workplace

About a month ago, I told you about the book-reading event where Scott Huler (blog, Twitter, SIT interview) read from his latest book On The Grid (amazon.com). I read the book immediately after, but never wrote a review of my own. My event review already contained some of my thoughts about the topic, but I feel I need to say more, if nothing else in order to use this blog to alert more people about it and to tell everyone "Read This Book". What I wrote last month, "I think of myself as a reasonably curious and informed person, and I have visited at least a couple of infrastructure plants, but…
Last week, my SciBling Jason Goldman interviewed me for his blog. The questions were not so much about blogging, journalism, Open Access and PLoS (except a little bit at the end) but more about science - how I got into it, what are my grad school experiences, what I think about doing research on animals, and such stuff. Jason posted the interview here, on his blog, on Friday, and he also let me repost it here on my blog as well, under the fold: Here at Thoughtful Animal headquarters, we're starting a new series of seven-question interviews with people who are doing or have done animal…
This is one of the four TED videos we showed (according to the TED rules a TEDx has to show original TED videos as a certain percentage of the program) at TEDxRTP back in March: When The Bride Of Coturnix posted this video on her Facebook Wall, she added this little note: "People often ask me what, exactly, Bora does for a living. This is the closest answer. The 'for a living' part is a bit of a gray area..." LOL
Important (h/t Bride Of Coturnix):
Since I don't do PowerPoint but use the Web for presentations instead, and since the recordings from AAAS are not free (yes, you can buy them, I won't), and since some people have asked me to show what I showed at my panel there, here is the list of websites I showed there. I opened them up all in reverse chronological order beforehand, so during the presentation itself all I needed to do was close each window as I was done with it to reveal the next window underneath. I started with http://www.scienceonline2010.com/ to explain the new interactive, collaborative methods in science journalism…
An awesome experiment in Stockholm, Sweden where students changed stairs in a subway station into a piano: And? More people started using the stairs than the escalator! It's just more fun!
tags: Twatif?, twitter, workplace, strange, offbeat, culture, streaming video So..... what if you were restricted in the real world to only 140 characters and spaces? The office might be a sticky place .. The rumor is that this video is funny .. but you be the judge. What's with the "di" sound when the guy supposedly meant to say "dumb"?
On Tuesday night I went to the RTP headquarters for Techie Tuesday, an occasional event when people who work in various companies in the Park come over, after work, and have some good food, a beer, and get to relax and chat and meet new people. It is quite a lot of fun. Pictures under the fold (better quality on Twitpic):
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know Tatjana Jovanovic-Grove. Or you can remind yourself by checking this, this, this, this and this. If you came to ScienceOnline09 (or followed virtually) you will remember that she co-moderated two sessions there: Open Access in the networked world: experience of developing and transition countries and How to paint your own blog images . Well, today, Tatjana is in New York Times! I hear from those who get the papers in hardcopy, that the article starts on the front page, but the part with the interview with Tatjana and her husband Doug is on…
I am feeling mean today. So, here is my first mean post of the day. About a week ago I read this delicious post about the business of scientific publishing. It is a good read throughout - the title of the post is "Who is killing science on the Web? Publishers or Scientists?" and the answer is interesting. But what stood out for me was this paragraph: This past February, I was on a panel discussion at the annual NFAIS conference, a popular forum for academic publishers. The conference theme was on digital natives in science. At one point I was asked (rather rudely) by a rep from a major…
My regular readers probably remember that I blogged from the XXVI International Association of Science Parks World Conference on Science & Technology Parks in Raleigh, back in June of this year. I spent the day today at the headquarters of the Research Triangle Park, participating in a workshop about the new directions that the park will make in the future. It is too early to blog about the results of this session, though the process will be open, but I thought this would be a good time to re-post what I wrote from the June conference and my ideas about the future of science-technology…
'How to get strangers to talk to you' instead of 'How to talk to strangers'? I find this blog post and slide-show quite interesting. I see how it may apply to introverts - and I sure am not one of them - but I can also see how much of it applies equally well to extroverts like me, almost as a reminder to keep one's over-extroverted mannerisms under control: The Shy Connector View more documents from Sacha Chua.
As you may have noticed if you saw this or you follow me on Twitter/FriendFeed/Facebook, I spent half of Tuesday and all of Wednesday at the XXVI International Association of Science Parks World Conference on Science & Technology Parks in Raleigh. The meeting was actually longer (starting on Sunday and ending today), but I was part of a team and we divided up our online coverage the best we could do. Christopher Perrien assembled a team (including his son) to present (and represent) Science In The Triangle, the new local initiative. They manned a booth at which they not only showcased…
I'll be going to IASP next week, one of several people reporting from it for Science In The Triangle. We have organized our coverage strategically - I will be there for a couple of events on Tuesday and all day Wednesday. I'll be posting here and on Twitter and Science In The Triangle will aggregate everyone's posts in one place. What is IASP?: The International Association of Science Parks (IASP) is a worldwide network of science and technology parks. IASP connects science park professionals from across the globe and provides services that drive growth and effectiveness for members. IASP…
Last year in May, when I visited Belgrade, I gave interviews with Radio Belgrade, talking about science publishing, Open Access, science communication and science blogging. The podcasts of these interviews - yes, they are in Serbian! - are now up: Part 1 Part 2 I know that this blog has some ex-Yugoslavs in its regular audience, people who can understand the language. I hope you enjoy the interviews and spread the word if you like them.
I know it's been a couple of months now since the ScienceOnline'09 and I have reviewed only a couple of sessions I myself attended and did not do the others. I don't know if I will ever make it to reviewing them one by one, but other people's reviews on them are under the fold here. For my previous reviews of individual sessions, see this, this, this, this and this. What I'd like to do today is pick up on a vibe I felt throughout the meeting. And that is the question of Power. The word has a number of dictionary meanings, but they are all related. I'll try to relate them here and hope you…
Ask the pilot: Ask yourself this: Whom would you prefer at the controls of your plane on a stormy night, a pilot who smoked a joint three days ago, or one who had six hours of sleep prior to a 13-hour workday in which he's performed half a dozen takeoffs and landings? The first pilot has indulged in a career-ending toke; the second is in full compliance with the rules. I have to assume that the FAA realizes the foolery of such enforcement policies, but it nonetheless chooses to put its resources into drug testing and other politically expedient issues. Meanwhile it procrastinates, performing…
I have received, from a friend, a draft of an intra-institutional guideline for employee blogging and online behavior. The employer has been anonymized. The document has been written by non-scientist non-bloggers at the institution and is making the rounds prior to formal review and approval. We have talked about this at ScienceOnline'09 in the session Hey, You Can't Say That!. Here are some of the bloggy responses to that session to get you up to speed: Deep Thoughts and Silliness: Semi-live Blogging Scienceonline09: Day 2 Highly Allochthonous: ScienceOnline Day 2: generalised ramblings…