SOME of the best communicators I have known have been almost unable to string together two words to form a grammatically correct sentence. They would be judged almost illiterate by the supposed well educated because of their obvious linguistic inabilities and limitations. However, they include Nobel Laureates and others seen by their peers to be masters of their science. Moreover, these individuals were (and are) also outstanding teachers, educators and mentors. How come? They have a rare ability to transcend the limited domain of pure oratory by the use of actual, or invoked, visualisation of the complex to convey true understanding. Sometimes they do this by words alone, coupled with graphic analogies and metaphoric examples, or by pictures and diagrams.

In my view, some of today's best communicators are those who produce TV adverts. They seem to be masters of both the cold and the emotional bits. They impart information and understanding through the experience of images, metaphor, memory, sound and more, in a matter of a few seconds. Of course, they also have access to large budgets, too, and there are those who would argue that they deal only with the facile. But I suspect their art is rather more subtle than our first inspection reveals.

As part of my professional activities, I attend a large number of conferences and conventions, and I have to confess that I find a high proportion to be dominated by both boring content and speakers. It is not that the subject matter lacks the potential for excitement - quite the opposite, in fact, for it is difficult to think of a single aspect of science that is not exciting in both form and prospect. What goes badly wrong is the mechanism of interpretation and delivery. I often suspect that the majority of my persuasion have attended some successful degree course on how to be boring.

One of my worst experiences was to attend a conference on multimedia. After the first four speakers used plastic foils on an overhead projector, I left the room and returned home. Why hadn't they used multimedia to sell multimedia? I have no idea. How could anyone believe that the future included this technology when the key proponents were not using it?

As a technologist, I live or die by the technology sword. Iam just amazed that so many people use a laptop computer to put words up on a screen when plastic foils are much lighter and far cheaper. Computer screens, projectors and systems are not good for presenting words, but they are very effective when used for simulation, animation, audio and video. Used to their full extent, they afford us the ability to convey and communicate the complex very rapidly to large groups of people. In fact, they are the most significant and powerful tool for communication that most of us have been able to afford or access so far. We really ought not to be wasting such a resource as an agent of boredom when it can be an agent of good communication, excitement and change.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk