have different needs when searching
for information. The subsections below summarize each panelist's main
points and recommendations, grouped as a function of their audience
assignments.

**2.1 The General Public**

Jon Franklin is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning professor of
journalism at the University of Maryland. He opened by stating there are
three kinds of audiences: (1) audiences who *need* information, either
because they are personally affected by the topic (such as a person
afflicted by cancer) or they are a professional working in the field;
(2) audiences who have a specific curiosity (such as geology buffs or
other attentive publics who enjoy studying a given topic); and (3)
audiences who have neither knowledge nor need, but who still may fall
within our target constituency. People who need information will find
it, no matter how poorly written. It's already a part of their narrative
so they don't need context. Ditto for people who enjoy actively learning
about a given topic will also find what information they need, but this
audience needs to be shown how to use the information. For the third
audience, there is tension between the inherent attraction of a given
piece of information and the narrative containing that information.
Without the narrative, the information is not interesting and this
audience won't take it. Franklin defines *narrative* as "action within
context." He said its key distinguishing features are significant human
struggle and the context for that struggle. In narrative, the factual
information is background and the human information is foreground. This
does NOT mean the factual material gets short shrift; rather, the
dramatic human information is the carrier wave for the facts. Good
narrative changes how a reader thinks about a subject.

Franklin said he expected to find narratives presenting dramatic
overviews of how NASA cameras in space changed science. He further
expected the narratives, and the scientific impacts described, to be
fairly sophisticated because the public expects that from NASA. He did
NOT expect that an average person, or a non-science reporter, would have
to put much thought into the issue beyond what NASA presents. Instead,
he reported finding various sites in which the information presented
"ranges from very dense and difficult bureaucratic and institutional
propaganda to moderately difficult stuff." Moreover, there was so much
information with so many links to so many other places that he felt
overwhelmed by the choices.

Franklin was a member of the "less-informed" team. He began by
conducting searches on Google. Those searches led him to NASA's Earth
Observatory (earthobservatory.nasa.gov) and Science@NASA
(www.earth.nasa.gov) Web sites, where he spent most of his time on-line.
He also interviewed reporters to ascertain what they knew and thought
about NASA's Earth Sciences Division. Surprisingly, "nobody \[the
reporters he spoke to\] knew anything," he said. It was also surprising
that even on the Earth Observatory, the site he said was arguably NASA's
best, he felt the stories about scientists contain no narrative.
"Stories have psychologies," he explained. "Scientists have *motives*
and *ambitions*. You have to get the psychology right. It's not that you
have the psychology wrong; it's that *you don't have the psychology.*"
Rather, he said the information is "couched in terms of what we should
do." He acknowledged NASA's problems in light of the current political
climate, and pointed out that Earth Observatory is rich with subjects
that are "hot" politically. "This is a dangerous strategy," Franklin
observed, "because it will turn some people on and some off."

Franklin recommended that we take time to clearly define what we want to
accomplish. He said it seems as if we don't know our audience. Then, by
extension, everything we do for our audience should be internally
consistent (which he feels it isn't now). He said if we want to build a
more general constituency, then we should think through our narratives.
Some possible narratives could show how NASA learned to use
remote-sensing data, and how Earth sciences data has changed a given
science discipline. He also recommended that NASA should enlist the
skills of professional storytellers and narrative builders to help us do
it better.

Rick Borchelt was also assigned to the General Public; although, as a
member of the "well-informed" team, Borchelt had the benefit of detailed
knowledge about the ESD's programs and products before he began his
search. He stated there is *no such thing* as "the general public." He
said that that is a term typically used by people who are either
confused or bad at defining their audience. Borchelt also said people
are not "browsers"; rather, they are "motivated information seekers."
The key is determining what people are motivated to find, and how they
find it. He posed the question "How are people 'touched' by Earth
sciences?" The answer is one of three ways: (1) directly, by whatever
interests them (e.g., natural disasters hitting them or someone they
know); (2) indirectly, by assignment or direction (e.g., student
homework); or (3) indirectly, by popular culture (e.g., the media).

So Borchelt went looking for things that might directly interest the
public. Prompted by media stories about the recent large wildfires in
Florida, he went looking for whatever NASA might have on-line about
them. His searches led him to the Earth Observatory's Natural Hazards
section, where he found MODIS images of the fires. Borchelt felt the
images on Earth Observatory were not as usable as they should be because
they don't provide enough context, such as labeling the fire and the
location of Highway 95 and other well-known landmarks to help the
viewer. Next, he invited a neighbor's middle school-aged son to pretend
he was doing an assignment and had to locate information about NASA's
Earth Science. The boy, named Mike, started with a Google search using
the following terms: "earth pictures," "earth images," and "earth
science." In addition to some non-NASA results, Mike's search yielded
hits on the Science@NASA site, the Earth Picture of the Day, the CIESIN
DAAC site, the Visible Earth, and the Gateway to Astronaut Photography
of Earth. Borchelt pointed out that images by themselves are not helpful
to people like Mike. Moreover, he said, our sites are good at explaining
problems but we do less well in providing solutions. And although sites
like Visible Earth provide great images, but are not as useful when
stripped away from contextual narrative.

Next, Borchelt searched on news wire services. He found disappointingly
little information about NASA Earth science in these sources, and most
of what he found pertained to NASA's budgetary woes and the issues
facing NASA's manned space flight missions. Way down on the list of hits
(not even in the top 30) was an article about the newly launched
CloudSat / CALIPSO missions. Going back to his original line of inquiry,
he also found an article about the recent unrest of Mount Merapi
volcano, in Indonesia. He found several news wire articles about the
evacuation of nearby villages and this line of searching led him back to
Earth Observatory's Natural Hazards section, where recent images of the
eruption are available. When searching on the keywords "climate change,"
Borchelt reported finding nothing that was explicitly NASA-branded in
the first 10 pages of either Google or Yahoo! hits. ("Not surprising,"
he said, "given that the NASA Global Warming fact sheet on Earth
Observatory is buried and hasn't been updated since 2002.") That search
did lead him to NASA's Global Change Master Directory, which he felt was
not well suited for a lay audience.

Borchelt concluded that NASA's ESD should not be branded with the
agency's Science Mission Directorate, but ESD should have its own
identity. Targeting the "general public," he said, will result in "too
much squeeze with too little juice." He said wire services may be
disinclined to promote our stories and therefore we should consider
going directly to our desired media outlets to build relationships for
specific purposes. He said there is a difference between *extensive*
information sets (like on Earth Observatory) and *accessible*
information. He said, "You have incredibly well written and interesting
materials, but it almost requires a degree to figure them out."

In summary, Borchelt's main recommendations are:

1.  *Address the branding issue.* Get our partners to brand our material
    in a way that is initially obvious to the audience that the
    information came from NASA.

2.  *Render our information more extensible.* When we provide images,
    provide features and accessibility to the people who use them.
    Provide the resources someone may need if they're going to use that
    graphic or image. There are better places to find that sort of
    information and so if communicators are going to use our material
    then we must give them a good reason to come to our site. As an
    image source for the media and an information resource for
    third-party validators, be thinking of what info would they would
    need to use our materials.

