A talk I gave at my department seminar on science and social media.

1. Science and social media
A brave new world…

2. What is social media?
“…a mechanism for the audience to connect,
communicate, and interact with each other
and their mutual friends through instant messaging
or social networking sites.”
“In our view–and as used herein–Social Media is
a group of Internet-based applications that build on
the ideological and technological foundations of
Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange
of User Generated Content.”

4. Benefits of social media – as consumer
• Interact with your peers globally
– Crowd source problems
• Keep up with current literature
and opinions on it…
– And other neat science stuff
• Debate new ideas before they
ever make it into the literature

5. Interact with your peers

6. Crowdsource your problems
It’s 2011, this is how science is being done!

7. Crowdsource your problems

8. Keep up on current literature

9. Keep up on current literature…and
other cool science stuff

10. Keep up on current literature…and
other cool science stuff

11. Debate ideas before they’re published

12. Benefits of social media – as producer
• Communicate directly with
non-scientists
• Hone your writing skills
• Networking x1000
– Crowd funding
• Personal branding
– Jobs!

13. Communicate with the public

14. Become a better writer
He went on to hammer home how important
writing is for scientists:
Writing is a skill, but it’s also a craft. It’s like
programming. It’s this essential thing that you have
to learn in your sciences. I’ve seen many examples of
scientists who are incredible modelers, incredible
programmers, incredible experimentalists, but
they’re often not successful in the field because
they’ve not learned how to write or they’ve not been
willing to put the time and energy into their writing
that they’ve put into the other parts of their science.
And so the writing is a huge part of it and you need
to expect to devote hours and hours and multiple
drafts, multiple rewrites, intensive work with your
collaborators to really get those manuscripts in a
perfect way. I mean, some of our papers, you know,
the email exchanges will go back and forth over a
single paragraph or a single sentence. It’s got to be
that good to really get your message out.

15. Networking x1000

16. Crowd funding

17. Crowd funding

18. Crowd funding

19. Personal branding

20. Personal branding
"My department" -- the biochemistry department at the University
of Toronto in Canada -- "told me part of the reason they hired me
was because of stuff I'd written on my blog," he says. "It wasn't the
main reason they hired me, but it helped.“ – Alex Palazzo
“Your tenure package is a four-course meal and
blogging is the dessert." - Greg Gbur
“There is no doubt that all faculty searches include a Google search.
Hell, I searched all applicants during mine, not just the narrowed
candidates. One of the things i hear most frequently about our new
hire is how disturbing it is that he doesn’t have a web presence.
Something must be wrong, right? Everything that we could find
about him online was accidental, not controlled. Abstracts from
conferences, posts to academic Yahoo Groups, etc. You worry about
people like this, particularly in the more technical realms.” – Danah
Boyd

21. But beware the internet’s wrath

22. But beware the internet’s wrath

23. So what’s useful for science?
Active Passive