Maintained by the ScienceBlogs Overlords, Page 3.14 points you in the direction of some of ScienceBlogs' finest offerings, plus the tastiest tidbits of science news and opinion from around the web.
We have removed Food Frontiers from SB.
We apologize for what some of you viewed as a violation of your immense trust in ScienceBlogs. Although we (and many of you) believe strongly in the need to engage industry in pursuit of science-driven social change, this was clearly not the right way.
How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? How can a large and diverse online community made up of scientists and the science-minded public help? How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage? We'll open this challenge up to everyone on SB and beyond in the coming days so that we can all find the right solution.
Comments
I hope this conversation does not die on the vine.
Posted by: Greg Laden | July 8, 2010 10:41 AM
Me too Greg
Posted by: Adam Bly | July 8, 2010 10:42 AM
Indeed, I am looking forward to improved lines of communications between bloggers and SB/SMG in the future...
Posted by: James Hrynyshyn | July 8, 2010 10:55 AM
Alternative revenue idea:
It wouldn't be too much work to put together a monthly printed publication of all the blogs on there and sell them for a couple of quid each. Multiple paper blog subscriptions = discounts, etc.
A bit of editing to make it suitable for offline publication (removing "click here!" etc), printing it and distributing it should be a piece of piss for a company that already puts out a bimonthly magazine.
Posted by: Synchronium | July 8, 2010 10:57 AM
I think the problem was more in how this all was launched than the fact that is was a corporate blog. There are plenty who are opposed to a corporate pr-managed blog here who have valid points, but had it been made clear that this was advertorial content from the beginning I think the reaction would have been less volatile.
I was most surprised at how the entire roster of bloggers were completely unaware this was happening. I know there's a backchannel where these sorts of things I would assume would be discussed ahead of time and that seems to be the step that was missed.
Posted by: Rev Matt | July 8, 2010 10:59 AM
>How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? How can a large and diverse online community made up of scientists and the science-minded public help? How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?
Maybe an invitational blog for all industry scientists rather than a paid for blog for industry scientists from one company?
As happened with Food Frontiers many other science bloggers would comment on their own blogs, and the comments would, as always, engage with the science.
Could that idea work?
Posted by: Stu | July 8, 2010 11:01 AM
Update to my idea in commment #4:
Give the bloggers a percentage of the subscription fees, to encourage them to post and write stuff that will attract more subscribers.
These publications will also give you more ad space to leverage.
Posted by: Synchronium | July 8, 2010 11:07 AM
Excuse me, Madam, but does this bus go to the station?
Posted by: Cromercrox | July 8, 2010 11:08 AM
Excuse me, Madam, but does this bus go to the station?
Posted by: Cromercrox | July 8, 2010 11:08 AM
I'd like to see an industry blog that was written by actual R&D scientists, not as an arm of PR. I don't want an "advertorial", I want research and science discussions.
Posted by: becca | July 8, 2010 11:13 AM
I hope that this means that the people who decided to leave are welcome to return to their blogs. I admired their stands, but I kind of agreed with Greg on his "wait and see" approach. I am, after all, one of his sycophants.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | July 8, 2010 11:25 AM
Posted by: chrisD | July 8, 2010 11:25 AM
I agree Becca, it would have been nice to see actual research and science debates going on at the Pepsi Blog. But we'll never know if that would have happened, thanks to the knee-jerk "take my ball and go home" reaction of some of the bloggers on here. Everyone jumped to a conclusion, correctly or incorrectly - again we'll never know.
Which is kind of funny if you think about it. Because thanks to the fact that it was a blog from Pepsi, it would have been the most harshly policed blog on ScienceBlogs. Had they gotten one thing out of line they would have been blasted from all sides. Oh well, I guess there's no need to share such space with those "evil corporate scientists" after all...
Posted by: Benson | July 8, 2010 11:26 AM
>I am totally aware of the damage my worryingly regular consumption of Lays (and Pepsi) does to my healh, so I will try to appreciate the unplanned and unexpected health benefits of my decision while I can (but hopefully not for too long).
Wanna bet that many of the reply posters to this blog are Denialists?
They don't consume fast food. They don't drive over-sized gas-guzzling vehicles. They don't eat highly processed foods as their dietary mainstay. They are physically active and always make sure to get adequate sleep. They actively use stress reduction techniques. They don't buy and use the latest electronics gadgets like social sheep. They willing sort their garbage, recycle and compost food waste when possible. They opt to walk, bike or use public transportation to go to work or for daily errands. They always vote and they are active community volunteers.
They aren't pudgy - they exercise daily. They don't overconsume to appease stress, don't smoke or drink. They actively try to reduce and limit their environmental footprint, take full personal responsibility for their longterm health and financial security. They aren't chemically or electronically addicted.
They are pure and without blame! They can look ScienceBlogs in the eye as they cast their stones at Denialism Central.
*squint*
Posted by: Passerby | July 8, 2010 11:28 AM
"How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? How can a large and diverse online community made up of scientists and the science-minded public help? How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage? We'll open this challenge up to everyone on SB and beyond in the coming days so that we can all find the right solution."