**2.2 Informal Educators**

Terrence McNally is both a media personality and a professional
storyteller. He was selected to be a panelist with the hope that he
would be able to form an opinion about both NASA's presentation of Earth
science information, and an opinion about how *other* informal educators
would be likely to perceive and use our information. He too began by
conducting searches on Google and Yahoo! using the keywords "earth
science." This led him to the Science@NASA site. He also visited NASA's
Earth Observatory, about which McNally said, "it is the home of NASA's
best stories." He reviewed all the site's feature articles and then
listed the ones he believes actually deliver stories. Among McNally's
criteria for a "story" are: it must have a clear protagonist who is a
human being and with whom the audience can identify. That human must
pursue a clear goal and must overcome obstacles to reach that goal.
There must be descriptive text about time, place, events, etc.

McNally was part of the "less-informed" team and so he came to his
searches without prior knowledge or bias. Through his searches, he
reported learning that NASA is extensively involved with Earth science.
He learned that we need to understand Earth's climate system as a whole,
integrated system and that NASA recently completed deployment of the
Earth Observing System to provide the world's most comprehensive ability
to measure global climate change. He learned that NASA's Earth science
research directly relates to a huge portion of the U.S. economy, and
that we share information about our missions and new science results
with learners of all ages.

McNally felt that many of the NASA sites he found were too wordy with
"big contextual messages but not enough stories about Earth's single
system connectedness." His point was that stories establish
relationships and you can't do that with data or bad stories. He felt he
got the message, but found himself wondering "Why NASA? Would NASA's
Earth science missions seem more fundable if they weren't done by a
*space* agency?" Upon searching his own mind, and after dialogue with
other acquaintances about those rhetorical questions, he concluded that
it should be *easy* to convince the public and our public stakeholders
that Earth science is more important that space travel.

He strongly urged the ESD to brand NASA as more than a space agency,
*because it is also an Earth agency.* He suggested several slogans, like
"The NASA we didn't know we needed but we're lucky to have"; or that
"NASA is the right agency in the right time and place to provide a
much-needed planetary perspective." He pointed out that humans are
notoriously bad in our ability to reason over time and space. He said an
important part of the message was somehow lacking in our Web sites --
that NASA's planetary perspective is *crucial* for understanding Earth's
interconnected system. He concluded with the following challenge:
"Numbers numb, jargon jars, and nobody ever marched on Washington
because of a pie chart. If you really want people to invest in NASA's
Earth Science, give them what they're already waiting for---*your
stories.* When you're doing work that's as important as yours is, why
would you want to use anything less? ... And don't make the stories
about data. Open with stories about *humans* and close with data."

Kendall Haven is a former oceanographer turned author and master
storyteller and, as such, was an ideal complement to McNally as a member
of the "well-informed" team. He opened with the thesis that NASA's ESD
has a need for "more harmonic horn tooting." Specifically, he said, "Too
many voices write and speak under the NASA Earth Sciences banner and the
result is cacophony that produces confusion. There is a need for a
director to enforce some harmony in the individual voices." Moreover, he
said we don't toot our own horn enough and that our writers are too
modest and too understated. We must become better advocates for our
message and take steps to ensure the world hears and understands the
importance of NASA's Earth science. Haven said there is a common
misconception that the mission is the message; or that information is
the message. But this is false---no nonfiction communication effort will
succeed if its only goal is to provide information, to inform. Rather,
successful outreach requires commitment to a long-term goal that NASA
wants to accomplish through the effective delivery of its messages. The
wrong way to proceed (often employed by scientists) is to ask, "What do
I want to say?" Conversely, the correct way is to ask, "How will this
material make a difference, a *change*, in the reader's life?" In short,
he said, *work that produces no change is wasted.*

Haven identified his audience as the science interested and science
attentive publics, amateur scientists, after-school and community-based
programs, and museums and science centers---specifically, those people
who are seeking science data, science information, and science activity.
Such people are typically searching for their own satisfaction and will
check their own files first before doing external searches. Then they
will go straight to Google, but are likely to review no more than 6
sites that way. After searching on line, they will turn to print media
(periodicals and books), and to conversation with personal or
professional contacts. These insights are what drove Haven's searches
for information about NASA's ESD. And in his searches he evaluated his
findings in light of these three questions: (1) Do I readily find NASA
ESD outreach products? (2) Do I recognize that it is a NASA ESD outreach
product? (3) Do the NASA ESD products I find accomplish the ESD outreach
mission?

Haven observed that ordinary citizens don't understand NASA's structure.
We should avoid ever trying to communicate to the public in ways that
are driven by our internal structure because it is "too complex and
convoluted" and thus likely to fail. Haven said perhaps the term "Earth
science" is part of the problem and that perhaps we need to define who
we are more clearly in terms that the lay public will better understand.
Along these same lines, ordinary citizens don't care about missions.
Memory, recall, and subsequent action on the part of the reader require
(1) personal relevance for the reader, (2) informational context within
the reader's cognitive framework, and (3) emotional context. Haven said
research shows that it is unlikely that new information will have
meaning for a reader without all of these elements.

That said, Haven was amazed by the amount, quality and variety of the
information that he found on NASA's sites -- particularly, he said, the
Earth Observatory. "Overall, NASA Earth science outreach information is
excellent but the writing of these products typically doesn't make me
appreciate, or become excited by, the critical role of NASA in its
preparation," he observed. "The science is better and more consistent
than the writing."

He found that NASA's work is badly underrepresented in on-line search
results. He found Earth Observatory most often, but only at an average
listing rank of #29. Not good. Moreover, he found too much out-of-date
NASA material in his searches. He found 14,400 sites listing themselves
under "NASA Earth Sciences," which he felt is way too many. And worse,
there is no pattern, no consistency, little coordination, and no clear
hierarchy to the order of our site listings. The major NASA Earth
Science sites carry a mountain of information that quickly becomes
intimidating, and even overwhelming. Too many sites appeared to be
aiming to reach all audiences with single articles. He said it seems as
if NASA employs no feedback mechanisms (user surveys, visitor tracking
tools, focus groups, etc.) to test the effectiveness of our products and
to make refinements over time.

In summary, Haven recommends:

1.  There appears to be no central NASA Earth Science site that all
    others link and refer to, *but there needs to be.* Designate one
    site as "the home" for NASA's Earth Sciences outreach effort. Then
    guide readers from any entry point as directly as possible to a
    central point where they will have the best overviews and access to
    the full breadth and depth of NASA Earth Science materials.

2.  *Active feedback is essential to successful outreach.* Put
    mechanisms into place that will provide feedback loops to help NASA
    Earth Science test the effectiveness of our products on our target
    audiences, and then revise accordingly.

3.  The "For Kids Only" site at Science@NASA reads like articles written
    for an adult public. Bring in writers who understand children's
    mental processes and write to their understanding.

4.  Use an on-line focus. Consider on-line sites as NASA's primary
    outreach vehicles.

5.  Ensure that Earth Observatory and other prime NASA Earth Science
    Outreach sites show up in top ten hits on topics of central interest
    to NASA ESD. Haven recommends making Earth Observatory "the" home
    site, but revise it to make it more user-friendly and to accommodate
    the needs of a wider variety of users.

