Listening to podcasts and wondering if I should start another scicomm project…

Sitting on the ferry back to Sweden after two weeks in Germany, I listened to a great podcast episode on the podcast Update Hochschule (in German) on the topic of social media. @frauforschung Lisa Niendorf, whose content on Instagram I’ve enjoyed A LOT lately (and other notable German Insta in the same niche, Prof. Dr. Alke Martens Informatik at @alkemartens), talked about social media in an environment of, and as a way to work against, low trust in democracy and science. And now I think that I might end up starting a new social media account for science communication…

BUT, sidenote since this was an important point in that conversation: Even people who do not want to be “content creators” can really contribute to scicomm on social media by engaging in comment sections of big creators, helping them respond to people, debunking misinformation etc!

In that episode, they discussed the importance of sharing what it is people at universities actually do — which is the type of content I did a lot almost 10 years ago, but really haven’t done any more recently. Not that I stopped doing it on purpose, I just changed jobs, the pandemic came, I changed jobs again, had to build my life in a new country. Priorities just shifted, and also what had a very clear target audience in the job when I did it became more diffuse after job changes.

Anyway, their conversation inspired me to want to do it again. And since I am now on a permanent position and at a career level and in the type of job where most people really have no idea what it is I am being paid for, I think that would be meaningful and also important to do. So maybe I need to start a new social media account where I show more of my everyday worklife. Not what I show on here, which is what I read and think about (and, very importantly, what water I look at), but more what spaces I spend my worktime in, in what kind of meetings and what we talk about in there, what tasks I work with, etc.. Could be fun!

Surprisingly (to me), my first impulse for how to do this was to do it in German. I don’t know if that is because the podcast was in German and I just spent some time in Germany, discussing politics and feeling the need to become politically active, or where it is coming from. My work and writing and social media and this blog have been in English for so many years now, as English was the best choice while I was working across Norway, Germany, and Sweden with always at least two of those in parallel… I think this is the type of account where local context would matter and where it would make sense to go for local impact, too, so I should do it in the language of the country where I want to have impact. Do I want it in Germany, though, and not in Sweden, when my job and life are here? Who knows…

There are some accounts which I can see borrowing inspiration from, both on Instagram and also on LinkedIn, many of them by freelancers rather than university employees. On LinkedIn, it’s mostly text posts and sometimes images, on Insta it is a lot of videos. As it happens, I then listened to the episode “Why use video” on Teaching in Higher Ed, where Jeffrey Kim talks about his experience with Vlogs (super cool youtube channel btw, EdFamily with Dr. Jeff), which he uses to share front-row insights of interesting events, showing appreciation of events to organizers, speakers, participants (he says “you raise what you praise”* and I love it!); and for slowing down and documenting for himself to look back on all that happened. He also posts videos for teaching, like this introduction to the module “my story, my place” (which is a cool place-based activity, and introducing it in a short video makes it so motivating to do it!), or even just introducing himself to students taking a course with him. Browsing his channel really makes me want to experiment with vlogging some more! I generally hate being on video, but after a couple of days working with Terese and Frankie on our MOOC I was getting used to it, so maybe it’s just a matter of doing it?

Video as a format is obviously more work, both before an event planning what shots might be good to have, “during” when you need to catch the highlights, and then editing after… Also making sure you have other people’s permission if they happen to be in a shot etc… I do have some vlog-style raw videos from when we were in the studio to film the MOOC, maybe I should just edit some and see how it goes? And maybe combining advertising the MOOC with my new social media effort is a good idea anyway?

Btw, if you are curious about the MOOC, you can see first gimpses here (and let me know if you want to be notified when it launches!):

15h ago

Our MOOC "Teaching Sustainability" comes with a facilitator guide for everybody who wants to use our materials to facilitate conversations in their own context, and now we even have a prototype of the pocket version! Things are coming along nicely! @teresethoni.bsky.social @mirjamglessmer.com

July 1, 2026

Taking the "elevator pitch" literally and filming ours in the oldest (and prettiest) elevator we could find!
With @teresethoni.bsky.social, @mirjamglessmer.com, Frank Schreier

June 18, 2026

Some inspirational literature on the bookshelf in the background of our set: featured books are by @rmforsyth.bsky.social, @kimberlynicholas.bsky.social, @alasdair-skelton.bsky.social, @asv.bsky.social, and others. Follow us to be notified when the Teaching Sustainability MOOC launches!

June 18, 2026

And it is a wrap! @teresethoni.bsky.social and @mirjamglessmer.com finished filming all the studio parts of the MOOC Teaching Sustainability! Thanks to Frank Schreier III for excellent production! Follow us to get notified when the MOOC launches!

June 16, 2026

Filming for the MOOC in the studio in Helsingborg today!

May 5, 2026

Behind the scenes, we are hard at work with polishing the last scripts and slides in preparation for filming in the studio soon, editing the website, interviewing teachers for good practice examples. And now we also have a bluesky account. Hello world!

Follow @teachingsustainability.org on Bluesky

* Speaking of “you raise what you praise”. I would really like to only raise and praise awesome stuff on this blog, and I have often thought about whether I should really be posting as many critical posts as I currently am. But sometimes I feel that I need to point out that not all is gold that glitters, or to debunk things, especially now when there is so much stuff out there that is published as pre-prints but discussed as if it was The Truth… I feel like I cannot pretend that papers I am aware of and that I read carefully and that I think are completely misinterpreting or misinterpreted don’t exist? Maybe I really need to think about critical ignoring again…?

Leaving Travemünde on the ferry to Sweden

I like taking this 9-ish hour ferry, I like being offline, looking at water, and having enough time to transition between homes rather than being thrown from one directly into the other. Also I like this little lighthouse, as you will see in more posts in the near future!