Endless Possibilities v3.0

I thought I’d follow up my two conference posts by talking briefly about a couple of conferences that I think get it right in terms of participation and keeping that ‘conference vibe’ going after the event itself.

These two conferences generally follow the ‘unconference format’ where some or all of the sessions are proposed at the conference or in advance.  At first I thought this was strange, thinking about the length of time I’d need to sort myself out for any conference session, then I realized that the spontaneity was the key point – with less time to prepare a stuffy powerpoint presentation, session leaders had to get audience participation.  (trust me, I’m working on an ‘un-lecture format for my lectures but that is another post).   A proper unconference is a risky undertaking because you don’t know what you are getting before you go.  I can’t see many people parting with the registration fee to go to a conference of unknown content. This is where I think Science Online 2010 got it so right.  They did it all – they had a keynote speaker, and they used the best tools the web has to offer to build up a conference program in advance.  Through wikis, blogs, twitter, facebook, email, and general arm twisting, a diverse and vibrant science communication program was created.  I’ll own up to having attended Science Online 2009 which was organized in a similar manner and found it fantastic.  This year I couldn’t go for a variety of reasons, but would love to go next year again.

It is about more than just letting the participants figure out the program for themselves.  I appreciate that when a bunch of exceptional communicators get together, pretty spectacular things are going to happen, but that isn’t possible for other subjects.  I can just imagine the difficulties involved with trying to get the old guard of chemistry academics into wikis enough to organise themselves into a conferenced.  It just isn’t going to happen.  The beautiful thing about Science Online 2010 is that the majority of the sessions were recorded, video and audio.  So anyone who was there and missed a parallel session, or anyone who wasn’t there can catch up and join in the conversation.  Issues about unpublished work aside, why aren’t we doing this more at conferences?  The technology exists, but not the initiative to actually do it.  It wouldn’t be unreasonable to charge a small fee for access to such materials either if thats the concern.

I’ve also been to two ScienceOnline London conferences in 2008 and2009.  The first was better because it was more unconferency, the second more diverse in content so there was less that specifically interested me.  One commonality between all of these conferences is the participants.  I read many of their blogs, and have corresponded through comments, facebook, twitter, email for years.  They are a most enthusiastic bunch, generally inclusive and happy to chatter.  I’ve followed some academics work for years, but at no point has there been an opportunity to interact directly with them in the same way, whether electronically or on the conference circuit.  Why on earth not?  I know part of the answer is to do with being too busy, but if I can make time to exchange a couple of tweets about some polymer chemistry lectures with the diverse bunch that follow me on twitter, I think I can make time to talk chemistry to someone in a different time zone.  The lack of prior interactions inhibit communication at conferences, just as much as the restrictive format does.  Where would be the harm to devote a couple of sessions in a conference to discussion like the Dalton or Faraday discussions of the RSC?  Where would be the harm in having a couple of sessions where participants discuss the recent developments in a field and consider more broadly the challenges that face the field?

So, I’d like more conferences to consider online elements to the programs, be it online chat sessions with a common topic, streaming/podcasts of talks, engaging more with web2.0, engaging more with the changing audience that participates, and finding ways to break free of the ‘traditional’ format.  More conference organizers should look at the precedent being set by Science Online 2010 – they could learn a lot from the model.

Update: if you want some idea of what it looks like when a lot of people engage with a conference before, during and after the fact, have a look at this list at A Blog Around The Clock – coverage of Science Online 2010.

Rob commented on the previous post:

“Provided you have a paper accepted, and the conference doesn’t clash with other commitments (e.g. teaching), what are the other barriers to participation apart from the registration fee and travel costs? These are the only obstacles that prevent me from attending far more conferences than I do! I’ll enlarge on this in a blog I’m working on.”

I look forward to reading his thoughts when he’s written his blog, but my response to this seemed too long to be a comment so I thought I’d make it a post.

I can’t grant the provision that a paper has been accepted for my response.  If I have got to the point of submitting something for a conference, I have to have overcome the majority of the barriers to participation before submitting the abstract.  Essentially, I have decided that I will go to the conference if my submission is accepted.

