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Ping Yu: (music) Hello, everyone.

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Ping Yu: Welcome to the Blooms and Beyond podcast, a podcast that uncovers
plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science.

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Ping Yu: I'm your host, Ping.

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Ping Yu: How's everyone doing today?

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Ping Yu: I am doing great, great because here I have my dear
colleague and friend Dr. Alexa Lamm from University of Georgia here

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Ping Yu: with me today on this show to talk about the very interesting and
exciting topic on scientific communication, which I am a big fan of that.

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Ping Yu: She is definitely one of the rock stars in this
field, and you're gonna have a glimpse of that too.

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Ping Yu: And I know she has tons of interesting story and knowledge and experience
to share, so I don't want to steal any more thunder from our speaker today.

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Ping Yu: Let's just jump right into it.

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Ping Yu: Without further ado, here is
my conversation with Dr. Alexa Lamm.

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Ping Yu: I hope you enjoy.

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Ping Yu: (music) So hi, Alexa,
welcome to the podcast.

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Ping Yu: But first, let's start
off with the introduction.

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Ping Yu: Can you tell our audience a little
bit about who you are and what you do?

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Alexa Lamm: Thank you so much
for having me here today.

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Alexa Lamm: I really appreciate being invited and getting
to be a part of this awesome podcast that you've started.

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Alexa Lamm: I love listening to it myself.

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Alexa Lamm: And a little about myself.

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Alexa Lamm: I am a professor of science
communication at the University of Georgia.

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Alexa Lamm: I get to study how people communicate about
critical issues facing the agricultural industry.

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Alexa Lamm: And so a lot of that is in
partnership with scientists like yourself.

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Alexa Lamm: And so it's wonderful to get to come here and talk about that 'cause
there are many ways in which we can effectively and not so effectively communicate

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Alexa Lamm: about scientific advancements and some of the things
that might hinder our ability to use science out in the field.

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Ping Yu: Yeah, 'cause I still remember the first time I
met Alexa during a meeting with the multi-state group.

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Ping Yu: We're all kind
of working in irrigation.

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Ping Yu: But I was like, when you started to introduce of
what you do, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that's very fascinating."

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Ping Yu: Because a lot of times, especially me with- as a extension specialist,
I always try to find a way to, you know, help, well, improve the communication efficiency.

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Ping Yu: And I was like,
"That would be great."

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Ping Yu: And I know you had a workshop with the
growers and it just like, I want to be part of that.

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Ping Yu: Anyhow, but did you grow up
with the exposure to agriculture?

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Ping Yu: Did you see yourself
as a nature kid growing up?

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Ping Yu: And how did you become
interested in science communication?

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Ping Yu: Did you know that's a
thing when you grew up?

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Ping Yu: Can you share just a little
bit about your career journey?

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Alexa Lamm: Yeah, of course.

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Alexa Lamm: No, I was your
typical animal science kid.

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Alexa Lamm: I did 4-H when I was young, showed
livestock and horses and wanted to be a veterinarian.

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Alexa Lamm: So you know, I went off to college and got an animal
science degree with every expectation that I would go to vet school.

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Alexa Lamm: But I realized that I liked working with healthy
animals and kids and producers a lot more than sick ones.

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Alexa Lamm: And so I ended up getting a master's in extension education and was an
extension agent for almost ten years working in the agricultural field in Colorado.

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Alexa Lamm: So I really
have Extension at my heart.

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Alexa Lamm: It's been a part of my career, 'cause after that, I went
and got my PhD at the University of Florida, and I was actually there.

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Alexa Lamm: Don't hold it against me,
all you UGA Dawg fans.

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Alexa Lamm: I was there for about ten years
before coming to UGA eight years ago.

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Alexa Lamm: And it's interesting because I always
have had Extension at the heart of all of my work.

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Alexa Lamm: But now I can see that really, truly, Extension
and science communication, they're not distinctly different.

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Alexa Lamm: I mean, Extension is the original science communication, where we take
information from the land grant university out to those who need it the most.

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Alexa Lamm: I think it's just become a little more complex as the public has
become more engaged in guiding legislation around scientific advancement, right?

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Alexa Lamm: The funding of science,
whether they want to use it or not.

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Alexa Lamm: They question it based on pseudoscience and miscommunication and all this
kind of crazy stuff that's out there on the internet they can access all the time.

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Alexa Lamm: But they can vote for legislation that blocks our
ability to, you know, utilize science or to fund science.

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Alexa Lamm: And then also we have this whole policy dynamic and regulation around
the use of scientific advancement especially in the horticulture industry, right?

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Alexa Lamm: As we think about some of the practices we try to encourage as extensionists,
and it's like, I don't know how many producers say, "Yeah, I would love to use

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Alexa Lamm: that, but there
are regulations blocking me."

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Alexa Lamm: And so we need effective science communication between scientists and those
decision-makers making those choices too, so that all of that's informed by actual scientific

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Alexa Lamm: information and not what
people think might be the truth.

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Ping Yu: Well, yeah, there's a lot of fake, well,
I would say pseudo or fake information out there.

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Ping Yu: Especially I think the scientific communication, the topic that
we're talking about now today is especially important at this AI era,

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Ping Yu: where you basically think that you can get all this information with
just a click, but you don't know, like, how much of that is science-based

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Ping Yu: information and you cannot truly trust what you
find with the one click, and you have to fact check with

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Ping Yu: basically everything so that you're not
making mistakes in a lot of things that you do.

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Ping Yu: So what motivated you to pursue the PhD in agriculture,
education and communication and focus on communication evaluation?

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Ping Yu: Because, well, I am a extension specialist, but I know how important
communication is in terms of deliver the information to our stakeholders.

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Ping Yu: But one of the trick thing for us
sometimes is how do we do the evaluation?

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Ping Yu: How can we know if I'm
a effective communicator myself?

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Alexa Lamm: Yeah, no,
that's a great question.

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Alexa Lamm: And I mean, I mentioned that I was an extension
agent for ten years, right, in Colorado, just south of Denver.

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Alexa Lamm: And it frustrated me for years that we would
always talk about Extension is the best-kept secret, right?

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Alexa Lamm: We still say that.

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Alexa Lamm: It's like we do
all these amazing things.

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Alexa Lamm: We put on all these fabulous programs and
webinars, and we've expanded in this digital age.

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Alexa Lamm: We're even creating AI-based
chatbots that we can interface with.

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Alexa Lamm: I mean, we're- we do so much as Extension, and yet
we find the same people utilizing our services over and over.

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Alexa Lamm: How do we reach the broader
producer base that could utilize what we do?

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Alexa Lamm: How do we reach the public?

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Alexa Lamm: How do we get, you know,
all this information out there?

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Alexa Lamm: And a lot of that is because
we were unable to showcase our impact.

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Alexa Lamm: And like you just mentioned,
we still struggle with that.

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Alexa Lamm: And so I had a real passion for trying to figure out how we most effectively
evaluate our programs, but evaluate them in the way that the public cares about

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Alexa Lamm: and that decision makers care about, so that they will continue to fund
and support Extension, which to me is essential in the science communication space.

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Alexa Lamm: And so, you know, it keeps coming into question,
is Extension really something of public value?

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Alexa Lamm: Should tax dollars
be supporting this, right?

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Alexa Lamm: State and federal dollars.

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Alexa Lamm: Well, if we can't show our impact,
it's really hard to make that argument.

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Alexa Lamm: And so that's why
I pursued a PhD in that area.

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Alexa Lamm: And then I did serve as an evaluation specialist in Florida for about
eight years in that capacity and then came here to Georgia originally as the

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Alexa Lamm: evaluation specialist.

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Ping Yu: Yeah.

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Ping Yu: (music) And you kind
of mentioned about the impact.

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Ping Yu: That's one of the big questions that every
Extension people (laughs) kind of face or have to do.

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Ping Yu: But from your perspective and experience, what are some
of those impacts or evaluation critiques that are different from,

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Ping Yu: you know, for instance, to deliver the right message that the
politics makers or the general public care more than the educator like us

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Ping Yu: care more about it?

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Ping Yu: Can you kind of tell us a
little bit about from that angle?

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Alexa Lamm: Yeah.

