O'Really?

Last Saturday, The Royal Institution of Great Britain (R.I.) hosted a conference called Science Online London (#solo09) co-organised by mendeley.com and network.nature.com. The event centred around the fantastic Faraday Theatre which according to the R.I. is a “beautiful, historic theatre [which] has deeply raked seating that creates an intimate atmosphere, even when full to capacity”. Absolutely. Just like last year, this event attracted delegates and speakers from a wide range of backgrounds in science, publishing and communication from around the world. This post is an approximately alphabetically ordered link-fest of some of the people involved. People are, after all, the most interesting thing about any conference. If you’re not listed here it’s not because I don’t like you (honest!) it’s because we didn’t speak or I didn’t listen or (unlike many people) you’re not vain enough [1] to have a have a blog (yet) 🙂

• Nico Adams, The University of Cambridge, is blogging for impact.
• Euan Adie, Product Manager, Nature Publishing Group, see recent interview.
• Dr. Aust, Cretacean Mud Slinger from the “University of Gloomingham”.
• Enrico M. Balli speaker in the Just what the hell is a scientific paper after all? session.
• Virginia Barbour, PLoS.org, speaker in the Real-time statistics in Science session
• Rachel Cavill, Imperial College London, data miner
• Katharine Barnes, Nature Protocols and speaker in the What is a Scientific Paper? session
• Geoffrey Bilder, CrossRef.org, opening speaker in the author identity session [2]
• Petra Boynton drpetra.co.uk speaker in The Legal and Ethical Aspects of Science Blogging. I’d love to blog more about this but they asked not too, because as they say, “This Is Not Legal Advice: (T.I.N.L.A.)“
• Theo Bloom, Chief Editor PLoS Biology and speaker in the What is a Scientific Paper? session
• Matt Brown, organiser of the Scientific Pub Crawl of London and author of a couple of interesting articles about the RI [3,4].
• David Colquhoun, who loves the NHS but noted that this years conference was “more corporate” (too many publishers?) and had an unhealthy obsession with public relations (PR) – a form of “paid lying“.
• Maxine Clark, Nature editor extraordinaire and one of the brains behind the Nautilus blog at Nature.
• Mo Costandi, who blogs at Neurophilosophy
• Martin Davies, Royal Institution, played host to the whole event
• AJ Cann, University of Leicester see his report, unpacking solo09 at Science of the Invisible
• Lee-Ann Coleman, Head of Scientific, Technical & Medical Information at British Library speaker in the What is a Scientific Paper? session
• Joe Dunckley, BioMedCentral.com, nice to meet the face behind the great photos on flickr and I’m reet chuffed a fellow West Country bumpkin appreciated my “Alright My Luvver” T-shirt. See his solo report at Cotch.net and reflections on what is a scientific paper?
• Alf Eaton, Nature Publishing Group, Ghostly Image Magician
• Kevin Emamy of citeulike.org
• Martin Fenner, University of Hannover Medical School, organiser and opening speaker who has written a nice conference summary here.
• Paul Foeckler one of the founders of Mendeley.
• Alexander Griekspoor, Mekentosj, was strongly agreeing with the “get rid of the journal” undercurrents at the conference this year
• David Allen Green, aka Jack of Kent gave a talk on The Legal and Ethical Aspects of Science Blogging. I’d love to blog more about this but he asked people not too. As they sometimes say, “This Is Not Legal Advice: T.I.N.L.A.“
• Reynold Guida, Thomson.com, talked about ResearcherID.com etc in the author identity session
• John Gilbey, The University of Rural England, speculated about the future… quote “the difference between speculation and prediction is that you have to pay more for the latter….”
• Richard P. Grant, F1000, Speaker in the Real-time statistics in Science session
• Michael Habib, Elsevier, gave a talk on Scopus ID in the author identity session