6.  Create a descriptive roadmap of NASA's ESD organization and physical
    sites.

7.  Develop a policy and procedure for regularly weeding out or updating
    outdated material.

8.  Improved cross-linking would help. Build in time and labor to
    actively cross-link and cross-reference new products to other
    outreach products---both on-line and off-line.

9.  Showcase new publications and new science results, individually and
    in sum (e.g., NASA-funded Earth scientists working cooperatively
    generate \~800 new papers in peer-reviewed journals every year).

10. Revise our outreach writing to focus on the change we want to create
    in our readers, focusing on the struggle of our scientists and the
    relevance our science has to our readers' lives.

**2.3 Public Media**

Gail Porter is the Chief of NIST's Public and Business Affairs Office
for Communications and Inquiries. She was invited to examine NASA ESD
outreach products from the perspective of someone working in the public
media. At the outset, as a member of the "less-informed" team, she knew
very little about NASA's Earth science programs. After completing this
exercise, she said she now knows that NASA has "an entire alphabet soup
of satellites studying Earth, all day and all night in every possible
way." She knows NASA works with NOAA, USGS, and other agencies to study
the health of our planet. She learned that scientists may not "agree" on
how fast Earth is warming, but all the data say it *is* warming. She
learned that without NASA's remote sensing satellites, the U.S. would be
blind to coming hurricanes and other large-scale weather and climate
patterns that threaten people's lives. Porter concluded that NASA's ESD
has a great and sustaining core message. "Earth affects us and vice
versa -- *that's news!"* she stated. "NASA is our nation's eyes on Earth
and we need those data to plan ahead."

Porter felt the NASA Web sites she found were generally well done and
were easy to find. They contained lots of pretty pictures, lots of
video, and lots of readable content on specific information, such as
hurricanes, paleoclimatology, forestry, etc. Moreover, she said, given
NASA's large size, the Web site is "remarkably well mixed, generally
well designed, and not too cluttered." She was pleased to find different
types of information for different audiences, such as for teachers and
students.

On the other hand, Porter didn't like the overuse of Portable Document
Format (PDF) files, including press kits, because they are not very
extensible. She said PDFs take longer to load, are harder to read, and
do not allow direct downloading of high-resolution images. She also
didn't like the heavy "mission mentality" across our sites. She found
too many acronyms and heavy emphasis on describing the mission, versus
describing the results. Practically speaking, she said it was difficult
to find e-mail address for NASA's press contacts. In some cases, even
items identified as 'News' do not provide contact information to follow
up for more information. She said it was also difficult to find
information about the work of specific NASA divisions. Again,
scientists' names and contact information is hidden or buried; nor was
it easy to find peer-reviewed lists of recent research papers that might
be of interest to science writers. She had problems getting the Goddard
Web page search engine to work at all. She also noted that the Web site
requires reporters to call NASA public affairs first, which, she said,
"seems out of date given Griffin's recent media policy change." She also
found a fair number of dead links over the course of her 14+ hours
cruising NASA's sites.

To round out her search for information, Porter went to the Gaithersburg
Public Library and asked the reference librarian to help her found out
about NASA's Earth Sciences Division. The librarian suggested the NASA
Portal (at www.nasa.gov), then when the librarian tried to search on
that site herself she could not find anything on the division quickly;
nor on firstgov.gov. Using the library's computer, Porter found the
Earth Observatory, but nothing else specific to NASA's ESD.

Next, Porter conducted searches on Lexis Nexis and got some hits in
daily newspapers, but those articles were generally about budget cuts in
Earth science rather than science results. So Porter sent e-mails to
eight reporters she knows working in major news media outlets and asked
them if they are "familiar with media relations specialists for NASA's
Earth science, what they thought of NASA's press releases / Web articles
on the topic, whether their calls were returned promptly, and how
interested they were in the topic of Earth science." She got six
responses back and the results were disappointingly negative. She
reported:

"Those with the most interest/need for earth science information were
somewhat frustrated. It was not clear to them that there were NASA earth
science PAO specialists available. Only one person offered a specific
name of someone they worked with regularly and that person was an
educator, not PAO. Several described NASA Goddard's press office as
primarily 'reactive.' They do their best to answer questions when asked
but don't necessarily let reporters know when important things are
happening. One person said that on more than one occasion a referral by
Goddard's press office to someone turned out to not be the right person
and time was wasted trying to get good information."

Thomas Lucas is the founder and CEO of Thomas Lucas Productions, Inc. He
directs and produces science documentaries for large-screen venues (such
as IMAX and dome shows) and public television (such as NOVA). From David
Herring's initial introduction to this experiment, Lucas seized upon the
fact that "less than 1% of the American public associate NASA and Earth
science" and said he feels that number is the "agenda setter" for this
workshop. He said Harmonic International's numbers say NASA is "failing
to impress a wide audience." Lucas said he was first introduced to
NASA's Earth science data sets when he was given a presentation by Wade
Sisler and Horace Mitchell in NASA GSFC's Scientific Visualizations
Studio. His first impressions were that the data were stunning and
interesting, and that the public would think so too. Thus, Lucas was
chosen to be a member of the "well-informed" team.

Lucas cited the Harmonic data point in which 58% of the American public
thinks that "increasing our understanding of Earth" should be among
NASA's top priorities. In other words, he said, this disparity suggests
the public feels NASA should be something other than it is. Or that
NASA's Earth Sciences should have a "sub-brand" and an identity in its
own right. "Perhaps that's not a fair demand," Lucas said, "but it is
worth discussing." If the ESD did have a brand, then moving
three-dimensional pictures showing our satellites' views of the whole
Earth from space would be the essence of that brand. "It's the holistic
view that celebrates the planet," he said. "It gives us the changing
nature of landscapes; and the curiosity, the ingenuity, the passion, and
the concern that produces images like \[the global animation he
showed\]." Conversely, Lucas said NASA does not seem to see its Earth
Science program as a brand. The Earth Observing System (EOS) is
presented as an array of research technology. The Education and Public
Outreach (EPO) program is a spirited, if somewhat disjointed, attempt to
communicate about EOS to the public, but it is not an attempt to build
the brand, in his opinion. NASA's EPO programs supply the public, and
target audiences, with information they can use, articles that provide
context, press releases, and pictures that are impressive, informative,
and inspiring. Lucas said, "What NASA's EPO does not do -- and what
you'd *have* to do to make it a brand -- is to go out and join the
struggle in the marketplace of ideas and impressions to make sure the
broader public understands what it stands for and what its value is to
ordinary folks like us." This is key because the public associates NASA
with space, exploration, and cutting-edge technology -- *not* Earth
science.