Travel costs are a significant consideration but others include ease of travel, suitability of location for a single female traveller and travel time versus conference duration.   Where is the accommodation going to be? How do I get from the conference venue to the accommodation? When will the latest session finish? Can I get back to my hotel safely after a social event that finishes at midnight?  Lets not even talk about the conference where I ended up wandering around a city in southern France on my own at 3 am (sheer dumb luck Mr Potter), or the conference in a major German city where all the restaurants around the hotel and conference venue closed before the final session of each day finished, or the conference in a major Canadian city based on a university campus where the first session of the day started so early that it was impossible to get the breakfast part of the bed-and-breakfast accommodation provided.

When considering the registration fee I will attempt to make some estimate of ‘value for money’ and look at the duration of the conference, included extras such as catering, social activities, outline program (because this is pre-abstract submission) and make some estimate of worth.   I have been to conferences with rather extensive social programs that were included in the registration fee, increasing it beyond a reasonable level (in my opinion) and with no option to opt-out of those activities.  Other than social networking opportunities, those events offered little in terms of scientific relevance to the meeting.  Some may well argue that this is the point of such activities; I would argue that they are a luxury that many of us cannot afford.

I will also think about how I perceive the field – is the conference going to be too ‘old boys network-y’ for my taste?  Is it going to present significant challenges for networking because of the closed ranks nature of the field?  Never underestimate the power of introduction by someone with reputation in the field.  I am more likely to consider a conference if people I know will be going as it will be more worthwhile.

When considering the timing of the conference, I will make an estimate of level of hassle.  Obviously the conference should not clash with teaching commitments but I have other considerations.   Weekend conferences are often a route around work/teaching clashes and 2009 I attended 7 weekend conferences or courses.  That’s 14 weeks where I worked without a day off (in reality I worked more than 14 weeks in 2009 without a day off due to open/visit days and other work related crises).  That’s quite a big quantity of neglect to my family and non-work commitments.  I do myself no favours at certain times of the academic year by not taking time off.  Conferences are tiring and stressful as mentioned in the previous post and therefore lead to a likely loss in productivity in the days after them.  Also, the act of preparing what ever submission I have chosen to make will take time – is the conference at a time of year when I can spend a couple of days preparing slides, or designing a poster?

Removing my personal situation from the equation for a moment – what about people with greater family commitments?  Participation at conferences is governed by child care arrangements for a great many academics.  Some fields seem to do better than others with regard to child care on site, but others refuse to acknowledge that academics may have children.  This barrier could be removed by offering bursaries to cover the additional child care costs that might be associated with being out of the family home for a few days.  And it isn’t just children – many academics are carers for dependents of one sort or another.

Ultimately a judgement has to be made prior to submitting an abstract on whether a conference represents value for time and money.  Barriers to conference participation are personal, and there will never be a ‘one size fits all’ answer to the issue, but we have to start somewhere and I think internet technologies are a good place to begin.

And I’ve not even started on the barriers to being able to submit an abstract…

I’m happy to own up to something: I don’t like going to conferences.  Out of the handful of conferences I have been to since starting my PhD I have found them frustrating, dull, stressful, too busy, too long, too short, too overloading, too expensive, too broad, too specific…really it was easier to please Goldilocks with porridge than me with a conference.  I can, however, rank my general distain for conferences in priority order.

Firstly I dislike conferences that are too broad, and those that are too specific.  This is partly due to the nature of my research – I fit in between a couple of large areas with related interests in several others.  It is extremely difficult to cultivate a reputation/network/whatever you want to call it in multiple areas at the same time, and it is probably a bit daft to try. Large conferences offer me the opportunity to hit on many areas of interest, small conferences offer me the opportunity to hit on one aspect in particular, neither represent value for money in terms of hits per registration fee.

That brings me on to the cost issue.  Conferences are expensive, in terms of fees, accommodation and travel costs, and in terms of time.  Is it really necessary in an online world to require people to travel half way around the globe to listen to professors pontificate about work already published because they are too worried about being scooped to talk about the work in progress?  Would it not be cheaper to have an online element where participants could listen to the talks and view the powerpoints from the comfort of their own office?  Would it not also encourage greater participation?  Simple fact: as a new academic I do not have the funding available to go to conferences.  Even if I did have some spare money in the budget, it would not be going anywhere near conferences whose registration fees are over £100, and which require expensive travel/accommodation arrangements.

Of course, someone will try to argue that watching presentations online defeats the purpose of a conference – to network.  Well, can we all be honest for a moment?  Are the networking opportunities presented at conferences actually useful or are they more use for a boozy night out courtesy of the boss?  Poster sessions – too big, too crowded, coffee breaks – down time needed, not chit chat and prof impressing, lunchtime – eating.  I do more networking via Twitter from my office than I ever have at a conference.