Don't you mean "How do we cash in on corporate dollars without destroying the site?", because the answer to the questions in the OP would seem obvious.
Try talking to scientists directly, not through a blog paid for and run by their bosses, in my experience most scientists are more than happy to discuss their work.
Posted by: trub | July 8, 2010 11:32 AM
I hope a more long-term reaction responds to the managerial criticism at: http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/2010/07/pepsico_sbfail.php
The Pepsi blog was an issue, but it was the lack of foresight, planning, and communication, that made this a disaster.
Several bloggers complaining about late payments is also something that should never happen in a company that wants to be taken seriously.
It would have been also been nice to acknowledge that money was a factor in the original decision. There are many ways to empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? but they wouldn't pay as much as a sponsored blog. There's nothing wrong with wanting profit, but pretending this is all high minded discussion of social change is a bit embarrassing to Seed.
Posted by: bsci | July 8, 2010 11:32 AM
I would love to read more from food scientists, but not in the form of advertorial content.
Why not create/recruit a new blog (same selection basis as everyone else) that regularly interviews food scientists (industry and non-industry) and reports on their research? And only take Pepsi's money for non-editorial purposes (advertising, event sponsorship, etc.).
Posted by: Nicola Twilley | July 8, 2010 11:48 AM
I am happy to see that Scienceblogs and Seed have changed their decision. I love the content on Scienceblogs, but if it were to get to the point where I felt the content was PR/advertising determined by committee in a corporation somewhere, I'd be better off reading blogs elsewhere.
I have no problem with industry scientists blogging, but I would be much happier if they would blog as individuals rather than at the behest of their corporate management.
Hopefully the next time an issue like this arises, the conflict of interest discussion will be out there in the open before the blog is created.
Posted by: SteveWW | July 8, 2010 11:51 AM
I agree with my doppleganger.
Moreover, the Pepsi blog bothered me not at all, but I thought the objections about how it should be labeled and distinguished from 'regular' blogs were excellent ideas. The fact that this was implemented in a way to piss off my favorite bloggers made me upset.
Posted by: becca (the lizardy one) | July 8, 2010 11:56 AM
Goodbye Food Frontiers, and good riddance. You may think you avoided a public opinion disaster by pulling this blog down, but I won't forget the vile nature of Pepsico's underhanded advertising, or Scienceblog's sellout to them. I eat a lot of junk food, and read a lot of science blogs, but I will have to reconsider both of these things from now on.
Posted by: Brandee | July 8, 2010 12:06 PM
Speaking as someone who works in the pharma industry, it's going to be hard to get actual science discussions from folks working in the food industry, because all their research is proprietary and chained down by scads of legal limitations. Peer review journals, with an 18-moth time lag - yes. Science blogs - too much like in the public eye and too immediate.
Add that to the fact that blogs are still seen by a lot of marketing groups as an easy way to promote and you get that kind of junk.
Posted by: Erica | July 8, 2010 12:10 PM
A good first step may be seeing if Dr. Mehmood Khan would like to blog here without the support of the PepsiCo PR staff. I would be very interested to see where the personal blogs of industry scientists would lead. Just keep the corporate PR staff away.
Personal blogs by scientists, even corporate scientists. Not corporate blogs.
Posted by: Ken | July 8, 2010 12:13 PM
"How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations?'
Oh gag me... providing a platform for a company's R&D folks to publish company-approved posts (however scientific and non-promotional they may be) has exactly nada to do with empowering them to push for positive change within their organizations.
"How can a large and diverse online community made up of scientists and the science-minded public help? How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?"
This one's easy: companies that want to interact with the scientific community can start their own science-oriented blogs and invite interested folks to comment. Y'all seem to forget that there are plenty of institutional channels available that a company like PepsiCo. could use for outreach to other scientists... they're called "IFT," "ACS," "ADA," and so on. There are also plenty of science rags (Discover, Scientific American, etc.) that can be used to make their wishes known to the science-minded public. It's simply not necessary to co-opt existing, independent platforms if "genuine dialogue" is really what companies like PepsiCo. are after.
Posted by: elly | July 8, 2010 12:14 PM
Aw shucks I was really looking forward to what PepsiCo had to say...
Posted by: Escherichia coli | July 8, 2010 12:19 PM
Becca, does that make you a Hypo-Crit? (subtext personified.)
Posted by: Greg Laden | July 8, 2010 12:19 PM
Glad to see it go. Some of the bloggers who left were among my favorites. Now is a good time to set about rebuilding ScienceBlogs, and the credibility thereof.
Next time, you'll consult your existing bloggers, no?
Posted by: george.w | July 8, 2010 12:23 PM
How do we get industry to engage? Well, for starters how about not running them off for trying to engage.
The Scienceblogs community is well-educated. They're scientifically literate. And best, they care. Name one place that would be better suited for a corporation to actively engage the public with industry research. It is highly unlikely that will happen, now: all because some vocal opinion makers would rather take potshots than try to actually, you know, make a difference.
