Communities Happenings is a post with news of interest to NPG’s online communities. The aim is to provide this info in one handy summary. Listings include tweetups and conferences which we’re attending and/or organising as well as new online tools, products or cool videos. We also occasionally flag up NPG special offers and competitions plus updates about NPG social media activities such as new accounts you might want to follow. Do let us know what you find most useful!
SMW and SoNYC
This month’s SpotOn NYC (#SoNYC) event will be hosted in association with the American Museum of Natural History as part of Social Media Week (SMW). The topic for discussion will be, “Telling Stories with Scientists.”
Communicating science is often done best with a story. But doing that clearly, accurately, and in an engaging way can be an extraordinary challenge for the journalists, editors, scientists and others who write those stories. Science is nuanced and filled with caveats, which can make it a difficult subject for weaving a narrative.
The event will be live streamed and details of where you can watch this will be released soon. Make sure you follow @SpotOnNYC for updates. For those outside of the US, we will be hosting a repeat viewing of the session the day after the event on the 21st February at 12.30 pm (GMT). The video archive will also be available on the SpotOn website for you to watch whenever you like.
If you want to join in the conversation online keep an eye on the event hashtags #smwScienceStories and #SoNYC.
Science Online North Carolina
Last week, scientists, educators, journalists, bloggers and more migrated to North Carolina to attend Science Online, the annual conference that “facilitates conversations, community, and collaborations at the intersection of Science and the Web.”
On the first day, two of the nature.com Communities team, Lou Woodley (nature.com’s Communities Specialist) and Laura Wheeler (nature.com’s Communities Coordinator), hosted a pre-conference workshops on: Monitoring & Analyzing one’s Effectiveness on Social Media.
The aim of the workshop was to look at the ways you can set goals for your social media efforts, as well as hands-on demos of some useful tools to determine whether you’re achieving those goals.
We tweeted using the #scioimpact hashtag, where lots of people joined in to share their experiences, useful links and comments. You can check out our Storify from the event which captures the most useful comments.
Science Online London Watch Party
For those in London who were unable to attend Science Online, there was also an official London Watch Party to see some of the talks (including one live)! Organised by Erika Cule and Eva Amsen, there was a live link up to some of the attendees:
Relay Technology Management
Screen Shot
We want to alert you to the Relay Technology Management’s Epigenetics Drug Target Explorer, an interactive dashboard powered by the Relay Innovation Engine. You can find out more in this February 1st article in Nature.
The analysis is based on several key translational metrics compiled over the last ten years: the degree to which epigenetic targets are emerging, established, and discussed in the scientific literature within a therapeutic targeting context. All of this is visualized in the dashboard. Relay offers monthly demos of their interactive dashboard and software-as-a-service technology, which you can sign up for here.