"NASA's Earth Science Program ... is about doing the right thing," Lucas
said. "It's a long-term monitoring effort. It's providing a service to
scientists. It's about complex, interconnected processes like ocean and
atmosphere coupling, and the greenhouse effect, and chlorophyll in the
ocean, and carbon sequestration. Concepts like these are the terrain of
Earth science EPO---long on *information*, short on *inspiration*." His
point was that, often, the ESD lacks a hero with all the classic
elements of a good story: a beginning, a challenge, a conflict, and then
a resolution. Those elements are intimately intertwined with our human
spaceflight program, but to the ESD's detriment are often lacking in our
ESD EPO. And because the ESD EPO programs are information based, even if
they were wildly successful in reaching people and getting them to care,
it would build awareness of Earth, but not necessarily the NASA Earth
Sciences brand. This, in itself, would not be a bad thing if the
political climate were more favorable to protecting Earth. But the
political climate *isn't* favorable right now, Lucas proffered, and the
world really needs NASA's planetary perspective.

Lucas combed the mainstream media to see what Earth science stories have
been getting play in 2006 in media outlets like CNN, *New York Times*,
and BBC. In stories about climate change, NASA was the source in only 8
out of the 75 stories he found. He said there was a lot of variety in
the sources of stories about climate change, meaning there is lots of
new information proliferating and that there is a lot of competition to
"get the word out." Perhaps adding to this problem, he said, is the fact
that there are many mission Web sites that have the feel of fiefdoms and
don't seem to relate well to one another. "*This is a* *missed
opportunity*," he said. "They cry out for integration."

Lucas reminded us of the recent policy decision to extend the Hubble
Space Telescope mission. He said his mother-in-law (currently in her
60s) is a huge fan of Hubble and an avid follower of that program. In
comparison, she didn't know anything about NASA's Earth Sciences
Programs. But when he presented her with a choice as to which aspect of
NASA's program should be preserved, if one had to go, he said she
wrestled with the decision but ultimately sided with Earth science. She
said, "Hubble goes to our nature, our sense of destiny, our place in the
universe." Her heart was with the Hubble program. But intellectually she
felt Earth science is more important. She said, "Earth science gives
direct benefits for our lives, our health, and the future of our
children. The deciding factor is, and must be, our survival. It is the
prudent choice."

Lucas said the trick is to add inspiration to the 'prudent choice' if we
want to reach popular audiences. He recommends that NASA confront the
central problem of branding its ESD to provide positive associations
about the effort. "More than that, tell the public why it's urgently
needed, why the public should care NOW," he said. Ultimately, he said,
NASA has to reach beyond public service. We have to tell compelling
stories that can inspire --- stories with drama about real characters in
heroic struggles, overcoming obstacles. "The great themes have to be
dramatized: the beauty of Earth, threats to Earth, and NASA scientists'
heroic struggles to save Earth. Those are great themes!"

**2.4 Policy Leaders and Public Stakeholders**

Susanna Priest is currently Director of Research for the College of Mass
Communications and Information Studies at the University of South
Carolina. As a member of the "less-informed" team, her assignment was to
assess NASA's ESD outreach products from the perspective of a policy
leader or a public stakeholder. Partly in response to the series of
preceding presentations, she began by stating that narrative is for
entertainment and, while that style is good for popular audiences, there
are other audiences who are not interested in a story. Specifically,
there is a broad range of people in government, in advocacy groups, and
in academia who have other information needs. They want quick and easy
access to *the facts.* They want to know things like "Is NASA efficient
and effective as an organization?" and "At what cost were the data and
information obtained?"

Based upon her searching, Priest concluded that visibility for NASA's
ESD and branding is an issue. This may be due, at least in part, to the
fact that we use some confusing descriptors. For instance, even "Life on
Earth" (as it is used on the NASA Portal) may not suggest Earth science.
She began her search on the NASA Portal Web page but said she had
"enormous trouble" navigating it. In particular, she couldn't find NASA
Earth Science on it. Ironically, she said, "There is a lot of
information available but it is hard to find." She said we might
consider joining forces with the Space Sciences Division and make our
main message something like "NASA does *science.*"

It seemed to Priest that the visibility of NASA's ESD is greater within
the science community than other audiences like policy makers or the
public. Perhaps this is due to our large number of papers and
conferences as well as direct interactions in research-related
proceedings. She said most of the ESD's material available on the NASA
Portal is geared primarily toward educators and students, while missing
public stakeholders. She found it difficult to find out about NASA's
Earth science results and concluded that our new science results are
scarce outside of the scientific literature. And among the materials she
found through the NASA Portal, the emphasis was generally on programs
(education), people (human interest), and satellite systems
(engineering). "The conclusions of these materials are not in forms that
many stakeholders or the public can use," Priest observed. "If the
material is about climate change, then we need the when, where, what,
why, and how, not just the who!"

She urges NASA to reconsider its audiences, particularly our public
stakeholder audiences, and develop separate messages and vehicles for
delivery for each audience. We should provide information in forms these
audiences can use. Regarding the question "Should NASA be better
'branded'?" Priest felt this is an open question in terms of strategy
and politics. There are good arguments for and against a separate
branding for the ESD. The issue, she said, is "how to brand NASA's ESD
as a separate entity without losing the NASA affiliation."

When answering the question of what she learned about NASA in her
searches, Priest said she did not come away with a "core message" about
NASA's Earth Sciences. She questioned whether there needs to be a core
message. She said the message she gleaned from the Portal seems to be
"We are good people doing good work." She also questioned whether this
is enough. She asked how does the ESD want to be viewed? What
impressions do we desire to make? What policy impacts, if any, do we
seek? We need to spend time considering these questions and providing
good, clear answers to them. She suggested perhaps our core message
could be something like: *"We provide solid data on which policy can be
formed."* Priest disagreed with Jon Franklin's point earlier that the
topics we address are dangerous because they are "hot." She considers
hot topics to be an *advantage.* Such topics are inherently interesting
and likely to be what people want to learn about. They may also be the
type of information policy leaders, planners, and other stakeholders
most want to find.

In conclusion, Priest emphasized that different audiences are looking
for different types of information. Some audiences want actual data, or
the conclusions from it; some want to know the cost of NASA's ESD
program as evidence of our usefulness; and some want stories. She
encouraged NASA to continue to think about who our audiences are and
what information they actually need and are looking for. She suggested
that NASA should consider funding research to provide answers to these
questions. Subsequent to the workshop, Priest wrote:

> "I have a nagging sense that you are trying to 'sell' your work in the
> sense NOVA and much other science journalism 'sells' science (to use
> the late Dorothy Nelkin's term), when for some audiences you need to
> let the value of the work---actual data, results, bibliographies,
> etc., enhanced by being made as accessible and usable as
> possible---speak for itself. Yet for others you will need evidence of
> a different sort. NOVA's audience, by the way, is shrinking. You will
> likely need multiple portals/products to deal with this. Another
> example a graduate student of mine gave me today was the difference
> between Medlineplus (health info for general consumers), Pubmed
> (actual published literature in medicine for doctors/researchers), and
> KidsHealth.com (health info specifically for kids). Not only do the
> three sites have different info, they have a different look and feel."

Jon D. Miller is professor and director of the Center for Biomedical
Communication and the International Center for the Advancement of
Scientific Literacy in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern
University. Miller was also asked to assess NASA's ESD outreach products
from the perspective of a policy leader or a public stakeholder, but as
a member of the well-informed team in this experiment. He began by
stating that almost none of what has been described in presentations
earlier in the day addressed the needs of policy leaders. It must be
recognized, he said, that even stakeholder need contextual information
and contextual linkage to help them make sense of new data. He cited a
report on adult learning by the National Academies of Sciences that
suggests people go and get and read information when they need it. In
particular, policy leaders go to *trusted portals* when they need
information. "They don't go to Google," Miller said. "They go to places
where they know they'll get reliable information."