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Alexa Lamm: So I think oftentimes when we do extension
programming, it's very producer forward, right?

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Alexa Lamm: We're trying to help producers understand the new science and how
it can be used in their facilities or their farms or their production units.

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Alexa Lamm: And a lot of producers,
I mean, that's their livelihood, right?

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Alexa Lamm: That's their business.

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Alexa Lamm: And so we focus
on economic profitability.

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Alexa Lamm: Like, you should adopt this because it
will save you money or make you more money, right?

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Alexa Lamm: Because that's
what incentivizes people.

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Alexa Lamm: They have kids they want to send to college too, and that is a
viable reason for them to want to know if I change everything I'm doing and

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Alexa Lamm: adopt this new practice,
it will result in something positive for me.

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Alexa Lamm: I think because of that, then we talk about impact of our programs as, well,
these producers are making this much more money or they're saving this much money.

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Alexa Lamm: But the general public and the policy makers,
they don't really connect with that, right?

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Alexa Lamm: It's like, okay, so what?

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Alexa Lamm: So all of my tax dollars are
going to help a farmer make more money?

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Alexa Lamm: Like,
that doesn't sit with me.

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Alexa Lamm: Where if we can talk about environmental sustainability, how much water is saved
that can then be used for other sources or other resources that maybe recreational facilities

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Alexa Lamm: that they utilize will be viable and open because water use has been reduced
because of like the irrigation practices that you develop that help conserve water on farm

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Alexa Lamm: and then save
water for other things.

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Alexa Lamm: We have to tell stories that the public cares about or the decision-maker cares about,
and honestly, the decision-maker typically cares about whatever their constituents care about, right?

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Alexa Lamm: Because they're
representing them, and they should.

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Alexa Lamm: And so we really need to get in the minds of the,
like it's not always the user of science that benefits.

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Alexa Lamm: We have to talk about
what are those benefits beyond that.

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Alexa Lamm: And so I think it's important for producers to gain
knowledge and to have an intent to engage in a certain behavior.

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Alexa Lamm: And we can measure those things
with evaluation tools at extension programs.

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Alexa Lamm: But I also think it's important for us, collectively us, the scientific community
along with the ag community, to really think about, like, well, how is this bettering society?

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Alexa Lamm: How does this make sure that produce is on the
shelves when a mom is going to buy her groceries, right?

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Alexa Lamm: How is this ensuring that those groceries are not so
expensive that she can't, like, balance that meal for her family?

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Alexa Lamm: Those are the
things that she cares about.

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Alexa Lamm: And so I think we need to think beyond, like, okay,
we do have a target for scientific adoption, but then who benefits from this?

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Alexa Lamm: And we need to
tell those stories of impact.

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Alexa Lamm: And that is when
people will really care.

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Ping Yu: Yeah.

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Ping Yu: 'Cause I think that's a great
tip for me, for a lot of folks like me.

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Ping Yu: Basically what we need to do is we need to
think beyond the stakeholders we are serving now.

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Ping Yu: They are part of our society.

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Ping Yu: What they are doing is a big
puzzle piece in this whole society.

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Ping Yu: So what we are doing kind of benefit
them, but also benefit the whole society.

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Alexa Lamm: We can all win, right?

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Alexa Lamm: It can be a win-win-win, and I haven't talked to a single producer that doesn't
care about the environment, that doesn't care about where their product ends up and

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Alexa Lamm: that it
benefits someone, right?

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Alexa Lamm: It's like they go into farming
and production agriculture because they care.

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Alexa Lamm: But I think, like you said, we kind of stop at our first
stakeholder, and we don't necessarily think about that long term.

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Alexa Lamm: But I promise you, when you sit down
and you talk to those producers, they care.

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Ping Yu: (music) So let's circle back a little bit for folks that,
whom may not be so familiar with science communication.

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Ping Yu: How do you define that, and especially within the context of
agriculture and environmental science that we're all in right now?

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Alexa Lamm: Yeah, no.

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Alexa Lamm: Science communication seems
like pretty easily defined, right?

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Alexa Lamm: It's like transferring information
from one person to another, right?

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Alexa Lamm: There's a, somebody who's delivering the message,
and there's somebody who's receiving the message.

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Alexa Lamm: That's kind of how
communication has originally been defined.

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Alexa Lamm: However, we've kind of moved beyond that to
more deeply think about the, a two-way dialogue, right?

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Alexa Lamm: It's like it's one thing for the scientific community to stand in front of a
group of producers and share scientific findings and say, "You need to utilize these and

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Alexa Lamm: adopt these, and this is how."

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Alexa Lamm: It's a whole 'nother for them then to listen to producers who say,
"Well, that's great, but I have this system already in place in my greenhouse, and

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Alexa Lamm: adopting that practice is not gonna work with
the drip irrigation that's already existing for XYZ.

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Alexa Lamm: Can we make a few tweaks here?

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Alexa Lamm: And maybe because it's not, it might not be quite as efficient in saving water,
but I'm gonna be able to use it without replacing everything in my irrigation system."

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Alexa Lamm: Then the scientist can say,
"Yeah, we can make a few tweaks.

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Alexa Lamm: Let's try ABC instead of XYZ."

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Alexa Lamm: And then it, so it becomes a two-way dialogue, right,
between the end user and the scientist and the s- or the scientific team.

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Alexa Lamm: And so then science communication is really evolving more collectively
than in that one way traditional sense of we are the deliverers of science

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Alexa Lamm: to the end user.

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Alexa Lamm: You should love it because
of here's all the reasons why.

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Alexa Lamm: And so it becomes more
of this kind of interface, right?

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Alexa Lamm: It's the same
thing with regulation.

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Alexa Lamm: We can come up with science all day long,
but if the producer says, "Well, I think that's great.

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Alexa Lamm: I would love
to grow in this container.

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Alexa Lamm: However, Walmart
will not accept that," right?

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Alexa Lamm: "My wholesaler won't take it because Walmart won't accept that pot because it
deteriorates too quickly on their shelves, and so I can't grow in that, even though you tell

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Alexa Lamm: me it's the most efficient,
effective growing mechanism."

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Alexa Lamm: Or maybe their machinery doesn't
handle that pot well, and it deteriorates, right?

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Alexa Lamm: So they can kind of tell us back and forth
that like, yeah, like pie in the sky idea's great.

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Alexa Lamm: Here's reality, right?

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Alexa Lamm: Let's ground it somewhere in between and
find a scientific advancement that helps us all.

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Alexa Lamm: And so we really need to take the time to share our science but
also listen to the end user and take that in and adapt our science effectively

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Alexa Lamm: to help them the most, and that
should be a continuous reciprocal relationship.

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Alexa Lamm: That's true
science communication.

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Alexa Lamm: And the other thing we have found when you really open yourself as the scientist,
opens yourself, is that indigenous knowledge that the farmer has that's been passed

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Alexa Lamm: down from generation to generation,
there is usually a scientific explanation for why it works.

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Alexa Lamm: They can't tell you that,
but they know it works, right?

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Alexa Lamm: And so we can also learn a lot as a scientific community by listening to what
that knowledge, that passed down knowledge is from the community that we're serving, and

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Alexa Lamm: kind of adapt and utilize it
in our science to make everything better.

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Alexa Lamm: So yeah, like, that's a really neat
way of thinking about science communication too.

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Alexa Lamm: It's not always, right, like the
ivory tower, we know best, here do good things.

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Alexa Lamm: Like it's, it is about that kind of like continual
conversation about what works, and maybe they don't know why, but it does.

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Ping Yu: Yeah, and also that's just give you- you just listed a perfect example
for us to kick in and that will benefit the, what involved science itself, because

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Ping Yu: while the growers might have all those generations of wisdom of how this
works for them, they may not know the science behind it, and that's a opportunity for

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Ping Yu: you to, you know, to dive into it
and say, "Oh, why, this is why it works."

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Ping Yu: And you may develop a strategy that will, more people can adapt it with your,
with the science that you have, well, with the science solution that you have

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Ping Yu: developed from
whatever they are working.

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Alexa Lamm: Exactly, 'cause maybe it's been working on this one farm because they've had
this knowledge over time, but you can then help a whole bunch of other farmers based on

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Alexa Lamm: that, you know,
transferring that information.

