It's nearly August. Next week they're digging up the road outside the office. It's been a good, but busy year so far, so we're closing the office until September.
We'll still be working from time to time so please do call or email as needed but please be patient if we don't respond at our usual lightning pace.
It's time now to switch off the lights, computers and printers and to wish you a sunny summer.
A friend and colleague of mine, @gilest, tweeted about a report in our local paper about Wiltshire Council reviewing leisure facilities and the "imminent" closure of the Bradford on Avon swimming pool. Our brand new MP, @duncanhames picked up on the "terrible news", but pointed out it has been planned for 18 months. A local councillor has started a petition to pressure the council to "Save Bradford on Avon Pool".
Swimming pools are expensive to run. When you open them to the public and have to staff them, then they become very expensive. There are normally about 6 staff or so on duty, plus an administrative team at a headquarters in Bagshot, Surrey. Every week my daughter has a swimming lesson there. About £5 for 30 minutes. It's not cheap, but the lessons are normally full.
During the winter, she plays rugby every Sunday. (She has an Ireland shirt, of course.) She plays, come rain or shine, for 90 minutes. Roger, the coach, does it for the love of rugby. He's helped by some of the Dads. A few Mums cook bacon sandwiches for afterwards. Pete, the club secretary, opens the bar at 11am, for soft drinks, mostly. The coaching costs £1 per week.
The swimming pool is run by DC Leisure Ltd. on behalf of Wiltshire Council. I don't know how much the council contributes towards the running of it, but I guess it is not insubstantial.
The Bradford on Avon Rugby Club is run by volunteers. They get some money from Sport England (I presume) and sponsorship from local businesses. Most of the cost of running the club is met by the membership fees and bar takings.
That, to me, is what Big Society* is about. It is about hanging a name on something that happens in cities, towns and villages up and down the country. It is about opening people's eyes to different ways of doing things. I don't think it is a new idea.
Giles and I sat down, last week, for a coffee to talk about the news. I suggested that he get a few people together and start planning how the community could run the pool. I suggested that by taking the initiative the town would be in a better position to keep the it as a going concern. He could create a community group that works like the Rugby Club. A group that relies on the efforts of its members, rather than the cost structures of a company in Surrey. That can adapt for the needs of it's local town, rather than rely on the pressures exerted by the whole county.
That is what Big Society is to me. Local people taking control of their local facilities and making them work. The swimming pool as we know it will close. We need to choose if, we as a town, want to keep it. It needs to become our swimming pool, not the council's. Big Society isn't about closing council run facilities. They are going to close anyway. We can't afford them. Big Society is a way of keeping them open.
Some commentators have questioned whether enough people have enough time in order to run these facilities. The people who care passionately about the rugby club find time. The people who care passionately about their estates join the residents groups. The people who care passionately about education run the parents' associations and join the board of governors. We'll find out soon enough how passionate people are about keeping their post offices, museums and, of course, swimming pools.
*Big Society really is a crap name, but I can't think what to call it either. I've long railed against the idea of encouraging people to volunteer. People don't volunteer per se. They offer to run schools, clubs, charities for free.
I can't recall who was speaking when the #GingerNinja struck last night, but I felt sorry as I joined half the room in coughing and laughing at the same time.
#Talkfest was an evening for science bloggers to get together and talk about their blogging. It was fun, funny and interesting. We had discussions on the Twitterwall about whether scientists had a duty to engage with the public. Discussions in the room about whether bloggers (in particular science bloggers) should be paid to blog - yeah, why not, worrying trend is those paying to blog without due disclosure. Credit to @alicebell, @beck_smith and the Biochemistry Society for putting it together and hosting it. (And kudos to the cake maker. I'm an expert on cakes and I have to say the ones last night were very good.)
However I came away slightly disappointed, and that feeling hasn't gone away this morning. I felt that despite the eloquence of the community, their wit, their intellect, they were not being very ambitious with what could be achieved with the medium. There was a focus of being heard: by more people, more clearly and in different ways that couldn't be achieved on paper. Perhaps that was the design of the event or the limitations of the community.
My background is with govt and civil society bloggers. We've seen some incredibly innovative uses of the internet to improve our democracy, to change the way it has been reported on, to hold our politicians and governments to account.
So where in the science world are the equivalents of Guido Fawkes questioning the clsoed shop academic hierarchies. Where are new uses of twitter? The science equivalents of #uksnow or EyeSpyMP. Who is shining Sunlight on how funding operates or making the data available in an easy to use way? I'm sure there are some examples, but I wasn't hearing them last night. Let's not just think about the web and blogs as a new medium with which to communicate about science, let's think about it as a medium to communicate in radically new ways about science. Let's use it to make things better. Unless of course they are already perfect.
I finally got along to BathCamp last night. I must admit I was expecting a fairly low key event, but as row after row of seats were filled, and as the distance people had travelled increased from Bradford on Avon to Exeter and Eastleigh, I realised that Mike Ellis and co. have created something good.