I don’t like conferences because they are difficult to get into if you are an outsider to the field, expensive and offer limited opportunities to network in an online world, and I think I’m going to give myself a break from feeling guilty about it.

July: was mostly quiet, my parents visited and, oh yeah, we bought a house and moved! July was therefor the true start of the BBQ summer as we had no cooker for 4 weeks.

I blogged about the Best American Science Writing 2008, and undergraduate laboratory adventures.

August: was a little more busy as I had a Nuffield project student start working on a synthetic project making new dendrimers. I was also trying frantically to complete my Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Portfolio for September 1st submission. I managed to fit in a quick trip to London to Science Online London 2009, and also saw the Carbon Rapture exhibition at Burlington House.  I blogged about this and little else in August!

September: was busy again. I submitted my TLHEP portfolio, my project student wrapped up his work with some good successes (sometimes figuring out which avenues are not worth pursuing is as good as any positive result), and the teaching prep started seriously.  I managed a pitiful single blog post in September which included one of the coolest bits of chemistry of 2009 – the AFM of pentacene.

October: was a blur of teaching, meetings, teaching and more teaching. Seriously, not much was done in October other than work. I had approx. 25 contact hours per week, and that included Monday and Tuesday 9 – 5pm with no break unless negotiated with colleagues.  There was no blogging in October!  I did make it to the third Nesta Crucible Laboratory however, in Devon, which was a nice break.

November: started much as October ended – drowning in work, but by week 7 of the semester things eased up and I got to have my life back.  I attended the Crucible Alumni event in London, submitted a couple of funding applications (one alone, the rest with collaborators) and blogged about science gadgets, the need to be polite on blogs so as not to alienate people, and social network overwhelm.

December: and the run up to Christmas is always a strange period.  I survived the work Christmas party, and blogged about lab skills and the first half of this year in review navel gazing.   I also discovered two half decent shows on TV – Paradox (BBC) and Defying Gravity (BBC).

2009 was pretty busy, not necessarily bloggy busy, but real life busy.  We’ll see what next year is like!

As all the cool bloggers are doing it, I thought I’d post a summary of 2009.  I’ve included what I blogged about in each month as I didn’t do that much blogging!

January: Last Christmas I was looking forward, somewhat nervously, of heading off to Science Online 2009 in North Carolina.  Travelling in January, particularly to the US, is not something to be happily anticipated but the conference was very good and it was fantastic meeting so many of the bloggers that I’ve read for the last few years.  Sadly I’m not off to Science Online 2010 but I’m sure it will be great. I blogged about Haggis, introducing faculty to science blogging, and talking about science, based on a book picked up in North Carolina that mentioned the UK parliament.

February: February was filled with work related things such as seminars and teaching.  I did manage to give an internal seminar at the university on science blogging called “Can Science Blogging Enhance Your Research Life“.  I blogged about socks, literature searching, my inability to remember passwords, and the aforementioned talk.

March: March was also filled with work related things, including a day at the Potteries Museum in Hanley with a Jack the Ripper, Forensic Science theme.  I spent an interesting day dressed vaguely like a Victorian woman, telling people all about fibre analysis (and being mistaken for a very life like wax work at one point). I blogged about the colour of Nature Chemistry, EPSRC peer review, treating organic animals with homeopathy, and GCSE science exam papers.

April: involved a trip to London – my first trip on the London Eye and a visit to Kew gardens to see the magnolias.

I was also lucky enough to be selected for the Nesta Crucible program so attended lab 1 near London a few weeks later.  I blogged a blog roll in three parts 1, 2 and 3, the duty of scientists to engage with the public, my Chemistry in its element podcast, asparagus, and called for posts for the May Scientiae carnival.

May: brought the end of the Easter vacation and a return to teaching.  I did fit in a quick conference trip though, up to Dunfermline to the Emerging Analytical Professional’s conference, giving a talk about managing your online identity, science blogging and the like.  I hosted the May Scientiae blog carnival in two parts 1 and 2, and blogged about confusing chemistry words, train rides, fireworks, and chemistry demonstrations.