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Alexa Lamm: So yes, there's a lot of opportunities when
we engage in more effective, like two-way dialogue.

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Ping Yu: Yeah.

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Ping Yu: I always find myself learning a lot from the growers that I serve,
and I (Alexa Lamm: Too) was like, oh my gosh, they are, they are just so

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Ping Yu: knowledgeable on certain
things that I was like, "What?"

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Alexa Lamm: Yeah, absolutely.

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Ping Yu: (music) So we talk about some
of the effective science communication.

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Ping Yu: What are some core principles of effective science communication,
particularly if we're talking about topics or complex topics to,

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Ping Yu: let's say, lay audience?

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Alexa Lamm: Yeah, that's a great question.

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Alexa Lamm: There are really four foundational pieces
to effective sci- in my mind and from my research.

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Alexa Lamm: One, first you have
to know who your audience is.

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Alexa Lamm: Like, is it the producer?

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Alexa Lamm: Is it a certain segment?

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Alexa Lamm: We talk about the
public all the time, right?

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Alexa Lamm: But the public is made up of so many different people, and what they care about is,
you know, the 20-something-year-old that just graduated from college and is just trying

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Alexa Lamm: to make it in their first job and save up to buy their first home
cares about a lot different things than I do as a middle-aged woman with a

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Alexa Lamm: family, right?

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Alexa Lamm: Versus someone who is
nearing, you know, retiring and...

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Alexa Lamm: So different people are looking for different things,
and that is even within our farming communities, right?

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Alexa Lamm: Like the young producer is looking for different
things than somebody who's been doing it for 60 years, right?

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Alexa Lamm: And they need different
resources and different things.

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Alexa Lamm: So the very first thing in effective science communication is getting,
like identifying who your audience is and then getting to know them.

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Alexa Lamm: Listening to them, getting to know what they care about, finding
out where they go for information, who they rely on, right, and who they trust.

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Alexa Lamm: Because next is you gotta know what they care about
so that the message you're sharing resonates with them, right?

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Alexa Lamm: Is it,
are they driven by economics?

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Alexa Lamm: Are they driven by
environmental sustainability?

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Alexa Lamm: Like, what is it?

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Alexa Lamm: Are they looking to decrease water
use or enhance their recycling efforts on farm?

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Alexa Lamm: Like, what is it that's driving them, and how can I then create
a message or a webinar or whatever that's gonna resonate with that, right?

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Alexa Lamm: And how do I bring
the right people to the table?

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Alexa Lamm: Because the source
is also really important, okay?

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Alexa Lamm: 'Cause we think as scientists that we're the best deliverers
of scientific information, especially if it's coming out of our labs.

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Alexa Lamm: But honestly, we trust, different audiences trust
different sources of information, and they rely on them differently.

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Alexa Lamm: So I talk to producers all over the US, and a lot of the
time they will tell me that they trust their local extension specialist.

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Alexa Lamm: So like here in Georgia,
I am sure you are their go-to person, right?

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Alexa Lamm: But not
necessarily in Florida, right?

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Alexa Lamm: They're not gonna call you,
especially if you're wearing red and black, right?

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Alexa Lamm: They're going
for orange and blue.

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Alexa Lamm: (Ping Yu laughs) They're calling the University
of Florida, IFAS, their local extension agent, right?

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Alexa Lamm: And so you might wanna partner with someone,
maybe your stuff applies to both Georgia growers and Florida growers.

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Alexa Lamm: Partner with somebody at Florida that can then deliver the message there to
those producers because they trust them and they think that they know more about their farm,

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Alexa Lamm: and they probably do, right?

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Alexa Lamm: It's valid in who we trust.

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Alexa Lamm: The final piece to that puzzle, so I said audience, know your audience,
what they care about, so create a message they care about, deliver it by a source that

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Alexa Lamm: they trust, and then the final piece
is it needs to be on the channel that they use.

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Alexa Lamm: So for instance, this podcast is awesome, and there are a lot of producers
that have told me they love podcasts because when they're driving in the truck or they're

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Alexa Lamm: out on the tractor or they're in the farm,
they just plug in their headphones, and they can just listen, right?

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Alexa Lamm: They don't want a huge
long email newsletter anymore.

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Alexa Lamm: They want the podcast 'cause they can just listen
to it and hear all the great stuff that you're sharing.

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Alexa Lamm: It's awesome.

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Alexa Lamm: But there are some that just want the email newsletter that they can
read when they have a moment or every morning over their coffee or once a week or

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Alexa Lamm: whatever.

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Alexa Lamm: They know they're gonna get this
newsletter, and they're gonna look at it.

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Alexa Lamm: And there are others that
want social media pushed to them.

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Alexa Lamm: There are
others that want webinars.

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Alexa Lamm: A lot of producers
want face-to-face contact.

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Alexa Lamm: They love that traditional face-to-face
extension field days and getting together.

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Alexa Lamm: So you also have to know what
their method of receiving information is.

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Alexa Lamm: So those are
kind of the four pieces.

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Alexa Lamm: Know your audience.

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Alexa Lamm: That's the foundation of it all
because that's gonna drive the other three, right?

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Alexa Lamm: What they care about, the message, tell the story they wanna hear, not the
one you wanna tell, from the source that they trust on the channel where they're already

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Alexa Lamm: present.

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Alexa Lamm: Don't ask
them to go somewhere new.

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Ping Yu: Yeah.

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Ping Yu: It's funny that you
said all those principles.

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Ping Yu: It just basically similar to the message
that I got from the, a general communication.

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Ping Yu: There was one kind of course from Harvard that I tuned
into maybe two years ago about communication, and then the

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Ping Yu: first principle from that
is know your audience every time.

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Ping Yu: (music) I'm glad you mentioned some of the digital
media that people are using, including podcasts, webinars,

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Ping Yu: and there's, like, Facebook and other media
platform that people are getting information out.

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Ping Yu: But from your experience, how has the explosion of digital media changed
the way that we communicate science, and what changes, what challenges does

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Ping Yu: it create for us as communicator?

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Alexa Lamm: Gosh, that's a great question,
and it has changed the landscape.

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Alexa Lamm: I would say even more than just the
explosion of digital media, COVID changed the landscape.

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Alexa Lamm: When we were kind of forced into utilizing it, pre-COVID,
we were kind of dabbling, and Extension was exploring its use as an option to kind

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Alexa Lamm: of reduce costs and try and
alleviate the pressure to travel a lot.

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Alexa Lamm: But then COVID kind of thrust us into, like, this is how we communicate
because it's the only way to communicate, and now because people adopted

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Alexa Lamm: it more readily during that
time, like, we can continue to use it.

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Alexa Lamm: I mean, the farmers I work with, it's just as easy to get them on
a Zoom screen to have a conversation as it is to get them face-to-face anymore

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Alexa Lamm: because it's less time, right?

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Alexa Lamm: So I do think it has changed the way that we communicate
science in that it has opened the doorway for a lot more.

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Alexa Lamm: And it also means that less people are gonna show up at the face-to-face
stuff because we're all really busy, and we see other ways of obtaining information.

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Alexa Lamm: So one of the things I've noticed, especially in, like,
the nursery greenhouse industry, this space is the use of YouTube.

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Alexa Lamm: So a lot of producers, they want videos from folks like you on
YouTube explaining, like, how a scientific advancement or something they can do.

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Alexa Lamm: They even want you in a greenhouse with a GoPro, like, so they can
just watch the video and listen to you talk rather than necessarily being there.

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Alexa Lamm: And even if you are there doing, like, a field day, also projecting it
that way through Facebook Live and then posting it on YouTube later, you will have a

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Alexa Lamm: bigger reach than ever before.

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Alexa Lamm: And so I think that is how digital media has really helped us do
a better job of communicating science, in that we can have a bigger reach, we

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Alexa Lamm: can get to more people, but we really have to think strategically
about it and do some things ahead of time to set ourselves up for success.

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Alexa Lamm: I think the biggest thing is when we choose not to do
the traditional things because the digital media is easier, right?

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Alexa Lamm: So if a scientist decides,
like, "Well, field days are a lot of work.

