Has anyone apart from me noticed a surge of new connections within the Nature Network since Sciblog?
While the conference left us all with a feeling of warm fuzziness …
Warm fuzziness, yesterday
… I can’t help wondering whether this surge of connections would have happened had we not all met one another face to face. Indeed, the main thing I got from the conference was just that – meeting human beings and Richard Grant whom I felt I knew in the cybersphere, but not in person: sharing a meal, waterboarding toy pandas together and similar activities of communal merriment.
This suggests that the processes we have in place to forge online communities are very far from a substitute for the real thing. The closest that people have come is Second Life, but that’s still very much a niche activity. As one person said to me in the pub on Saturday, “Everyone I know is on Facebook, but I don’t know anyone who uses Second Life”.
It could be that the barrier is technological: at the moment we have a constellation of social networking, twittering, friendfeeding, flickring and such, but no one thing that offers a seamless and easy user experience — one that doesn’t put up barriers to their use and acceptance, either technologically or socially.
What do I mean by this? Well, Second Life is easy to load up and use, provided you
- have sufficient processing power;
- you’re used to the mores of instant messaging and online role-playing games;
- are confident that Mrs Gee will not ask you to tear yourself away and iron the chickens.
I can accommodate the first but not the second or third, and for many people, point 3 will always be an issue - even for applications such as Facebook. But then, nobody would want to host a conference in Facebook, whereas people can and do such things in SL. When held up against the population at large, there are relatively few people who -are pathologically lacking in bodily hygiene have the leisure to pursue such things unencumbered by normal work, social and family life such thay can immerse themselves in the cybersphere to the extent such that it can become a substitute for reality. Whereas nobody would claim that Facebook, any more than daytime TV, is a substitute for real life, SL and online role-playing games are much more immersive, and, therefore, demanding.
Indeed, I’d wager that even VR applications as clever as Second Life come a very poor second to life — so that their use is seen as a distraction from real life, rather than something that enhances it or substitutes for it. To be sure, many people say similar things about blogging (a point Timo Hannay made very well at SciBlog). But consider: had we had Sciblog in SL, would we now be experiencing the upsurge in NN connectedness?
Now, I’m not getting at SL specifically, and one could always complain that as I’ve only played with it myself for a couple of days, I have no right to criticize it anyway.
But that’s just my point.
To be as immersive as real life, SL (or equivalent) must also be as attractive and user-friendly as real life. One might legitimately ask whether, rather than treating Second Life as a substitute for interacting with Mrs Gee and ironing the chickens, I should strive to bring Mrs Gee and the chickens into Second Life with me, so we can iron them together. To which my answer would be that this is all very well, but such persuasion requires more than the usual activation energy. However pretty the landscape looks in SL, it won’t get the washing done, and it’s merry hell scraping feathers and chicken shit off your monitors.
To sum up, nothing exists that replaces the interactivity of real life and the immediacy of its user interfaces — one’s senses, even if distorted by a few glasses of beer in a pub (and if you don’t believe me, just see what effect beer has on your computer, even without the chicken shit).
I’m not sure that synthetic user interfaces of a similar immediacy to RealLife™ will be developed in the near future (now there’s a hostage to fortune).
In which case, we are left with the amusing paradox that the best way to raise consciousness in cyberspace is to hold consciousness-raising events in meatspace.
What I find gratifying about interactions with people in real life are intangible and unreadable, so not reproducible on a computer. Still, the fact that blogging microfame exists means that there is a large modicum of “getting to know someone” that can be satisfied by words and computer-generated gestures.
I wanted to point you this way relative to the
fulltime occupationgame I mentioned when we were waiting for the first glass after the conference, Spore.Thanks for Spore – my kids would love it!
Henry> I think that “the internet”, for lack of better word, is a great tool to keep your contacts in contact. It is also a good venue to have some discussions and get togethers, especially today with people all over the world.