He defined specifically who he means by this audience through the use of
a stratified pyramid metaphor with the "residual public" at the bottom
(people who are unaware and uninterested in a given topic); the
"interested public" above that (people who are aware of and interested
in a topic); next, the "attentive public" (people who are active seekers
of information about a topic, who consider themselves knowledgeable
about it, and who are willing to participate in policy-relevant
dialogues about it.); then comes "policy leaders" (senior scientists,
engineers, and other professionals who are in a position to influence
public policy about a given topic); and at the top are "decision makers"
(roughly 200 individuals who are in a position to make binding policy
decisions about science and technology). Miller said policy leaders can
be classified in two groups: (1) space policy (roughly 3,000
individuals), and (2) science policy (roughly 8,000 individuals).

Miller stated that science and space policy leaders are an important
audience with whom NASA needs to communicate. These people play an
important role in the public policy-making process and yet NASA has
tended to take the support of the scientific community for granted. He
pointed out that it is often taken for granted that U.S. leadership well
understands scientific concepts, but often they do not. For example,
Miller conducted a study in which he found that only 52% of the space
policy leaders and 51% of the science policy leaders said they have a
"clear understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum," whereas 20% and
24% of them, respectively, said they were less familiar with the
concept. The numbers are worse for Earth system science concepts. When
asked of their understanding of "the concept and causes of global
warming," 43% of space policy leaders and 41% of science policy leaders
said they had a clear understanding, whereas more than half of each
group said they had a "general sense" of it. Regarding the "concept of
ozone depletion and recovery," 43% of space policy leaders and 36% of
science policy leaders said they had a clear understanding, whereas
again half or more of both groups said they had a "general sense" of it.
Miller said this insight points to a clear need for agencies like NASA
to better communicate with our nation's leadership. The good news is
that policy leaders *trust* NASA as a highly reliable source of
information. Specifically, both space and science policy leaders said
they would trust a report from NASA ahead of other sources, such as a
report in the *Wall Street Journal,* a story in the *New York Times* or
the *Washington Post,* or even a report from a Congressional committee
on science and technology. The lowest ranked sources of information by
this audience are a story on a network TV news show or on CNN or in a
weekly news magazine like *Time* or *Newsweek.* Moreover, policy leaders
indicate a preference for the Internet as the primary medium by which
they gather needed information.

In this context, Miller examined NASA's Web sites and on-line
information to determine how these resources serve this segment of the
population. "I started with the main NASA Portal, quickly dispensed with
the large hardware commercial \[a reference to the up-front Flash
introduction\], and found that one in three of the major panels focused
on earth sciences," he said. "This is a reasonable and friendly entry
process." But once he moved into the Earth science sites, he said he
found a disproportionate emphasis on weather and hurricanes, and
markedly less emphasis on climate change or other ecological problems.
When he used the Portal's search engine, entering the keywords "climate
change," he found hundreds of links to both NASA and university-based
sites, but *no links to the National Academies of Sciences sites!* He
wondered why.

Miller said the quality of the information provided in these linkages to
other sites was generally excellent but he observed that "the
information is dispersed into a large number of small packets and that
there are relatively few broad, integrative pieces. So the user is left
to his/her own resources to do the integration." He recognized why NASA
would need to limit its emphasis on conclusions, yet felt there is an
unexploited middle ground in which we could provide more integrative or
summary materials---perhaps from university, industry, or professional
society sources. Miller said he faults NASA less than the current
restrictive political climate within which the agency operates. He said
his review of NASA's sites indicates there is a need for "legislative
support for statutory restrictions on political interference in the
reporting of scientific results." Miller said there were areas where
NASA ESD information on its Web sites needed improvement. For example,
he said, these sites included "too much video of marginal quality."
Between half and a third of the video materials did not have a narrative
explanation. And while his search process yielded a number of text
sources with climate data, there is no indexing of these results (other
than the search engine itself) and so this material is less accessible
than it would be with some indexing.

Miller said his review underscores the important role that professional
societies can play in the "certification" and dissemination of NASA's
Earth science data and information. The scientific community is
organized into a number of professional societies and groups that play
an important role in "certifying" new scientific information. In
general, he said, NASA has paid too little attention to these groups and
should now correct that problem by developing more focused programs of
collaboration with them. "NASA should continue to distribute its data
widely and quickly to universities, research centers, and other
appropriate organizations through long-term agreements to discourage the
political restriction of scientific results," he said.

**3.0 SUMMARY OF GROUP DISCUSSIONS**

On the second day of the Workshop, all participants were divided into
three discussion groups as a function of audience. Our panelists were
given audience assignments; NASA personnel were free to self-select
which group to join. The point was to ascertain the "collective wisdom"
in answering basic questions about how NASA's ESD should go about
communicating with its particular target audiences. The idea was to use
lessons learned and information discussed on Day 1 of the workshop to
help guide and frame discussions during Day 2. Moreover, the questions
were designed in hopes that one discussion session would lead logically
into the next so that there was a gradual building toward a collective,
cohesive vision by the end of the day. The summaries of our group
discussions provided throughout section 3.0 were captured by the group
facilitators and list the main points mainly in bulleted form.

**3.1 What Are Our Strengths and Weaknesses?**

Recalling the panelists' presentation and plenary discussions from the
first day of the Workshop, all three groups were asked to discuss and
answer the following questions: What do you feel are the NASA ESD
Outreach Community's strengths? What are its weaknesses? How can we
preserve and extend from our strengths while shoring up our weaknesses?

*3.1.1 Policy Leaders and Public Stakeholders*

> [Strengths (Policy Leaders / Stakeholders)]{.underline}

-   Passion/strength/commitment of our EPO personnel

-   NASA scientists are recognized by the science community as
    outstanding

-   Our ability to give dynamic, topical science lectures, such as in
    the series of public briefings given at Smithsonian and live
    presentations given in the E-theater by our scientists;

-   Our research and data are relevant to public policy issues;

-   Our research and data have commercial & societal applications;

-   We collect a large amount of global-scale data and share them at low
    cost (or freely);

-   We contribute a large body of peer-reviewed research -- which
    interests scientists;

-   We have many strong, long-term partnerships;

-   We have latent relationships with many professional associations ---
    but these could be utilized more (individuals known but not seen as
    association members);

-   Implications of our success or failure are significant to future
    (which can be both a strength and a weakness);

-   NASA's ability to develop and deploy new technology;

-   NASA technology enables stunning views of the whole Earth system
    from space;

-   Public opinion of NASA is positive; and

-   We have a collection of world-class interdisciplinary specialists
    closely located to one another

> [Weaknesses (Policy Leaders / Stakeholders)]{.underline}

-   There are large public interests/constituencies that do not welcome
    NASA's Earth science data and science results;

-   The association of NASA with technical/engineering ability may
    obscure NASA's *scientific* persona;

-   NASA is not supposed to do *operational* data gathering -- just to
    develop new instruments

-   Earth science is about *incremental* advances in knowledge, not so
    much new exploration, which makes it harder to "sell";

-   The agency's priority today is mainly on preserving space
    exploration, even at the expense of science;

-   NASA can't lobby Congress; and

-   Our data need to be better linked to and promoted among affected
    constituencies.