Posted by: JGlenn | July 8, 2010 12:28 PM
I don't envy your job Evan. Having to deal with a bunch of cry baby, self-centered writers is tough work. The pompousness and self-righteousness was insane over the last couple days. They obviously have no idea what it takes to run a business and think everything is free. Must be nice.
I read many of the Life Science blogs on SB and quite honestly, some of your writers are weak anyway. It might be a good time to do a performance review and let some go. Let the readers decide who the best writers are and who needs improvement- how about that?
Personally, I would like to see more corporate scientists blogging on SB.
How about a writing competition for the spots left vacant by a few of those people who left recently? Maybe find some great new talent.
Or will the writers of SB stomp their feet and cry and whine about that too? Do you need to ask their permission first? Probably.
Good luck improving SB.
Posted by: Former SB Reader | July 8, 2010 12:28 PM
I think the problem is that two aspects got tangled. Sponsoring by a huge corporation, which by definition is directed by the marketing department while the content was to be from the scientists. These two aspects needs to stay separated, because unlike peer-reviewed articles (although that is not a full guarantee either), there wouldn't be any protection from overt spin doctoring etc on such a blog because of the entangling of money and content. So, if Pepsi wants to sponsor ScienceBlogs, I think they should just sponsor. If they want to have an outlet for their scientists, those scientists should just make the blog and put their personal reputations on the spot, like all other bloggers here.
If a company like pepsico would like to have a corporate blog, they can make one themselves. The reason they want to be here is that is actually give a feel of science-endorsed content. And that is exactly not right. So, split the two aspects money and content, and the issue gets solved. My bet would be that ios there would not be the marketing controlled overview, they will prohibit their scientists to blog about their work, which would just confirm the actual motive why they wanted to be here.
Posted by: Kim | July 8, 2010 12:41 PM
Just a simple proposal: open a new blog called 'IndustryBlog', ask PepsiCo and friends to post there, and we all will know how to read that. Easy, isn't it?
Posted by: Xy Cephal | July 8, 2010 12:46 PM
Clearly both SB and PepsiCo need to hire more anthropologists.
The blogs I read regularly are still here, and the authors were all very concerned but remained calm and watchful. This serves to increase their credibility in my opinion.
I recognize the huge COI of a (lay) corporate-PR department-marketing piece masquerading as legitimate science but trust the bloggers here to immediately shred any such nonsense. If that's what the PepsiCo blog was intended to be, it was unlikely to last long here. Bummer that the SB overlords didn't give their writers a chance to discuss this in advance.
I have a couple of concerns resulting from what I think are over-the-top, panicky reactions from some SB writers:
The first is that pitting academic scientists against corporate scientists is a false dichotomy. Shutting PepsiCo out of the discussion is unlikely to foster meaningful nutritional improvement of their products nor to promote more ethical corporate management. It also smells a bit like the incredulity of privilege. Isn't some academic research funded in party by private companies? Even if some research is all publicly funded, don't we all, including PepsiCO pay taxes toward such funding? My point is that even corporate giants like PepsiCo might have a legitimate place at the table.
The second is that if SB pays its writers, do I need to be concerned about the bloggers' unconscious or deliberate COI in choosing topics that are most likely to garner large page views at the expense of important, but less sexy content?
Posted by: Anthropologist Underground | July 8, 2010 12:55 PM
Understanding the term "Conflicts of interest" would be a good start.
Posted by: Andy Groves | July 8, 2010 12:58 PM
I agree with Rev Matt ... it was only partly WHAT you did or WHO you invited. The real problem was HOW you did it. Waking up to find out you are in bed with GiantFoodCompany was a shocker, and it was pathetically handled.
If this blog post had been the first mention of inviting PepsiCo or other food giants - if you had in tried to figure out IF it was workable and how to handle it BEFORE you gave them a spot and a password it would have been less disruptive.
*********
Now for my idea that might let SB go out in the back yard and scoop up the baby that got tossed with the bathwater today.
Have a shared "food research" blog, with various companies invited to let their researchers share what they have done that is ground-breaking. If it works in food like it does in hardware, someone in corporate has to look over the posts before they are submitted to make sure nothing top-secret slides out, but they do announce initiatives and publish papers (at least I hope they do).
The pressure is on mega-foods to clean up their acts, coming from the USDA, various governments, the media and the general population. They need to start talking about how they plan to do this.
With some editorial oversight to whap them if the PR guys hijack the blog, and the rest of SB's bloggers and readers ready to call BS whenever they detect it, it might be cool to see what happens if PepsiCo, Con-Agra, P&G, and others are all trying to out-science each other.
Posted by: Tsu Dho Nimh | July 8, 2010 1:01 PM
Allow them to participate. Identify them. Have no exchange of money.
