Science blogging conference

A few days ago I mentioned that I was going to attend a one day conference on the topic of science blogging. Yesterday was that day and the conference was very good. The organizers (Anton Zuiker, Bora Zivkovic, Brian Russell & Paul Jones) did an excellent job--particularly when you consider they were pulling this off with a shoestring budget and a lot of volunteer time. The meeting was well organized--Anton seemed to be everywhere at once making sure everything was running well--ran on time, and the speakers were fantastic.

After some beginning remarks by Anton about the conference and Bora about science blogging in general the main program started. The morning session was comprised of two lectures with lots of Q&A afterwards. The lectures were by Hunt Willard, director of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, who gave a very informed and pertinent lecture on how best to approach disseminating science knowledge whether via blog, print media, or even press conference. Dr Willard's had a lot of experience in science research and education and it definitely showed in his presentation. It was polished and concise. He conveyed an amazing amount of insight in just one hour.

The second session was by Janet Stemwedel, an assistant professor of philosophy at San Jose State University, who's also got a PhD in Physical Chemistry. She's got a blog that addresses ethics in science. An area that's really needs more attention.

After being so impressed with Willard in the first session I was expecting the second session to be a bit of a letdown. I was very mistaken. From the start Stemwedel was engaging and energetic. Her message of popularizing science was nearly evangelical and she delivered it with aplomb. My main problem was focusing on the message and not the messenger because Stemwedel was quite mesmerizing, due in large part to her energy and mien. Yet the message she was delivering was important. In this session Stemwedel focused on making the communication between researchers, as well as between researchers and the public, more immediate and informal. In the process hopefully scientists will seem to be more accessible and thereby making science itself more accessible to the general public. Or something like that. Like I said, I wasn't paying as much attention to the message as the messenger. My bad. In any case, blogs are the medium that Stemwedel thinks ideal for doing this service. If you want to see her Powerpoint slides, they're located here.

The contrast between these first two sessions was very interesting and I suspect intentional on the part of the organizers. The first session was very oriented towards a traditional approach towards getting the message of science research out to the public. The second session was a more populist approach centering around blogging. Both sessions were very well done and complemented each other.

After that session we broke for lunch and in many ways that was the most interesting part of the day. Since food wasn't allowed in the main auditorium we picked up a box lunch in the lobby and then went into one of the classrooms to eat. I went upstairs and sat at a round table with 6 other people--and about 6 minutes later 3 more people came in. The group dynamics of our discussion at lunch were quite amusing and I might post about that later this week. In any case, we went around the table and gave a brief bio of ourselves and why we came to the conference. It was an interesting group.

My ADD is getting to me so I'll stop here at the middle of the conference day. Always leave them wanting more is my motto. LOL