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Alexa Lamm: I have to set it up.

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Alexa Lamm: I have to find a facility.

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Alexa Lamm: I gotta do lunch.

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Alexa Lamm: I gotta get people here.

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Alexa Lamm: I have to think about reimbursing
for mileage, if that's even a possibility.

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Alexa Lamm: Like, how am I..."

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Alexa Lamm: You know, when the option is
that they could do a webinar for an hour.

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Alexa Lamm: Like, you know, it's hard.

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Alexa Lamm: It's hard to make those choices, but you can do, you can do kind of
a combination thing where you're doing it live face-to-face, but you also have

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Alexa Lamm: a digital strategy.

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Alexa Lamm: Or maybe you can't get everybody there together, but you can go into your
research greenhouse or whatever and video and do that and talk to people, even on Facebook

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Alexa Lamm: Live and have them interface with you, but then take that recording and
put it on YouTube so that somebody can watch it when they have the time available to

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Alexa Lamm: do it.

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Ping Yu: I'm glad that you mentioned the YouTube, and I came
across one of your studies on the pork production on YouTube.

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Alexa Lamm: Mm-hmm.

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Ping Yu: Can you tell us a little bit more on that, and how
do you think the medium shapes the producer's knowledge gain?

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Ping Yu: And are there any way that you can trace back and
evaluate their knowledge gain or even behavior change?

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Ping Yu: That's just a term that
every Extension people would say.

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Alexa Lamm: Yeah.

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Alexa Lamm: That's a great question.

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Alexa Lamm: The article you're referring to was one we did
as part of a project funded by the National Pork Board.

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Alexa Lamm: They were really interested in communicating more effectively about pork production
methods and trying to get the public to understand some of the sustainability efforts and

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Alexa Lamm: the animal welfare efforts that the industry
undertakes 'cause there's a lot of misconception out there.

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Alexa Lamm: And I do think that's something that the digital age, Ping, has, like, really
brought in, right, is this whole idea of pseudoscience, misconception, false information that

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Alexa Lamm: is presented very
similarly to scientific information.

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Alexa Lamm: You talked about AI and, like, typing in and getting your answer,
but you can't really always trust that answer full stop, right?

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Alexa Lamm: We need to do some source
checking and identifying source credibility.

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Alexa Lamm: Now, that being said,
though, so we are in competition, right?

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Alexa Lamm: But that being said, we can look at, more than ever
before, what those that may not agree with us think and believe

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Alexa Lamm: because they are
readily out there, right?

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Alexa Lamm: If the scientific community, if the agricultural community
chooses not to be present, there will be others that fill the space, right?

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Alexa Lamm: Like- (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm)

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Alexa Lamm: And then that's
what when you search, you find.

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Alexa Lamm: And so when the public, when the decision-maker goes to search, they have a
question about, like, water use on farm, if we don't have good stuff, the other stuff

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Alexa Lamm: will show up, and it
looks very real and very reliable.

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Alexa Lamm: And so, one, we've got to teach people critical thinking skills,
(laughs) like the ones (Ping Yu: Yes) you talked about earlier, right?

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Alexa Lamm: That it- we do need to look into credibility and find out who the
source was, and is this a reliable source of information, and kind of track back

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Alexa Lamm: to where it came from.

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Alexa Lamm: Because sometimes the misinformation out there, they track back to
a journal article, but they just completely misinterpreted the data, right?

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Alexa Lamm: And it- and I don't
think that it's always intentional.

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Alexa Lamm: I think that sometimes there's
disinformation and misinformation.

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Alexa Lamm: And disinformation and misinformation
means one's intentional and one's not.

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Alexa Lamm: Either way, it can cause harm, and so we need to be, like,
teaching people how to think critically about what they find online.

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Alexa Lamm: But we also have to be present with the good
stuff or, like, there's only the bad stuff available.

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Alexa Lamm: So it's kind
of filling that space too.

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Ping Yu: (music) You have worked with studies
examining public decision-making about science topics.

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Ping Yu: And I know there's a lot of folks out there, like you said,
they are sourcing information online on YouTube, but what kind of insights

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Ping Yu: that you can share with us of how people make decisions when
they receive scientific information, and how we as scientists can build

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Ping Yu: trust with those diverse audience
who might be skeptical of scientific message?

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Alexa Lamm: Yeah.

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Alexa Lamm: So it's really
an interesting time.

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Alexa Lamm: I just was giving a presentation last week at K-State on science
communication and shared with them that, you know, we're at a time where trust

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Alexa Lamm: in science
is at an all-time low.

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Alexa Lamm: It's about forty-three percent of the general public
will report that they trust science, and that's scary, right?

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Alexa Lamm: That's like, wow,
what do they not trust about us?

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Alexa Lamm: But honestly, when you dig deeper into the literature,
you find that they believe that scientists have their own agenda, right?

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Alexa Lamm: That we only ask the questions that we're curious about, and then we
build our experiments based on what we want to find, not leaving ourselves open to

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Alexa Lamm: the possibility of new information
emerging or things that contradict what we say.

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Alexa Lamm: And I'll be honest with you, a lot of
that is our fault, the scientific community's fault.

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Alexa Lamm: One, we like to think we're pretty darn smart and that
we're right all the time, and how dare you question science, right?

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Alexa Lamm: We get defensive
about our results.

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Alexa Lamm: But we also, sometime, somewhere along the
way decided to stop publishing like null results, right?

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Alexa Lamm: We test a hypothesis, and only if we find something
where the hypothesis is proved to be true do we publish it, right?

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Alexa Lamm: It's like, I don't know how many times I've heard faculty say to a graduate student,
"Well, it's unfortunate that this didn't result in any significant findings because now you

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Alexa Lamm: can't publish it."

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Alexa Lamm: And it's like, well, isn't the fact that we
tested a hypothesis and it didn't prove to be true a finding?

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Alexa Lamm: Like, and I think that's
how the public thinks about science.

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Alexa Lamm: It's like, well, why are we
only hearing about the significant results?

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Alexa Lamm: Why are we not hearing about all the other science that goes on
that proves that what the scientists thought was true isn't true, right?

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Alexa Lamm: It's like, so we've kind of created this space where it's like, all right,
we're perceived as only asking questions we're interested in, not the ones that they care about.

349
00:31:05,060 --> 00:31:09,280
Alexa Lamm: And then when it doesn't work out the way
that we think that it should, we don't publish it.

350
00:31:09,540 --> 00:31:10,500
Alexa Lamm: We don't talk about it.

351
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:14,800
Alexa Lamm: And so it's kind of like,
well, would I trust that too?

352
00:31:15,300 --> 00:31:21,280
Alexa Lamm: And then when you look at funding mechanisms and
who's funding different things, it comes into question too.

353
00:31:21,500 --> 00:31:31,560
Alexa Lamm: Like, well, if the Agricultural Commodity Board that you're studying is funding this,
then are they informing your research findings or the way that you're interpreting your

354
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:32,120
Alexa Lamm: results?

355
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:32,780
Alexa Lamm: Right?

356
00:31:32,860 --> 00:31:39,020
Alexa Lamm: So we kind of hear sometimes like, "Oh,
we believe they're in the pocket of Big Ag," right?

357
00:31:39,060 --> 00:31:48,760
Alexa Lamm: Like, and we hear those kinds of things, and scientists are brought into question
online, and social media influencers are trying to entice followers, and they do that by

358
00:31:48,860 --> 00:31:57,320
Alexa Lamm: asking provocative questions that will get people
emotionally connected to their pursuit or their agenda.

359
00:31:57,700 --> 00:31:59,840
Alexa Lamm: And then the scientific
community doesn't do that, right?

360
00:31:59,900 --> 00:32:03,080
Alexa Lamm: Because we try to
remove emotion from everything.

361
00:32:03,140 --> 00:32:08,320
Alexa Lamm: We try to say, "Well, no, it's scientific fact,
it's scientific truth, it's grounded in research."

362
00:32:09,500 --> 00:32:17,560
Alexa Lamm: But then the needle moves, and the science changes and shifts, and it's like,
well, you said that was fact ten years ago, and now we have new technology that's

363
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:19,740
Alexa Lamm: proven that's
not the case anymore.