> [Ways to Extend Strengths/Shore up Weaknesses (Policy Leaders /
> Stakeholders)]{.underline}

-   Stress the *scientific* excellence of NASA's Earth science programs;

-   Align with interests of scientific community to amplify their power
    and to help them do their jobs better. The point here is that the
    scientific community is more subject driven and is already organized
    into professional societies that are subject driven, so perhaps we
    can better tap into that;

-   Leverage NASA's science personnel and their connections to
    influential professional/technical associations;

-   Maintain booths at scientific society meetings and conferences in
    order to show NASA's support for/participation in those societies,
    and to get more exposure to our research results and data sets;

-   Assist scientists with visualizations during research & analysis,
    writing, and presentation;

-   Explore the use of IPAs for personnel exchanges with other agencies
    and organization to help better cross-pollinate; and

-   Process NASA's data into a form that is *accessible* and *useful* to
    policy leaders and public stakeholders.

*3.1.2 Public Media*

> [Strengths (Public Media)]{.underline}
>
> • Our ability to ask the really important questions and respond to
> them;

-   Wealth of important stories to tell that people want and need to
    hear---stories that are policy relevant and can affect public
    policy;

-   We employ strong science writers, Web designers, data visualizers,
    video producers, and Earth system scientists;

-   We are well-funded and well-resourced with many people to tap
    internally & externally who have a wide range of expertise;

-   NASA's PAO draws passion from the scientist\'s passion for their
    work

> [• Name recognition]{.smallcaps}
>
> [Weaknesses (Public Media)]{.underline}

-   Management doesn't understand fully what we do, and doesn't seem to
    fully grasp what are the appropriate media needed to get the message
    out;

-   Difficulty in addressing the use of new media (such as PodCasts,
    VodCast, blogs as well as outside media developments such as
    NASAWatch);

-   There is a lack of dialogue between the agency's decision makers and
    the rest of us (scientists, PAO, etc.);

-   No integrated (central area) to share information from the Centers
    (not @ the Agency);

-   No coordinated strategy for topic/media selection;

-   No mechanism for finding stories/people;

-   PAO is not as familiar as they should be with the human dynamics of
    the people and the basics of NASA's Earth science stories;

> [Ways to Extend Strengths/Shore up Weaknesses (Public
> Media)]{.underline}

-   Organize a way to bring key folks together to have discussions
    (across the Centers) and give it a name/PR campaign "initiative" to
    establish the following three things:

(1) An ongoing, formalized way for internal dialogue;

(2) A technological base (telecon, wiki encyclopedia, portal); and

(3) Buy-in from senior management and the science community into a more
    integrative, cooperative approach to doing outreach.

*3.1.3 The Public and Informal Education*

This discussion group felt that its audience was too ill-defined at the
outset and therefore devoted some of its time to more clearly
identifying who is included in the scope of the day's discussions.
Specifically, this group's audiences were defined include the at-large
public, public visitors to NASA's Web sites, the National Park Service,
Museums and Science Centers, Girl and Boy Scouts, Tribal Communities,
Libraries, and other such civic organizations that serve the public.
This group also raised additional questions, like "What is the real
objective in our ESD outreach---selling NASA or NASA's work?" The group
also dealt with how is "education" defined?

> [Strengths (The Public / Informal Education)]{.underline}
>
> • High credibility of our information resources;
>
> • Direct linkage between data collection (with unique space-based
> perspective) and scientists' ability to use the data; and
>
> • NASA science results have immediate, real-time impacts as well as
> long-term utility/applications.
>
> [Weaknesses (The Public / Informal Education)]{.underline}
>
> • Selling NASA as a real-time news item;
>
> • Censorship of our messages from certain personnel at HQ has
> disrupted our existing structures;
>
> • The NASA ESD's organizational structure isn't conducive to effective
> communications (we are replete with "turf battles");
>
> • The ESD's definition of "Outreach" is unclear, and there are often
> ambiguous assumptions made as a result;
>
> • There are walls/barriers to communication, including our management
> organization, definitions of "formal and informal education," mission
> stovepiping --- all of which doesn't make sense to our audiences. The
> feeling is that these are "artificial constraints" to our outreach
> effort that tend to impede our effectiveness at communicating
> internally and externally.
>
> • The current message is "NASA can!" and yet this gets interpreted in
> the context of astronauts, the space shuttle and exploration. There is
> no clear understanding of our ESD missions. The corresponding message
> should be "NASA **does**!" meaning that NASA is a world leader in
> global climate change research;
>
> • Likewise, people think NASA builds rockets and technology, not that
> we do science;
>
> • Power in the hands of some seems to disrupt the flow of good ideas,
> like the integration of information;
>
> • Our personnel are often working a cross purposes; and
>
> • Poor understanding of where the Outreach funding flows to and from;
>
> [Ways to Extend Strengths/Shore up Weaknesses (The Public / Informal
> Education)]{.underline}
>
> • Use foundation of unique talents, with our tremendous experience and
> history together, to solve problems;
>
> • Find ways to better put to use our pool of ESD EPO funds;
>
> • Integrate our missions' EPO efforts, perhaps by leveraging the
> infrastructure of the Space Sciences' Broker / Facilitator Network as
> well as the NASA Explorer Institutes;
>
> • Re-emphasize the need for more and better integration by using a
> site such as the Earth Observatory to show our audiences "the big
> picture"; by getting better at cross-agency and cross-organizational
> dialogue; and by leveraging better our existing partnerships;
>
> • Devise an outreach approach that integrates information in such a
> way as to present a unified message that articulates NASA's "planetary
> vision."
>
> • Ensure the message comes through that "NASA's science has value for
> your life." Link the "what's going on for me" from an average
> citizen's perspective to "what's been discovered by NASA's ESD."
>
> • There is no "one-size-fits-all" solution---our core messages should
> come through in multiple communications vehicles;
>
> • Consider appropriate funding vehicles for bringing our EPO personnel
> together, such as a new cooperative agreement;
>
> • We should devise a list of specific messages for specific target
> audiences; and
>
> • Since repurposing information for other audiences costs money,
> consider rendering our products in formats that make them more
> extensible, such as producing still images from products that
> originate as movies.

2.  **Our Communications Goals and Objectives**

In the second group breakout session, participants discussed the
following questions: What should be our main communications goals and
objectives for each audience (recognizing that they may vary)? What are
realistic outcomes of a well-designed communications strategy aimed at
each target audience? How should we go about building healthy
relationships with each audience? And what characteristics define a
healthy relationship with each audience?