Posted by: Bix | July 8, 2010 1:04 PM
Unless the scientists were free to criticize Pepsi, there would have been no real discussion and no opportunity for said scientists to engender change in their organization. Nothing Pepsi did during this event gave the impression that they were willing to do that. In fact, it seemed quite the opposite. They seemed to make it quite clear that all posters would be on a very tight leash.
Posted by: William | July 8, 2010 1:19 PM
There are plenty of scientists blogging about their areas of expertise without revealing proprietary information: there's no reason whatsoever that commercial food science researchers couldn't blog about commercial food science on their own time.
Now that the Pepsico blog is gone, the main question remaining, as I see it, is whether the ScienceBloggers who gave notice will be given the opportunity to return?
Posted by: Ahistoricality | July 8, 2010 1:31 PM
"How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?"
When the dialogue includes health/nutrition, then the company would have to at least give the appearance that not only do they care about such things, but that it is one of the core values of said company. That said, PepsiCo distributing 'junk food' on such a large scale is counter productive to such a dialogue, as it would be (justly) the pinnacle of the 'enemy' in a discussion about health and nutrition. A more honest question of 'How can we make our unhealthy products devoid of any nutrition, LESS BAD?' is a pointless inquiry.
Posted by: Tyler | July 8, 2010 1:32 PM
Andy: would "bias" have been a better term for me to use above? I used conflict of interest to emphasize the perception of fiscal influence, but perhaps I used it incorrectly.
Posted by: Anthropologist Underground | July 8, 2010 1:51 PM
So, whose decision was it, yours or PepsiCos? ScienceBlogs management should not get credit for this change unless it was truly their decision. Maybe it was, but for some reason that was never said or explained. Even if it *was* SB's decision, if you're only making it to kill controversy, and not because you've actually learned something, there is no reason for your authors to re-extend trust.
Posted by: ryan | July 8, 2010 2:01 PM
Like it or not, new media or old, regardless of the high-mindedness of publishers or contributors, advertorial is regarded by most educated readers as sleaze. It's a fact of life in publishing.
There's no way around this, aside from dumbing down your readership even more — which surely is contrary to Seed's mission.
That's not to say there's no way to engage with corporate scientists on a transparent basis: there surely is, and the methods for doing so are well-known, mainly having to do with full disclosure.
Without that transparency, all the safeguards and high-mindedness and fair-mindedness in the world don't matter. This isn't rocket science: it's been the standard in publishing for a very long time, and with reason. Business managers and ad sales people push for advertorial, and any credible and competent editorial staff fights like hell to keep it out of the publication.
To me, the degree to which certain people here Do Not Get this is as much a blow to SB's credibility as the abortive PepsiBlog was. You — Seed staff and bloggers both — are publishers. Act like it.
At the very least, stop the trashing of those people who moved to preserve their own credibility while SB was busy frittering its own away.
Posted by: Chris Clarke | July 8, 2010 2:12 PM
"Allow them to participate. Identify them. Have no exchange of money."
That's a great idea Bix. And while we're at it, all of the other bloggers need to drop their pen names as well.
Come on ScienceBloggers, put all your cards on the table. I want to know what your agendas and biases are as well as PepsiCo's.
Posted by: Benson | July 8, 2010 2:32 PM
Thank you all for you comments. Keep 'em coming. I am reading them and while I can't respond to each and every one, I will post some combined thoughts later.
Posted by: Adam Bly | July 8, 2010 2:36 PM
I don't know, that response still seems pretty shitty. I mean, scienceblogs was about to start publishing corporate written material, in exchange for sponsorship.
That is pretty much an abandonment of the guiding principle their bloggers seem to think should guide the site
>How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations?
I don't know quite what that means. Corps are profit driven entities, they can be a source of innovation that causes some social change, but they don't drive social change for the sake of social change. Internal scientists need help making arguements that innovation should focus on reasearch tha can make positive impacts, but that's an arguement of profitability.
An arguement that needs accountants as much as scientists.
>How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?
Using the word "genuine" in this scentence made me LOL. They want profitable dialog. Pepsi thought they had that all figured out.
Bring back better living through Chemistry!
Posted by: Red | July 8, 2010 2:59 PM
This is a very good idea, Tsu Do Nimh. How about a blog where food scientists from multiple competitors in the food industry get to blog? That way it's not one single corporate mouthpiece and contributions from competitors can help weed out any bias in favor of a single company's products.
BTW, love the username.
Posted by: SteveWW | July 8, 2010 3:04 PM
Red,
Corporations aren't the only profit driven entity out there. The precious universities that many of these ScienceBloggers take refuge in are profit driven entities (unless these professors and researchers are doing their work for free), research labs are the same (why else have tech transfer departments to help monetize discoveries), and to break it down further - you and I and everyone in this country are profit driven, unless you are either homeless, or rich enough to not have to work for a living. So let's get that argument out of the way right now.
And let's take a look at where these self-righteous bloggers get their paychecks, and their research funding, shall we?
Posted by: Benson | July 8, 2010 3:06 PM
I agree with a lot of things above.
