Making Light

But this is not a feature of the technology. Just how it is being used right now.

Facebook, Flickr etc. all are really for play (although there are some interesting experiments for corporations) and the money that follows them is not much different than that which funds Superbowls or TV.

So, not surprisingly, most of the conversation deals with things that I find ephemeral, even if they account for a large part of our consumer society. It is as though everyone want to be the digital equivalent of Tickle Me Elmo or a Cabbage Patch Kid - the latest fad.

That is not where these tools will have their biggest impact. It is their ability to leverage human filtering processes, permitting much larger amounts of data to be examined, more information to be distributed and more knowledge to be created.

I have seen first-hand how these tools can help researchers solve difficult problems. They have permitted me to overcome barriers that would have taken months to solve if at all.

Properly used, human social networks and these digital tools can disperse information widely, putting it in the hands of people who can use it. In research, they are simply a means to an end. Out in Bubbleland, they are the end.

Now that I’ve read it, it’s a weaker argument than I imagined. It basically comes off like a cliched “kill your television” rant that could have been written any time in the last 50 years. Hey kids, tv is a waste, go outside and fly a kite! Television is not the issue here. Before there was television, people still liked to relax in their spare time. They listened to the radio, went to movies, read books, sang songs, etc. They didn’t spend their time working. He uses the example of playing WOW. The key word there is “playing”, not “working”. Editing a wikipedia article is work. Writing a blog is work. I don’t see Joe Average coming home from the steel mill, cracking open a beer and then fixing typos in wiki articles to relax. Some people do find such things fun. As Jimbo Wales often points out, the majority of the work on Wikipedia is done by around 500 people total. Those people seem to get off on the process, on the rules of Wikipedia (to me that’s one of Wikipedia’s great problems, to those who do the most work, the process is more important than the content or the accuracy of what’s produced).

The one part of his argument I do buy is the sheer numbers. Although it’s a tiny, tiny minority, there are probably more than 500 people who would get off on enforcing the rules of Wikipedia or some such activity. So over time, I do expect to see more participation. But no, I don’t expect to see television disappear, and no, I don’t expect to see leisure time suddenly become community effort time. And that does not bode well for professional social networking projects. If you’re asking people to participate because it’s a fun way to spend their spare time, they’re probably not going to work on projects that are what they do all day at work.

Oh, and the irony of it all is that if you took away the television programs he decries, you’d lose the subject matter of 90% of the online projects he’s promoting. No TV means no Picard versus Kirk arguments, after all.

One more thing. You are sitting right in the middle of the phase shift being brought on by disruptive technology. Scientific publishing even five years from now will be very different than today. Scary for some but the best times to have real impacts in the world are when things are shifting.

So even engaging a community with a simple blog can be a potent tool. Good conversations are the key.

I really enjoy your blog and it has led me to aggregate not only the feed for Bench Marks but also for CSH Protocols. I just wish you had more time to post. I like your point of view.

Great conversation. What is very obvious now is that, as usually happens, the thought of untold riches from a set of new tools has clouded the minds of many, many people. It is as though all anyone talked about were the Formula 1 racing cars, without realizing that pickup trucks was where the really disruptive effects would be see. The Innovator’s Dilemma discusses this in detail.

Facebook is a poor example of how these technologies are helpful for scientists. I look at it as similar to gossip. Lots of people do it and it can be fun but ultimately it is mostly noise. Same with most of what Shirky mentioned. It is really just play, just grooming other primates.

But get two researchers together and their form of discourse may look gossipy but often has a tremendous amount of information transfer and problem solving aspects to it. We are trying to find out the latest information, what happened at a conference, what was published in Blood the last week, why the experiment failed, how it succeeded, etc.

These are the sorts of conversations that I see these tools really enhancing. But these tools probably won’t look anything like Facebook. These tools will help us manipulate data in new and novel ways, harnessing the power of social networks to solve real problems. This is a much different emphasis then playing the latest widget on Facebook.

I don’t see that everyone will embrace these tools. Just as some people take notes with a pen and some with a computer, some will use a wiki and others will continue to use informal avenues. But I do believe that if properly implemented, these tools can save time for many scientists. Just as a first approximation, a fair amount of time spent emailing internal collaborators, having ad-hoc meetings, tracking down references in order to write a grant can be decreased by the collaborative nature of a wiki.

The key here is that the tools HAVE to be of almost immediate usefulness to the individual. It has to make our time more efficient and to have direct positive effects. Spending time on Facebook, or most of the media sites on the web, is no different than apes grooming each other. It has no other direct purpose. (Well, maybe to make millions for widget developers)

But a well implemented wiki or blog, particularly within an already established community such as a research organization, can have direct, time-saving effects on the individual. It is simply the emergent effects of the local social network that can leverage this into something very useful to the organization.

To my mind, the key here is that social media tools used WITHIN an organization will have very different uses and methodologies than those used OUTSIDE, in the wild. Most of the current discussions are with the outside aspects but I believe that the greatest long term impact of these tools, particularly for scientists, will be the inside aspects.

I do get Shirky’s point about moving spare time online. It doesn’t really address the idea of social networks and such for professional, work-related matters. Sure, maybe you’ll play on Myspace or WOW in your leisure time instead of watching tv. But how does that translate to participation in scientific communication, blogs, etc? Most scientists I know are overbooked already in their work hours. If they’re expected to invest time in social networking, then that either means a reduction in research or cutting into their down time.

I have spent some time on 2collab, and agree it’s a distant third to Connotea and CiteULike. And I do think Nature is much more likely to crack the nut as it were, as they have some very smart people working for them, and seem willing to take chances.

Hype and echo chambers - Being at this Web 2.0 Expo is a similar exercise. But simply because 90% of the talks or discussion are fluff or hype does not negate that there are some very substantive conversations going on. The key is finding them.

Fltering is key. It is why I concentrate on bringing these tools inside the firewall. That by itself fliters out a lot of the crud making it easier to solve problems and create knowledge with these tools.

Connetea and CiteULike - could be useless but what is important in Web 2.0 approaches is to fail early and move towards perfection. Finding out what does not work is probably more important right now. Those organizations that can quickly move revisions through the pipeline, particularly in a way that is transparent to their community will ultimately be successful.

My money is that Nature will figure it out before Elsevier. Have you checked out 2collab? I have not found it a very useful filter.

I posted a really long reply at my blog so I don’t want to take up too much of your space. The basic message is that there are useful tools for scientists in these technologies. As researchers, we are used to ignoring hype and looking at the facts. Social media companies need the hype to make their incredible valuations stand up.

The Web was developed by scientists for scientists. We have some very difficult and complex problems to solve and these tools offer real promise for helping solve them.

Shirky was mostly attacking the ‘losers with too much time on their hands’ argument, not advocating that everyone jump on board. Many people are moving their leisure activities online but that does not mean TV is going anywhere.