However, I am a staunch believer that main connections between people, as on Facebook or on line games*, are between people who have met at least once in real life. The few you keep in contact with whom you never met are most likely on the “I will try and meet at some gettogether soon” list?! [in my case, plenty of the people here and on lablit forum… let’s just hope for another blog conference or a get together in the world of pubs in London.]
*That said, I love online games and was once a regular in one community (in the world of dos) but I am not interested at all in SL. NN holds an interest since this is reading/writing but a conferece?
nahh… I’m old fashioned and think that nothing can replace a good “human to human” interaction ;)
really don’t know where the bold came from. didn’t show up in the preview. sorry.
I’m not sure that synthetic user interfaces of a similar immediacy to RealLife™ will be developed in the near future.
Henry – you surely have seen this attempt ?
Very good, Erika.
Henry, that Spore game has been advertised in Game (the shop which supplies our house with endless Mario Karts etc) for ages, but can’t arise any interest in the girls here. Maybe I’ll get it for a Christmas present for M. I. (along with Bad Science by B. G.?) I am quite curious, and wonder if it is based on that meme computer “game” that The Unmentionable developed in the 1970s on what passed for computers in those days (fill a room to get 1/1,000,000 of a current laptop). I remember being amazed by it back then, watching the little entities “evolve”….
Yes – internet helps you find interesting people….so you can arrange to meet them in person. Nothing beats Real Life. This is why we constantly have blogger meetups and conferences (including ScienceOnline09) – that is our blogging philosophy. So, you need to come here in January, bring Mrs.Gee and we’ll find some chickens to iron together.
Yeah Bora (meanwhile, how are you?): nothing is better (at least at the moment) of Real Life. What I think is that is not a technological problem, but something that has to do with how we are.
I loved to see and meet the NN community in London, even if I’m not the kind of person that easily get in touch with others, but I liked the opportunity to see which kind of shoes henry gee uses to wear (!), or how sound the voices of Maxine. Things like these, things which absence would not impede communication, but if they are present (at least sometimes) gives to the conversation (in the wide sense web2.0 has taught us) a sort of further dimension, made of little pluses.
Blogging helps me find people who are interested in the same things I am interested in. Although I know a lot of interesting people where I live I rarely get the chance to meet other people interested in science (apart from my husband) – so to do so is just a huge great treat!
I think we need both varieties of conference and various admixtures. It is striking how all the liveblogging, podcast and FF activity has allowed non-attendees to participate in sciblog08, and also allowed the discussion to continue after the conference. I suspect that it also allows a voice to people that did not speak up in the live event itself, for whatever reason.
I would never want to see the end of real life conferences, but I believe that a SL conference would also work – not better or worse but different.
A bit of both suits me and most probably, most people.
I’ve now attended two Conferences about Science Blogging. My reports are as follows on:-
North Carolina Science Blogging Conference 2008
Science Blogging 2008: London
I attended the first virtually, and the second, in person.
Both were equally enjoyable experiences. Like most people, it’s simply impossible for me to find the time/resources to attend all events that are of interest to me. As such, I attend ones in person that are within my budget and join others remotely where that option is made available.
In contrasting the two however, as Bora says:-
Nothing beats Real Life
@ Åsa, Erika, Marco, Clare … and everyone, really. Yes, nothing can beat RealLife™. I enjoyed the conference immensely, at an emotional level. It made me realize that there is a group of -twisted, dysfunctional_ creative, passionate individuals that cares about the same things that I do.
@ Bora: So, you need to come here in January, bring Mrs.Gee and we’ll find some chickens to iron together.
Ah, promises, promises.
@ Maxine — I think Gee Minor would love Spore. Yes, it sounds rather like what He Who Must Not Be Named described in his excellent book Climbing Mount Improbable but, as you say, more sophisticated.
Hi Maxine, Thanks, I think our girls would be really excited about the Spore game, which is apparently let loose on the market in a few days time.
As for ironing the chickens, I don’t think they need ironing today, but they definitely need a hairdryer judging by the soggy state of the Polish ladies and their crazy hair.
