Communicating science one key at a time

Can just anybody put on a conference?  Well, a group of science bloggers with good connections, a generous heart and a strong will have done it three years in a row.  This year's result was ScienceOnline'09, held at the Sigma Xi Center in Research Triangle Park, a mere 15 minute drive from Durham.  Over 200 individuals representing scientists, bloggers, editors, journalists, educators and students converged to discuss, demonstrate and debate online strategies and tools for promoting the public understanding of science.

Some other reasons this was unlike any other conference I had been to before:

• Registration was free for all attendees.  Instead, people were asked to donate food, magazines, books, money, and their time. 
  

• The conference sessions were designed to actively involve everybody in the room, making it by definition an unconference.  While panels were common, moderators sought input and ideas from the audience.  The typical active/passive power relationship that I have experienced at most conferences was not present.  

• The conference website was a wiki.  This allowed both people attending and presenting at the conference to be active editors of the website.  In this way, everyone could be a contributor.

• Liveblogging was encouraged!

At the different workshops, I learned how a teacher and her high school students were using tools such as ning, twitter and blogs in their science class, tips from freelance writers on how to break into science publishing, the dangers of writing about work topics on personal blogs, and the role of blogging networks, blog carnivals, and pseudonymity.   Don't worry if you haven't heard of these concepts before; they were new to me as of a few days ago. 

If you are planning on starting up your own blog, check out this link for tips and be sure to read up on some of the issues I listed above. 

Oh yeah and keep your eyes out for the next ScienceOnline conference in 2010.