I think, the big thing is meeting people where they're at, and understanding that, and respecting that. Where they're coming from, and where their passions, and grounding is. That was pretty awesome.

There's a huge gap, between people who have access to the kinds of outreach that scientists think are effective, and the actual people who can attend. And so what I really loved about Dragon Con's parade, is that, and actually this is my commentary, but people hopped on the train, and they arrived. It wasn't some deep registration process, or some huge vetting. It was just, "If you can make it, show up here." And I think the value of that, is not lost on someone like me, who's really thinking about science engagement. Like I said, it may not be the learning process that we're all dreaming of, but that relationship, and trust will take time, and an investment from different organizations to build. And so if I only show up in your neighborhood one time, and try to teach you about science you should know, then you're going to look at me like, "Who are you? Why do you matter?" But if you can see me repeatedly making investments in different spaces, in different environments, even a branding principle, is the more you see a brand, the more likely you are to trust it, or to recognize it. And so, in the science engagement space, a lot of the white savior science communicators don't seem to get, that underserved communities are not grateful for you showing up, and trying to teach us. In the instances where you can be present, where you can contribute without any expectation of reciprocity to a community, I think that those only help to strengthen the reputation you have. And so, if I were making a case for people with the money to spend on this stuff, I would absolutely encourage them. Even if it is providing providing a booth, or providing labor for a booth, or if it's walking in a parade, those kinds of things add up to ultimately a trust, that communities can place, and you will make them recognize you. Sorry. I'm very passionate about this. Because I just see a lot of science communication that just drops into a community, and then runs out when they feel they fulfill their own personal mission, without really listening or finding other ways to be present for these communities.

this idea that science is coming to you wherever you are. It's meeting you where you are, rather than you going into a "Science space," that you may not feel, is open to you, or accessible to you. But rather, it's coming to you, and meeting you exactly where you are. I think that's powerful.

it's all very situational. I like this, situated, word in this. I think that's a big deal that could come out of this, is even some pieces of, "Here's what it's to go into environments that we're usually not in, and that we don't own, and we don't control." There's a whole piece that I've been very impressed with, that came out of the medical field, of particularly a couple of women in the San Francisco Bay Area. A doctor, and a nurse, who are working with diverse communities, and realizing that the medical treatments weren't working, because they weren't being respectful of the cultural context in which they were working. And that they had to become, not experts, but become humble, and understand the situations that they were actually in, so that they could actually meet folks on the terms of the people, who they were trying to help medically. And that's pretty profound some of that stuff, that spills over into this learning environment. That's where a lot of the strength, and power, and all is in this.

one of the things that's happening in the museum field, is how do we actually connect? And how do we become more socially just places? And one of the things that I think, really leads in this situated in engagement stuff, is that what we're finding from the national network perspective of talking to people, is that it's not going to happen at our places where people are comfortable. Like Rick points out, it's families with kids, and it's older adults who feel comfortable, who feel like they have ownership of those places. And the Comic Con, and the parade environments, those two that we're really looking at, has a totally different ownership, of who those places belong to. And how you can participate in that belonging.

In order to enter these other communities, and engage with them authentically, you're having to push yourself outside of your space, your comfort zone. When we communicate, we often control so much. Everything from, we get to decide whether there's live surveys, and polling, to how the AV system works, and Q&A. And we decide for the audience all these experiences. And here we're having to play in someone else's structure, and as Paul was saying, they're kind of in control of of what they are receptive to. And so, I think it pushes practitioners to just think differently about what they're doing, in ways that they otherwise won't ever in their normal career.

I think of audiences that we would love to have in museums and when you go to Chuck E Cheese, if any of you have spent time at Chuck E Cheese, it's a wildly diverse audience that's throwing money around like crazy, like a kiddy casino, and they're providing a service and a venue for something that people find very valuable and very diverse audiences find very valuable. I saw that same kind of audience and that same kind of, "Oh my god, these people are having a great time and they're putting resources into this." Paying the admission is nothing compared to what people put into these costumes. Even if you buy an off the shelf Spider-Man costume you're putting a lot of cash into this, so there's an investment already being made and it's just a very compatible audience. I think you just make all the hey you can with this because it's a premade match and that was really surprising to me, and delightful and really exciting.

I do think the reaction to science comes from ... people cheering for the fact that science was on the sign, I think probably stems in a large part from the fact that it is a parade, and that's the accepted behavior. And so it's probably very likely that they were cheering for every bit of it that came by because of, "Hey, it's also part of the parade." So I think some of it was getting caught up in the atmosphere of the parade itself, but I do think that this was in some ways a unique subset of people in Atlanta that had an open mind towards science and science fiction and fantasy and gaming and that subset. Not necessarily everybody, but I think it's a case of, there's people who were on the fence and didn't know what they wanted to do with it. When you're in that environment and seeing how positive it is and you're left with this reaction of, "Oh, that was kind of cool. Maybe there's just some things that I want to start looking into."

