Calling All Climate Scientists: Join the Our Common Future volunteer social media team!

Why are you putting together a social media team?

Many people will be keen to follow conference proceedings even though they can’t be physically present in Paris. We’re democratizing the conference content by live tweeting, blogging and podcasting as many sessions as possible, using our group of trained volunteers as the “eyes and ears” throughout the conference to share the content online, live and globally. 

Besides, social media can actually enhance YOUR conference experience. Online networking inevitably leads to professional collaborations and opportunities; learning to blog will help you widen your readership (and has been proven to increase citations of your published work); and communication skills are one of the most highly sought-after skills by many employers. You will develop these skills by being part of our diverse team of social reporters and by participating in a social media-training workshop. 
 

"I wanted to get more involved in science outreach, but hadn’t found the right platform. Michelle helped me learn new social media tools, and gave me the confidence to use them to report and reflect on my experiences at scientific conferences. I have found using social media from conferences to be a meaningful, easy, and fun way to share science with a wider audience, to learn more myself, and to make new connections.” -- Kim Nicholas, Associate Professor of Sustainability Science at Lund University.   
 

Honing your social media skills: Join training on Monday 6 July 

As part of the social media team experience, you’ll get to participate in a free hands-on training on Monday 6th July at UNESCO. The training is designed for both social media novices and those with more experience to equip you with the skills to report from the Our Common Future Under Climate Change conference.  

You’ll learn how to: 
• Use the main social media tools for communicating climate science  

• Set up your social media profile 

• Use multiple social media tools to engage different audiences during conferences 

• Live tweet from a conference 

• Write a blogpost that people want to read; the art of live-blogging. 
 

During the training, we will also divide reporting tasks and assign people to report from conference sessions. As such, all members of the conference social media team are required to participate in the training. Please register your interest to participate by Friday 19 June to kovamic @ gmail. com. 

The social media training will be run by: 

Peter Casier - Originally a psychologist/printing engineer, since 2010 Peter has been working as an online media consultant and trainer, guiding organisations in designing and implementing their online media strategy, and coordinating the online media outreach for large science and policy events. Peter's past projects include a review and refinement of the online media strategy for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, social media coordination for events at Rio+20, COP18 and COP19 and the production of video and blog interviews with farmers in Africa and Asia on climate change adaptation. 

Michelle Kovacevic – Michelle is an experienced science communicator, editor and facilitator with substantial experience in communication strategy development and delivery, particularly to leverage the reach and impact of large and small-scale events with a climate science basis. She is coordinating social media activities at the Our Common Future Under Climate Change conference, including managing the conference blog. She’s authored over 100 popular articles, reports, special investigative reports, and an interactive web feature: “Who has power over land use in Peru?”