June: was the end of term, Nesta Crucible Lab 2 in Lancaster, a short break to the Lake District and a work related trip to the Catalyst Science Discovery Centre which is a chemistry themed museum in Widnes. I also stopped blogging over at Nature Network with one last post, and took up blogging here on my own site.  Over here I blogged about Science Scouts badges, and keeping the libel laws out of science

Going into the chemistry lab for the first lab class of first year, or the first session as a third year research project is pretty scary.  Firstly there are rules, and the rules are not negotiations. Secondly we, via the rules, make you dress funny – what’s not to laugh at in a white coat, safety glasses or goggles, optional gloves and decent footwear.  Thirdly, you have to use common sense – glassware looks the same when hot or cold; water, acid and organic solvents all look like clear liquids but you wouldn’t want some of them on your hands; and half the glassware is a funny shape so it doesn’t sit nicely on the bench like the crockery at home does.  The lab, until you get used to it, is an environment that makes you uncomfortable.  It should – most of the stuff in the lab, staff included, does not respond well to disrespect.

One of the biggest issues I have is with the perception of risk.  I’ve done silly things in the lab that have resulted  in flashes, bangs, spills, floods and odd smells – what chemist hasn’t? But largely because of  a few simple acts of common sense, they have been minor incidents not disasters.  I spilled sulfuric acid all over the fumehood and it dripped on my feet. Fortunately I was wearing long jeans and leather boots – so the bottom of my jeans looked like someone had cut holes in them – I wasn’t burned. I’ve dropped a glass jar full of sodium in oil.  Fortunately the lab was well equipped to deal with that and many other types of spill.  Reaction vessels have over pressurized, things have gone pop but no damage has been done because the risks were anticipated by me or my supervisor and minimized.

So what can you do to minimise the risks in the chemistry lab when it is new and scary.  First thing is learn the rules.  Safety glasses are there for a reason, lab coats are not just there for personal adornment (although they do look good), and gloves are there to protect you from the chemicals.  Second thing is to follow the rules – sounds easy, doesn’t it?  It isn’t.  Rules regarding standard of dress are mainly concerned with making sure your body is covered well enough in case of spill or splash.  Will your shoes keep the sulfuric acid out long enough for you to get them off?  Are your trousers (never ever tights or leggings) thick enough to absorb the acetone or dichloromethane or hydrofluoric acid and stop it getting to your skin? Is your hair tied back, not obstructing your vision or not requiring you to flick it out the way? Remember that your hands transfer the nasty chemicals to your nice hair with every careless touch!   Third thing is to have some humility and know your limitations.  Never done procedure X or technique Y before?  Then ask someone who has.  There are always people who will help, but in return they ask  that you pay attention, listen to the full explanation and do your best to recall the important information the next time.

Being in the lab takes time to get used to – but you have to put the time in!

Anne over at Highly Allochthonous has inspired me to try writing a literature post following her pick of November’s papers in her field post.  While she likes emailed table of contents from new journal issues, I can’t stand the things – too many emails already.  I’ve tried RSS feeds for journals and I don’t like them either – particularly if reliant on keywords/selecting specific journals.  Maybe I’m old fashioned but I like spending time every so often foraging through recent issues and online articles (ahead of publication).  Things catch my eye that I wouldn’t see on a keyword search – and I think that’s quite important when your research falls between two clearly defined areas – you don’t always know all the latest terminology to effectively search for relevant literature.  I rooted out the following papers today from the Journal of the American Chemical Society As Soon As Publishable Articles (ASAP):

“Near-Infrared Luminescent Lanthanide MOF Barcodes” White et al. DOI: 10.1021/ja907885m

MOFs are metal-organic frameworks and are solids where organic groups with suitable ligands (amine, carboxylic acid) and rigidity are linked together by metal ions forming honeycomb like structures.  By controlling the chemistry of the ligand and the choice of the metal, different properties can be imparted into the structure.  Here the authors have prepared a series of MOFs using different lanthanide metal centres to link the groups together.  Lanthanide cations are well known for giving specific emission spectra, and by using a predetermined mixture of cations frameworks that will give unique spectral fingerprints (or barcodes) can be synthesized.

“Duck-Billed Platypus Venom Peptides Induce Ca2+ Influx in Neuroblastoma Cells” Kita et al. DOI: 10.1021/ja908148z

Well it was the title – who could scroll past a paper about Duck-Billed Platypus Venom and Neuroblastoma Cells?  This paper describes the purification and characterization of several novel peptides found in the venom.