What's the function of being in a parade? Well, I mean, you're connecting with people that you wouldn't meet otherwise. Of course you're connecting with the people you're marching with, which is what I was emphasizing a moment ago, but you're potentially rubbing shoulders with and interacting with people who you might not meet at work or at school or in your neighborhood. So that's where the incredible strength of this gathering of people is really fabulous. And the crowd really was way more diverse than I expected. I think that's really amazing. And I think the idea that science can be fun, that science can be exciting, that's already implied in the fact that you're marching in a parade. So I think though there could be ways to make that even more fully realized in the interactions, but I think that that's a strong element of what already was presented this year.

there is something that happens before the parade. It's something that I either didn't really know or forgot, but that whole process is really important, and I think it speaks to an opportunity that is bigger than just DragonCon, but an opportunity to really integrate science into many different events like this. There's a big lantern parade, there's something called Atlanta Streets Alive and there are all these parade opportunities, the Pride parades. And perhaps one thing that Science ATL could do, is to generate this science in parade, science on parade club, that would do the things that you described, have these workshops and meetups between makers and artists and scientists, who could then also showcase some of the resources and some of the big players in the Atlanta science scene, in the context of putting science out there and integrating it into the cultural scene in Atlanta. I'm really loving this idea and I'm thinking more bigger than just DragonCon. Well, that would really help the organization to be potentially more of a year round activity for people who love that stuff, that they could have several events and they can practice what works, what doesn't work, and think, "Okay, three months from now we're going to do it a little different."

I guess I would add just a little more about the parade crowd itself. In downtown Atlanta the streets are really wide and I have to say, coming from new Orleans, they're super clean, and the audience members are four or five people deep. The kids are sitting on the sidewalks, many of them wearing superhero costumes, so they're in full spandex. They're really excited, they're parents are really excited. So there's diverse ages, and I would say in terms of race ethnicity, there's quite a lot of diversity as well. It's hard to say for sure about income and education, but that's probably the case too. And so I was really impressed with that, and also with just how incredibly focused and enthusiastic the crowd was. They were reading the parade really, really closely, and they were looking for things to figure out. And I think in terms of just describing the setting, I think that's really important for understanding what a good idea it is to do this with science, I think, and also the opportunity there, that the scene presents. And

I would say that in the way that we presented science it's like, "Here's the thing you're learning in the middle of all of these other shenanigans." And the subtle message there is that science is more serious, I think, or less inventive

I think there's a profound opportunity, for us to be learners in this, and for the field to learn from this. And I think that's where the power in this whole thing is. Is that our role in our jobs, is to be providers, and connectors, and all those kinds of things. But this whole exercise then, provides us an opportunity to be learners ourselves. And I think that's a really important piece of this, is what can we learn from this that can help our practice be better. And help us as practitioners, to understand where people are actually coming from, and where we're coming from. And how that fits, and doesn't fit into these different places. I think there's something profound there.

There's not one silver bullet. And there're a lot of different avenues to push. One, I think, is availability. When you require people to come to you for science engagement, then by default, you're eliminating a lot of the population that can't get there. Even down to the way the museums have photos of their engagement. Is it a distinguished, non-minority leader in a room full of little brown kids? There are different cues, conscious and subconscious, that we embody. And I will say, that the majority of science communication, is just recognizing, that despite your best intention there are tons of ways that you're still very exclusive. In terms of the ways that you connect with audiences that you think are in need, even down to deciding who is the person in need?

I think is really awesome, because it's going into an environment that's not one, that we as providers of learning opportunities, we don't own those spaces. But we can go into them, if we're respectful about it, and actually provide some opportunities. And so, that's what I think a lot of organizations are trying to figure out now. This diverse audience that we all want to have be part of, and see the value in what we do, in terms of providing learning opportunities, it's not going to happen in our spaces, because they're not their spaces.

When you're looking at situated engagement, it's easy to look at the final event as the end product, and that you have to hang all the value around it from that moment. But in a lot of these cases, the actual end result is the tip of the spear. There's a whole lot that goes to that, and maybe the real successes in participating in the community, are part of that long process leading up to it, and not so much the final moment.

I think there are real opportunities, both for the Long Beach Comic Con, and some of these other events that we've been talking about, to really use the engagement at the event as, I don't want to say as a pretext, but as a moment to work towards, and to use that to build relationships. Or to have conversations, or to get maybe people thinking about science and craft, who don't normally put those together. I'm just thinking, about the power of the event to actually enable a lot of slower stuff. The Wednesday night, and Wednesday afternoon meetings, or Saturday morning meetings. Like, "Let's build the thing that we're going to bring to the con." Or, "let's work on our parade costumes, how we're going to make the planets." I just think those crafting events, or those slower moving things, but that are related to the event, that are gearing up to the event, those can be really powerful learning opportunities. And I know, that's not happening on the same scale, as the thousands of people who go to the con, but I think those can be really powerful. And then, the event itself could draw more people into that process for the next cycle. That's just a reflection, and maybe a slightly different way of thinking about the reason to be at the event. I know you want to engage people in thinking about science in other spaces, but the work shopping part, I think, can be also quite powerful.

