Some quick thoughts in response to the session led by PropterDoc and Sciencewoman.
In some sense, this is really just an extension of the problem of managing your public persona as you go through transitions in life.
Maybe it’s something even deeper than that. Maybe it’s a piece of the project of deciding who you are and what kind of person to be.
Category Archives: Science Blogging Conference
ScienceOnline’09: Liveblogging a Friday Fermentable wine-tasting.
Abel Pharmboy set up a wine-tasting for this evening with a selection of wines from Wine Authorities for us to taste.
Abel professes to be an “amateur” at wine-tasting, but I’m coming here from Northern California, so I have to represent! Also, after this morning’s coffee tasting, I’m kind of sold on the idea that looking, smelling, and tasting carefully can give me something like a better appreciation of the complexities of fermented grape juice. So, I’m going to attempt something more detailed.
ScienceOnline’09: Liveblogging Coffee Cupping at Counter Culture Coffee.
Counter Culture Coffee generously invited us to join us for their regular Friday morning cupping at their Durham, North Carolina headquarters.
Here are the dimensions on which the coffees are evaluated in the cupping:
On my way to ScienceOnline’09
Once again, I’m sitting in my favorite airport with free wifi, bound this time for Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, for ScienceOnline’09. The conference has grown to feature two days of official sessions, plus a third day of semi-official goings on, and the place will be lousy with blogospheric glitterati.
I’m going to be leading a session late Saturday afternoon on “Online science for kids (and parents)”. I’ll be highlighting a selection of the good content that’s out there already, and I’m hoping that there will be some folks at the session interested in talking about how to create new kid-friendly science content. Our wiki page is here, so you can play along at home and join the discussion virtually.
In case you’re wondering why my posting has been relatively light in the days leading up to this conference, well, I seem to have been channeling Dr. Isis.
Why would anybody want to blog under a pseudonym?
I’ve talked about a number of these issues before, but since Abel and PalMD are having some conversations (here, here, here, here, here, and here) in preparation for their session at ScienceOnline09, and since I’ve experienced the blogosphere on both sides of the pseudonymous line, I thought I’d pipe up.
Some good reasons (from the top of my head) to blog under a pseudonym:
Help build the science blogging ethics wiki.
One of the things that came out of the discussion of the ethics of blogging about science at the 2008 NC Science Blogging Conference was a clear sense that we don’t yet have general agreement about what kinds of ethics should guide science blogging — in part, because we haven’t come to an agreement about just what kind of activity science blogging is.
The ethics of science blogging: help set the agenda.
At the upcoming North Carolina Science Blogging Conference on January 19, 2008, I’ll be leading a discussion on the ethics of science blogging (not about blogging about ethics in science). If you attend the conference (and if you’re not sucked in by one of the other attractive discussions scheduled for the same time-slot), you’ll be able to take part in the conversation in real time.
But even if you won’t be able to come to North Carolina for the conference, you can help set the agenda for our discussion by editing the wiki page for the session.
Keeping score in academe: blogging as ‘professional activity’ (or not).
During the discussion after my talk at the Science Blogging Conference, the question came up (and was reported here) of whether and when tenure and promotion committees at universities will come to view the blogging activities of their faculty members with anything more positive than suspicion.
SteveG and helmut both offer some interesting thoughts on the issue.
SBC 2007 — photographic evidence.
While I’m readjusting to my own time zone (just in time for the start of spring semester — whee!), I thought I’d share some pictures from the Science Blogging Conference. Here, for example, is intrepid conference organizer Bora Zivkovic. He could have sat back and just enjoyed his pre-conference dinner, but instead he stayed busy taking pictures and circulating to greet the conference-goers and find out what was going on with them. Actually, in real life Bora seems a bit more laid-back than he does on his blog. Still, compared to my typical energy level? He could be a hummingbird.
SBC 2007 — questions in the air.
The wifi at the hotel is a little tentative, so I’ll save detailed posting about the Science Blogging Conference until I’m back on the west coast. In the meantime, I wanted to note some of the questions raised in various sessions during the conference: