This is a follow-up to the article I wrote about on-line social networking:
http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/07/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking/
In that post, I started the discussion by posting 5 common questions people ask about on-line social networking’s use for the lab. Here, I will write about one of them.
Question # 1: Why should I care about on-line social networking? Will it help my lab?
Answer:
Some people assume that belonging to on-line social networks are only relevant to social activities, but that is no longer what it means as many professional sites have now been created, some even specifically for laboratory informatics and/or the sciences. It’s merely that we continue to use the term “social networking” regardless whether the use is social or business. Another wrong assumption is that these professional sites are only for people doing business in the industry, like me (a consultant), for example. And, while I do transact some business, this way, I do also use these to get and share information. After all, as a small business, I do not have lots of coworkers to get help from or lots of money to pay for people to answer them. I depend heavily on getting information from discussion groups and social networking.
How it Applies to You
Let me start by giving an example. Let’s suppose that your company wants to buy a new piece of software for your laboratory and charged you with deciding what type of system to buy (LIMS, ELN or both), what brand, and asks you to put a budget together. If you have not done this before, you will have to start, somewhere.
First, you might go to some local meeting with other scientists and ask them to share their ideas and experience. If there aren’t enough people at that meeting to answer your questions and get you closer to your goal, then you have to consider what to do, next.
Next, you might start to call and e-mail other people that you know. If they don’t know how to help you, either, then you really have to think about what to do, next. Maybe some of these people suggest some good articles to you that they’ve read, but these articles still leave you with open questions. In the old days, maybe you would have attended something like the International LIMS Conference. Not only is that conference gone, but fewer people attend conferences, these days, as conference and training budgets continue to be slashed.
At this point, or even before this, if you have an on-line network you belong to that includes a mix of people that can help you with your questions, that gives you another avenue to pursue. If that network is of a good size and has quite a number of people who have worked with these types of systems, you stand a greater chance of getting some help, because you can now interact with many more people than you could know all on your own, people probably from all over the world.
More Thoughts on This
If you have enough resources to ask these types of questions of, you might be less likely to go to these social networking sites. The more common the question and the more people you have who you can ask for help around you, the less you need the on-line community.
But the smaller your company is or the more specialized the question, the more you will have to work to get it answered and the more likely you will be to get involved with these on-line communities.
While it’s true that this all takes time and that your time is already stretched (because that’s true of just about everyone, these days!), but it is something that will become easier and take less time once you start to do this and once you find on-line areas that are best for your own needs.
So, you might be asking questions about a new system, questions about the new GAMP documents, looking for employees, looking for a job, trying to find a consultant, or any other number of things. When dealing with people, such as finding and employee, job or consultant, the more competitive the market is for that spot, the more places you will need to look. Some employment and consulting recruiters are heavily using the on-line networking sites, for example, and if your company cannot afford a recruiter or to pay for all the job sites, you will almost certainly need to consider using some of these social networking sites. One example being, of course, the LIMS/Laboratory Informatics Group in LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=36640
Some Fallacies
Let me give some opinions on these ideas based on my own experience and from talking to others:
1. Problem: If you join one of these sites, you will be spammed by people trying to get your business.
Reality: Most sites work hard to keep this from happening. If you have any problems, report them to the person in-charge of the site or group. I’ve rarely experienced problems with the groups that I’ve been in.
2. Problem: End-customers who join these groups will be targets for everyone selling something. As such, that’s the only reason that consultants, software companies and recruiters promote these groups.
Reality: Even if it’s true that each of us selling something is just waiting to pounce on any potential business, most of us also know that to just write to everyone on the list looking for business is spam and we don’t do it. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get an occasional person writing directly to do to solicit business, but possibly not at all.
3. Problem: When you have a problem, you will just join one of these groups, ask your question, and no-one will bother answering, anyway.
Reality: Don’t wait until you need something to join a group. Just like in real life, you wouldn’t just walk up to a stranger on the street to ask them a question, so don’t do it in the cyber-world, either. Join your group (in-person or on-line) and build your social capitol, first. People are more likely to help you if they recognize your name and if they remember you’ve helped others. I’ll use myself as an example. Over the years, I’ve tried to answer questions and help people as much as I can in the discussion groups and other places. These days, when I have a question, if people know the answer, I usually get some good responses. Most of the people who answer aren’t people I’ve ever been able to help. In fact, sometimes people will specifically tell me they’re helping me out because they’ve seen me help others. Even though I’ve never helped them, personally, they will even sometimes thank me for all my contributions! Additionally, some people will actually write to tell me they’ve seen me help others and wish they could help me but they unfortunately don’t happen to know the answer to my question. So, although there are plenty of people that only come to the groups when they need something, never to help others, there are a lot of people willing to share their experience and knowledge when they can do so.
More to Come
As I mentioned, this is merely the first of the give questions I’m going to answer. Keep watching The Integrated Lab for the rest, coming up in the upcoming days and weeks.
