BD How would you say that you can measure your success in terms of whatever
your aims are?
HW Right, obviously my aims are to interest more people in science
as a way of enriching their lives. So, you could look to the, the number of
people who went into a career which was scientific but that would only scratch
the surface of it. You know, the number of people who thought about things
or could understand things in a different way because they had, not embraced
a scientific way of thinking but just had a familiarity with scientific -
but how would you measure that? I don't know. Plenty of anecdotal evidence,
you know, every time you go to one of these young engineer things you get
the "Ooh I used to go down Techniquest it was great" and all of that, you
know. But that's only anecdotal. At the end of the day it's, it's a bit like
the attractiveness function, education, you know, the education is the bit
you want to get out of it. But in terms of the exhibition it's probably attendance.
If people keep coming here they must be coming here for some - they must be
enjoying it. So, those numbers which are so important to my finance director
colleagues, actually reflect how successful we've been at the job in terms
of the mission as well. Whether you're educating them or just taking the money
off them, you need bums on seats so, that's the bottom line I suppose.
((recording ends))
