Back from vacation in California (visiting two national parks, Yosemite and Sequoia, to take in some mind-blowing scenery at 5000 feet) and finally beginning to get caught up. On Friday, I was at the annual meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, speaking on a panel about how to build online communities, and whether societies should see online communities as a threat or an opportunity.
We had a pretty good turnout…more than 100 people in the room (I would guess), most from various scholarly associations/societies. I bet at least a few were wondering what their societies should be doing in social networking, or, more fundamentally: is it the role of a scholarly society to be setting up and running groups on Nature Network or Facebook or even building their own networking site?
A major theme that came up in my and one of the other talks was the expanding role of publishers and societies. Jeff De Cagna, a consultant for the world of associations, said that societies and journals are not about being a “passive container” of content, but now about “active engagement.” We at Nature Network (and NPG too) certainly believe that too. Societies and publishers are used to just disseminating information, one-way, to its readers/members. But with the Web, we can and should also be the hosts and facilitators of information exchange happening in multiple directions between all of our members/readers.
Jeff posed a really good question: are “scholarly” and “social” mutually exclusive? I think more associations are realizing that the answer is “no,” judging by the interest we’ve gotten from scientific societies/institutions/consortia that have approached us at NN about potential partnerships.
I’m sure many of you are members of professional associations. You probably get newsletters, publications, membership directories, invitations to meetings and other events, networking opportunities—and the benefit of something that looks good on your CV.
Just out of curiosity: do you feel like you could get more benefit if your association had some kind of community website (or a presence on an existing community site) that allowed you to better connect with other association members? Do you feel that using online networking sites provide you with more benefits than being a member of an association? Could online networks one day replace associations?!
I definitely feel online networks could one day ‘replace’ scholarly societies. I honestly don’t get much out of being a member of the few societies I am in besides discounts on meeting registrations and a few publications. The rest of their content is mostly free online (e.g. ACS). However, it’s a very old school approach to networking and there is a significant amount of reluctance to accept online networking. For instance, I worked with one of the editors of a society’s newsletter and started a Facebook group page for the society. We have over 200 members now, and growing steadily, but no one is starting any discussion topics or doing much of anything on the group site. It could be that Facebook has it’s own problems, and the perception is that it is more for fun than work, but I would guess the story would be the same for something like NN. That is, until people start accepting these sites as a legitimate means of networking.
Thanks Nick. Your response (that online networking could replace or at least seriously threaten scholarly societies one day) is precisely what societies fear so I imagine that’s where the hesitancy comes from. Another factor is just lack of experience and exposure. I think it would be safe to say that the leaders of scholarly societies probably didn’t grow up with Facebook and online networking in general and so there’s quite a learning curve…and cultural change…that has to happen too.
Still, I think this change is happening, slowly. One of the questions I got after my talk was about how many people it took to produce and run NN…that kind of very specific question indicates to me a growing level of interest. And a person from another society told me that her eyes were opened by our panel and said that her society had to do something in this area, because “this is the future.”
Indeed, the international nephrology society, whose journal Kidney International is published by NPG, runs a social site identical in many ways to Nature Network, called ISN Network. So a few societies (well, one on this evidence!) are putting a toe in the water.
I don’t know that online networking will ever really REPLACE face-to-face stuff. There’s something about it that can’t be duplicated no matter how “social” a social network is (although I agree with Nick about a Facebook group having lots of members but no actual activity).
That said, it IS a way to get/stay in touch with people abroad that you might otherwise never know about or interact with.
I do wonder about the value of multiple social networking sites for various verticals (types of science). Seems a bit of a waste of time and brain space to remember the various usernames and passwords. Using ONE central software seems the best idea — it maximizes the number of potential connections.
Cathy, I agree. I find the life sciences to be especially guilty of exclusion. Are they concerned that those darn physicists will be hogging all of their bandwidth or what? In this supposed age of interdisciplinary research, one site for all fields of research seems to be especially useful. There are plenty of physicists doing ‘bio’ work (and geoscientists, and chemists, etc).
To me, sites like these are ideal opportunities to foster new collaborations across traditional discipline lines. Hopefully some day one of these sites stands above the rest and is accepted by the scientific community as a whole. I think that in the end, it will have to be incredibly easy to use (a la Facebook) but with high functionality.