But based on the conversations I had with attendees there, this idea of identity, people being able to express who they are, and this being a safe place to do so, or who they aspire to be. I heard comments, about a sense of safety, and belonging. There's a subset who are outsiders, but they found an inclusive, welcoming group. There's definitely a strong culture of fandom. Of just being able to say, "I love this thing," and being able to share it, and connect with others.

I felt very welcome there. People felt like it was their place, and I don't have a specific anecdote or something that I overheard as part of that but whether you were in costume or whether you weren't, didn't really matter. It was all this congenial scene and people were having fun and they were learning things, and so this is a fantastic environment for people to learn in on their own terms, and that's what the whole informal thing is about, and it just is so ripe for that and I saw so many people learning things that were interesting to them, and they were driving that learning and providing more opportunities for that that are fun, and some of it was poignant. Some of the sessions that you guys did with the LGBTQ focus and the women's focus, those were awesome. Not being an active member of either of those communities but living with them and around them, I was welcomed there too. It was super cool. I think that it's a pretty big tent at this place and we need to take advantage of it, not just in Long Beach but as a typology and I'll be really interested to see what you guys find out from Dragon Con in a totally different part of the country and whether it had the same kind of vibe to it.

we were talking about the replicability of this program and that's one of the things that I worry about, is the best programs, you're really dependent on actually having someone who is authentically part of both of these communities and that's not easily replicable.

It was a wildly diverse crowd. If we had that kind of diverse crowd in museums we'd be really happy. That's the overall reaction, is that this is an audience to an event that you could make some really... It's got great potential for making connections to this audience to the STEM content and the connections to audiences that the National Science Foundation and other agencies and foundations would love to do. So it seemed really primed

I'd like to bring up a point. So on my way there, I took the MARTA, and what I saw was so many different kinds of people who weren't the typical television definition of a nerd, dressed up in their costumes, and because it's free and it's public it's really accessible, and because it's on the MARTA line and downtown, there's fewer barriers to entry. And so little Latin X kids were on the train in their superhero costumes, and you could see some of the teenagers dressed up as their TV shows. And I think in all things there should be a diversity in approach, and if we look at DragonCon as just one tool of communication of science then ... You have a whole group that does tons of different kinds of science, so I guess what I'm trying to say is, in so much as DragonCon is just one avenue of science communication or of science engagement, I think it's actually really inclusive, and I guess just from my experience on the MARTA, there were people that I just did not expect to see excited about DragonCon, and they were hype and loud and building their excitement as they got closer. I'm just reading myself at this point, but to the extent that this isn't the only way you connect with audiences, I think it's just one really, really effective tool to reach people.

talking about this ambassadorship. I think, that's interesting with the cosplay, because that's something that we talked about a lot on the call, was this idea, of how intrusive can we be? How are we invited in? Is this something that we're going to be okay? And we don't want to be the Steve Buscemi meme, "How do you do, fellow kids?" And I think what we talked about was the MC for the event, Bernie, I think, his introduction really anecdotally, settled any fears in us. Because it seemed we didn't get any pushback from any of the cos players. Like, "Why are they giving out science awards?" It felt natural.

It's a community that defines the community, in some ways, and defines acceptable, and unacceptable behaviors. It's not anything that's governed by a set of rules, other than some very conventional things, that are within local, and State jurisdictions, of obey your laws. But there's this whole other, how people feel about their identities, and it's a really interesting mob scene. And there's a lot of individual behavior, and there's a lot of group behaviors. Then there's a lot of stuff going on. It's a lot of social interaction between people that know each other, and a lot between people that don't know each other.

it was pretty cool, and it was one of these rare situations, where people from a lot of different backgrounds, both socially, and economically, and culturally, were all mixing it up, and throwing a lot of money around. It was worth it. It was an expensive event, and there're all sorts of ways in that event to spend more money, and people were doing that, and that was an amazing piece. There's an inherent value in that, to folks, and what they get out of it. And that the stuff, that Rick, and his crew was able to put there, really added to that whole value piece, which I thought was pretty awesome.

