Creating impact through clever communication

In 2009 only 68% and 37% of Victorian farmers had heard of ENSO and IOD respectively and thought they influenced their local spring seasonal rainfall.

By 2011 this had increased (81% and 50%) and a 2014 survey showed the figures for both were above 90% for those reading “The Break” e-newsletter.

This data indicates an increasing number of farmers understand what drives their seasonal rainfall, and are then tuning into the latest climate updates to seek insights into how the current season might unfold.  

Since 2008 when Graeme Anderson, Dale Grey and Agriculture Victoria cranked up their climate extension focus, they’ve appeared at more than 100 face-to-face sessions every year with farmers and advisors keen to understand how our seasons and weather patterns work.

The climatedogs animated tool forms an integral part of this comprehensive climate extension program.

“The animations are used in context with a range of other extension activities such as face-to-face presentations, webinars and e-news updates, which help expand the animations into a local story on weather patterns,”  Graeme said.

“Our best engagements with farmers are where we show the climatedogs and discuss local rainfall histories and drivers of variability, tools for forecasting and then spend 70% of the time on all the things farmers can do to manage the seasonal variability and changes that are occurring.

“Farmers prefer to focus on solutions and things they can control – just like the rest of us – it’s more fun, more practical and more useful.”

Success and lessons learned

According to Graeme, the climatedog animations have exceeded expectations in terms of engagement.

“It’s been terrific, well beyond our expectations,” he said.

“Our original aim was to have a useful animation tool our staff and agriculture advisors, climate educators could use in their sessions with farmers to help explain key drivers of our climate and seasons, as well as explaining the latest science.

“When we first approached BoM with the dogs idea they were a bit sceptical (nervous about what we’d do with their great science) about extension people talking about sheepdogs, but to their great credit they helped make sure the scripts were accurate to the science.

“We put the story in our own language and tried to explain the essence of the science story in 90 seconds.

“Then we’d give it to the scientists to correct any misunderstandings. We talk very differently, but what we were seeking was their answer as: ‘that’s essentially correct, even if it’s not how I would say it’.”

The true litmus test for Graeme and his team was whether their extension team would be comfortable and happy to show it to their farmers.

“This is a great testing ground, as no agriculture advisor wants to run the risk of looking silly or blowing their own credibility with their farmers, so you’ll only show animations or use tools that pass this test,” Graeme said

Graeme believes the draft animations were greatly improved by getting feedback from frontline extension staff.

“When it became time to publish the animations we were confident they would get used, but we were still blown away by the response — I think we had something like 50,000 viewings in the first 10 months.”

Since the initial launch the animations have been loaded or copied on a few other sites to help share the approach and they are still being used in education sessions at a variety of levels including schools. They’re also being used as effective examples of communicating complex science.

The climatedogs approach gave Graeme and his team insights into better ways of packaging up complex science into bite size pieces for a specific audience, and also confirmed that no idea was too silly.

“I think in science we tend to be very conservative and play it safe,” Graeme said.

“The animations weren’t perfect and we could definitely improve them to better reflect gender balance - the first few animations just had blokes. The issue of stereotypes was also raised, where some scientists didn’t like being portrayed in white lab coats and also some farmers didn’t like being shown wearing overalls,  but everyone loved the dogs.”

“The climatedogs showed us the value of packaging science up into bite size bits, with a tight script, use an analogy and some humour to help.”

When producing a tool that extension staff or advisors will use to deliver research outcomes or science principles, Graeme has a few tips:

• Ensure the tool accurately portrays the latest science, and explains “what we currently know”.
• Keep the tool short — approximately two minutes —a sharp script is hard but well worth it.
• Incorporate some appropriate humour or quirkiness if possible, and use a good analogy if you can — don’t be afraid to explain it in your own way, which might be different to what you have heard before. You can do this and still make sure it accurately reflects the science.
• Know your audience and use language they understand - avoid terms or words which are contested or have double meanings.
• A tool ideally forms one part of a broader communications initiative. Don’t put all your eggs in a single basket or tool.