Posted on 17 June 2008

We woke up to an amazingly sunny day with an even more amazing Solitaire Townsend really opening our eyes with her mind-blowing morning lecture on how to communicate climate change.

What Soli taught us was how to wrap a message in something edible. The wrapping must be different depending on your audience in order for your message to get across, and this requires you to know which types of audience you may expect. Soli explained that we could group audiences into three categories: Settlers, prospectors and pioneers. So, settlers are generally concerned with security, sustenance and are usually backward looking (“yesterday was better”). Prospectors, on the contrary, are more concerned with fashion, status, success and live 'in the now'. Environmental sustainability is not a major concern to them unless it makes them look good. The last group of audience Soli names 'pioneers'. These are less concerned with their appearance and are more progressive and motivated to change the world. However, they want to be original and change things on their own premises.

What group do you belong to?

Clearly, understanding these different types of audience and adjusting the way you communicate your message to them is essential for your success. Solitaire’s lecture was one of the most interesting and useful so far, as it charged us with fresh ideas and made us see what strengths we have as young daring communicators.

During the day, we also visited a whale graveyard and had a refreshing walk along arctic beaches. While on one of these walks Neil Hamilton bursts out “Run, run, run! Polar bear!!!”, pointing towards a hill nearby. After a few seconds of frantic running, we realised that the white animal in the hill was nothing but a reindeer. Later, we also walked on a glacier, which was awesome!

After returning to the boat, we had a BBQ in the midnight sun, dancing into the night on the deck of Alexey Maryshev.

Stay tuned for more!

Hilsen Maria og Karl Oskar