• Mark Henderson Science Editor, The Times (of London). Times science blog isn’t just a dumping ground for B-list material that isn’t good enough for the paper. The comments left on the blog are much higher quality than the rubbish that often gets posted in the main paper.
• Victor Henning, Mendeley.com, co-organiser and speaker see his words and excellent pictures here
• Brian Kelly, UKOLN, UK Web Focus see The Back Channels for Science Online 2009 conference
• Li Kim Lee, dutifully staffed the front desk all day
• Corie Lok, Nature Publishing Group, speaker in the Cat Herding: The Challenges and Rewards of Managing Online Scientific Communities session
• Phil Lord, University of Newcastle, who gets very unhappy when he visits London. Grumpy Old Man? Very possibly – cheer up Phil!
• Allyson Lister, University of Newcastle, the mind wobbles (some jokingly call her “Roboblogger” on account of the prolific blog output), keep our minds wobbling Ally!
• Ijad Madisch, speaker in the Cat Herding: The Challenges and Rewards of Managing Online Scientific Communities session
• Arikia Millikan, formerly scienceblogs.com, another speaker in the Cat Herding: The Challenges and Rewards of Managing Online Scientific Communities session
• Ian Mulvany, Nature Publishing Group, speaker in the Google Wave sesssion.
• Peter Murray-Rust, University of Cambridge, A Scientist and the Web. He feels the force of Roboblogger (aka Allyson Lister)
• Dave Munger, founder of researchblogging.org, gave a presentation with his “blogging optimist” hat on in the blogging for impact session. Dave pointed out that blogs don’t have to be controversial to have an impact, or time consuming, for example posting just once a month can be enough to have an impact. That’s part of the beauty of the pub-sub model of publishing. See Dave’s (telepresent) report.
• Daniel MacArthur of The Sanger and Genetic Future. Daniel gave a great talk with his “blogging realist” hat on (to follow on from the blogging optimist talk) in the Blogging for Impact session. Daniel pointed out that there is never enough time to blog everything that is interesting and that time spent blogging is time not spent doing experiments, coding, analysis, grant-writing etc. In the blogosphere (as elsewhere) controversy sells (but this means you can annoy colleagues and peers off in your community). Inacurrate, exaggerated or even perfectly valid criticism can damage careers.
• Cameron Neylon, Google Wave: Just Another Ripple or Science Communication Tsunami?
• Mike Peel from Jodrell Bank Observatory and speaker in the Citizen science session I missed.
• Cindy Rubbens, Mendeley.com, staffed the front desk
• Graham Steel, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) Alliance , blogs at McBlawg, dammit Graham I didn’t get the chance to ask you about the CJD alliance. Maybe next year…
• Arfon Smith University of Oxford, speaker in the Citizen science session about GalaxyZoo. Would have loved to have gone to this, but it was running parallel to our session on author identity.
• Chris Thorpe, The Guardian, he’s busy riding the Google Wave.
• Gudmundur Thorrison, aka “Mummi”, University of Leicester, Gen2phen project, see interesting stuff on digital identity at gen2phen.org
• Stewart Wills, Online Editor at Science Magazine, AAAS.
• Matt Wood, Mekentosj.com, wot no scibarcamb this year?

Now I’m told the presentations mentioned above will be on Nature Precedings in due course, which will be good. Thanks to all the organisers, speakers and participants this year that made Science Online London 2009 well worth attending. Hopefully see some more of you again next year!

References

1. Carly Simon (1972) You’re So Vain
2. Geoffrey Bilder (2006). In Google We Trust? Journal of Electronic Publishing, 9 (1) DOI: 10.3998/3336451.0009.101
3. Matt Brown (2008). Venerable institute gets a refit Nature, 453 (7195), 568-569 DOI: 10.1038/453568a
4. Matt Brown (2008). Reimagining the Royal Institution Nature, 453 (7195), 595-595 DOI: 10.1038/453595a
5. Duncan Hull (2009). Slides from the author identity session: Authenticating Scientists with OpenID
6. Jennifer Rohn and Richard P. Grant (2009). Pre-conference video: Live Roof Surfing at Mendeley Fringe Frivolous