I'd honestly say that if it's going to be a company sponsored blog, it needs to be very much separated out from the rest of the content here, and maybe just can't be made to fit well in a space like this unless the blog content is almost completely out of the control of the company itself. I see companies or government entities make this mistake all the time -- a blog is _not_ a space for press releases and careful messaging. It's a forum, it's for discussion.
The best way to guarantee either no readership or a very upset bunch of people somewhere is to try to treat a blog as an official mouthpiece. Advertising isn't blogging, and blogs coming obviously out of PR or marketing arms of a company are crap. That's an important distinction to make in general, but on a group site that purports to be about discussion on science, it's even vastly more important to make that clear. Communicating about science with the public is suffering hugely as a result of a perception of conflict of interest. Some of that is fair and some of it isn't, but it's a real problem either way.
If it's going to be a blog by a few individuals who work at a company and give updates on its behalf on research and development, then transparency is important as much as possible, and there should be clear guidelines on how they may moderate comments etc. so that spin can be openly countered. And if they're blogging for the company, with their company hats on, I'd honestly suggest having a separate space for that altogether, and jeebus, don't do it for money.
If they're allowed to take off their company hats and control their own content, fine. Industry scientists probably have lots to talk about, and more power to them if they want to really talk about what they're doing. But making sure that that's their goal -- not "building partnerships" (PR speak for marketing themselves) or simply tossing out company spin about all of the wonderful things they're doing is hugely important if you want to have a shred of a reputation left.
My copper coinage.
Posted by: spit | July 8, 2010 3:16 PM
I imagine that PepsiCo was just as happy, if not happier, to terminate the relationship.
"How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? How can a large and diverse online community made up of scientists and the science-minded public help? How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage? We'll open this challenge up to everyone on SB and beyond in the coming days so that we can all find the right solution."
You have to answer a question first: was the primary purpose behind the Pepsi blog to bring in income? Or to bring in a corporate perspective?
If it was the former, the biggest mistake you made was not discuss it with the ScienceBlogs folks, first. You sprung it on them, and when you're a site consisting of independent contributors, none of whom really need the site as a source of income, you can't make such unilateral changes. Not when you have folks who are, first and foremost, worried about credibility.
If you're interested in getting corporate communication, you could invite responses from the corporate communities to participate in events to discuss specific subjects-- even provide corporations a way of providing counter-point to writings that may impact on their business. Think of how PBS handles its point, counter-point discussions.
Pick a topic, like High Fructose Corn Syrup, since this is a rich topic, with equal parts myth and fact. Invite Science Bloggers to respond; invite food corps to respond with their own views. You could even sells ads, or get sponsors for the discussion. As long as everyone knows anything goes in the discussion, and affiliations are clearly identified, I think most of your science bloggers would be amenable.
Or not, but it's a thought.
But you can't allow corps to "buy" their way in, unchallenged, and then focus the discussion purely on the hard sell. That's little different than selling text links to game search engine results. It's tacky, it's desperate, and it undermines the credibility of the site, the site participants.
Nothing wrong with making a profit, nothing wrong with bringing in corporate viewpoint, but you mixed the two, and you dropped it on an unsuspecting community. Wow.
Posted by: Shelley | July 8, 2010 3:20 PM
Purely from a reader's perspective:
The problem is institutionally controlled content vs. individually controlled content, whether the institution is a corporation, a university, a non-profit, or government.
Content controlled by an institution cannot be as interesting as that produced by an individual over the long haul. There's a defined agenda in place ahead of time and those who blog for such will not be allowed to "think out loud" in public while acting as a representative of that institution.
One of the things that makes (most) of the SB blogs interesting is that they are personal perspectives, whether they are blogging about science or not. For some, the personal (or political) is about all they blog about and that's fine. They seem to be the ones that get the most traffic, if comments are any indication of traffic.
Institutional blogging is boring. PR blogging is even more boring.
AND, I will never forget the first (and only) time I was taken in by an advertorial, thinking it was "freely" written. I was angry at myself and at the publication. It is a sleazy practice whether in print or online.
I think that all the institutional blogs on SB should be separated from the individual ones in the feeds, should have the "institution" status noted in the URL. Something like "scienceblogs.com/institutional/brookhaven/", as well as the advertorial notice on the top of the blog.
Posted by: Donna B. | July 8, 2010 3:21 PM
Here's a topic: genetically modified food. Invite food experts at universities, government experts, science bloggers, food authors, and yes, corporations such as Monsanto, Annie's Organic, and even PepsiCo. Schedule it as a special feature, get sponsors.
Of course, this is a topic that interests me greatly so take with grain of salt.
Posted by: Shelley | July 8, 2010 3:26 PM
Adam,
"How do we empower top scientists working in industry..."
Nothing you have said or done has given any indication that your actual motivation for the Pepsico blog was anything more than simply to make money (not an evil end in itself) by selling a venue for some PR flack to dress up corporate propaganda in the unearned credibility that would rub off on them from (and at the expense of) the credibility of your real, high-quality bloggers.
