As the ChemConnector and one of the people responsible for creating ChemSpider I have become well known in the chemical information world. I get to connect with some of the brightest minds in the domain, have participated in meetings with Microsoft, Google, various government institutions and with some of the top chemical and pharmaceutical companies. While my path to this point feels at some times like a random walk, and certainly I never set a trajectory to become a chemical information specialist as I am a spectroscopist by training, I look back upon my career with a lot of satisfaction. We are now at a time when information is becoming so important to support and guide the discovery process. At the same time the opportunity to communicate your science to the masses is upon us. I will discuss how I became the ChemConnector, my Twitter handle, and why I believe entering the field of cheminformatics at this time holds incredible potential for influence.

1. Who knew I would get here
from there: How I became the
ChemConnector
Antony Williams
ACS San Francisco
August 2014

2. Who am I today?
• I am VP Strategic Development, ChemSpider for the
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) - publisher
• A founder of ChemSpider, RSC cheminformatics
team manager, collaborations, business
development, social marketing - cheminformatician
• Oversee team developing solutions - manager
• Scientific publications - scientist
• Blogger, writer of books – author
• I am @ChemConnector – social networker

3. My background…
• Worked in
• Government lab as postdoc
• Academia as NMR Facility Manager
• Fortune 500 Company as NMR Tech Leader
• Start-up as product manager, marketing
manager, Chief Science Officer
• Consultant – chemistry informatics industry
• Company owner – Created ChemSpider
• Now at Royal Society of Chemistry (bought
ChemSpider)

4. Do I inspire the next generation?

5. Do I inspire the next generation?

7. http://tinyurl.com/lg5md8l

8. http://tinyurl.com/lrt28mt

9. A New World of Contribution
• Times have changed
• Immediacy of social networks
• Commenting on articles/data is here
• The “participating scientist” has high
profile
• And who can be a scientist now???

10. A Ten Year Old Scientist

12. Inspiring in Cheminformatics..

13. The ChemDraw Wizard

14. What of Hexacyclinol?

15. The Blogosphere
“Discusses”…

16. Oxidation by Sodium Hydride?

17. The Blogosphere Analyzes…

18. The Blogosphere Analyzes…

19. How much is in the archives?

20. Open Notebook Science
Analysis

21. Faster Science, Better
Science

22. Cheminformatics Communities
Blue Obelisk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Obelisk

23. Twitter Contribution
#RealTimeChem 2013
• Twitter-based community project designed to
encourage chemists to:
• actively engage with one another online
• by sharing what they are working on
• at any given time

24. #RealTimeChem Still Active

25. I am ChemConnector

26. Why am I a Connector?

27. Why am I a Connector?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point
Connectors are the people in a community who
know large numbers of people and who are in
the habit of making introductions. A connector
is essentially the social equivalent of a computer
network hub. They usually know people across
an array of social, cultural, professional, and
economic circles, and make a habit of
introducing people who work or live in
different circles.

28. Endorsements

29. You will be a set of statistics &
profiles
Number of papers, patents, citations, grants, ….
My Blog: www.chemconnector.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ChemConnector
Amazon Author Page: Follow Link to Author Page
My Klout: http://www.klout.com/#/ChemConnector
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/antonywilliams
SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/AntonyWilliams
Google Scholar Citations Profile: Antony Williams Citations
Researcher_ID: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/C-3089-2009
Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_John_Williams
Mendeley Profile: http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/antony-williams/

30. Connections

31. Chemistry Social Networking
• Methods of sharing MY science online include:
• Wikis or blogs
• Slideshare for presentations
• YouTube for videos
• Flickr, Wikimedia etc. for images
• ChemSpider for chemistry
• GoogleDocs for data
• Google Scholar Citations for citations
• Microsoft Academic Scholar for papers

32. Try and EXCITE students
• What I am trying to do today is highlight what is
possible with cheminformatics…what impact you
can have with participating
• What is available for them to use?
• What can they contribute to?
• How important cheminformatics will be to them?
• Not everyone has to be a programmer – a basic
knowledge of scripting goes a long way

33. ChemSpider

34. Cholesterol on ChemSpider

35. Computers outperform experts

36. 1D & 2D NMR Synchronized
Processing
The Software displays correlations for assigned spectra and structures, and highlights
correlations that are likely to be erroneous.

37. Single Molecule AFM

38. CASE vs Microscopy?
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201203960

39. Try and not BORE students
• There is work necessary to define the
underpinnings
• Molfiles
• InChIs
• Spectral formats
• Chemical information searching
• And so much to use….

40. LearnChemistry

41. SpectraSchool

42. SpectraSchool

44. LearnChemistry Wiki

45. Spectral Game

46. Helping Students Connect…
• Career-wise, NOT having a personal presence
online is likely already a detriment
• Establishing a public profile
• Getting on the record
• Collaborative Science
• Demonstrating a skill set
• Measured using alternative metrics
• Contributing to the public peer review process

47. An Adventure into the World of
Small but significant contribution..

48. ChemSpider SyntheticPages

49. Micropublishing with Peer Review
(a chemical synthesis blog?)

50. Multi-Step Synthesis

51. Interactive Data

52. Thank you
Email: williamsa@rsc.org
ORCID: 0000-0002-2668-4821
Twitter: @ChemConnector
Personal Blog: www.chemconnector.com
SLIDES: www.slideshare.net/AntonyWilliams