*3.2.1 Policy Leaders and Public Stakeholders*

#### **Goals**

> • Maintain / facilitate / help enable NASA Earth science research
>
> • Ensure continuity and growth of NASA's ESD

#### **Objectives**

> • Expand the ESD's stakeholder base
>
> • Maintain ESD's funding
>
> • Maintain NASA's ESD as an integrated organizational unit
>
> • Maximize the utilization of NASA's Earth science data and new
> science results

#### **Strategies**

> • Formalize and establish relationships with science associations to
> communicate on NASA's behalf

-   Start with *intent* to exchange values

-   Identify organizations and scientists within them

-   Target key, relevant scientists with NASA

-   Offer to help those scientists / find out what they need from us

-   Offer them products / services they can use

-   Create ongoing dialogue with the heads of key science organizations

-   Explore ways to fund joint efforts

> • Communicate directly to Policy Leaders

-   Because they use the Web heavily, get our ESD Web content linked
    through relevant portals/groups they trust

-   Create Web sites that provide useful, just-in-time information they
    can use (like [www.cancer.gov](http://www.cancer.gov/); or the NASA
    Hurricane site);

-   Build a site for this audience that is more menu-driven: i.e., users
    select the type of information they want;

-   Do a better job of indexing our the information on our sites to
    better facilitate content syndication and cross-site searching;

-   Conduct user-needs assessments.

> • Create a new site called Earth.gov at the CCSP level
>
> • Consider accelerating the production of the "Earth Science Year in
> Review" to quarterly and ask our target audience if they find that
> publication to be effective.
>
> • Create and fund dissertation awards in ways that will help increase
> the utilization of NASA's Earth science data sets;
>
> • Take a more user-driven approach to making our data more accessible
> and usable.

*3.2.2 Public Media*

##### Goals

> • Uniformity of the message*\**
>
> • To have the public media seek out NASA as a primary source for the
> global perspective on Earth

##### Objectives

> • Identify / improve NASA's relationships with the print media;
>
> • Better story identification and planting\*;
>
> • Identify who are the key people within public media outlets (like
> the Associated Press) and build relationships with them;
>
> • Get to know NASA Earth scientists better,\* then identify
> appropriate ones for training as public spokespersons;
>
> • Get buy-in from senior management\* about our main messages and our
> people;
>
> • Indentify
>
> \*NOTE: It was agreed that all of the items with asterisks would be
> applicable to all public media.
>
> • Identify / improve NASA's relationships with the broadcast media;

-   Determine what the broadcast media reps want

-   Contact key personnel to find out from them their preferred way to
    receive information

-   Match our efforts to their needs

> • Research the sites to determine whether or not to pursue how
> information is posted and / or marketed
>
> • Build relationships with members of professional organizations /
> societies and go to their meetings and *network.*

##### Characteristics that Define a Healthy Relationship

> • The number of media contacts in our PAO reps' rolodex for whom we
> have detailed contact information
>
> • Number of calls in which media seek help in finding / producing
> information needed for a story
>
> • Recognition among media contacts that NASA's ESD offers the global
> perspective

*3.2.3 The Public and Informal Education*

NOTE: Initially, distinctions around what the list of target audiences
consisted of in this category of "The Public / Information Education"
were not universally shared, nor were the audience definitions clearly
understood by the entire discussion group, which somewhat affected the
discussion. Thus, a significant portion of this group's discussions
centered on *[partnerships]{.underline}*---forming them, developing
models for effective partnerships, cultivating NASA information flow
through partnerships, using partnerships to effectively and efficiently
reach their specific target audiences, and using partnerships as
vehicles for feedback and assessment. Examples of such partnership
organizations that were cited include the National Parks Service,
science museums, library districts/associations, NCTE, Girl Scouts and
Boy Scouts, 4H, high school science clubs (approached at the national
level), etc.

##### Goals

> • Increase the number of partnerships with informal education
> institutions;
>
> • Provide information on the big picture of what NASA does in Earth
> science;
>
> • Convey the message that NASA is answering "life's big questions";
>
> • Increase the number of media who access and utilize our information
> resources; and
>
> • Provide the media with the following about "Earth's changing
> systems":

(1) Information

(2) Understanding

(3) Knowledge

##### Objectives

> • Create awareness
>
> • Build understanding
>
> • Verify information retention
>
> • Engender positive emotional connections
>
> • Form and foster associations such as other agencies and
> organizations with mutual interests

##### Strategies

> • Find some mechanism like the NASA Explorer Institutes to help us to
> study and understand what healthy relationships are and how to build
> them;
>
> • Develop new outreach partnerships with informal education
> institutions; and
>
> • Use both audience and partner feedback to develop specific models
> for effective outreach partnerships.

##### Outcomes

> • A measurable increase in the number of outreach partnerships and in
> the public audiences reached through these partner-provided programs;
>
> • A measurable increase in the number of people who know NASA does
> Earth science;
>
> • A measurable increase in the number of people who are aware of
> global climate change and its causes and effects;
>
> • A child could find information about NASA's Earth sciences on the
> Web, at school, on a vacation cruise, or in national park; and
>
> • Members of our target audiences can use NASA's information resources
> to help them to:

-   Make informed decisions;

-   Refer others to NASA as a source of Earth science information;

-   Explain and pass on our information to others; and

-   Continue to learn, and maintain a desire to continue to learn about
    Earth.

**3.3 What Are Our Metrics for Success and How Can We Measure?**

In the third roundtable session, each group was asked to discuss the
following questions: How should we measure the success of our public
communications programs and products over time? What specifically should
we measure? How can we best measure them?

*3.3.1 Policy Leaders and Public Stakeholders*

At the outset of this discussion, the question arose: How will we ever
know if/when we've gotten somewhere? We recognized the need for a
baseline measure against which to measure forward progress over time. We
also recognized that another, perhaps indirect, measure of our success
is the ESD's annual budget allocation. What's the reason for the up or
down trends? Will we know the reason and whether it actually relates in
any way to our outreach efforts? Moreover, do policy leaders and
decision makers know how much more cuts to the ESD will damage our
progress toward answering the big climate questions? Are there ever
attempts to communicate this?

##### Metrics for Success (Policy Leaders and Public Stakeholders)

> • Monitor the frequency of meeting our audiences' information needs
> and determine how often they seek out NASA as a source of Earth
> science information. What priority do they give NASA resources as
> compared to others'? Are they coming to us out of confusion or out of
> interest?;
>
> • Build some sort of public gauge showing progress toward mission
> fulfillment;
>
> • Track our number of articles in peer-reviewed literature;
>
> • Track the number of citations to our articles by others;
>
> • Conduct a qualitative analysis of existing high-level U.S. climate
> and environmental policy documents to see if our messages are being
> carried forward;
>
> • Measure the quality and quantity of our relationships with other
> science associations;
>
> • Measure the attitudes and opinions of policy leaders and leaders of
> other science organizations toward NASA's ESD. Do they perceive the
> same strengths in NASA's ESD that we perceive in ourselves?
>
> • Establish and show *relevance.* How many operation or commercial
> entities are using our data and bringing value-added?
>
> • Establish a *trust portfolio* with our target audiences. There are
> three main indicators of trust that we can measure, including:

(1) *Competence* --- Do our audiences believe we have the ability to do
    what we say we will do?

