Hats off to the Buskers

The main priority in the first phase of the getstats campaign is raising awareness of the benefits, power and beauty of statistics in wider public audiences who may not yet be fully aware of the role and value of statistics in their lives. Having raised their awareness, we will then keen to do all we can to develop these new audiences' interest in pursuing statistical know-how and skills.

To help us to generate awareness and interest, the campaign team is looking for as many statisticians and users of statistics as possible to get involved in developing a bank of ideas and resources which can be shared and used by us all to support our communications around statistics. We are also keen to encourage as many our wider network members as possible to get actively involved in busking.

WHAT TYPES OF COMMUNICATION ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

One of the best ways of getting statistics across to more people, more effectively is via direct - face-to-face - communication. That’s where pitching and busking come in.

We are looking for your thoughts on up to 1-minute Stats Pitches and up to 2-5 minute Stats Busking exercises which lift Statistics (the skillset) and statistics (data) off the page and which show their benefits in a practical, fun, interactive and engaging way. With your help, we aim to create a library of off-the-shelf pitches and busking exercises which we can  all draw on. If each of us who works with statistics speaks out….stats busking has the potential to achieve huge impact.

STEP 1 - STATS PITCHES

Many of you will have seen the getstats campaign’s opening elevator pitch 'Numbers are everywhere. But mostly we don't really get what they mean, even when they're key to the important choices we make in our lives. The getstats campaign is about turning this around- giving everyone the skills and confidence to use numbers well. Otherwise as individuals and as a society, we'll keep missing out'. This can be used in a variety of situations but it would be great to develop other pitches and to share them too.

We all talk to people who are not statisticians or regular users of statistics - friends, family members, neighbours, colleagues, professional and social contacts - all the time (and occasionally about statistics!). When you are asked ‘what does a statistician do?’ or respond to comments such as ‘I just don’t do numbers’, what do you say?. Your reply is likely to involve selling the idea of statistics/making a case for Statistics - that's what we mean by a ‘pitch’. You will probably have 30 seconds to 1 minute of someone's time and attention to do it in and will be using 60 words or less

Given up to 1 minute, how do you/would you open minds and embed positive perceptions around Statistics?.

STEP 2 - STATS BUSKING

Talking is good but there is no better way to develop deeper understanding than by actively doing something to show what you mean. Better still by relating it to our lives and experiences and what is important to us. 

So, whether it's talking to a few colleagues at the coffee machine, or at a stand at a public festival - with up to 5 minutes and access to props of your choice, from items such as a newspaper, bacon sandwich, ticket or ball through to a mobile phone or computer, how would you demonstrate statistics in action and communicate the importance of statistics in all our lives?

We (probably) all know probability-focused favourites such as the Birthday and Monty Hall Problems very well. However, people who are not familiar with using statistics may not know about them so we will be including these in our bank of resources. If you have variations on these traditional problem exercises which you would like to tell us about, please fill us in. Can you think of others? interactive demos with dice e.g. two or three dice or Chinese dice? Do you know of any routines around risk, prediction, trends and statistical concepts such as averages, standard deviation etc?

Ideas shared so far have ranged from a possible ‘CSI’ forensic science activity to looking at the probability of scoring goals from different angles through to creating a new ‘day in the life/world without stats’ vignette to show how fundamental statistics are to every aspect of our lives.

We would like to develop statistical games such as snap (debunking myths around coincidences and the urge to see relationships where they don’t exist) and maybe even something which looks at the link between snakes and ladders and markov chains. Quizzes would be enjoyed by many too. The potential ideas and the scope for exercises are endless.

There are no real rules or limitations attached to stats busking except that the exercises should a) take no more than 5 minutes. (by which time, there should be a point to make even if the exercise could continue) and b) there should be an initial ‘hook’ - creating a ‘wow’ or ‘intrigue’ factor - so that you cannot easily be ignored. This can be anything along the whizzy Hans Rosling high tech ‘stats busking’ with online data through to challenging someone to contribute to something others are working on, or to guess or decipher something.

BUSKING 'VENUES'?

You can, of course, pitch for statistics anywhere you have someone to have a conversation with.  Please share your ideas on stats pitching with us, but don't let this prevent you from communicating about this great discipline straight away. 

The getstats campaign team will be organising events and workshops around stats busking e.g. at the Mathematics in Education and Industry conference for teachers in the early Summer. We will also be attending activities where we know that stats busking would go down well e.g. at science festivals and receptions and we would be keen to hear from anyone who would like to actively support these activities by getting actively involved in busking on the delivery side. 

We are also keen to encourage you to actively take up stats busking where there are local opportunities to do so. 

 A few tips. Whilst stats pitching can be as impromptu or improvised as you like, busking can take a little more organising, and, in some cases, may require permission.  

Busking at work, on campus or in school is likely to be relatively easy to do and organised opportunities for short periods of busking at public science festivals, exhibitions and receptions should be quite easy to easy to identify and to co-ordinate.  To this, you can add other organised and impromptu busking in museums, shopping malls, sports centres, libraries and places like London's South Bank (the Maths Buskers set a precedent). The more extrovert amongst us should not rule out every-day 'captive audience' opportunities in queues at checks-ins and check-outs. Indeed, any public venue where there is a good flow of passer-by to engage is an option as long as no local bye-laws are broken and the busking is not causing an obstruction/public nuisance. Local Councils or landowners' (or in the case of pub quizzes, landlords') permission should be sought.

GET IN TOUCH 

If the above picture of hundreds of new communicators of statistics out in the field has spurred you on to support Stats Busking get in touch. If you have an idea for an exercise or pitch to contribute, let us know. If you have plans to busk with the getstats team or to busk on a local basis, please let us know your plans. Email Debra in the getstats team.

New pitches and busking exercises and/or or tried and tested ones will be very warmly received. When responding, please provide a short description of the exercise(s) you have in mind.  tell us what props are needed and how long the exercise will take, which audiences it will work for best and whether the exercise has been tried and tested.

We look forward to hearing from you and thank you in advance for your support.