364
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:26,080
Alexa Lamm: And so like, is it really
fact or is science like a movable thing?

365
00:32:26,180 --> 00:32:33,860
Alexa Lamm: So we've given the public and decision-makers as
a part of that group a lot of reasons not to trust science.

366
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:37,380
Alexa Lamm: So your second part of your
question was, how do we build that back?

367
00:32:38,460 --> 00:32:46,980
Alexa Lamm: One, I think we need to be more transparent about what we do,
how we do it, why we ask the questions we do, and what the results are.

368
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:56,100
Alexa Lamm: I think our journals need to publish non-findings just as much as
publishing significant findings, like non-significant and significant findings.

369
00:32:56,160 --> 00:33:04,120
Alexa Lamm: We shouldn't be removing the non-significant stuff from
the conversation because that is the proof of like over time, right?

370
00:33:04,220 --> 00:33:06,220
Alexa Lamm: Things haven't
changed versus have.

371
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:09,800
Alexa Lamm: I think we need to stop
talking about scientific fact and truth.

372
00:33:10,020 --> 00:33:13,940
Alexa Lamm: We- You know, you go to the doctor,
and they talk about practicing medicine.

373
00:33:13,980 --> 00:33:21,220
Alexa Lamm: "We figured out this is what we think is wrong with you, so we're
gonna try this solution, see what happens, and then we'll come back together and

374
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,680
Alexa Lamm: see if we need to
adjust or adapt that, right?"

375
00:33:24,020 --> 00:33:26,120
Alexa Lamm: They never talk
in like medical certainty.

376
00:33:26,780 --> 00:33:30,040
Alexa Lamm: But yet for some reason in
the scientific community, we do that.

377
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:37,700
Alexa Lamm: And I think we need to talk more about like the advancements of science
and how it shifts and changes, and what we learn leads to better learning, and as

378
00:33:37,740 --> 00:33:46,380
Alexa Lamm: we create more machines and even AI, right, we can do things with an
efficiency that we couldn't even just five years ago, let alone twenty years ago.

379
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:56,380
Alexa Lamm: And so I think we need to stop talking in like scientific certainty, fact,
truth, because truth is really kind of one of those like kind of gray areas, right?

380
00:33:56,460 --> 00:34:00,920
Alexa Lamm: What's true for me may not be true
for you, and we need to be more okay with that.

381
00:34:01,260 --> 00:34:09,840
Alexa Lamm: And that we can shout science all day long, and somebody can know
it and be informed, and yet still choose to do what they see as right for them.

382
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:18,120
Alexa Lamm: Because humans are emotional, they're not logical,
and science talks to logic, numbers, facts, figures.

383
00:34:18,720 --> 00:34:26,480
Alexa Lamm: And so we need to bring, finally my last point here,
we need to bring more emotion, more storytelling to science.

384
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:32,160
Alexa Lamm: And I think people like you doing this podcast,
bringing different groups on to tell their stories.

385
00:34:32,540 --> 00:34:42,660
Alexa Lamm: I love when we talk about scientific adoption and impact to not always talk
about like generalizable large numbers, but rather, here is a producer that adopted

386
00:34:42,700 --> 00:34:43,640
Alexa Lamm: this practice.

387
00:34:44,020 --> 00:34:51,420
Alexa Lamm: This is the challenges they faced, these are how they overcame them,
and this was the end result of their product and their success long term.

388
00:34:51,960 --> 00:35:00,800
Alexa Lamm: That resonates more with other producers as well as the public
and decision-makers than any like generalizable fact figure ever will.

389
00:35:01,540 --> 00:35:11,560
Alexa Lamm: And so we need to bring that human emotional component
back to, like, not only communicating about science, but also

390
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:14,940
Alexa Lamm: its impact (Ping Yu: Yeah),
telling those stories.

391
00:35:15,860 --> 00:35:22,940
Ping Yu: Yeah, I feel the same because, like you said,
the non-significant results are never get published.

392
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:33,700
Ping Yu: One of my students, they- he did a study on Osmanthus fragrans,
and one of the things that he found is that there's no germination for whatever

393
00:35:33,780 --> 00:35:34,540
Ping Yu: he has done.

394
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:45,180
Ping Yu: And so we ended up having to, well, the most part, well, we were
like, okay, now I don't think the, any journal article gonna accept the

395
00:35:45,740 --> 00:35:55,900
Ping Yu: fact that we don't have any significant results on that,
but we can only do, what we could do to still deliver the information

396
00:35:56,380 --> 00:36:03,300
Ping Yu: to whoever who might be thinking that's useful
is through a proceeding, which kind of discouraged him.

397
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,500
Ping Yu: But anyhow, that's the
only gateway we can do right now.

398
00:36:07,060 --> 00:36:17,160
Ping Yu: But I agree with you that there are a lot of study that, well,
without the significant results, but they are still very valuable information that

399
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:18,720
Ping Yu: needs to be getting out there.

400
00:36:19,100 --> 00:36:27,580
Ping Yu: And also, I think one of the misconception from us as
scientists and also the general public is that science is science.

401
00:36:27,660 --> 00:36:29,660
Ping Yu: It's 100% right.

402
00:36:29,740 --> 00:36:31,180
Ping Yu: It's not changeable.

403
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:32,200
Ping Yu: It's just there.

404
00:36:32,900 --> 00:36:36,960
Ping Yu: But I see science
as a moving piece.

405
00:36:37,140 --> 00:36:40,460
Ping Yu: I think science
advance will evolve over time.

406
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:42,700
Alexa Lamm: Yes, I agree.

407
00:36:42,780 --> 00:36:52,380
Alexa Lamm: And you know, we do talk about confidence intervals and all of that,
and we acknowledge there's limitations, but then when we go and share it, it's like, well,

408
00:36:52,460 --> 00:36:56,640
Alexa Lamm: this is our finding, so this is what
it implies and this is our recommendation and...

409
00:36:57,180 --> 00:36:57,380
Alexa Lamm: Right?

410
00:36:57,660 --> 00:36:59,820
Alexa Lamm: So it is a tricky one.

411
00:37:00,340 --> 00:37:01,060
Alexa Lamm: It is tricky.

412
00:37:01,220 --> 00:37:11,380
Ping Yu: (music) I love the way that you mentioned
that we need to bring the human part more to the

413
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:19,120
Ping Yu: science or scientific communication and add
more emotion in there instead of just logic alone.

414
00:37:19,420 --> 00:37:23,820
Ping Yu: Can you tell us a little
bit more about what, why the...

415
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:28,100
Ping Yu: Well, can you talk about the
role of emotion in science community?

416
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:38,260
Ping Yu: And give us an example, if you have one, of how that
can shape the reception from the audience we're talking to of

417
00:37:38,460 --> 00:37:44,000
Ping Yu: better receiving the communication from
science instead of just using the logic alone.

418
00:37:44,720 --> 00:37:44,960
Alexa Lamm: Sure.

419
00:37:45,260 --> 00:37:46,000
Alexa Lamm: I'd be happy to.

420
00:37:46,220 --> 00:37:56,780
Alexa Lamm: One of my biggest suggestions when you're walking into a room or providing
a program for a group that you're, you maybe don't have trust with already, right,

421
00:37:57,060 --> 00:38:03,380
Alexa Lamm: is starting your, like, not just jumping
right into the content, but starting with your own why.

422
00:38:03,900 --> 00:38:05,900
Alexa Lamm: Like, why are you
standing in front of them that day?

423
00:38:06,020 --> 00:38:07,200
Alexa Lamm: Why do you care about this?

424
00:38:07,300 --> 00:38:08,580
Alexa Lamm: Why are you studying this?

425
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:13,320
Alexa Lamm: Because people resonate
with emotional connection, right?

426
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:23,580
Alexa Lamm: So I have a lot of reasons why I do what I do,
but most deeply in me is I believe strongly in science and

427
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:34,220
Alexa Lamm: scientific advancement and the funding of science because my daughter was
born with a heart condition, and she went, underwent open heart surgery when she was just

428
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:35,100
Alexa Lamm: two months old.

