The future of knowledge communication is here. — I’ve seen the future (of communicating research-based knowledge). Here: So can you. COVID-Explained is a brand new site written by scientists, researchers, and students to answer major questions about COVID-19 with simplicity, succinctness, and sound science. …

Does Science Twitter need blogging in a pandemic? Why Cal Newport is both right and wrong. — Normally I would be all over this new Cal Newport piece in WIRED about how Expert Twitter could be so much more helpful about the pandemic if only it were supplemented by blogging. In the new piece, Newport (author of the bestseller “Deep Work” and high priest of social media…

But your eyesight as a researcher is 20/20 — I’ll double down on something I wrote last week: Don’t predict, describe. Especially: Describe trends and tell us where/what they will lead to. Right now, expert predictions are, at best, thought exercises that verge on entertainment. At worst, they’re horoscopes: almost always wrong, almost always without accountability, almost always hiding…

Communicating your research-based expertise in the teeth of COVID-19. — Here’s a condensed version of what I’m telling all my clients — all researchers who run their own teams and organizations, large and small — right now: There is only one story for the foreseeable future. If you can’t be hyper-relevant to it, hold off on almost all your communications…

Why science is losing the argument about COVID-19 — Politico reports this morning that Morgan Stanley economists are now predicting a 30.1% annualized decline in US GDP for Q2 — which would be the worst quarterly performance in 74 years. That’s the good news. The bad news: lots of other economists think that prediction might be optimistic. …

We’re going to need a more human (and sci-fi) metaphor to win this thing. — Humanity is conducting some gigantic experiments right now — and the biggest might be in how we’re communicating the science of this virus and how to stop it. #Flattenthecurve is the meme, the brand, the call-to-action rolled into one. The universal visual (CDC version, as published in WIRED):

Stay calm and keep science-based during COVID-19. — It’s a boom time — thank God — for explanatory, research-based and research-expertise content about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19. Here are 12 informational resources from the last week that I’ve found especially clarifying: 3Blue1Brown: “Exponential Growth and Epidemics” (YouTube): Send this nine-minute explainer video to all the virus-complacent in…

For COVID-19, your rationalist riskholery might actually be riskier — Too many authorities — mostly business pundits and journalists, but also some scientists, economists, psychologists and even doctors — continue to tell the rest of us we’re misreading the risks of COVID-19 and are overreacting to it in a fit of panic. You may be one of those authorities. Cut…

It’s kind of like changing your face or name. — Most of us think of points-of-view as things we assume and then invite other people to share. That’s limiting at best. POVs only have meaning and value as social agreements, as an important defining term in a relationship with someone else. …