To pretend otherwise by dressing your original decision is these high-minded after-the-fact goals is offensive. It just has the fetid smell of hypocrisy and a bald-faced attempt to change the discussion.
I see that you ultimately took the correct step of canceling the blog. But you're not yet talking straight with the community about the nature of the mistake, which will make it harder for you, and readers like me, to move past it.
Posted by: Scott | July 8, 2010 3:52 PM
Seed isn't asking here for suggestions on its own sustainability or journalistic responsibilities, so my response is limited to direct answers.
Any big industry - financial, agricultural, petrochemical, software, whatever - will make NO changes unless its profits are threatened. They'll only be positive changes, i.e. less harmful to the public interest, if all other avenues have failed. If it's more cost-effective to pour money into lobbying, advertising, whitewashing, greenwashing, biased science, manipulative commentary, concealing evidence, ignoring regulations, or making more addictive products, then that's what they'll do. Any scientist working for such, like any other employee, only has the power to make incremental changes and suggestions, or risk losing their job.
Frankly the only direct contribution Sb could make would be by publishing anonymous whistleblower information, which would expose Sb to crushing lawsuits. Actual positive change within the organizations would rely on the industry's willingness to allow open discussion of its practices.
By doing what Sb has already done, up to now: provide a platform for outspoken, intelligent, science-based criticism of industrial practices and industry-sponsored, biased research and commentary.
By responding in a genuine manner to outspoken, intelligent criticism.
Honestly this isn't rocket science. The whole point of having a science-minded community is to search for and demonstrate truth. As long as one party to a dialogue refuses to deal with evidence, no science-minded dialogue is possible. The only power Scienceblogs has is its insistence on scientific freedom of discussion and reputation for same.
Posted by: Pteryxx | July 8, 2010 4:04 PM
How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations?
Wrong question. Success of "top scientists working in industry" is measured by "bottom line". Anything they say that does not contribute positively to industry's "bottom line" is career limiting.
Perhaps after scientists retire they might speak out on something they saw while they were working for industry. Perhaps you could help provide money for legal defense of scientists that were being sued for "speaking out".
How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?
Oh, do you mean "How can a company use this community to leverage the value and volume of their goods and services?"
Or perhaps you mean "How does Seed Media Group LLC monetize the participation of this community?"
Seems easy enough. Accept articles and advertisements from said companies, and charge them money for it, and clearly identify the content as "sponsored" and "paid content" and "the views expressed in this article reflect those of the parent company."
After the article is published, allow comments. Make sure they are well moderated, as bad comments will reduce cashflow from corporations. Have the company pay you on a per comment basis.
The other side of the equation, as you have learned the hard way, is the situation where Seed Magazine is perceived to have "over-monetized" this community.
Posted by: Dan L | July 8, 2010 4:11 PM
@ Anthropologist Underground #31
My apologies - I was not referring to your comment, but to the original post. By an unhappy coincidence, your comment, containing a reference to conflicts of interest, showed up as I was making my comment. No offence intended.
Posted by: Andy Groves | July 8, 2010 4:56 PM
@Benson
>you and I and everyone in this country are profit driven, unless you are either homeless, or rich enough to not have to work for a living. So let's get that argument out of the way right now.
Sorry Benson, but i don't think so. The pursuit of individual Monetary enrichment and institutional Profit are very different things.
Sure some individuals are greedier bastards than others but very few of us can reduce the moral decisions in our life to a balance sheet in the same was that an enormous company like a BP can. Sure we all have a bias to protect our own asses, but we also have reputations of honesty and social contracts to keep us on the right path.
The people governing corporations have all those choices once removed and the decisions fall to the lowest common denominator when someone asks, "what does this cost us?"
I am not sure what the point of getting this arguement "out of the way" is.
Posted by: Red | July 8, 2010 5:14 PM
This whole thing was pretty disappointing to me as a long-time Sb reader. Using Sb's hard-earned reputation to give a stamp of legitimacy to a corporate blog really undermines Sb and the bloggers here.
More constructively, some answers to your questions:
"How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations?"
As someone who has been in industry, there is no way someone from outside can "empower top scientists" to lead change within their organizations. Changing an organization from the inside depends on corporate culture and the openess of management. The input of scientists, even in science-based industry (like biotech), is rarely considered unless the corporate culture already encourages input.
"How can a large and diverse online community made up of scientists and the science-minded public help?"
Help what? Help initiate change within a company or industry? Talk about science across institutions? One thing to keep in mind too is that in most companies, you are constrained from talking about what you're working on in anything other than broad strokes. Any details are competitive intelligence, so talking outside of work about work is STRONGLY discouraged.
"How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?"
I don't know what to say about companies i.e. corporate entities that "seek dialogue". In my experience, companies are seeking ways to market themselves or their products.
For genuine dialogue with scientists or other industry personnel, I think there are several models that can work. One is to invite industry people to blog about their areas of expertise - as individuals, not as representatives of their companies. It can be targeted, such as asking/finding project leaders, principle scientists, recruiters, etc to talk about careers and opportunities within industry.