It was interesting, to track where things were sticky for them. And NASA's brand really played large there, in ways that were beyond what, I think, I had seen. Both in terms of the draw, when presenters from NASA were talking about their work, and missions, and stuff like that. And as Bart pointed out in the recordings, this table that had the NASA Meatball stickers, and how that was the prized thing. It was amazing. And there's something more to it, it was taking the fantasy, and the reality, and blending that stuff together. And that, seemed to be fairly seamless, in terms of how people think about that. And so, there's something going on there, that's way deeper than anything that we actually have explored, or been able to explore.

the conversations went so many different ways, that it's interesting that we're still all trying to figure out, how to conceptualize what's important, in terms of engagement assessment. And I think I wrote in some of my notes, "I don't know what we're talking about right now, but it sounds like it could be important." Some of the conversations got so far removed from the events themselves, and so this greater meta-conversation about engagement, and just, yes. We still don't have concise language to really assess these events. And we had all approached them from so many different perspectives, that it is hard when you have a science communicator, and then an actual practitioner, and then a cultural anthropologist. You'll get so many different points of feedback, and I think that, that's what evaluation might actually be missing, is some of the more detached perspectives. Or removed, not detached.

one thing that came out through several conversations throughout the event is very much that we're in someone else's community or communities that have their own rules, and values and concerns, and geek culture in particular has a long history of trauma, and social isolation, and anxiety and otherwise being marginalized, and these are a bunch of people who, especially the cosplayer, are in a position of being exposed and vulnerable. And so there's definitely a lot of landmines for institutions participating in a Comic-Con when it comes to that kind of cultural environment.

I think the biggest risk to me is that integrating science into that experience, you attempt that push and it fails, and you end up triggering the opposite feeling that you wanted, where if you do it wrong, you go into this community and you try and inject your agenda and they recognize it as you injecting your agenda, and that can backfire. So that's the main area that I have concerns.

So my takeaway for the expo is I would really encourage building up relationships and conversations with the people who participate in the con, the expo vendors, the cosplayers, and really step one is just really listening to what they think is a better, more engaging experience and really trying to imitate those qualities or find people in this community that you can empower to do stuff. I was looking at a lot of the merch and there's this process of taking objects or characters and really cute-ifying them and turning them into anime plushes or that sort of thing, and this is really popular and I'm like, "Why is there not a super adorable plush Mars rover, or satellite or something like that that trades on this enthusiasm for merch and collectibility that clearly is there. So I think the important take away there is looking at what the rest of the expo is all about and trying to capture some of that.

I was thinking, about how we have some very emotional reactions from observers, that I didn't anticipate. Including Bart, it seemed that you had an emotional response that you shared with us in the first reporting. I really appreciate that, because it was spooky to me how closely it neared, several of the observers were like, "This reminds me of my childhood, and this childhood experience I had." And it's like, "How's that possibly happening in all across all these different, weird, barely connected settings?" The short version, is communities make you feel like you're in a community. That's the whole point in being in a place that is a community, that has a sense of identity, and belonging, and all that good stuff.

So I think I'm going to get a little bit real for a second. I think I'm among the generation where being a nerd wasn't socially acceptable. Being a science enthusiast meant Dungeons & Dragons kit and all of that sort of stuff. There was this real ostracism and trauma associated with that, and to walk into this community with overt celebration of education and pop culture all in one place was actually powerful for me, and to hear people talk directly about what this meant to them, and having body issues, or esteem issues or anxiety and saying like, "This community makes me feel good about myself," that was a real moment for me. So I was actually touched.

A couple of cool quotes I took were, one was from a woman who ended up winning a prize for technical work, she was in this Victorian era Captain America costume and she said, "I work in clinical trials, and cosplay and knitting and lace making is a lot like that. It feels to me like a puzzle." There's this iterative process of testing and problem solving and that she loves it for the challenge, and that felt interesting to me. And then other people had a lot of technology built into their costumes, and they talked about they were doing it for the tech, that this allowed them to take their technical skills and be creative with them, that this was how they could express themself. And they talked a lot about the soldering and programming and all this other stuff, and that felt like yeah, this maker STEM aspect felt stronger to me.

And so thinking in that way of how each of the individuals embodied their character, quote-unquote, you can't see my air quotes. I would say that in the way that we presented science it's like, "Here's the thing you're learning in the middle of all of these other shenanigans." And the subtle message there is that science is more serious, I think, or less inventive than these people dressed as plutonium and Einstein as a skeptic. I think there's still some more development to be made in the ways that we present the planets, if we're sticking with planets again next year. In that we were saying how Venus, she kind of played up on that feminine energy, and I think adults especially responded to that, because they had that connotation already. And so I think in addition to how we deliver messages, I think also considering how participants are the message can help people reach that understanding that science is embedded in all things.