@ Penny — fancy a trip to North Carolina in January? I’m not sure that I’d like to be seen carrying a live chicken to the United States, though, even if it did need ironing.
Henry and Penny, you could always take Prof Steve Steve with you, each take an arm and swing him between you as you skip along.
Let me know how Spore goes, if you get it.
Marco, I love it. I am now going to be known as “the voices of Maxine”.
Of course I missed you all by not being at the blogging meeting so you will all remain faceless avatars for the moment. Conferences are a key part of the Science sub-culture. They are where you find out what is happening in your area and, more importantly, what is going on elsewhere. In my field the UK conference has effectively died out and we have to travel to the USA or continental Europe to make our connections, which can only increase all of our carbon footprints. Subject specific sites (e.g. iMechanica) are starting up in the physical/materials sciences to provide some online interaction but they are at present US based and slightly parochial. At present nothing beats a small conference with a good bar and lots of free time. The Gordon Conference model is very good for this.
A really wonderful general science meeting was Scifoo, which is a great format for the blogging and non-blogging community. Unfortunately I didn’t go to it in 2008 but the 2007 model was excellent. A question is whether the Scifoo model would work outside the USA and Googleplex? Could Nature, O’Reilly and Google work on Euroscifoo or is it something that only works in Moutainview? How was the feel of the recent Blogging conference compared to Scifoo for those who have been to both?
Hoping to meet everyone in person eventually.
@Henry, @Maxine or anyone else at Nature for that matter. Having missed blogging conference, RealLife™ brings me to London on Wednesday/Thursday. Nature appears to be reasonably close to Euston, Gateway to the North-West, so is anyone around either Wed about 4.30 ot Thursday 5.30?
Science may never come up with a better office communication tool than the coffee break.
@ Maxine: Henry and Penny, you could always take Prof Steve Steve with you, each take an arm and swing him between you as you skip along.
How did you know?
@ Brian D: Having missed blogging conference, RealLife™ brings me to London on Wednesday/Thursday. Nature appears to be reasonably close to Euston, Gateway to the North-West, so is anyone around either Wed about 4.30 ot Thursday 5.30?
Sadly, I cannot.
A really wonderful general science meeting was Scifoo, which is a great format for the blogging and non-blogging community
I agree. Some of SciBlog was in the unconference format and I wonder whether the time allotted might be increased next time, if only so the brilliant idea of the Gee/Grant Face-Off might have been a contender. Bob O’Hara had prepared the vat of mud, and everything.
@ Penny: soggy state of the Polish ladies and their crazy hair.
Just in case anyone gets the wrong idea, what you mean by ‘Polish Ladies’ is this
indeed that is what I meant, imagine one of these wearing heaps of hair gel and you get the picture of how Hermione and Luna look today!
What about North Carolina in January then, eh?
Brian, I am sorry to say I am not around at those times either, but I will be at the British Library (inbetween Euston and King’s Cross, the site of Nature) on 24 Sept at 6 pm for the Talk Science evening on the Social Web. Any chance you (or anyone else reading this) can come to that? The BL has a NN group for the event, run by Sarah Kemmitt (who was at SciBlog), if you’d like to see more details. I hope to see people there.
My take on it so far is that blogging – or other web based interaction tools – are only that – tools. In Mac speak, they are something like “widgets”, add ons that can make some small aspects of your work/computer/life experience more efficient, fun and/or feathery.
I’m also pretty new to it, I don’t write my own blog and suffer feelings of guilt over the procrastinationing when I take time to read and comment on the discussions that don’t relate directly to my line of scientific enquiry. And I haven’t attended any blog conferences (bitter grumbling into keyboard).
Following these chats is, however, great fun, while filling in minutes or more between simulations, gels running, papers being read and digested, mice being bred, fields being trialed etc etc etc.
I learn that similar things infuriate other people out there, soothing my boiling temper. I find out that some people have unhealthy obsessions that I hope I wouldn’t own up to if I did start my own blog. Or maybe I would.
