Public Expert Archetype #2: The Explainer
The most consistently valuable public expert is also the most overlooked.
Why does Ozempic work so very well (for the people for whom it works)?
Because, as the primary care physician Lucy McBride explains, the drug doesn't just curtail your hunger and promote satiety faster—it helps you reallocate brain space you were previously devoting to rumination about food and eating, allowing you to gain a stronger sense of agency over your relationship with food.
Why is the world more resilient to disasters than it was 50 years ago, despite the accelerating impacts of climate change?
The data scientist Hannah Ritchie explains it's because we've reduced vulnerability to disaster across a number of dimensions—investments, she adds, we must redouble if we hope to keep pace with climate change in the future.
Where is the largest group of people in need of humanitarian relief right now?
Not in Gaza, explains economist Adam Tooze, but instead in a huge swath of Africa from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Yemen, where 136 million people are being wracked by war, drought, hunger and displacement—while the wealthy countries of the world pay almost no attention and contribute even less aid.
How many of those answers did you know?
One or none, if you’re like me. That’s because they’re un- or underreported, counterintuitive or just plain unthinkable under the regular operating procedures of life.
That’s why you had to have them explained to you.
And once you have them explained properly—compellingly, that is, by an expert you find trustworthy—you tend not to forget them.
They often change the way you think about the world and how quickly you might agree with widely held opinions.
You’re likely to use them in conversation.
They might even change your behavior.
This is what the Explainer does, better than anyone.
Which is why these research-based public experts are so valuable to their institutions or organizations. Not to mention to the rest of us.
Wait. Don’t all public experts have to explain stuff they understand to the rest of us?
Of course. Explaining is a bedrock skill of the successful public expert. Each of the four Public Expert Archetypes—the Translator, the Explainer, the Advisor and the Advocate—have to be able to explain to non-specialists what they’re talking about and why it’s relevant to that audience.
But of the four Public Expert Archetypes, it’s the Explainers (like McBride, Ritchie and Tooze) who elevate explaining to a specialty—and who in doing so consistently and satisfyingly answer unanswered questions, solve previously unsolved challenges, explain the mysterious, and frame the familiar in novel ways so we can see it anew.
Unfortunately, most researchers still don’t understand that they can be wonderfully successful as public experts by being really good Explainers. Research communication (what I call Translation) gets all the buzz in the research world, with its impact way overrated by researchers, research communicators and journalists. (No surprise). Researchers also have been told by their communications people (and sometimes their supervisors) that they have to be Advocates, because advocacy pieces are how researchers traditionally get published as an outsider by legacy media outlets (The New York Times, The Atlantic etc.) that everybody reads (except they don’t).
But relatively few public experts (much less researchers) are natural Advocates, and many are unsatisfied with the constraints of simply communicating research. They often feel far more comfortable creating value as Explainers—in part because the Explainer is closest to what many researchers do at least some of their professional lives: teaching.
Explainers are teachers on steroids
McBride, Ritchie, Tooze, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Phil Plait—despite their differences across disciplines, topics, subject matter, tone and preferred platforms, all of these Explainers use their expertise and the sum of research and evidence to teach the rest of us what's really going with things that matter to us or fascinate us.
Like great teachers, great Explainers engage you as they educate you:
They know what to leave in and what to leave out.
They’re usually good to superb at accessible writing and storytelling—unusual skills in researchers.
Their presentations mix compelling storylines, striking imagery, accessible analysis, quick pacing and enough but not an overwhelming amount of key science.
They avoid the jargon and soup of detail that trip up other researchers that stumble with the public.
They are surehanded guides. Their narratives inexorably lead us to see what they see.
Explainers aren’t just research communicators. Far from it.
Explainers are near to Translators (my catch-all category for those researchers who just communicate their research) in the Archetypes list. And that’s where the similarity ends:
While Translators start and end with the research, translating what it says into terms we can understand, Explainers start with a problem first and dive into the research and data and use their own expertise to explain or solve it in a new way.
This problem-first, solutions-first approach almost always yields a tighter fit between expertise and topic than the usual science communication tactic of trying to retrofit new research findings to issues non-researchers are interested in. (Believe me—I did that retrofitting for 25 years; it’s painful.)
The Explainer (like The Advisor and The Advocate) is rooted in what I call The Essential Public Expert Formula—providing expertise specifically designed to help the needs of non-specialists. Translators don’t share that formula. Their role —the classic science/research communicator role—too often fails (in its tight focus on communicating the research) to speak to specific audiences, specific challenges or questions, and in ways that are easily useful to nonspecialists.