And I think it's important to remember also the larger political moment that we're in, which is, a lot of people who do science don't feel that what they do is necessarily highly valued in the dominant structures of power in our society. So having science in public is really, really powerful, and I overheard a woman saying, "Yes, I work in science. I have a very good job. I really love science." She was sharing that with us, which just seems crazy, but she was shouting it to everybody. I never would have expected something like that would happen. That was somebody in the parade audience? Yeah, exactly. So there was that feeling of recognition. You all are parading, you all represent science, and I'm also a science person, I'm connected to you. And everybody around her was laughing like, "Yes. Okay. That's great."

my emotional reaction I think was of awe almost, like, "Wow, so many people are really, really excited about seeing science here." And so it was a shock almost that in this very fun, to be blunt, and kind of cartoon superhero fantasy, this very performative space, that science was so highly cheered, even seeing people cheer for the word science on the sign, that was interesting to me. As someone who knows science is in all of these things, but it's less explicitly stated. I think when you're looking at a Chewbacca costume or R2D2, you're looking at the fantasy not the science. I'm still trying to piece together how people receive science in these contexts, because science is so categorized as one distinct discipline away from our everyday life, that I'm not sure how to even process what people were getting from it, if that makes sense.

I think for me, knowing that I'm coming in as an observer and separate, I found myself getting caught up in it. And especially with little Pluto and with earth and the moon, and giving them encouragement and really ... It was in spite of myself. I was surprised by how connected to the parade. I felt, even though I had given myself the pep talk, I was like, "Okay, here's what you look for." And I came in with a very academic or detached view of things, like, "This is not something I am attending, this is something I'm working at." But even then it was just impossible to avoid getting caught up in all of the energy and the positivity and the fun and the joy that was happening. So that's something that I think I'm ... And I've been telling all my friends about it since I came back, and very surprised by that. I wasn't expecting to be so involved, or to feel so involved.

I think one thing that really stuck with me, and specifically regarding the cosplay element of it, was going into the event, the big focus was trying to get, and hoping people would dress up as a scientist. And that was really the big driver behind that. But I think coming out of it, what really stuck with me, was not necessarily getting people to dress up as a scientist, but getting them to realize, what they do is science, and engineering. And that's, I think what really stuck with me, and this idea, that we can have an award for the best science cosplay, but maybe the more important thing, is giving out the actual process award.

thinking about the ways to engage with that audience. And so, like that was mentioning on the call, we had live music playing in our space for the first time, because that was a little bit more of a spectacle. And especially being next to the pro-wrestling ring, we needed something loud to drown out the bells, and the announcers, and everything, and just the natural yelling that happens in that environment. We just started mixing in some of those elements. Like the live music, to touch on the actual people that are at the convention. As opposed to treating it a mobile museum space, where we take the museum, and just set it up in the convention hall.

I have come to this place around informal learning, where the authority in informal learning, is the learner. They choose what to learn, when, how, it's all on them. And what we do, is provide opportunities. As you're describing Jemima, those planets, and whatever quick thing they said, and the seconds of exposure, it's what somebody makes of that, and connects that to their own interests, and their own learning ability. In a parade, it's crazy fast. And maybe the best thing, is it sparks some curiosity, and connects it to an aspiration, or something like that, which is cool. In the con thing, it was really interesting, because there was a lot of that quick opportunities. And then, there was this more in-depth stuff. But those environments are generally, and I think of exhibitions particularly, which is mostly my background, exhibitions are really crappy teachers. When they try to teach, they generally fail. However, there are incredible opportunities in which people can learn, but they learn on their own terms. And so what we provide, is an opportunity for people to connect to on their own terms. And I think, that's a big deal for this whole situated engagement thing. It's thinking about what opportunities would provide, for people to make their own hooks to things, and make sense out of their own lives by having some exposure to some new opportunities. But how it gets absorbed, and what gets made of it, is up to the individual, or the crowd that you're placing the opportunity in front of, or with.

An example of how this stuff fit in ways that I didn't expect, so there's a table there that's just NASA stickers and Europa Mission stickers, and I took a photo of this because I'm like, pardon my French, "Bullshit." A table of stickers and logos I thought was super underwhelming, and I was 100% wrong about that because I went back like two hours later and that table was ransacked. And this idea that science fandom could be in here and that merch could be this essential part of it, or schwag, was really driven home for me by that experience.

I would definitely not use the word inauthentic, is because I think that the Science In Vivo group, the planets were so joyful and sincere in their contribution, that I think people took that at face value, as like, "You're here, you're a part of it." It's already a given that you're a part of it because of your engagement, you're marching down the street with people. I think the one thing that was a little bit dissonant was that some of the groups marching were using more explicitly playful ways of marching, and our group was a little more serious. But to the extent that we were playful, I think it really worked. But I think that was potentially a little bit of a disconnect, but I think that sometimes that can work too, right? I think as long as you're sincere and you're engaging with people, people respond to that, and that's what I observed. So I think that what could make the engagement more successful would be to use more of the approaches to being playful that were already there, and to build on that, and just develop, that side of it. But I definitely didn't feel like it was outsiders inserting themselves,

if there is an element of confusion and understanding of process, people will shut down and they won't internalize it as a fault in themselves, versus a fault in the learning technique. And so there is an implicit message about, you just can't understand this, that is delivered when there's a concept that's not well explained. So I would say to find other ways or deeper ways that are quick to connect the concepts together, I think would make the whole experience more cohesive.