We had a couple of talks from mobile developers MobilePie and Kieran Gutteridge before Mark Watt-Jones from Orange which I think is now "Everything, Everywhere" (soon to be E2, which will then merge with O2 to become Vowel Squared) took the stage. Mark is Head of Mobile Product Marketing at that company and gave some great insights into the way smartphones and mobiles are going.
I was most interested to hear him tell how popular that bastion of enterprise mobility the Blackberry had become with young people and how it was due in large part to BBM or Blackberry Messaging. The key features it seems of BBM are it's freeness (cf text messenging) and that you can distribute your PIN to provide access to your chats creating instant online cliques. The idea that you can only tap into these great conversations only if you have the secret password (PIN) must be extremely frustrating and gratifying to some young people depending of course if you happen to know the PIN or not.
I love the way that a feature designed to allow hyperbusy important corporate executives to control who has access to them, has been adopted by teens to extend real-life cliques to virtual world. Plus ca change etc...
[pic credit: Blackberry - no that isn't from Bathcamp. I'm afraid Bathcamp had far more facial hair than your average Blackberry user, judging by their website]
As I read through some of the final comments on the I'm a Scientist site, I was struck by the number of messages of thanks from the Scientists to the moderators.
This year was a little different for us, particularly for Sophia, as for once she had to step back from the day to day moderating to allow a focus on PR and overall site communications. So in stepped I'm a Councillor stalwarts Craig and Sian to handle the day-to-day management of the team.
Along with the rest of the moderators they did a great job of making sure the site runs well. It is not easy to get it right. Experience of working out what's appropriate and not builds over time.
So, I simply wanted to salute the moderating team and say Well Done for a great job:
Craig Swatton
Sian Harries
Nazma Rahman
Annabel Slater
Hannah Sharland
Peter Marchand
Nic Sparasci
Ruth Bellinger
and last but not least
Kirsty Goodman who ran the office during the event.
*To any potential future employers of this lovely lot who may be googling them and find this page - yes, we do recommend them.
I'm buzzing. I've been buzzing for 9 days now. Why am I buzzing? I'm a Scientist, Get me out of Here! is on.
I've been running this type of online engagement event for 8 years now. You'd have thought I'd be used to it by now, but almost everytime the event blows me away. This time though there has been a combination of factors that have all worked together to create something that seems truly special.
A new website
We've rebuilt our website. Back in 2003 when we started we had a pretty amazing site too, but technology has moved on and so we needed to as well. Back in December we started the process of specifying the site again from the ground up without changing the basic way that the event works. It is now built on Wordpress and works like a dream. There are many changes on the site but the main thrust has been to make the site more conversational. Scientists answer questions together and any student or scientist can reply with a comment. Everyone has a profile and students can choose an avatar. Questions and comments link back to profiles. There are lists of recent and interesting questions. Everything can be deep-linked. The site is social.
The scientists are social
We knew there would be some camaraderie with the event. After all with 100 scientists taking part some are sure to know each other, others are sure to get on. We've been astounded though by the amount of mixing that has gone on. Much of it has been made more visible through Twitter and the #IAS2010 tag. But it is happening in the real world. Scientists from the same institute are meeting and talking I'm a Scientist. They are leaving comments on the site for each other and on their own blogs. So far there have been 1,173 tweets about the event. The majority from the scientists and other onlookers. But the numbers aren't the amazing thing. Scientists have being goading each other on and swapping tips. Then today the core group on Twitter suddenly decided that there should be more media coverage for the event. This wasn't prompted by us. The scientists, the people taking part in this event, decided to message their press contacts asking them to cover the event. You can't buy PR like that.
What some scientists are saying:
Prof. Andrew Maynard, 2020 Science
It is hard to convey the sheer intensity of the experience.Dr Tom Hartley
Dr Mark J Fogg
The scientists are designing the next iteration
With every site and event you build, you try to involve your users as much as you can. We did and we've run 3 pilot/test/warm-up events and still new ideas and features are pouring in. They are pouring in because the scientists are immersing themselves in the event totally. It is very important to them. We are also making it easy for them to let us know. We're responding to email, twitter, the telephone. We have a staffroom chat page. Every chat is opened 5 minutes early and the scientists often arrive then and chat with the moderators. Thankfully the suggestions are just small tweaks and improvements, but we take them seriously because the more usable the site is for scientists the more likely they are to take part in the future, and it is the scientists that the students are here to talk to. And, boy, are they here to talk.
The students are asking questions
We're at the halfway mark and we have just over 4,000 student signed up. They've asked over 6,000 different questions and taken part in over 130 live chats. In some zones, like Cancer, it has been brutal. Over 650 questions. Others, like Evolution have the mere average of about 270 questions. But as always the numbers don't really tell the story. You need to read the questions to get a sense of what interests the students. Some are straightforward, some look ridiculous until you think about it and read what the scientists answer, but all show that young people have an enormous curiosity in science and the world around them.