Another approach is to have a blog where someone poses questions/topics for discussion and people with experience can chime in. The recent discussions about 23andMe at Genetic Future are a good example already on ScienceBlogs.
A good example of a successful and informative blog authored by an industry (biotech/pharma) scientist is Derek Lowe's In the Pipeline. He talks about medchem, changes within the industry, drug pipelines, and how not to handle liguid oxygen. Heck, Mark Chu-Carroll of Good Math, Bad Math is a great example of someone who works in industry who runs a great blog.
Posted by: bluefoot | July 8, 2010 6:44 PM
>>How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?
This is the sort of thinking that got SB in trouble. Companies aren't scientists. They aren't even people. By all means, if there are respected nutrition experts out there blogging on the good and the bad in their field, offer them spots here. Make their affiliations known, but let them write as individuals.
I'm all for hearing from more scientists working in industry, but the way this was done, that justification seems secondary to the PepsiCo money.
Posted by: bh | July 8, 2010 9:29 PM
I am extremely disappointing how close minded and negative so many Sb readers and bloggers are. Not wanting to even hear what Pepsico might have to say in a blog.
I remember hearing a talk years ago by a senior researcher at a chocolate company, who wanted to add vitamins to their candy because it cost nothing and would improve the nutrition of the people who ate their candy. The FDA wouldn't let them. The FDA had the mindset that candy had to be non-nutritious, so they forbid candy manufacturers from putting any supplemental nutrients in their candy.
Improving the nutritional value of so called junk food would cost nothing. The packaging costs more than what adding the RDA of micronutrients would cost.
Would adding nutrients to junk food improve health? Would consumers abandon junk food if it was actually more nutritious (my prediction because I think unhealthy people self-select junk food because it doesn't have nutrients, not in spite of it not having nutrients). Wouldn't that data be nice to have?
If healthy people do self-select healthy food (my hypothesis), then selling food that helps keep people healthy is the best business decision to make because people will buy it.
Posted by: daedalus2u | July 8, 2010 9:41 PM
Andy G @ #53: Thanks for the clarification. I thought you probably weren't referring to me but wanted to make sure. One of my own blog's commenters rightly pointed out how I can unintentionally and casually alienate or offend people by misusing language and labels. I'm trying to pay closer attention to how I communicate and wanted to make sure I was using conflict of interest correctly. Thanks.
Posted by: Anthropologist Underground | July 8, 2010 10:09 PM
>The pressure is on mega-foods to clean up their acts, coming from the USDA, various governments, the media and the general population. They need to start talking about how they plan to do this.
They already have, but folk here are too busy, obviously, to check out the corporate blog that provides details of what they see as necessary changes in product to address major health concerns and progress towards those goals.
>How about a blog where food scientists from multiple competitors in the food industry get to blog? That way it's not one single corporate mouthpiece and contributions from competitors can help weed out any bias in favor of a single company's products.
Now how is that going to generate capital to operate ScienceBlogs??
You can't recognize the difference between a 'source' and a 'sink' yet??
*snaps fingers* I know! How about stopping paying these bloggers, half or more of whom are grad students, post-docs or junior faculty?
I was asked by SB if I would pay for access here. I replied, I sure as hell would NOT because it is nowhere near the 'authoritative and credible' high-standard information source that many of it's self-congratulatory denizens believe themselves to be.
SB is trying to remedy the 'cred' problem by bringing on blogs from high-profile research institutions and professional organizations.
That still doesn't pay the bills. If I were you, SB, I would go hat-in-hand to Google to see if they have interest in a partnership that will bring in a guaranteed supply of advertising revenues for you and entre into a potential engine for public-private collaborative knowledge products, for them.
*shrug* Google will quietly harvest the benefits of SB bot lurking, whether you partner with them or not: their métier is finding and providing vast informational database assemblages for paying customers to mine.
Given their honesty-and-transparency' credo, your bloggers may find Google to be a more palatable choice as business partner than Pepsi.
However, it will not resolve the longstanding and growing public health concerns that need to be tackled in the beverage and ready-to-eat/snack food industries.
For that, you will need to return to the food industry leaders, economists, engineers and scientists for professional feedback and discussion.
Separate your issues, and proceed, please. We are not done with public and professional seeking dialog on this pressing issue of budget-breaking public health care costs, the core of which is irresponsible consumerism and knee-jerk, spendy pharmaceutical band-aide interventions.
Posted by: Passerby | July 8, 2010 11:47 PM
The difficulty with hosting PepsiCo is that a company that sells sugared caffeinated water to children is inherently evil. It doesn't matter that individuals in the company might be nice people - they are working for a company whose basic business is wicked and wrong.
"How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations?"
This cannot be accomplished. Companies are not democracies. People working in companies are not free agents. The only way to "empower" employees is to free them from having to take orders from people whose only concern is the share price and the occasional lawsuit.
Posted by: Paul Murray | July 9, 2010 12:04 AM
How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations?