429
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:45,780
Alexa Lamm: And I found out as a scientist digging deeply into the literature,
that if she had been born just fifteen, eighteen years prior, she never would've survived

430
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:49,420
Alexa Lamm: because the scientific advancement
to save her life was not available.

431
00:38:49,780 --> 00:39:00,320
Alexa Lamm: And it's because there are faculty at the University of Florida and
around the world studying pediatric cardiology that there is the science available

432
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:02,800
Alexa Lamm: to literally save
my daughter's life, and it did.

433
00:39:02,860 --> 00:39:09,260
Alexa Lamm: She had a second open heart surgery right after her
second birthday for another reason that was also successful.

434
00:39:09,780 --> 00:39:17,740
Alexa Lamm: So when I think about my superhero, the person I look up to the most,
his name is Dr. Mark Bleiweis, and he is a professor at the University of

435
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:19,779
Alexa Lamm: Florida,
and he has saved my little girl.

436
00:39:20,279 --> 00:39:21,840
Alexa Lamm: And that's enough, right?

437
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,120
Alexa Lamm: That's enough for me to get
up every morning and fight for science.

438
00:39:25,540 --> 00:39:27,200
Alexa Lamm: And it's not
just medical science, right?

439
00:39:27,260 --> 00:39:34,840
Alexa Lamm: For me, it's agricultural science because I've also
seen misinformed regulation take down farmers' right to farm.

440
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:45,460
Alexa Lamm: And it comes from decision-makers that are informed by a public
that are completely misinformed about the scientific backing of agricultural

441
00:39:45,500 --> 00:39:46,540
Alexa Lamm: production techniques.

442
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,740
Alexa Lamm: And so I have
a passion for that, right?

443
00:39:50,240 --> 00:39:55,960
Alexa Lamm: But I will start a conversation or a
presentation to hundreds of people with my own why.

444
00:39:56,060 --> 00:40:05,200
Alexa Lamm: And it's making yourself vulnerable and emotional and sharing personal things like I
just did with you, that then builds immediate trust with people because it's like, "Okay, I get

445
00:40:05,240 --> 00:40:08,600
Alexa Lamm: why she's here, I get why
she cares, and it's worth listening to."

446
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:19,160
Alexa Lamm: We- if we expect other people to feel emotionally connected to the information that we are
providing them, because that's what actually changes decision-making, is emotion, not logic, right?

447
00:40:19,240 --> 00:40:20,440
Alexa Lamm: They go hand-in-hand.

448
00:40:20,980 --> 00:40:28,420
Alexa Lamm: Then we have to be willing to be open and honest
about our own emotional connection to the information.

449
00:40:28,460 --> 00:40:34,960
Alexa Lamm: Like I can tell even you telling this story about your grad student,
Ping, that it's painful for you that he went through all of this and then struggled

450
00:40:35,020 --> 00:40:38,140
Alexa Lamm: because he deserves to be
published because he did all this work.

451
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:46,780
Alexa Lamm: Besides the fact that you don't want somebody else now to go and waste all
this time and money conducting this same experiment, knowing full well from your own lab

452
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:48,560
Alexa Lamm: that that is
not gonna germinate, right?

453
00:40:48,780 --> 00:40:50,580
Alexa Lamm: So that knowledge
needs to get out there.

454
00:40:51,020 --> 00:41:01,080
Alexa Lamm: So, I think when we start sharing like why we do what we do, and resonating
with people and connecting emotionally, but then talking about scientific findings and

455
00:41:01,140 --> 00:41:09,460
Alexa Lamm: how they can help society, and telling not only stories about the
people we work with, but stories about ourselves, that can help build trust.

456
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:10,840
Ping Yu: Yeah.

457
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:21,160
Ping Yu: I really appreciate that you shared that, and I have come across some
other guest speakers in, on the podcast sharing their personal stories like

458
00:41:21,240 --> 00:41:23,960
Ping Yu: this,
and I just find fascinating.

459
00:41:24,060 --> 00:41:32,720
Ping Yu: And that's one of the reasons why I'm doing this podcast, and I know
it's a lot of work, but I really enjoy it because as a scientific community,

460
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:43,580
Ping Yu: as us, especially agriculture, we have tons of those intriguing
stories from a lot of different people, but our story was definitely not

461
00:41:43,660 --> 00:41:52,480
Ping Yu: being told enough to the general public, and our impact
to the whole society was underestimated for a lot of reasons.

462
00:41:52,860 --> 00:42:02,520
Ping Yu: And you know, at the end of the day, everybody has their own family,
and they have the reason to do certain things with their own logic behind

463
00:42:02,580 --> 00:42:05,440
Ping Yu: it, but we're human.

464
00:42:05,720 --> 00:42:06,720
Ping Yu: It's emotion.

465
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:14,540
Ping Yu: It's those stories that connect us as a human,
as a species on this planet that other planet doesn't have.

466
00:42:15,180 --> 00:42:25,640
Ping Yu: So I think no matter how AI advanced down the
road, the core thing that distinguish us with other

467
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:29,320
Ping Yu: is the connection,
is the emotion that we have.

468
00:42:29,820 --> 00:42:31,520
Ping Yu: So thank you for sharing that.

469
00:42:31,580 --> 00:42:41,900
Ping Yu: I think that's just one of the fascinating thing about us
as a human, as a society, that we share and that make us unique.

470
00:42:42,500 --> 00:42:42,700
Alexa Lamm: Yeah.

471
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:43,820
Alexa Lamm: Absolutely.

472
00:42:44,020 --> 00:42:46,480
Alexa Lamm: And you can't replace
that, right, with a machine.

473
00:42:47,140 --> 00:42:57,380
Alexa Lamm: You can't replace that connection, and we need to use it to our advantage
because I will tell you that advocates that are anti-production agriculture or really

474
00:42:57,500 --> 00:43:01,680
Alexa Lamm: anti-whatever they choose,
they use emotion, right?

475
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:02,820
Alexa Lamm: (chuckles) They use stories.

476
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,520
Alexa Lamm: They elicit anger and fear.

477
00:43:06,020 --> 00:43:15,240
Alexa Lamm: And I'm not saying the scientific community should do that, but there's no reason
why we should always be separating ourselves from the emotional connection that we have

478
00:43:15,300 --> 00:43:18,300
Alexa Lamm: to the work we do and
to each other, just like you said.

479
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:24,280
Alexa Lamm: But it means making ourselves vulnerable,
and that is not what we are taught to do in grad school, right?

480
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:25,980
Alexa Lamm: But it is important.

481
00:43:25,980 --> 00:43:36,080
Ping Yu: (music) So in terms of the
science communication effort, how do you

482
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:41,240
Ping Yu: assess that, and what kind
of metrics or indicators do you use?

483
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:43,820
Alexa Lamm: That's a great question.

484
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:45,100
Alexa Lamm: We do have tools.

485
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:54,340
Alexa Lamm: We have quantitative tools like common measures type of tool
that can assess public value of a program, of an extension program.

486
00:43:54,660 --> 00:44:04,620
Alexa Lamm: So how much knowledge was gained by the receiver of the information, what is
their intent to use that, and then even following up metrics, observational metrics over

487
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:07,640
Alexa Lamm: time to see if that
behavior was altered, right?

488
00:44:07,740 --> 00:44:11,780
Alexa Lamm: And that takes a lot of tracking at the
six-month, twelve-month, twenty-four-month mark.

489
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:19,680
Alexa Lamm: A lot of people will commit to doing something, but we know
about 80% of intention doesn't follow through in full behavior change.

490
00:44:20,260 --> 00:44:23,300
Alexa Lamm: But we can also assign
economic values to information.

491
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:25,280
Alexa Lamm: We can ask people to do that.

492
00:44:25,380 --> 00:44:35,440
Alexa Lamm: Most people know if some information will lead to an economic
loss or gain for them, if they are gonna save money or have more

493
00:44:35,500 --> 00:44:36,320
Alexa Lamm: resources.

494
00:44:36,720 --> 00:44:45,680
Alexa Lamm: But we can also measure levels of emotional well-being,
so how much something will help them feel more secure, more safe.

495
00:44:45,940 --> 00:44:50,140
Alexa Lamm: So we have some of those measures available
that are being used more and more by Extension.