I guess another risk that I see potentially in a display of science that shows science as being about what is known about the world is that it doesn't communicate the sense of discovery. So I guess that's a completely different concern, but that science is a lot about trying to figure things out, right? So that if you're presenting science as, "Well, this is what we already know about the world. Are you with us?" And people are like, "Well, I didn't know that." They may feel like, "Well, no, I'm not with you because I didn't already know that." So I think that one possibility with the parade would be to do a little bit more to engage people in the idea that there's discovery involved and they're being invited to discover. And

There's just a risk that if the messaging was about what science is or the examples of science were not coming through, there's a risk that people might come away thinking, "Science is hard, science isn't for me. I don't get it. I feel excluded." So I would say that's a risk of this kind of quick engagement around science. I do not think that that happened with this group at all, but I think that's a risk of this kind of engagement. The intention of course is to reach out and invite people to be excited about science and to think, "This is something I can do." So I think that that is what was happening, but the risk is that the other message would be taken.

Everyone's saying it is a fast paced transient environment, so I don't think there's a lot of opportunity for deep learning in something like this. I think that the opportunities available here are kind of, let's start the conversation, let's show you who we are and what's possible, and then hopefully down the road we'll have a chance for a longer conversation,

Something else that our participation in DragonCon really enables, and that is not only the teaching of science content, but just the value of science and the love of science and the presence of science throughout the city. And so I think being at DragonCon gives us that stage to integrate science into the culture of Atlanta. And so because of the challenges that Jeff described, it's really difficult to teach science and have them come away learning something, but there are other opportunities that this kind of event presents to put science on the stage, within the context of our city, so that people can see that, "Yeah, it's here, and there are opportunities for me to learn. Maybe I'm not going to learn today, but I'm going to get excited about science learning opportunities in the city."

So there is a lot of fun interplay between the audience of the parade and the people in the parade, but it is really quick. It's lightning fast and, like I said, the biggest challenge for trying to do a parade entry of this kind is, what is the stuff that has a meaningful impact in such a really short amount of time? It's got to have that high impulse so to speak.

Occasionally you get quote-unquote, lucky, that something ahead of you maybe slows down, if there's a vehicle that has an issue and so everything stopped for a little bit. Sometimes you have those rare moments where you have a little bit more interaction with the crowd. The phrase that kept coming to mind during this project was drive-by science. You don't have time to stop and do stuff with it, and so in an organizational sense that was a huge challenge of, what are some demonstrations that have a very short time to observe that can be on the move and don't require electricity, and aren't going to be so cumbersome, but it's going to slow everything else down. So it presented an interesting problem. But in terms of the crowd reaction, the crowd had a great reaction to everything that we were doing, really everything that was going on in the parade. I think partly that's a reflection of the characteristic of DragonCon, a conference as a whole. Everybody at the conference, with obvious outliers here and there, but everybody at the conference was always very supportive of everybody else at the conference.

I do think one of the challenges for doing science in that setting, is that when you're a marching group you're moving pretty fast, and so what is it that you can communicate quickly as you're marching past people? That's a little bit of a challenge.

We talked at some length, about the difficulty of communicating content in a parade, but what you can do is communicate presence. Or communicate, and this actually is a reflection back on the St. Petersburg Pride Parade, the sense of, "This is what a scientist looks like." Science is about doing, it's also about being, and being present at an event that already says something. But it's not probably a great venue for communicating content, but definitely lighting that spark for sure. And it is, the Dragon Con parade, was an incredibly diverse, and a very enthusiastic audience. It just totally blew me away.

It sparks an excitement, I think, in our staff. Many of our staff actually, who are working the event, and work the entire day, they dress up themselves. They're excited to be in that space. They're excited to be talking to this different audience.

And it also got me thinking, that a lot of the value might be actually people participating in these communities, as the communicators, and how this benefits them, and sharpens their skills at outreach, in ways that they wouldn't otherwise get. There's a lot of value in that. Specifically, I had friend of mine who was in the Peace Corps, and he said, "Here's the dirty secret. The primary beneficiary of the Peace Corps, isn't the host nations, it's the peace Corps volunteers." And I was thinking of that, in SciComm, and these environments. Us connecting with communities, particularly communities we don't get to work with normally, has a lot of value in, and of itself.

The actual cosplay contest itself is like the tip of the spear. There's this huge pipeline of stuff that leads up to this moment and the judging itself was interesting because these people queue up, they get in front of the judges, they explain their costume, again, as Paul mentioned they're really focused on the craft. The baseline things that I associate with cosplay which is identity and enthusiasm and community, all that stuff they take for granted. By the time you get in front of a judge, they assume all of that. All they really want to care about is their craft and how it affects their community. And that really spoke to me about how we need to think about integrating with that program. We need to look at that complete pipeline between when people start building their costume a year before the show and the hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars that go into it and what it takes for them to make that commitment, and then what are the incentives for them to participate, and then what are they actually getting judged on and understand all that and then fold in a science component appropriately.