This is why its Explainers—not Translators, no matter how skilled they are at research communications—who are consistently developing new memes break new ground in generating public knowledge and delivering outsize value to their audiences. A Translator would never come up with big, synthetic ideas like Adam Grant's “originals” or Angela Duckworth's “grit.” A Translator would never be able to hold our attention as they explain, week after week, what's going on with that volcano in Iceland or the Fed and interest rates. Translators lack Explainers' content metabolism, narrative skills, points of view and populist streak—just to name a few qualities that make great Explainers great public experts.
Traits of The Explainer
Let's dive a little more into the Explainer. First thing to note: There are actually two kinds of Explainers:
The Disciplinary Explainer A disciplinary expert who applies that expertise to explain a discrete set of phenomena.
Examples: Brad DeLong, Claudia Sahm, Noah Smith and Tooze (economists explaining economic phenomena); Phil Plait (explaining astronomical developments); Shawn Willsey (geologist explaining seismic and volcano activity worldwide).
The Big Idea Explainer An expert with an "big idea" or framing that purports to be the explanation for seemingly disparate or mysterious phenomena. A "hedgehog" to the disciplinary explainer's "fox."
Examples: Grant; Duckworth; Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein on "nudges"; Leidy Klotz on the virtues of subtracting.
Typical Behaviors/Platforms/Content
Behaviors
All the traits of having a high-content metabolism (see "Superpowers of the Explainer" below).
Explainers are very responsive to requests for their insights—from media and podcasts for interviews, from editors for analyses and opinion pieces, from conferences and roundtables and panels to participate.
They run toward opportunities to engage.
Their bias is to post, publish, contribute—not to hold back.
Explainers are generally extroverted, or play extroverts—highly unusual for researchers.
As a side activity, Explainers often share and curate new research and data-driven content. Some examples I follow: Adam Tooze's Chartbook Top Links; Brad DeLong's Briefly Noted at his Grasping Reality Substack; Tyler Cowen's daily assorted links at his blog Marginal Revolution.
Platforms & Content
YouTube channels explaining recent events (e.g., Willsey on Iceland).
Frequently updated blogs/social media channels on economics, policy and other fast-moving phenomena (e.g., Cowen, Sahm, Roger Pielke, Jr, Tooze, Smith).
Books and talks (for Big Idea Explainers).
Superpowers of the Explainer
They have a fast content metabolism.
Explainers are fast writers/content generators.
They’re quick to see and seize opportunities in the news cycle where explanation could be valuable.
They’re quick to synthesize what's happening in current news cycles with patterns and analyses from the past.
They’re teachers on steroids—they’re very skilled and compelling explainers.
They keep their explanations moving—they don't get bogged down in detail or jargon.
They have a presentation structure and style—which could be direct or discursive, it doesn’t matter—that weaves a strong narrative through striking visuals, accessible analysis and just enough key science and storytelling.
They have a populist streak that serves them and their audiences well.
They understand what people are curious about (and will be, once they know about it), and they gravitate to explaining it.
Conversely, while they might delight in bringing something obscure to an audience that’s relevant to the explanation, they're allergic to pedantry.
Values: "As an Explainer, I want my public expertise to..."
Make discourse and decision-making more rational and evidence-based.
Improved policy, outcomes, practices, societies and lives.
Demystify expertise and make research and researchers more relevant.
The knowledge I give people makes them better informed and better decision-makers.
The knowledge I give people sometimes or even often satisfies their curiosity about questions they have.
It can even make them happier.
Achilles Heels
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To The Explainer, everything in their balliwick looks like something to be explained. When people want recommendations for action, mere explanation sometimes falls short. This is why many Explainers become undercover Advisors (more on that later).
Best Situations for the Explainer
Platforms on which they can build audiences for a focused set of ongoing explanations on related or ongoing phenomena (Willsey on Icelandic seismic activity)
Where/When Being an Explainer Usually Doesn't Work
When the community you're addressing needs advice or the issue you're addressing needs a solution, not just explanation.
One Way to Practice Being an Explainer
Make a short list of events or ongoing challenges in the world that your wheelhouse of expertise encompasses. (Hint: That’s bigger than just what you’ve done research about. It’s what you know.)
Ask of each item on the list: What don’t people understand about this that you wish they did—that would be fascinating to them, make them think differently, maybe even make their lives better?
Take one and write 500 words on it for a non-specialist audience.
Now cut that in half. That’s the first draft of a two-minute video script, or your first draft of a Substack post. Try it out on a few people. Revise and repeat until you’re happy with it. Then do something with it.
Next: The Advisor.
Bob- Thanks for sharing this. I'm not familiar with this so your writing is a great find and learning moment. Hope you're well this week. Cheers, -Thalia