To celebrate SoNYC’s first birthday, we have been reminiscing on past events by highlighting some of the key take home messages, linking out to pictures and hearing from the co-organisers. (We recently summarised all of the past SoNYC events; you can read the recap of the events from the science communication and outreach strand here, online tools for scientists and digital publishing here and the implicational issues – legal, policy and community here.) It has been a great year and we hope you have enjoyed the conversations, whether it has been in person, online, or via our write-ups and Storifys.
To finish our warm-up to the party, we’re hearing from each of the SoNYC co-organisers. First up was SoNYC co-organiser Jeanne Garbarino from Rockefeller University. In her retrospective she details the birth of SoNYC and how the internet has enabled her to tap into a community she never knew existed. Next up John Timmer, Science Editor at Ars Technica, explained how the organisers met and decided on SoNYC’s format. Now Lou Woodley, nature.com’s Communities Specialist, muses on why the SoNYC-style events are important.
One of my favourite travel tales comes from the days before social media and smartphones; I was journeying back from Barcelona, where I was due to move with my PhD lab, to Heidelberg, where I was based at the time. As the train approached France, it came to an unexpected halt in a tiny border town and everyone alighted. A quick look at the departure boards revealed that there was a strike by railway workers, with no trains scheduled to leave the station for hours. I was stranded in the middle of nowhere with no way to get to Perpignan to catch the TGV to Paris to make the last connection that would get me home that night. Unwilling to admit defeat just yet, I scrawled “Perpignan, SVP” on a bit of cardboard and decided to try hitch-hiking for the first time…Sitting in the back of a stranger’s car heading along winding coastal roads, I revived my high school French to establish that yes, I wanted to go to the train station, please. Oh, this was where the driver was headed, cool. Yes, I needed to get the TGV to Paris…And, oh, the good Samaritan who had picked me up was in fact the TGV driver of the exact train I was going to take!
Jeanne and John have already detailed how we all met and how SoNYC came about – our meeting was almost as serendipitous as my hitch-hiking! – I’d now like to shift focus and talk a bit more about the “why” behind our monthly discussion series.
We live in interesting times for science; from working in the lab, to publishing, to outreach, there are new tools and new challenges. How can the law keep up with the applications of our discoveries? Whose role is it to police the scientific literature when it’s technically so much easier to commit fraud? How do you measure whether your online activities are actually engaging anyone with science? In what format will our scientific knowledge be shared in the future?
For me, each month’s SoNYC shares many of the same feelings as my fortunate French journey – the nervousness of venturing into the unknown, the sense of urgency to find solutions to problems, the excitement of learning and connecting and the gratitude for others’ kindness. No one has answers to all of the questions facing science online right now – the combination of new technologies, eroding business models or funding, and shifts in attitudes presents us with exciting and daunting new territory that we need to learn how to navigate. But by creating an open, collaborative environment where scientists from all backgrounds – be it the lab, technology start-ups, publishing, teaching, libraries or the media – can come together, there are opportunities to connect and share and to create an incubator for new ideas.
Source: SoNYC badges – Scientists from all disciplines attend every event
SoNYC’s format relies on not allowing conversations to be dominated by a panel of experts, but instead for them to seed the conversations with their experiences and then to allow anyone else to contribute their thoughts and feedback. In this way, we can explore online science together and come up with ideas that each of us may not have thought of alone.
Source: Joining in the conversation online, even with my own slice of pizza!
Extending the spirit of inclusiveness in the pursuit of problem-solving, every event is live-streamed and live-tweeted, with the video archives and Storify storyboards of tweets available online afterwards so that the conversations are as accessible as possible. This year, we’ve also worked to source guest blog posts around each month’s topic to deepen the information that’s being contributed to the conversations as well as extending their reach. Anyone is welcome to get in touch to suggest a contribution.
While I may sound like a doting mother on baby’s birthday, I’m not claiming that SoNYC-style events are the only place for people interested in talking about science. The proliferation of science communication events in places such as London and NYC shows there’s a healthy appetite for exploring science using many different formats – from open mic stand-up to question time debates, late night museum events to quiz nights. For me, what defines the SoNYC-style events is a set-up supportive of forming connections to begin working on shared challenges together regularly.
So, if you’re curious about and willing to explore science in the digital age, why not stick out your thumb and join in? The SoNYC community is a friendly bunch of multi-talented drivers, and the journey is so much better shared.
*******A BIG and heart-felt thank you to everyone who has contributed to our first year – co-organisers, panellists, in-person and online audiences. I hope that you’ll help us to continue to grow throughout our 2nd year.*******