Reaching out to the Interested Public
Emily Lakdawalla over at the Planetary Society blog posted the other day about a talk that she gave at the Next-generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) about how to get the most bang for your buck with public outreach. The main point was that the most successful outreach efforts do not necessarily target The Public as a whole, but rather cater to members of the public that are already passionate about space.
This might seem counterintuitive: what good does it do to preach to the choir? But Emily makes a very good case. In particular, members of the interested public go on to share their enthusiasm more broadly, amplifying NASA’s outreach impact with no extra effort from NASA! If you’re interested, Emily has made the slides from her talk available here, and recorded the audio which is available here.