"what do you think the five most important qualties are for a scientist?"
"Do you think global warming will kill us?"
"If your project ever goes wrong do you carry on or give up until you find the answer you predicted or want?"
Today we are excited to announce the winners of the Healthcare Engagement Strategy Awards 2010.
"Today I am very excited to announce yet another step along our data portability journey."
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the people quoted above really were very excited about their products and launches. I'm not good at self-promotion, so it makes me incredibly proud to see the level of excitement that participants in I'm a Scientist are showing with still nearly 4 weeks to go before the event starts properly.
The scientists were selected on Friday based on ratings given by students and teachers who are participating in the event. It was not an easy process. Nearly 200 scientists to fit into 100 spaces. Some very good scientists discarded at the end. Next year...
An email went out Friday night and the first tweeting started soon after. Sophia has already built an I'm a Scientist list of those who we know are on twitter (currently 20, but I expect it will rise). But 140 chars is a little limiting. This morning however I read a couple of blog posts from two of our participants and my chest swelled with pride by the way they wrote about our event and their EXCITEMENT about taking part.
Andrew Maynard from 2020 Science started:
Stephen Curry, from Imperial College London tells us:
"I confess to being a little bit terrified."
I'm also really impressed by the collegiate atmosphere emanating:
Stephen: "there is an impressive total of 100 scientists taking part - split into twenty groups of five."
and there is already jostling and positioning occuring via Twitter. This series of tweets from @LisaMarieke makes me giggle:
Followed by this a few hours later ;-)
We're lucky that we're working with a group of people, scientists, who are so passionate about their work that they fight to give up their time to talk about it, but credit also needs to go to Sophia (aka @imascientist) for tirelessly encouraging scientists to apply and making enormous efforts to spread the word about how enjoyable the event is. It's also the small things such as being quick to publish a list of participants, to create a twitter list. It's the smart things like getting students and teachers to rate the descriptions given by the scientists. It's because we are doing it large. As Andrew Maynard, who has some experience of science engagement, says:
But it is also because, in the end, it is a great project that engages young people and scientists
Update: Dr Goldacre has taken exception to this interpretation of his remarks in the I, Science interview. We would like to make absolutely clear that Dr Goldacre does not advocate the sacking of all science writers.
However, I genuinely did read his remarks to mean that he believed we should reduce science writers considerably and that 'unmediated' communication from scientists to the public, with no science writers at all, was ultimately the ideal. The headline was intended to be a pithy summary of my counter view. Obviously Dr Goldacre feels that was not what he meant. If he would like to explain his views on the future of science writing then I'd be happy to hear them.
Regardless of any connection with Dr Goldacre's views, I think it's important to make the arguments for the value of a mixed ecology of science communication. And that is what the post is actually about, so I feel the points I make still stand.
In an interview with I, Science, Ben Goldacre outlines his theory that we should replace science writers with practising scientists writing about their area. Dr Goldacre argues that scientists themselves bring a depth of knowledge and insight that can't be rivalled by the generalist science writer.
Because people who work actively in a field of science, they know that field backwards. Their distractions and the nuances of their language and the diversions they drift off in as they write, and their ability to spot the flaws in somebody’s case will be head and shoulders above somebody who’s just come to it, spending four or five hours working on it, on that one day.*
He suggests that instead of professional science writers we should have armies of editors helping the scientists to structure and express their thoughts.
Now I think there are some good points here, worth bearing in mind. An example I often give when explaining the value of I'm a Scientist, is of Sam Mugford, of the John Innes Centre, who took part in the pilot event back in 2008. Sam studies plant biochemistry, specifically the mechanisms that allow oat plants to resist infection by a particular fungus.
There was quite a gathering of new media luminaries in London in early March. Joe Rospars, Mike Slaby, Sam Graham-Felsen, Jared Cohen, Scott Heiferman from Meet-up, & Ramya Raghaven from YouTube amongst many others.
The Alliance of Youth Movements had invited them to talk about how young people are and can use the internet to diminish violence. I was invited through the Empowering Voices Online project we are running and because it was a chance to catch up with Sam, who I met as part of the G20Voice project last year.
Some of the highlights for me were:
It was great afterwards to be invited to the US Deputy Ambassador's residence and have a change to catch up with Sam GF. I've always felt that the BSD guys must be getting a little tired of being known as the Obama New Media team. Sure it's been the best calling card you could want as a business, but it must take it's toll being lorded about so much. Sam's now moved on from BSD to join the Alliance of Youth Movements as their Director of Strategy and Communications. He's got quite a job on his hands transforming the movement from a series of conferences into a year round organisation providing advice and peer support. I wish him luck.
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