As time is running out (isn’t it always?), and rather than contribute to yet another bloody meme, I should remind all you bright young things to persuade the great and the good to start blogging. The ‘Grand Challenge’ laid down in the final “session”:http://network.nature.com/people/rpg/blog/2008/09/15/on-science-blogging-2008—part-3 SciBlog ’08 is still wide open.
Fame, fortune and a trip to Scifoo are at stake.
Several rather good, and active, blogs have started on Nature Network around the time of, or in the immediate aftermath of, the Science Blogging conference. I don’t know how many “senior scientists” there are out there who have started blogging as a result of the
challengecompetition, but if only a few, I wonder if the judges might consider any science blog that started as a result of the conference (either pre-conference enthusiasm or post-conference)? That would certainly give you some high-quality entries.Will you be publishing a long list and/or a shortlist before the final awards?
Well now Maxine, they’re bloody good questions.
If someone would actually nominate some, I might be able to answer…
Sigh If I knew blog-worthy senior scientists who won’t judge me by my extracurricular activities, I’d most certainly get them to blog for a chance at SciFoo, but there are none. Everyone is working 100 hours a week, they don’t have time to reply a quick “yes” or “no” to e-mails marked “urgent”, and if something involves talking to the public at large they gather up some grad students. These people won’t blog – I’m not even going to try.
If none of you have the courage, the judges reserve the right to appropriate all prizes for themselves.
This may be a wholly illegal move but, as an incentive to others, I will pick up Maxine’s cue and self-nominate – since I did finally get going on blogging as a result of the infamous challenge… Hey, I could be a contenda!
Let battle commence…(provided I’m not immediately disqualified)!
Stephen, you should find someone to nominate you. Remember, it’s two tickets to SciFoo…
Richard, at the moment I just want to find someone to take the 3 hours required to sit at my PhD defense so I can graduate. I’ll even let them work on their grant proposals while they’re there, I barely care anymore as long as I have a complete committee. Once they can manage that, they might be able to handle a blog. But then I think it’s too late – when was that deadline?
Hmmm. I was made aware of the challenge just now. So, as Eva said when is/was the deadline? Also, I would like clarification on the term Senior Scientist (is this only tenured? 10+ years in industry?).
If you’d follow the link you’d see that the deadline is 5th January 2009.
@Martin – Stephen, you should find someone to nominate you. Remember, it’s two tickets to SciFoo…
Well, I think I already mentioned that I was dependent on the kindness of strangers…
And Why academics should blog might be worth reading…
Oh, maybe I can make it by January 5th. Maybe I’ll ask people right after I pass my exam. “Thanks guys! Fancy a blog?” Or does that sound too suggestive/inappropriate…? =P
By the way, I didn’t specifically ask anyone to blog, but I did make Cameron Neylon tell people about the challenge when he was on my panel at the Science in the 21st Century conference, so I (forced someone to) advertise(d) it. (I also made Chad Orzel talk in the voice of his dog in that panel, by the way. The power of putting people on the spot is a dangerous thing for me to have…)
(This is, of course, not at all conductive to me ever getting a chance at Scifoo, and might actually have the opposite effect. “Oh, right, the weird panel moderator. Let’s not ask HER.”)
Tell you what Eva: you nominate me and we’ll waltz off with the prize! I won’t tell anyone if you don’t. No-one need ever know…