So for me this was an entirely new experience. I had never actually been to a Comic-Con before and I'm nerd culture-adjacent, this was a little bit out of my wheelhouse so I was really excited and I got there first thing on Saturday and stood in line and there was a line of people outside the door and lots of jostling, and that was fun just to absorb the energy of the people who were there, especially that first wave has got to be pretty hardcore.

my connection to the parade previously had been me being stationary, the parade moving past me and seeing how everybody interacts with it. But now it's seeing that the entire length of the parade is completely involved and the audience is very into it all the way through from start to finish. Talking with some of the volunteers afterwards, it was an overwhelmingly positive experience, I think a little more so than everybody expected, and a lot of that was due to the fact that the crowd was very receptive to it.

... There's no way he could have done that if he hadn't been there last year. And so similarly, in parades, people comment on last year's parade or they comment on the other groups that are parading or they comment on other things that are going on in the community, or it could comment on things that are going on in Atlanta, or they could comment on, obviously, Waconda, or what's been happening with Spider-Man. And I'm not going to use the right language, but the multi-verse or the universe or whatever it is that's happening with Spider-Man. That's really exciting and it's got a lot of people interested in comics, who haven't been interested in them before. So there's a way that parades speak to what's happening right now, that is part of what makes people excited about them, so there's an opportunity there as well. I realize, you might not want to do political commentary about what's happening with science, but it could be a way to connect more to the popular culture of the present possibly. Yeah. And then interacting with other marching groups, I think is a big thing that people do in parades, and that Gemima and I observed. When the planets were dancing together, that was fun for the planets and it really engaged the audience too, that there was a physical interaction among the paraders. That doesn't have to be choreographed, but it's helpful when it happens.

learned a lot from other paraders, and from looking at one year's parades and I have a chance to think about, "Oh, this is what I want to do next year. Next year, it's going to be so much better." But also being coached by veteran paraders, and certainly in the parades that I, to some extent how I observed groups marching with the DragonCon parade, is that they use their body as part of the parade, as well as using symbols and of course words as symbols to convey meaning. And so the way the body is dressed, wigs, hats, things like that, are a big part of the messaging, they said they set the tone. And a lot of paraders do use words, but they don't rely on words as their first way of communicating meaning. And so things that people can see at a distance, regardless of the font size you're using, things that stick up into the air, flags or other things that people can see coming are helpful. And then obviously things that are just a few feet off the ground or at the level of the body, people will see those right when you're upon them, they don't see them coming. Those are just some thoughts I have on people who have used parading as a distinct technology first for communicating and for sharing information.

Please- But that's all for now. Oh no. [inaudible], you want me to say more? Yeah, I think so. One of the things here, just to give you context, is that we don't ... I don't know, Jordan, is this the first time you've been in a parade since you were in school? Yes. This is my first time being in a parade. Yeah. Great. So this is not business as usual for many of us,

This was important in a lot of ways, but particularly it prompted me to go back to doing collaborative, peer reviewing of events in my local community. Particularly, those that are outside of my comfort zone, or not in cultures that I normally interact with. I have this collaborative event listing thing that I put together with other event organizers every week. These are 12 things coming up, that I think are interesting, and they're not even science related. There just interesting. Because it helps me keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening here. We invite a guest curators, so like one of San Francisco's great drag Queens. Let's find out what's interesting from his perspective. And so I came out of this, I was like, "Yeah. Actually, going to other events, and seeing what other people are doing, the problems they're struggling with, and the creative solutions they have, it's very hard to fold that into all the deadlines that we all face. And yet I feel it's just so necessary to do our work well.

And I feel really fortunate that I was paired with another observer, who's an expert in the field. We were able to play off, we had really different sets of eyes, I think, on it, and learned a lot from each other, both in the moment when we were talking, but also afterwards, when we were typing up our notes together in the followup. I think that part of it, was really a great experience, which I definitely got a lot out of that. And I think, our ability to think through what was going on, was really enhanced by that, that we had really different previous experiences, I guess, in different ways of engaging with the event.

it was very anxiety inducing, to find out, that not only am I participating in a new program at the convention, but we're going to have to two people who I don't, know and have great credentials, fly into to observe what I was doing. Like I said, it was a little anxiety inducing, but ultimately, I found the experience incredibly rewarding. I don't often get to converse with peers in the field, at the level of Paul's, and Bart's experiences, and credentials. and whatnot. I found it incredibly enlightening. Obviously, they brought a completely outside perspective of it.