(2) *Integrity* --- Do our audiences believe we are fair, just and
    accurate in our accounts of what we do?, and

(3) *Dependability* --- Do our audiences feel they can always count on
    us to do the "right thing" (i.e., to always operate with competence
    and integrity)?

> • Ultimately, will the ESD continue and will we be allowed to plan and
> launch new missions to continue advancing our understanding of Earth?
>
> **[Further Recommendations (Policy Leaders and Public
> Stakeholders)]{.underline}**
>
> • It was strongly recommended and agreed upon by this entire group
> that the questions (below) surrounding "How to measure..." should be
> addressed by an outside, independent group, perhaps via a new
> Announcement of Opportunity or unsolicited proposal.
>
> • *Financially "incentivize" our collaborations.* This was regarded as
> essential to overcoming our factious community and developing a common
> communications infrastructure.
>
> • Set up dialogue session with senior managers, scientists, and
> outreach personnel to help us all achieve unity of message that we can
> all rally behind. Without leadership buy-in, this won't happen.
>
> • Enhance and streamline the flow of strategic information internally
> within NASA across all ESD-relevant centers.

*3.3.2 Public Media*

> **[How should we measure success?]{.underline}**
>
> • Track the number of media calls / inquiries over time.
>
> • Track the number of press releases over time.
>
> • Track our, and our partners', Web usage over time, including:

-   How many people visit and how much are they reading?

-   Add a rating system that allows users to evaluate the quality of a
    given resource or article.

-   Add a "Recommend this to a friend" capability and then track the
    number of referrals over time.

> • Track the ongoing "play" of our stories in media outlets
>
> • How many trained ESD science spokespersons do we have?
>
> • Expand, broaden, and improve our relationships with our media
> contacts and measure via surveys. Are we meeting their needs for
> information and resources?
>
> • Conduct a formal poll to determine if media is having an effect on
> public regarding a given topic (say IPY).
>
> • Track the number of citations to our articles.

*3.3.3 The Public and Informal Education*

Questions were raised during this session, such as: What do you measure
in integrated communications efforts? How can you measure without first
establishing a baseline against which to measure? This group felt that
metrics should include attitudinal and behavioral changes in our
audiences, as listed below.

**[What is defined as "successful communications" with the
public?]{.underline}**

> • Are they making informed decisions (actionable and retained)?
>
> • Are our communications partners (i.e., museums) helping us to
> disseminate NASA ESD information? If so, how many and how often?
>
> • Are the numbers of our partners and partnerships growing?
>
> • How are the public's responses to certain key questions changing
> over time, such as:

-   Is Earth changing?

-   What is the impact of humans on Earth?

**3.4 How Can We Work More Cooperatively Together?**

In the fourth and last discussion session, participants grappled with
answering the following questions: How can we work more cooperatively
together to overcome negative inertias of geographic separation,
organization charts, and the flows of funding? How should we go about
building healthier working relationships within the agency to achieve
our common communications goals? For this session, we reshuffled the
groups' members so as to better cross-pollinate the exchange of ideas
among participants.

*3.3.1 Policy Leaders and Public Stakeholders*

##### Barriers

> • Egos
>
> • Entrepreneurial and competitive individuals among us
>
> • Budgets support separate programs, hence loyalties are divided,
> customer bases vary, there are mission "comps" versus public affairs,
> there are differing priorities, and different priorities assigned to
> audiences.
>
> • Print focus versus Web focus --- are using the right,
> age-appropriate media?
>
> • Confusion stemming from the rapid turnover of leadership personnel
> at HQ --- has led to a lack of a coherent, strategic long-term
> approach;
>
> • Geography (people located at multiple field centers)
>
> • A "camp" mentality
>
> • People with communications expertise are not at the decision table.

##### Solutions

> • Have *common projects* (pick something and *do it*)
>
> • Plan and support annual or quarterly get-togethers
>
> • Provide leadership training on managing up and how to involve
> scientists in consensus decision making

-   Continue "Just Doing It"

-   Have Clear Intent and Desire

-   Internal Website for this community

-   Hold meetings during professional association meetings (NASW, NAG,
    etc.)

-   Rotate chair people

> **[Single Highest Recommendation (from each
> participant)]{.underline}**
>
> • Find a significant, appealing cooperative venture with the nation's
> Earth Scientists and this community (IPY?)
>
> • Find a way to get management to empower people to cooperate
>
> • Create opportunities for an occasional (even individual) spectacular
> success
>
> • Remove stumbling blocks and *fund* *cooperative activities*
>
> • Annual mandatory "All Hands" meeting with scientists focused on best
> practices
>
> • Identify who all the "hands" are

*3.3.2 Public Media*

##### Working cooperatively

-   Continue to have off-site workshops bringing us all together
    (roughly once a year)

-   Build on what has taken place these last 2-days

-   PAO -- bring others into partnering with exhibits, events, etc.

-   Finding the time to share information with colleagues (schedules are
    hectic)

-   Coordinating telecons and/or meetings (duration, frequency, agenda)

-   Determine when efforts [could]{.underline} and [should]{.underline}
    be collaborative --- reach out to our counterparts to ensure we
    raise the level of awareness/importance

> \- Consider the PAO Hurricane Campaign -- getting everyone to move
> together on the same message at the same time.
>
> \- Get agency-wide sanction on our campaigns together
>
> \- Get top level involvement -- invite our senior managers to
> participate next time

*3.3.3 The Public and Informal Education*

A key question from this group's discussion: Is there a central
organization to structure and manage the integrated messaging? If not,
we need to form one.

###### How to work more cooperatively

> • Provide "financially encouraged" collaboration. What is interesting
> is the issue wasn't seen as a lack of funding, but to change how the
> funding flows in such a way as to foster greater cooperation.
>
> • Build into the budget time and funds to address ways of making our
> products more extensible and/or ways of adding value to them.
>
> • Get leadership buy-in on those previous two bullets, or they won't
> happen.
>
> • Create a healthy, positive flow of information internally within the
> agency. Tools such as newsletters and/or an internal Web site along
> with facilitated assessment can serve as good "bridges."
>
> • Retain an agency or other entity to add value to and then sell the
> rights to our data visualizations. That's one good way to
> "*incentivize* collaboration."
>
> • Develop and rally behind a bold branding message that clearly
> identifies us: "We are the planetary agency with the planetary vision.
> We carry the public trust in pioneering space-based technology and
> planetary science."

**4.0 REFERENCES**

1\. Williams, Robin-Marie and Erin Bina (2004): "Brand Equity and
Message Concept Development." A PowerPoint presentation delivered by
Harmonic International to NASA. (See
\<http://esdepo.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/files/NASABrandEquity05-24-04.ppt\>)

2\. Miller, Jon D. (2004): "Space Policy Leaders and Science Policy
Leaders in the United States." A report submitted to NASA. (See
\<http://esdepo.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/files/NASA_Leadership_Report.doc\>)

[^1]: Williams, Robin-Marie and Erin Bina (2004): "Brand Equity and
    Message Concept Development." A PowerPoint presentation by Harmonic
    International to NASA.

[^2]: Miller, Jon D. (2004): "Space Policy Leaders and Science Policy
    Leaders in the United States." A report submitted to NASA.