Okay, so I’ve been letting work interfere with my blogging life over the past few weeks, which has led to an interminable series of impenetrable blogs on nanotechnology. I promise I’ll try and lighten up over the next few weeks (although I’m afraid there are still a couple of nano blogs to come over the next week or so).
However, since I have been on a bit of a nanotech roll, I thought I would slip in this additional short blog about a couple of things that metaphorically whacked me over the head on recent travels – before they fade into the mists of my middle aged brain.
Nanotechnology as a brand
The first comes from Graeme Hodge – a law professor at Monash University in Australia. Or to be more specific, something he said at a recent meeting on nanotech regulation in London. In amidst the discussions around similarities between US and European approaches to regulating nanotechnologies (thrilling stuff – don’t you wish you were there?), Graeme made what I thought was a profound observation: Nanotechnology is a brand.
Now of course nanotechnology is associated with all sorts of very concrete advances in working with matter at a nanometer-scale, and is backed up with some rather cool science. But it’s always been hard to pin down exactly what it is, and why people get so excited about it. And it’s been even harder to work out what the implications of this new technology are, and how to handle them.
However thinking of nanotech as a brand rather than a technology per se might help resolve many of the problems we’ve been grappling with in making sense of the technology. Brands are usually based on something tangible, but also incorporate loyalties, perceptions, emotions etc. that add value to them in ways that are compelling while not quite tangible.
This sounds very much like nanotechnology – a grand idea that has stimulated new research funding, motivated renewed interest in science and technology and led to innovations that go beyond the sum of their contributing parts. Sure there’s some really interesting stuff going on at the nanoscale. But the real value here seems to reside the power of the idea – the brand of nanotechnology.
On the flip side, if nanotechnology is as much a brand as a technology, talking about possible health and environmental impacts can get a little complex. The intangible values that branding brings to a product cannot be assessed in toxicology studies, or measured in the environment. Perhaps this is why discussions of nanotechnology safety have floundered so often.
Maybe reframing nanotechnology as a brand will help unravel some of the knots we’ve got ourselves into over the technology, and enable faster progress on developing responsible products based on nanoscale engineering. I’m looking forward to hearing more on the idea from Graeme in the future.
Stimulating stakeholder dialogue through drama
I had the good fortune to spend this last week at the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net) annual meeting. Always a stimulating conference, I was particularly struck by a reading of a short play.
Anyone with a passing interest in drama will know that actors and plays can enable a powerful and very public airing of thoughts and ideas that people often find hard to share. I’ve rarely seen this used to great effect in bringing stakeholders together in grappling with complex science and technology-based issues. But this particular reading left me wondering whether there is an important role for drama in multi-stakeholder forums addressing the development and implications of nanotechnology.
The reading in question was given by two actors from the Science Museum of Minnesota, and involved a sometimes heated discussion between two sisters on the possible pros and cons of nanotechnology. Both were passionate about the technology and aware of the current state of the science. But while one was working for a company to ensure the safety of new products, the other was worried about the use of the technology in the absence of hard safety data. The result was a compelling and complex dialogue between the siblings that effectively articulated fears and hopes that many stakeholders have, but few are brave enough to share in public.
While watching the reading, it struck me that this merging of science, technology and art is powerful in two ways. First, it enables strong and valid but opposing opinions to be explored by proxy – stakeholders watching the drama would be likely to end up with a sense what others thought and felt, without the emotional baggage of those (sometimes impassioned) opinions coming directly from colleague sitting across the room from them. Secondly, it acts as a bridge between people coming from very different perspectives – providing a shared experience and understanding that could form the basis of a fruitful dialogue.
Could drama be used in this way at multi-stakeholder nanotech meetings? I don’t know, but I am dying to try it out. It might just break us out of the repetitive circles many of these meetings end up go round in. Just so you are forewarned therefore – expect to see the odd nanotechnology meeting organized by me with a rather unconventional agenda in the future…
Nano for kids
And finally, I was reminded while traveling back to the airport in San Francisco after the NISE Net meeting that Dragonfly TV has a great series on nanotechnology – accompanied by a really good web resource. If you’ve got kids or teach kids, this is an excellent source of stuff on nanotechnology – from video clips from the programs to a huge selection of nanotech resources. And if you’re not a kid? I highly recommend you close the door, turn down the sound and browse the sight while no-one’s looking. But be warned – it’s addictive!
Addendum: After playing around some more with the Dragonfly TV website, I just had to add this link. Regulators, NGO’s industry folk and others out there – want a mature perspective on nano-labeling? Check out these comments… from kids!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree, the dragonfly tv folks have done an amazing job with the videos and teacher guides. I liked your question on Tuesday at the NISE Net workshop bringing up the appropriateness of the nano scale in K-12 education. I have been in contact with a few educators about this over the last few years. I have taken the approach (as a first grade teacher) that there are specific skills and concept development that needs to happen when children are developmentally “ready” for higher level understanding of complex ideas. I see that my role is to assure that students have the knowledge necessary to advance to the next level. (See AAAS atlas maps) I really wish there were more studies of child understanding of scale.
The other obstacle that we have is that children are learning about the nano scale on the street. They are learning a lot of misinformation about nanotechnology. Comic books, cartoons, video games are all talking about nanobots and grey goo that envelops the world on a very macro scale. As an educator, it is a lot easier to teach about new technology than it is to undo years of misinformation and fiction. So, I have been debating with educators about the appropriateness of introducing the nanoscale at an earlier age than would be developmentally appropriate.
Just some random thoughts.
Thanks again for the discussion about nano toxicity.
Thanks Troy.
Interesting thoughts on when to get kids used to the idea of scale, especially at the nanoscale – I hadn’t thought of the challenge of teaching formally against background “noise” – I assume this is an increasing issue as kids are exposed to an increasing flood of information (not all helpful) outside the classroom.
At NISE Net, I was concerned about trying to introduce complex topics like quantum confinement to kids before they had a framework withing which to understand it – leading to teaching phenomena rather than principles (as in “wow, it does this!” rather than “it does this because…”). But I can see the need to provide some sense of what is going on at an early age, so that inappropriate ideas don’t lodge too firmly!
This perspective does explain why the otherwise articulate (speaking for myself) have to twist themselves into pretzels to talk about it. This is particularly difficult for those of us who like science and believe in its promise. We are stuck in between liking science and using the most politicized, hyped and ill constructed epithets to talk about it.