Last week I found myself in front of about 40 incredibly bright people telling them that Social Media is a waste of time.
The venue was a rather spiffy Hotel & spa (and damn if I didn’t forget to take my swimming trunks) in extensive, goose poo-covered grounds just outside Nantwich.
Just outside Nantwich
The event was the RIN ‘s joint consultative groups away-day, attended by librarians and scientists and humanities-types (humanitarians? No, that can’t be right); an eclectic bunch of researchers and facilitators from many disparate disciplines but all intent on examining ways to improve the process of research in the UK—to inform policy, in fact—and I was giving the keynote speech 1, at the behest of the incomparable Branwen.
As the taxi driver kept reminding me, there was just one road in and out: so I had to make it good.
I saw people scribbling furiously, or determinedly tapping on their iPhones, as I threw up slide after slide (using the completely brilliant Keynote Remote application) saying that Web 2.0/Social media is crap and no one should use it. Actually that’s not true—I said why researchers weren’t using it, but in a deliberately provocative way.
And people got very het up and asked questions bordering on the furious. But it was a good night, and I did get to explain, before they tore me limb from limb, that I considered my brief was to be deliberately provocative in order to promote discussion. Discussion was, indeed, provoked.
The next day we had a number of parallel sessions to decide on what the RIN should spend fifteen thousand quid. There were some fascinating proposals and I had the huge honour of sitting on a ’Dragon’s Den’-type panel to judge the three proposals that made it through the first round of voting, together with Jenny ‘researchers are too busy to faff around LOLing’ Rohn.
The winning proposal was to do with—well, I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say at this juncture so I’ll just say it wasn’t Open Access but a proposal to look into equal access to published literature, for all universities and HEIs in the UK. And it was driven, quite forcefully I might add, by David Shotton. So you know it’s going to be good.
A good time was had by all, and I was completely stoked to be asked to join the Life Sciences & Medicine Consultative Group as a result of scaring everyone.
But the really big news is that I was fortunate to be at Jenny’s table that evening for dinner, and that was a special place to be because she’s a complete whizz at trivia: our table won the subsequent pub quiz, despite me not remembering ‘Esk’. But I did get ‘Survivor’, ‘Eucalyptus’ and ‘Harvey Keitel’, so I think I’m ahead on points.
I would comment on this, but you have just convinced me it is a waste of time.
Humanists. But they’ve all been sacked anyway.
That’s the first time you’ve ever listened to me, Audra.
Intriguing but… what is RIN? Should I care about it? I had a look at their info but ran into a fog of phrases such as:
and was left nearly comatose.
Care to be more pithy?
“Helping researchers do research”.
Pithy enough?
Hmm… that’s too pithy. Can we try baby bear’s synopsis?
If they’re helping, why have I never heard of them before now?
Are you taking the pith?
No thir. Serious enquiry…
Stephen – you haven’t been reading the right blogs .
My take on RIN: they are working to help remove obstacles between researchers and the information that they need for research. Part of their work is helping us to understand better how researchers use information, and what they use.
Jenny ‘researchers are too busy to faff around LOLing’ Rohn
This, ironically, made me LOL.
I’m with Audra. I’m off to do something else. Glad you’re getting stuck in to, er, um, whatever it is you’re doing these days.
Oh, and the area around Nantwich isn’t the only place covered in goose poo these days, believe me. My morning stroll along the local train platform is more like a hop-skip-and-jump over the stuff. Argh.
“Your presentation is currently being featured on the SlideShare homepage by our editorial team. "
\o/
Every time I see RIN I think RNA integrity number and have to do a double-take.
Sounds like fun, but one is forced to inquire,
Do you know another way?
If the alarming fecundity of Dr. Shotten’s beard is any indication, his proposal is gonna ROCK! Now that’s what I call a science beard!
Guilty as charged. I am NN’s very own agent provocateur.
Which I used to think meant ‘silver-tinted’, which shows you just never can tell.