496
00:44:50,660 --> 00:44:58,820
Alexa Lamm: And I worked very closely with some ag economists to create that tool,
oh, about eight or nine years ago, and we have about half of the United

497
00:44:58,900 --> 00:45:01,960
Alexa Lamm: States that uses it pretty
consistently within their extension systems.

498
00:45:02,180 --> 00:45:03,480
Alexa Lamm: So there are those ways.

499
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:14,120
Alexa Lamm: But truly, honestly, I think when I look back at all the work that I've done
with extension specialists like yourselves, it's really going back to the producers that

500
00:45:14,140 --> 00:45:16,320
Alexa Lamm: are like the opinion
leaders within the system.

501
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:19,600
Alexa Lamm: 'Cause there's always the producer
that everybody else looks up to, right?

502
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,660
Alexa Lamm: And it's like, if they're
gonna do it, then others will adopt it.

503
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:25,300
Alexa Lamm: If they decide not
to do it, you're done, right?

504
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:33,500
Alexa Lamm: But going back and working closely with them and seeing what they've implemented
and then asking them to tell stories or even connect you with others on what they've

505
00:45:33,540 --> 00:45:36,400
Alexa Lamm: done, that's truly
the better measure of impact.

506
00:45:36,700 --> 00:45:38,680
Alexa Lamm: It's just not
as quantifiable, right?

507
00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:40,760
Alexa Lamm: It's the story of impact.

508
00:45:40,980 --> 00:45:44,060
Alexa Lamm: But I think those are
just as if not more powerful.

509
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:53,340
Alexa Lamm: It's when we can partner the two together that they're the most effective when talking
with decision-makers because they want the numbers, 'cause they have to have the numbers, but

510
00:45:53,400 --> 00:46:01,980
Alexa Lamm: then the face, the story, the picture, the video behind it
really helps that information resonate, like what does it actually mean?

511
00:46:02,860 --> 00:46:03,340
Ping Yu: Mm-hmm.

512
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:13,520
Ping Yu: Yeah, I now realize it, it's kind of a quick shift from the,
(chuckles) from being vulnerable to the metrics and then the logic.

513
00:46:13,580 --> 00:46:21,780
Ping Yu: That's just one side effect for a lot of scientists like me 'cause
when we talk about something we're like, "Okay, how can we quantify that?"

514
00:46:21,820 --> 00:46:24,740
Ping Yu: (chuckles) It's just- (Alexa Lamm: Mm-hmm)
you know, it's just the nature of us.

515
00:46:24,980 --> 00:46:32,640
Ping Yu: Well, 'cause now we talk about a lot of
controversial topics like GMOs, climate change, food safety.

516
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:41,460
Ping Yu: How do you approach those emotional topics
or controversial topics in the communication work?

517
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:50,820
Alexa Lamm: Oh, there are definitely some sticky spaces out there,
right, within the ag area, and you named several of them.

518
00:46:50,920 --> 00:47:01,020
Alexa Lamm: I would definitely say genetic modification of crops and now as we are
adopting CRISPR and moving into genetically engineered crops, and the two words

519
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:07,120
Alexa Lamm: sound similar but are different and explaining the
difference between the two and what is CRISPR and all this stuff, right?

520
00:47:07,720 --> 00:47:09,840
Alexa Lamm: We can learn a lot
from our previous mistakes.

521
00:47:10,340 --> 00:47:20,360
Alexa Lamm: I think transparency, open transparency is important for
consumers as they think about where they're going to for information, do

522
00:47:20,380 --> 00:47:21,960
Alexa Lamm: they trust that source, right?

523
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:27,400
Alexa Lamm: Anytime something feels hidden,
we need to be more open about it.

524
00:47:28,020 --> 00:47:33,760
Alexa Lamm: But I think we also need to recognize that there
will be people that will argue for the sake of argument.

525
00:47:33,860 --> 00:47:40,080
Alexa Lamm: Like I mentioned earlier, the influencers that are really
just trying to elicit reaction because that's what gets them followers.

526
00:47:40,660 --> 00:47:50,860
Alexa Lamm: And it's not even that they necessarily are that passionate or believe in
their own response, but they're doing it to elicit engagement because that's what gets

527
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:56,400
Alexa Lamm: their posts and the algorithm to pick them
up and so they have a different incentive than we do.

528
00:47:56,980 --> 00:48:05,480
Alexa Lamm: And so oftentimes when a scientist tells me like, "Man, I would
love to post about my science online, but I just, I can't handle the heat.

529
00:48:05,540 --> 00:48:05,960
Alexa Lamm: I don't...

530
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:14,120
Alexa Lamm: like I don't know what to do when somebody reacts, and then I don't wanna
engage 'cause I've heard of, I've heard these horror stories of scientists that engage with

531
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:16,520
Alexa Lamm: social media influencers
and lose their jobs and..."

532
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:18,800
Alexa Lamm: I mean, we've all
heard those stories, right?

533
00:48:19,620 --> 00:48:22,940
Alexa Lamm: And the truth is like
I tell them, "Don't engage."

534
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:25,600
Alexa Lamm: Like you don't
have to answer back.

535
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:29,100
Alexa Lamm: Just because somebody's coming
at you, you do not have to respond.

536
00:48:29,540 --> 00:48:31,900
Alexa Lamm: Delete, delete, delete.

537
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:35,580
Alexa Lamm: Like, and soon they will get
tired and they'll find another target.

538
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:42,560
Alexa Lamm: And you just have to recognize that like
if you don't engage, it's a better long-term strategy.

539
00:48:43,020 --> 00:48:51,400
Alexa Lamm: And relying on your communication folks at your university to help you with
that and to guide you, because maybe sometimes there is a reason to engage or to have

540
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:55,520
Alexa Lamm: a reaction, but it's probably best
coming from your university rather than you.

541
00:48:55,960 --> 00:49:02,920
Alexa Lamm: And so I would- I argue that like we have to be out there,
we have to fill the space because if we don't, it will get filled by other

542
00:49:03,020 --> 00:49:03,280
Alexa Lamm: stuff.

543
00:49:03,340 --> 00:49:04,540
Alexa Lamm: We talked about that earlier.

544
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:09,960
Alexa Lamm: But when things come and get
tense, it's like just stop reacting.

545
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:14,000
Alexa Lamm: I have a good friend,
he's a celebrity chef.

546
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:15,200
Alexa Lamm: His name's Lazarus Lynch.

547
00:49:15,240 --> 00:49:17,720
Alexa Lamm: He was a
World Food Prize fellow.

548
00:49:18,019 --> 00:49:19,640
Alexa Lamm: He won Chopped twice.

549
00:49:20,079 --> 00:49:21,880
Alexa Lamm: So he has a huge
social media following.

550
00:49:21,900 --> 00:49:23,400
Alexa Lamm: He's big into
the mental health space.

551
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:32,940
Alexa Lamm: And but when he's cooking, he's talking about the science behind production agriculture
and like why he believes in certain products and locally sourced products in these spaces, and how

552
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:36,880
Alexa Lamm: that, it goes into his cooking
and his meals and nutrition and stuff.

553
00:49:36,940 --> 00:49:46,760
Alexa Lamm: So he reaches people with agricultural information like I mean,
probably more people in like a minute than I do in ten years, right?

554
00:49:46,900 --> 00:49:48,000
Alexa Lamm: I mean, he's that kind of guy.

555
00:49:48,620 --> 00:49:51,560
Alexa Lamm: And I, my- I had him
guest lecture one of my classes once.

556
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:56,800
Alexa Lamm: He Zoomed into one of my classes, and one of my students asked
him this exact question, like, "What do you do when things get hot?"

557
00:49:57,220 --> 00:50:00,660
Alexa Lamm: And he said like,
"I just delete the line.

558
00:50:01,340 --> 00:50:06,300
Alexa Lamm: Like, I just, I go in and it's like I do
not have to let that sit on my social media feed.

559
00:50:06,380 --> 00:50:07,420
Alexa Lamm: I just take it out.

560
00:50:07,740 --> 00:50:10,340
Alexa Lamm: Haters gonna hate,
I accept it, and I move on.

