“I’m a gamblin’ man, I gamble everywhere I go.”
-Sung by David Honeyboy Edwards (pictured left) during a guest performance at the 2010 Hartford Interdisciplinary Scholars Communications Conference.
If I were a gambling man, I would readily place a bet on the future success of the junior faculty and fellows who attended this year’s Hartford Interdisciplinary Scholars Communications Conference. I would wager they’ll soon not only be bold leaders in the field of aging-related research and education, but they will be the best spokespeople we have to convince the country about the importance of improving health care for older adults--whether that’s by speaking up for better geriatrics education in their academic institutions, testifying before Congress, or being interviewed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. (Just wait; I bet it happens!)
For the last eight years, the Interdisciplinary Scholars Communications Conference, expertly facilitated by Strategic Communications and Planning, has been equipping emerging academic experts in the field of aging with the communications skills needed to lead change and improve the health of our aging society. A highlight of every year’s conference is a performance by older adults in the arts. This year, it was Mr. Honeyboy Edwards. As he performed his classic blues song quoted above--a reward for a hard day’s work by participants (you can see him performing it for another audience below)--it made me think about the Hartford-funded junior faculty and fellows who had been selected to attend the conference and how, in many ways, each them was taking a gamble just by showing up.
Each, by their participation, expressed a willingness to move out of their comfort zone, which many admitted lies in research, data, and academic discourse with their students and fellow faculty colleagues. These 30 aging experts in schools of medicine, nursing, and social work came to the conference to learn how to more broadly share their research and findings with audiences that may not speak the same technical language or immediately recognize the value of their work. While their academic training taught them to be precise and nuanced when describing their research, they were practicing the skills needed to simplify and modify their messages for different audiences--compromising detail, but not their integrity.
The media wants sound bites, so how do you boil years of scholarly research down to 10 seconds? A state legislator, the CEO of a health care system, or the residents of a long-term care facility may all benefit from hearing about a “Craniosacral Still Point Technique Intervention with Agitation from Dementia,” but will they understand that it refers to light-touch massage therapy, or all care about the same aspects of the research? Communicating with a broad audience is not only difficult, but it carries the risk of misinterpretation, unintentional usage of the research, and probably most frightening to the meeting participants, repeat requests to continue talking about the work or more general issues related to aging and the health of older adults.
Still, we believe the rewards of getting the message out are worth a little risk. That’s why we fund this meeting as part of our broader Communications and Dissemination Initiative, which also includes this blog as well as communications tools and resources such as www.bandwidthonline.org. In a way, all grantmaking is a bit like betting—foundations try to place their money with the projects and people most likely to have the biggest payoff. After attending the communications conference, I’m confident that the Hartford Foundation has played the odds well: these soon-to-be-expert communicators will lead the field of aging for years to come, improving health care for all of us--the older adults of tomorrow.