I think it's hard to create, and then objectively assess. The people who participate in activities, are very much married to them. They're in love with them. It's their baby. Whatever analogy makes sense to you. But, "This is my thing that I've created, that I can't see the blind spots of." The value in having people with very particular kinds of expertise assess this experience, especially if it's expertise you don't have. Of course, I think there's a value there.

interrogate those assumptions that you're making about an audience, that you "Serve." And actually taking the time, the money, the energy, to ask these audiences what exactly they need from you. Versus deciding that they need a science exhibit to inspire kids to pursue STEM. The idea is that kids aren't inspired? Kids are inspired all the time. It's the connections, from passion, to purpose to, I guess, career that gets lost. It's the support, from passionate, to purpose, to career that gets lost. And so what we've also been having conversations about, it's not just enough to inspire.

And anything that only happens once a year, it's really hard to get a handle on it. Because it's the buildup, it happens, and then it's gone. It takes a while to move through the different spaces of it. I think, there's real value in being able to leave the booth, and see what are all the different things that are going on there, and what are some of the different ways to engage it?

I've been documenting the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival for over 10 years. And it's a big event with a lot going on. Really distinct communities who participate. And if you're in the blues tent, running the sound booth, you really can't be looking at the crafts, and you don't know what's happening in the kid's area. There're so many distinct activities, and communities, but the energy of the event, is that all these things are happening together. And so, being able to move through these different spaces, I think, and then reflecting back on how your part fits in. I think, it is a challenge for any of us who participate in big events, because you do have to keep an eye on your booth. Not just staffing it, and doing what the booth is doing, but also coordinating, and managing. The loading in, and the loading out. There're just so many logistics, it's a huge amount of work.

this whole thing sparked for me, at the very beginning, when I was doing outreach with the MIT Museum, I've been doing Museum of Science Center outreach for a long time. Had the keys to the van. At every institution I've gone to. But I had the chance to be part of this outreach, and not have to do anything. I got to show up, see what was going on, and then walk away from the table, walk away from the tent. And when you start walking away from the table, and walk away from the tent, and this is not a metaphor, they had tables and tents, and they're down, and they're intense, and they're in their activity. And they're in their space. And that's great. But then you step back, and you look at, "Well, there's the tent. Look at everything else, swirling around. Look at all the other things. And why are people here? What are people doing at this particular fair, at this particular festival?" That you hadn't seen the cosplay awards before, that's fine. I'm not putting any judgment on that. But to me, that was the first spark, is being able to handle this, because you were working. You were busy. That it's completely natural, that you would have thought, that there's this opportunity over there. And maybe the wrestling, you might not have even thought of, except for that you happened to be right next to it, so you couldn't avoid it. But I there's something about, maybe Helen could speak up just a little bit, for the value of just letting yourself be a participant at times as opposed to being on on on and being a producer.

And I do want to point out too, that after that event, I actually reached out to the rest of the people, and said, "Let's get some space themed wrestling matches happening." And that was in the works, but then again, we haven't done... We did one convention, two and a half months after that, so they do two a year. Just for context. They do a Fall, and a Winter one. We did one the very beginning of January, which is a smaller show, so the wrestling wasn't there, but this past September 2020, we were going to try to get some astronauts fighting aliens, or some scientists fighting each other, or something like that, but we haven't been back since unfortunately. We were trying to find ways to integrate into that as well. Pluto, versus Neil deGrasse Tyson, was the big hit at our science wrestling event. People lost their minds. That, and also Watson and Crick, versus Rosalind Franklin. I don't know if you can extend it to that, but it worked.

There's this question, is this a really good use of our efforts? What value does this have? The impact, all those classic questions. In which case, is this feeling really small, and insignificant? Participation in cons, or parades, or other programs? Does that move any needles that I actually care about? Or on the other hand, is this a really good path to reaching people? And particularly people we don't normally reach, and is this actually really important? If this idea, that if your organizations, and your values aren't visible, then they're invisible. And is this a great way, to ensure visibility in the communities that we operate in?

It's like going over the top with this, or having things be bolder, and louder and bigger is super cool in this kind of a venue. It's so visually loud from all the individuals coming in the door primarily through what's some of the spectacle that's there already, so I could just raise that up. And that being part of the creative process for the Space Center to take on, and I immediately thought of here are some grant opportunities that they could pursue that would allow them to do this in a venue that is primed for... You've got literally thousands and thousands of people who love this content or who would love this content if they were to engage in it more, so it's grabbing more people.

Yeah. I think having a bigger presence on the exhibit hall too, the planetarium and some of these little booth things were good and the tabling activities, but just ramp that up, you see the potential of being able to get more people engaged. And as Bart says, it's a good base there but if you doubled or tripled the resources that went into it, you'd get at least double or triple, you'd probably get five or six times the number of people engaged.

For me, I just want to say the experience was awesome. There's a couple of different things that are going on here. One is looking at the con overall and the science content, one looking at the cosplay components specifically, and there's this idea of just being able to go someplace and do peer observations and peer reviews for a day and a half, was such a wonderful luxury. I don't get to do that very often, have just dedicated watching and thinking time so just participating in this was great.