I will expand my literature search to other journals…

I’m getting  a little social networked out.  I mean, its hard work keeping your twitter tweeting, facebook updated, and Google waves waving (seriously in danger of a standing wave there…).  With additional stuff like MyRSC (the Royal Society of Chemistry’s social networking site),  Nature Network, keeping up with blogs and glancing at FriendFeed, I’ve just had enough.  Too many passwords, user names and site specific quirks. (and I didn’t even mention linked in or ning). [Google the sites if you need links]

I like compartmentalizing so only a handful of contacts/friends/followers/whatevers are contacts on more than one site.  That’s fine with me – that way I can control what information I look at and avoid the ‘my cat just died’ facebook statuses when I really want some random science related links in tweets.  All the sites have strengths and weaknesses, and I would find it very hard to pick just one site if told that I had to consolidate my network.

I like Google Wave so far and have a small number of contacts on it.  As a formatted text editor, it isn’t great but for plain text drafting of ideas with collaborators it is pretty good.  I don’t think it will replace email in a hurry (if it is even intended to) mainly because of the instant nature of it.  In a conversation earlier this evening words were appearing as typed in the document, in real time.  A strength? Perhaps but also a weakness.  Reply-all causes enough trouble with ‘real’ email – the last thing we need is people seeing the half formed thoughts,  hastily typed, before the pre-send edit process.

I decided to give Twitter a 30 day trial a few months ago, and now 900 tweets later I’m still going strong.  I like Twitter for short snappy messages and while I find answering the ‘what are you doing’ question somewhat tedious,  many of the people I follow have great content-rich tweets.  Twitter is reputedly great for conferences.  I would have to disagree.  While hash tags are a good way to collect relevant content together, it is impossible to see who said what in reply to what in large streams. Simply, threaded comments are a must when discussing conferences – particularly those with parallel sessions and/or many users.  Friendfeed has the advantage here, but lacks the snappiness of Twitter, and the real time feed.

Facebook is ’so last year’, but I tend to use this more as a friend thing, rather than a networking tool for work or collaborative tool.  I think that’s fair – that’s what it was designed for. No, I don’t have  a problem with students as friends on Facebook provided that they are using their own name and don’t use it too often as an alternative means of communication (my university prefers official email accounts and I agree with that).

As for the other sites, well, I use them when I remember the password or can be bothered with the 10 minute battle to recover my password.  I could cherry pick some features – like the timeline feature and hash tags of Twitter with threaded conversations like Friendfeed (perhaps with the ability to expand/collapse threads) and the ability to share larger documents like Google Wave.  Farmyard games, stupid quiz notifications and under used social network sites I can live without.

The old saying ‘politeness costs nothing’ doesn’t have much status anymore.  Especially not in the untamed wilderness that is the internet. You’ll also hear a lot of chat about how the ‘call to civility’ stifles debate and discussion of the really contentious issues.  I don’t buy that for a second.  I will agree that establishing rules of civility has been an effective tool of oppression, ensuring that uncomfortable truths can be easily ignored because they weren’t phrased right, but that is not and has never been an acceptable excuse for the dreadful conduct that is often witnessed on various internet forums and blogs.

I suppose it all depends what your goals are.  I blog because I like writing and I like chemistry.  I also like to keep a record of stuff I read, or see that this interesting.  I don’t blog to be particularly controversial or incendiary like some do.  I think that type of behaviour alienates a lot of reasonable readers.  I also think that those who speak so strongly about the right to be rude if required are the ones who frequently hold the most privileged position of all in the debate: that of blog owner or forum moderator.  And you can bet that they are reserving the ‘right’ to censor anyone who is too impolite or disagreeable.

Rudeness during debates is often a knee-jerk response, the instinctive and ill-considered comment that indicates limited engagement with the dissenting opinions (that the majority probably hold).  Engage with a difficult topic?  Engage with a different view point?  Far easier just to issue a vague attempt at a witty yet offensive rebuke and go back to tending one’s own disillusions.    No need to even consider that the other opinion may have some validity or merit.  Rudeness or incivility is as much a form of oppression and demonstration of privileged as having a  requirement for people to be polite.  I think people would do well to remember that.

Of course I write this from a British perspective, a point of view that sits quite uneasily in any discussion of rights, oppression and privileged.  But therein lies another point: on the internet no one knows your cultural background.  Wouldn’t it be simpler to acknowledge that the differences in opinion, so often expressed, may be a function of that difference rather than cultivated prejudice or real ignorance?  Benefit of the doubt,  another great expression that is underused on the internet.