561
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:12,340
Alexa Lamm: And that is okay.

562
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:19,780
Alexa Lamm: And it's like we all just need to get comfortable with the fact
that people (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) are gonna disagree with us, and it's okay.

563
00:50:20,020 --> 00:50:20,620
Alexa Lamm: Let them go.

564
00:50:21,060 --> 00:50:24,280
Alexa Lamm: Just- Ping Yu: Yeah,
I guess it's just shake it off.

565
00:50:24,580 --> 00:50:25,000
Alexa Lamm: Yeah.

566
00:50:25,060 --> 00:50:25,380
Alexa Lamm: Right?

567
00:50:26,020 --> 00:50:31,180
Alexa Lamm: But- (Ping Yu: Yeah) it's when you react, that elicits
more and more and more, and can get you into some serious trouble.

568
00:50:31,300 --> 00:50:39,260
Alexa Lamm: So I will admit, like, I have had, especially working with the National
Pork Board, which you mentioned earlier, and being funded by them, I've had some groups

569
00:50:39,660 --> 00:50:44,420
Alexa Lamm: publish some not-so-nice stuff
about my team and we just let it go.

570
00:50:45,380 --> 00:50:45,540
Ping Yu: Mm-hmm.

571
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:46,140
Alexa Lamm: And you know what?

572
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:47,420
Alexa Lamm: It never picked up steam.

573
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:48,720
Alexa Lamm: It never did.

574
00:50:49,060 --> 00:50:52,880
Alexa Lamm: And you just gotta like,
in the moment though, ooh, it doesn't feel good.

575
00:50:52,880 --> 00:51:03,420
Ping Yu: (music) So with your intense
involvement and experiencing science

576
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:13,700
Ping Yu: communication, how can early career researchers
and communicators prepare themself for better future

577
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:17,740
Ping Yu: public engagement and
better effective communicator?

578
00:51:18,660 --> 00:51:26,720
Alexa Lamm: I think early scientists have a unique opportunity
to engage with folks like me or take a course or a workshop.

579
00:51:26,940 --> 00:51:31,480
Alexa Lamm: We have more agricultural communication
faculty in the United States than ever before.

580
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:34,320
Alexa Lamm: It's a burgeoning, like,
I mean, it's an emerging field.

581
00:51:34,900 --> 00:51:43,600
Alexa Lamm: And so most of the land grant universities have someone like me
that's offering programs, support, workshops in effective science communication.

582
00:51:43,700 --> 00:51:46,440
Alexa Lamm: So don't be afraid
to engage in that and learn.

583
00:51:47,140 --> 00:51:50,100
Alexa Lamm: Keep your mind open
and learn as much as you can.

584
00:51:50,620 --> 00:51:56,300
Alexa Lamm: Attend workshops, engage with the Council
for Agricultural Science and Technology, CAST.

585
00:51:56,900 --> 00:51:59,900
Alexa Lamm: They do an excellent
job of communicating science.

586
00:51:59,940 --> 00:52:05,660
Alexa Lamm: And so if you wanna learn about what
effective ways, they have webinars and programs.

587
00:52:05,720 --> 00:52:07,759
Alexa Lamm: They're a great resource.

588
00:52:08,259 --> 00:52:17,620
Alexa Lamm: But all the early career scientists out there, a little different from me,
are digital natives, and so you all know more about communicating online than I

589
00:52:17,700 --> 00:52:18,220
Alexa Lamm: ever will.

590
00:52:18,540 --> 00:52:23,040
Alexa Lamm: And even though I study it
and I teach about it, use what you know.

591
00:52:23,540 --> 00:52:31,580
Alexa Lamm: Like, use what you know in terms of your personal life and connecting with
people on social media or through podcasts or through YouTube or whatever, because I think

592
00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:37,600
Alexa Lamm: sometimes we don't really recognize that we
have a lot of our own implicit knowledge in this space.

593
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:41,880
Alexa Lamm: And so be open to
embracing that as part of your job.

594
00:52:42,540 --> 00:52:42,860
Alexa Lamm: Um- Ping Yu: Yeah.

595
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:51,940
Ping Yu: And one of the comment that I wanna make is just, you know,
be modest enough, so acknowledge that you don't know everything.

596
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:53,040
Alexa Lamm: (laughs) That's true.

597
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:58,020
Ping Yu: There's always people that can teach you
something, and that might change your whole life.

598
00:52:58,440 --> 00:52:58,660
Alexa Lamm: Yeah.

599
00:52:59,080 --> 00:52:59,740
Alexa Lamm: Absolutely.

600
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:00,760
Alexa Lamm: Absolutely.

601
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:03,020
Alexa Lamm: And be willing to
engage in the conversation.

602
00:53:03,660 --> 00:53:13,760
Ping Yu: If people wants to, you know, find more information,
your work or some of the workshops that you do, and basically just to follow

603
00:53:13,820 --> 00:53:23,520
Ping Yu: along with your work and hopefully become a better communicator
like you, where do you recommend them find those information?

604
00:53:24,220 --> 00:53:26,780
Alexa Lamm: Like I mentioned,
CAST is a great resource.

605
00:53:27,140 --> 00:53:31,640
Alexa Lamm: If you're interested in learning more about me and
my lab and what we're up to, please check out our website.

606
00:53:31,700 --> 00:53:34,280
Alexa Lamm: If you just Google
Lamm Lab, it will show up.

607
00:53:34,500 --> 00:53:37,280
Alexa Lamm: I'm at the University
of Georgia, so please follow.

608
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:41,000
Alexa Lamm: We have a podcast
of our own called AgriCurious.

609
00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:48,920
Alexa Lamm: It's actually designed for early career scientists that are interested
in learning about communicating about diverse scientific interdisciplinary teams.

610
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:52,200
Alexa Lamm: So please join us
there if you're ever interested.

611
00:53:52,700 --> 00:53:54,900
Alexa Lamm: But also connect
with me on LinkedIn.

612
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:57,260
Alexa Lamm: I'm happy,
I would love to connect with you.

613
00:53:57,540 --> 00:54:01,520
Alexa Lamm: I'm actually
@lexlamm, L-E-X-L-A-M-M.

614
00:54:02,140 --> 00:54:08,280
Alexa Lamm: But also feel free to email me anytime if you have any questions,
and I can even connect you with faculty at your university that can help you too.

615
00:54:09,180 --> 00:54:09,480
Ping Yu: Yeah.

616
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:16,720
Ping Yu: I'll make sure that I put all your, those resources and links
on the show notes so people can find them (Alexa Lamm: Perfect) easily.

617
00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:23,200
Ping Yu: But thank you, Alexa, for taking time
out of your busy schedule to talk with us today.

618
00:54:23,600 --> 00:54:25,440
Ping Yu: I enjoyed a lot.

619
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:29,880
Ping Yu: I just hope that I, we can
have this conversation going and going.

620
00:54:29,980 --> 00:54:39,440
Ping Yu: But thank you so much for the work you do and, you know,
reshape the, hopefully we can reshape our community as a whole down the road

621
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:42,020
Ping Yu: to make it
better for our society.

622
00:54:42,100 --> 00:54:42,840
Ping Yu: Thank you so much.

623
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:44,180
Alexa Lamm: Yeah, it was a real pleasure.

624
00:54:44,220 --> 00:54:44,960
Alexa Lamm: Thanks for having me.

625
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:52,120
Ping Yu: (music) Conversation like this
only happen when you support the show.

626
00:54:52,500 --> 00:55:01,140
Ping Yu: For more information and find ways to support us,
please go to bandbpod.com, bandbpod.com.

627
00:55:01,620 --> 00:55:06,940
Ping Yu: If you like what you are hearing, spread the
word and share this podcast with the people you love.

628
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:12,760
Ping Yu: Make sure you hit that subscription
button and give a review for the podcast.

629
00:55:13,380 --> 00:55:23,140
Ping Yu: And as always, go check out the show notes to learn more about
this topic and other topics we featured on the show at bandbpod.com.

630
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:24,500
Ping Yu: Thank you for listening.

631
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:25,640
Ping Yu: Till the next time.

632
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:27,640
Ping Yu: Stay healthy and go plants.

633
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:45,860
(music)