AFAIK, such scientists have always had the ability to post comments in these here parts; and I'm guessing any of them could have got themselves a blog here and posted whatever they wanted; the only possible caveat being a requirement to identify one's current employer and/or moneymaking project. If one leading scientist in PepsiCo's pay had started his own blog here, on his own steam, he probably would have got away with it, at least as long as he didn't post obvious BS or misrepresent his own employment status or interests.
Posted by: Raging Bee | July 9, 2010 12:06 AM
How about a dialogue, Scienceblogs and Pepsi. As part of my class, we must blog. My blog is Fifth Estate Best Practices and democracy on opensalon. In this case, the solution is simple. Keep the dialogue going about this event and keep the conversation going with Pepsi scientists. If this can happen, there will be the potential for good.
Posted by: Fifth Estate | July 9, 2010 1:12 AM
Pepsi can give money, but they should not become involved in editing or producing the content. That way, they can appear to be supporting the scientific community.
When they start interfering with the content, it immediately changes to looking like they are trying to co-opt the scientific community to their corporate goals.
There's plenty of good examples. In my town Seattle, insurance giant Safeco plunks down $$ for a baseball field, but they don't try to manage the team. Works better that way.
How they could have missed that obvious point baffles me. Chalk it up to another example of 'experts' getting it wrong.
Posted by: yogi-one | July 9, 2010 3:14 AM
you seriously cannot be that naive, these people are business first scientist second, you think they working on nutritional problems, they may have small percentage of people working on niche products for niche markets as PR exercise while the continue to pump out their sugared water around the rest of the world battle with coca cola to own markets.
Posted by: steve white | July 9, 2010 4:36 AM
@Dave Mabus/Dennis Markuze:
"you mofos killed MICKEY MOUSE!!!!"
That was genius.
Posted by: ev | July 9, 2010 8:38 AM
I have the solution!!!! PepsiCo buys up ScienceBlogs and writes whatever the heck they want!!!!! Or fires up their own blog with heavyduty PR backup. Surely they have the money and PR staff to get their voices heard out there?
Personally I read ScienceBlogs to get perspectives from people with day jobs in science, that wouldn't otherwise have an outlet. To me that's interesting. If I want to hear what PepsiCo has to say, all I have to do is turn on the TV.
Posted by: bayman | July 9, 2010 10:32 AM
I have a lot of sympathy with the people running SB, because they do need to make money, and balance up complex interests, and above all keep the readers here.
But this almost made me choke...
"How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?"
Oh, please. You can almost hear the strains of the tiny violin on this line - but it's absolute nonsense. When has the word "Advertorial" ever come within a hundred miles of "genuine dialogue?" It was quite clearly going to be a heavily-censored, PR-driven puff blog to attempt to give PepsiCo credibility by association with other SB products. It was absolutely zero, zilch, nada to do with "genuine dialogue" and to imply that it was is gut-turningly patronising.
Sadly this question is all of a piece with the original problem, namely that trying to backdoor corporate sponsorship under the guise of dialogue or fearless inquiry will not work with an informed audience like SB's. That it's being asked in the first place makes it abundantly clear that no lessons have been learned at all.
Posted by: Rokkaku | July 9, 2010 3:24 PM
By the way, I write the above as someone who works for a publishing company that's in the past dealt with advertorial and currently has sponsorship deals with several companies as well. Dealing with corporate clients is not something I'm a stranger to. However, I am a firm believer in drawing lines.
Posted by: Rokkaku | July 9, 2010 3:28 PM
becca says, in comment #11:
"I'd like to see an industry blog that was written by actual R&D scientists, not as an arm of PR. I don't want an "advertorial", I want research and science discussions."
becca has articulated an important distinction that most of us probably just 'feel' - so let's follow her pointed analysis.
As an example of what becca is getting at, consider the corporate blogs of Mathworks (found here: http://blogs.mathworks.com/ ... in particular, see this one: http://blogs.mathworks.com/loren).
These posts certainly promote the use of this corporation's product, but they also provide a valuable resource to those of us engaged in scientific research (ScienceBlogs' intended audience???).
Here's a simple litmus test: if the R&D department of your corporation does not produce anything worthwhile to this audience (such as useful and novel algorithms) then you can't advertise here - save it for commercial breaks on the boob-tube.
Interacting with the science community is a two-way street.
Posted by: Tom | July 9, 2010 11:19 PM
Thanks everyone for your comments. There are some great suggestions here. We will be reviewing them all over the next few days (we'll reopen for comments once we first read all of these). So stay tuned. In the meantime, thanks for reading.
ScienceBlogs
Posted by: ScienceBlogs Team | July 10, 2010 1:08 AM
How about a simple "No astroturfing" rule? Anything that originates from a business must be marked as a "press release" or "release" from that business and disclaimed at both its head and foot. Require that anything published on this site have an explicit, named, author, and that this author have a standard "bio" easily available to readers. Require full financial and employment disclosure for all authors.
Posted by: Bryan | April 22, 2011 6:48 PM