Science communication potpourri

Over the past few days I’ve been following ScienceOnline2012, mostly via twitter. The agenda for the meeting can be found in the wiki pages.

Below I’ve gathered a small sampling of items that might be of interest or value to others who have an interest in science communication. (Yes, I’m cleaning out all the browser tabs that I opened while the meeting was hurtling forward.)

There were several attempts to offer visual summaries of sessions. For Why do scientists hate and fear the media? Rachel Weidinger offers:

A good written follow-on to this session can be read at the Genomics Blog of GenomeAlberta.

For all writers, or writers-to-be, Maryn McKenna’s concise but excellent summary of tools for writers is worth investigating. Others might prefer different tools or approaches, but it’s good to consider what is available, right?

The self-same Maryn McKenna has provided a Storify account of David Dobbs and Deborah Blum’s session about shape and music as guides to long-form writing structure, which received critical praise. I’m with others in hoping that there will be a video of this particular session.

Videos of many sessions can be found on YouTube by searching for ‘scio12’. The meeting has only just ended and there are already 2 pages of these.

Rather than present many of these, I’ll just present one lighter one and let readers browse the more ‘formal’ sessions for themselves using the search link in the previous paragraph. You mileage may vary (as the saying goes) for this song, but while it’s starts a little weakly in my opinion you’ve got to admit the chorus line is catchy:

Over 17,000* tweets poured out of the meeting under the #scio12 hashtag. They’re still going, but thankfully have slowed down. As for previous years people not physically present at the meeting were able to be involved via twitter.

Footnotes

Update: More links in the comments that follow.

* From memory – I’m too lazy to check it.

Other articles on Code for life:

Media thought: Ask what is known, not the expert’s opinion

When the abstract or conclusions aren’t accurate or enough

Why (some) people don’t trust science

Of use of the active voice by scientists