360°C… Right Temperature for Cooking?

Antonia Caola from MUSE, the newest Italian Science Museum, will highlight the crucial role of the “cooking brigade” in preparing any “communication meal”. Over 20 years of work in the role of Chief Communication Officer at a science museum will help to report 2 different campaigns, illustrating this experience.
In communications there is not any recipe to ensure success. The horse-sense rule learned by MUSE is to avoid serving the same meal twice; recipes must vary according to different contents, audiences, and seasons. Only the passion and style of the “restaurant” should remain recognizable and appreciated.
The examples will demonstrate how the outcomes in a communication teamwork can be as heterogeneous and diverse as the subjects and disciplines exhibited. But diversity and “faux pas” are not a problem if we agree that the overall goal of scientific communication is to keep people hungry, rather than satiating them with standard recipes and fast food.

Sharing Knowledge and Best Practice

Local and international cooperation frequently faces a wide variety of barriers: fear of competition, the copyright syndrome, differences in language and cultural habits. Assuming internal collaboration as a prerequisite, sharing ideas, knowledge & best practices among international partners and local stakeholders greatly improves the quality of the project outputs. The FabLabNet project case study will be presented to highlight that cooperation benefits the partners. Curiously enough, this partnership got the most from emphasizing the differences (in audience, technology, size, stakeholders) rather than the similarities. A short illustration of the toolkit used to facilitate this process (clear common goals, periodic thematic meetings, study visits, a shared online repository for docs and videos & a joint communication strategy) will be provided.