But I’d really like to know is blogging any more than a virtual departmental coffee table yet? It’s certainly bigger, stretching round the world, reaching a larger audience with it’s enormous virtual formica surface, but should we expect it to beat vis-a-vis contact in the so called “reaLWorld”™?
I don’t yet, and always look forward to meeting people face to face over a decent pint in the pub after a meeting. Or at least a decent pint.
Having read that post back, (1) sorry it’s soooo long and
(b) I probably would have had these questions answered if I’d gone to the meeting. Ho hum.
Hi Mike. Your name briefly came into conversation when I was sitting next to Bob during a session.
—
…always look forward to meeting people face to face over a decent pint in the pub after a meeting.
Absolutely. Here’s Peter Murray-Rust and I doing just that whilst we were writing our Manuscript as announced by Peter during the wrap up Panel Discusion. Thirsty business I know:-
@ Mike — I find that if my comments get too long then that’s probably a sign I should be writing a blog entry. So perhaps now’s the time for you to jump in!
Mike — Jean-Claude (or was it Cameron) said at the conference that a blog can be the “front end” to an open lab notebook entry, in being a brief description of those data. Martin Fenner has got a post about various types/uses of science blogging over at Gobbledygook, his NN blog. (Apols for lack of link.)
However pretty the landscape looks in SL, it won’t get the washing done, and it’s merry hell scraping feathers and chicken shit off your monitors.
Kim and Aggie deal with this type on occasion, usually online role-playing game fanatics who would rather slay virtual dragons, than chip the glasses and crack the plates washing up.
Everyone I know is on Facebook, except for me. Nor Twitter, nor Second Life. My modus operandi is rather to read various blogs, and then get sucked into some meatspace obsession or activity as a result (e.g. knitting, kayaking, birdwatching locally, Iyengar yoga, steampunking things, etc.).
I have a feeling that there is a balance to be struck between one’s real and one’s virtual existence. The washing does get done, but I find the blogosphere to be both a friend and a refuge.
I agree with the Kristi, Henry and others here: it is down to time-management, and “whatever works for you”. I briefly try out some of these services but only regularly use very few of them if I find them usseful – in my case Nature Network, Connotea, blogging and Friendfeed get a YES but other services such as Second Life, Facebook and many others get a NO – not because they aren’t great in themselves but because they aren’t useful for the particular niche I am in at this phase of my life.
Ben Goldacre said at SciBlogging that blogging lets you become famous for 15 people (a sentiment with which I definitely agree): the same can be applied to the plethora of web 2.0 products out there – 15 (or actually, fewer in most cases) of them are “famous” (i.e. useful) for one person. Distributed throughout the world population, this rule should allow plenty of them to be successful.
@Mike – life is too short to give yourself guilt trips. But we’ve most of us been through this search for justification for participating at the virtual scientist coffee break (I much like the term).
If I might be ever so slightly self-aggrandizing, I’ve brought together a few sources of scientists justifying (a bit) their blogging activity here. (Check “illustrious company” and the links from there – ScienceBlogs has already collected answers from many of their bloggers).
I agree strongly with Maxine – start your blog by talking, self-consciously, about the experiments you have underway. Be as vague or open and upfront with your data as you like. Put up some sort of justification, and vent some frustration. Many of us do that (recent example), and you sometimes get help from unexpected places! This can easily evolve into some form of online laboratory notebook, at least for some aspects of what you need to keep a notebook for. Or you can talk about your job search, or whatever.
/proselytism
The washing does get done, but I find the blogosphere to be both a friend and a refuge.
This is true for me at times, but my mileage really varies on teh interwebz. I tend to be very dependent on visual cues and body language (or perhaps I place more importance on nonverbal communication, as a result of working with developmentally disabled and autistic individuals in therapeutic horseback riding programs), and so online communication can be frustrating and irritating.
Also, to my knowledge, I’ve never been called a “creotard” IRL. Not so in the science
jerkosphereblogosphere.