Antara Olimpiade Sains dan Harry Potter

Sebelum membaca, ucapkan mantra: Lumos*.

Ada yang menarik perhatian ketika Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) memberikan pidato sambutan pembukaan Internasional Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) II di hadapan 329 peserta di gedung Senisono Kompleks Istana Negara Gedung Agung Yogyakarta, 5 Desember 2005 lalu. Dalam pidato pembukaan tersebut, Presiden SBY menyebutkan, “IJSO kali ini mengingatkan saya pada film Harry Potter yang penuh dengan kompetisi. Hanya sayangnya, film itu adalah fantasi, sementara dalam ajang IJSO kali ini adalah riil. Tapi untuk kompetisinya, tirulah Harry Potter.”

Menurut Presiden SBY, Harry Potter adalah sosok anak muda yang jenius dan berani. Oleh karena itu, Presiden SBY meminta kepada peserta IJSO II yang semuanya masih tergolong anak muda agar meniru sosok tersebut. Alasannya, sosok anak muda dalam novel dan film Harry Potter layak untuk dicontoh. Yang perlu dicontoh tentunya bukan keahliannya dalam menyihir, tetapi dalam kompetisi yang sehat dan pengembangan imajinasi yang luar biasa.

Mendengar apa yang dikatakan Presiden SBY, memang masuk akal jika sains sesungguhnya juga merupakan hal yang menghibur. Sains itu menyenangkan. Sama seperti menikmati novel ataupun film yang menampilkan tokoh imajinatif karya J.K. Rowling tersebut. Sains adalah kegiatan mencetuskan ide, mengeksplorasi, mengobservasi, dan memahami apa yang telah kita temukan dalam eksplorasi dan observasi tersebut.

Memahami sains (termasuk didalamnya matematika, fisika, kimia, dan biologi) memang bukan perkara yang mudah. Perlu kesabaran, ketekunan, dan kerja keras dalam mempelajarinya. Belum lagi materi yang tergolong dalam sains biasanya menjadi momok yang mengerikan bagi mayoritas anak muda. Rendra Prasetyo, peraih medali perak dalam International Chemisty Olympiad 2005 mengatakan rumus ia dalam mempelajari kimia, “dipelajarin aja. Diulang-ulang....nanti kan jadi bisa.” [lihat rubrik sosokdalam Sagasitas Scientific Journal Edisi 3 Tahun 2005]. Buktinya, Rendra mampu membuktikan dirinya mamapu berprestasi di tingkat dunia.

Namun bukan berarti pula bahwa memahami sains hanya bisa dilakukan di laboratorium dan hanya ditujukan untuk perlombaan semata. Esensi sains itu sendiri adalah memahami segala sesuatu yang terjadi di kehidupan sehari-hari. Bukankah tinta tulisan bisa menempel pada kertas ini juga sebuah bentuk sains? Atau pernah disadari bahwa film Harry Potter yang diputar dengan pita seluloid memanfaatkan rumus fisika dalam perputarannya? Maka sains sesungguhnya tidak dipisahkan dengan kehidupan kita. Dan sains sendiri bias menjadi sumber hiburan kita. Barangkali ketakutan kita akan sains lebih dikarenakan sains selama ini terkesan berorientasi laboratorium. Padahal tidak selalu. Sebagai contoh, di Inggris, pemutaran film Harry Potter bahkan dilakukan di The Science Museum of London. Ini menunjukan bahwa sains juga dapat bersatu padu dengan hiburan.

Sains memang bukan ilmu sihir yang sekali ucap mantra bisa diingat selamanya. Sains adalah sebuah rangkaian proses belajar yang harus dilakukan dengan ketekunan, kesabaran, kerja keras, dan tidak boleh dilupakan: menghibur dan menyenangkan. Jika kita tekun, tidak mustahil jika kita dapat berprestasi dibidang sains. Hasil yang diperoleh tentu akan membanggakan. Jadi, siap untuk ikut olimpiade sains? Tapi hati-hati jangan sampai, setelah belajar, mengucapkan mantra: Obliviate**.

Oleh Aries Setiadi

* Mantra untuk menyalakan lampu dalam cerita Harry Potter.
** Mantra untuk menghapus ingatan dalam cerita Harry Potter.

Tulisan ini dimuat dalam Sagasitas Scientific Journal.

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility: To comunicate or to advertise?

Corporations are realizing that although they were accountable only to shareholders or owners in the past, they are becoming increasingly accountable to a broader range of stakeholders now.

A paradigm shift is on the move, from accountability to shareholders to accountability to stakeholders. In the past, corporations have considered their social responsibility to be adequate if they made a profit, provided jobs, and perhaps had a donations policy. But, Leonard J. Brooks on his book entitled Business & Professional Ethics noted, the world has changed, and now stakeholders expect more. Labor, society, and environment have become an integral part of a corporation. It means corporation also have to put responsibility on them and all the things sum up into a concept known Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

For several years, specific companies and industries have disclosed their performance on dimensions that they know their stakeholders are interested in. For example, there are many corporate repots on environmental performance, and on health and safety performance. Many corporations are including these reports on their websites as well as issuing hard copies, or further advertise them. Brooks noted that the most noteworthy comprehensive CSR reports that have been made public are those from The Body Shop, The Co-operative Bank (United Kingdom), and VanCity Credit Union. And the debates begin.

Advertising CSR is viewed from two different sides. First, the one sees advertising is a way to report what a corporation has done to the public—as a part of responsibility and accountability to a public. It is also a part of marketing tools. The society (read: customer and/or consumer) are being aware and concern on CSR. They will prefer to use or consume products that are produced by socially responsible corporations. The other side sees that advertising CSR has been twisted. They agreed that CSR have to be reported to the public, but debated on how the corporation reports it. Budi Wahyuni, a Non Government Organization activist, in a Corporate Social Responsibility seminar*, said most corporations advertise its CSR programs only those support marketing campaign of the product. She noted a corporate produces hand and body wash soap that advertises the corporate support to build sanitary facility in a rural school. The value of the support is much less than the cost of the company to advertise it on mass media. She questioned whether that was a CSR program or a pure advertisement.

The argument above is logical. It also should be questioned why the corporation only put CSR program into several products those are produced by them, and criticized that, on the contrary, another several products use a tend-into-discrimination campaign (directly demonstrate that a white lady more beautiful than the others, shown by a man chose the whitest lady among three). The Sustainability Reporting Guidelines [Delhi] G3 version, Global Reporting Initiative** on January 2006 noted that Marketing Communication is also has to be socially responsible. The guidelines include that aspect into a chapter noted as Product Responsibility (PR).

It is true that CSR is more than giving a donation. Corporate Social Responsibility is running in every single part of the corporation, from the production, labor practices, society, environment, to public communication.


-Aries Setiadi-


*Seminar on Corporate Social Responsibility was held in March 25, 2006 at Auditorium Magister Managemen, Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta organized by Ikatan Keluarga Mahasiswa Manajemen (IKAMMA), Faculty of Economics, Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta.

** Global Reporting Initiative can be viewed at http://www.grig3.org.