On the first day of our Digital Campus Study tour we discovered the importance of storytelling. A good story will hook the reader and make him curious to know the end. It’s pretty obvious to say that but it’s definitely difficult when it comes to complicated subject such as science. To illustrate and show you this point, I’ll tell you the story of this first day :).

Exploratorium, or how to make science understandable for everyone?

In the morning we visited the Exploratorium which is a museum dedicated to making science understandable for everyone (from kids to grown-ups). Quite a big challenge, though, and we realised that storytelling is definitely the key to interest your target and interact with them. During this first visit, I began adding Stories on our Instagram channel and asked myself “how can I tell a good story to our followers?”. The answer came to me when I saw Pluto’s grave. Science can/must be fun so let’s use this exhibition and have some fun. It worked at the time because even with the time difference (it was 6 pm in Switzerland), I got 30 more views on the story in 10 min and at the current time (it’s 3 am in Switzerland) we have now 80 views and 2 comments.

UC Berkeley, meeting with awesome storytellers

We then went to UC Berkeley in the afternoon and first met Keith McAleer, Communication director for Industrial Engineering & Operations Research. He told us about an awesome storyteller who is named Schéhérazade, she managed to stay alive during 1001 nights just with a very good story she wouldn’t finish. Do you now see the importance of a good story telling ? We do (and we stayed alive too :)). This process is definitely the same for science or every other topic. You must determine what you you want to share and what you want to tell to your reader.

We then met Kathrin Bader, Director of Social media for UC Berkeley. She showed us 8 things we did’n’t know about UC Berkeley (a good catch to begin a story). I personally was amazed by how she kept me interested all the way, first with the title of her presentation and second by the next 8 points about UC Berkeley. It was very instructive. To end this article I’ll borrow one of the eight points of Kathrin’s presentation, “Cuteness rocks”, with this UC Berkeley squirrel I found on the Instagram page @squirrelsofberkeley. I hope you enjoyed reading this short story of our first day #DCSF17.

Anne Dörig, Communication Specialist
HES-SO, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland