But I was just having a conversation with someone regarding how much the on-line tools can or cannot replace the in-person venues and something came to mind:      I haven’t noticed any webinars given by end-users.

Some of us in the industry have had conversations in various places regarding the fact that end-users can be biased in their presentations just as those of us selling things are, but here’s the issue – the conferences we would attend in-person tend to try to get a variety of speakers. Not all of them make this effort, but I’d claim that’s true of a good portion of them. Thus, if you see a variety of speakers, from end-users to software vendors to consultants, if each is biased toward their own ideas and area, by seeing what each has to present, you’ll be able to compare their ideas that overlap to see where the truth lies.

If end-users never give a webinar, we can never get their point of view to weigh-in with the others. And, regardless how educational a webinar is, it’s a common marketing tactic to give away a webinar in order to promote one’s software products and/or services, which means it has that much more potential bias built-in.

As such, I have a problem with the notion that we would stop attending conferences in-person and rely entirely on webinars. It’s not that anyone has come out and said exactly that (that I know of), but I think there are some conversations leading in that direction.

The sad reality is that they seem to be talking about the same things we talk about coming out of each conference: the future of the various laboratory informatics tools, how to integrate these tools, how mature these tools are, and similar topics. These are the same topics that come out of each conference, year-after-year-after-year. Last week, speaking with some other consultants in the industry, we were noting that a good number of the presentations at conferences are just the same old talks we’ve seen for years, merely given by a different person. Each person thinks they’ve discovered something new, gives their presentation, we all sit and watch, and nothing happens to change the industry.

In fact, the only reason I find this conference notable isn’t the topics, of course – it’s the level of excitement and interest coming out of it. If people stay interested and discuss these issues throughout the year, there’s a potential for change. I think the key is that there was some combination of people, or possibly the way the conference was run, but some other key factor that got people talking about the topics and excited-enough to carry that out of the conference.

So, although the conference topics are important, especially to those people so new they’ve not seen them, before, I would say that all conferences are not equal. For example, every conference has presentations on how to have a successful project implementation, but we continue to have a high rate of project failures. A handful of people going to a conference don’t solve that problem. But if those people share their excitement and certainty about how projects must be run, they influence the others that can’t afford to attend or might not have known about the conference.

As is so often the case, I’d point to the books such as “Tribes” and “Here Comes Everybody” to explain why an event can have this kind of influence and cascade effect. So, the next time you attend a conference, if you shove your conference manual on your bookshelf and go back to business-as-usual, you’re not even doing yourself any good. Instead, get out into our community and start sharing that knowledge. Often, you’ll get more back than you gave.

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/08/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-5-of-5/

On-line social networking and the media that now makes it possible are a hot topic among many factions of our industry, from software vendors that want to interact with their customers and get them timely information, to the companies that make products and want to assist their researchers in sharing information and techniques, to give just a couple examples.

The US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has announced a public hearing for the use of social media with regard to promoting medical devices:

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-22618.htm

How long will it be before they take on social media in other regulated areas? How long will it be before other regulatory agencies across the world start this same effort? Only time will tell.

http://outonalims.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/in-boston-laboratory-informatics-is-important-but-people-still-matter/

From going to give a free talk for a colleague to attending the Boston LIMS/Laboratory Informatics meeting, yesterday was a pretty good day. Both those events got me more information and excitement than I get from my on-line discussions or my e-mail.

A couple days ago, John Trigg was talking about conferences, YET AGAIN, in:

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/09/conferences-again/

In fact, you’ll notice he and I talk quite a bit about getting out to conferences and how important that is. If you search TheIntegratedLab’s postings, you’ll find this out.

As I’ve said, before, I realize that many of you have had budget cuts that prevent you from going to the big conferences, but they don’t prevent you from going to local meetings. For example, in the Boston area, alone, there’s LIMS/Laboratory Informatics, ACS (American Chemical Society), ALMA (Association of Laboratory Managers), LRIG (Laboratory Robotics Interest Group). That’s just a very few of them! And, while a few do charge a modest fee, most of them are free to attend.

Just in the LIMS/Laboratory Informatics group, alone, we’ve had great speakers on biobanking LIMS, ELN issues, Wikis as LIMS, and on how to learn to run better laboratory informatics projects. The excitement at some of our meetings way surpasses the interest we show in any our our on-line discussions.

So, the on-line discussions are great for sharing information but just don’t have the same element of “chemistry” you get when interested people get together.

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. I already wrote about the first four:

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/07/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-1-of-5/

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/07/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-2-of-5/

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/08/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-3-of-5/

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/08/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-4-of-5/

Here, I will write about the last one. So, if the utter suspense was killing you, here’s the final installment.  ;-)

Question # 5:    If I get involved with on-line social networking, do I need to bother coming to ALMA (Association of Laboratory Manager) or other in-person meetings, anymore?  (Information on ALMA is found at:    http://www.labmanagers.org/home/index.shtml )

Answer:

Yes. In-person networking is the most powerful networking. You get the best information from people and form the strongest bonds with them. On-line networking is good when you don’t have someone to help you, but is not as strong. Here’s why:

When you meet people, in-person, you get to know them, and they get to know you. You develop a more personal bond. People you meet in-person and truly know are more likely to help you than strangers or than people you you’ve never met face-to-face. People you know are more likely to help you than people you don’t know. People you know are more likely to trust you than people you don’t. You also have a better idea if you can trust their answers if you ask a person you know than when you ask a lot of faceless people in an on-line forum.

Because you can’t see each others facial expressions and body language, it is much more difficult to build trust in the on-line communities. It takes many more interactions to build these on-line relationships than the ones you develop, face-to-face.

So, by combing the two, that is to say, by combing the in-person meetings you attend with the on-line groups you belong to, you make your network of people larger, and you make it more likely you’ll be able to get assistance when you need it.

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. I already wrote about the first three:

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/07/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-1-of-5/

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/07/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-2-of-5/

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/08/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-3-of-5/

Here, I will write about the next one.

Question # 4:    Do I really have to start Twittering? If so, why, because I just don’t understand what it’s all about?

Answer:

You don’t “have to” use any of these tools. But if you don’t, you’ll just be so un-cool, un-hip, and un-with-it!  ;-)   Seriously, though, I don’t even suggest you try to use all of them. Start trying a few out, and see which ones are comfortable for you and useful for you. Only use those.

What Twitter is “about” is that you send out information in short bursts. Think of it this way – what would you like people to know about yourself and what you’re doing? Maybe you’d like them to know you were just promoted. Possibly you want them to let them all know you’re looking for a new technician (maybe someone who’s looking for such a spot will see it). You might want to tell them your company’s product just went to market.

From a professional viewpoint, there’s really quite a bit of information that you might want people to know. So, of course, you wouldn’t pass along information your company sees as competitive and private. But if it’s something you do want the world to know about, it’s a candidate for a “tweet” (this is what a Twitter communication is called, if you didn’t know). Of course, this doesn’t mean others will follow this and find it interesting, either. If you want to try to get people interested in yourself, you must also think carefully about what others want to read, but if you’re merely interested in giving information, just put it out there.

Companies are doing this at a corporate level – giving information about their products and their company in these bursts, and it’s something you could do, too.

As a side note, I do something similar with my LinkedIn profile. When I have an article or other news to impart to people, I’ll put it in my “what I’m doing now” section so that people can follow it and comment on it. Like Twitter, it’s restricted to a minimal number of characters. It’s a way I promote the conferences I attend, the articles I write, my business, and it can be a way you can make yourself more noticed by recruiters, get people to see positions you have open in your lab, and other such useful attention.

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. I already wrote about the first two:

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/07/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-1-of-5/

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/07/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-2-of-5/

Here, I will write about the next one.

Question # 3:    Should I combine my personal and professional life in my FaceBook page?

Answer:

Even the sites such as FaceBook that we think of as personal and purely social are also being used for business purposes. Employers now use FaceBook and other social tools to glean information about prospective employees, for example. Considering that there are specific questions that are illegal to ask employment candidates in the USA, but that some of this information can be found on a person’s FaceBook page, you have to think twice about whether you do really want to make some of your personal information so public and whether you want to tie it to your professional information.

Another consideration is this: when you’re at work, are there things you feel are too private to share with co-workers and managers? If so, and if you put those somewhere where these co-workers and employers can read it, they now know all these private things.

There’s a general thought that having a little personal information with your professional information isn’t a bad thing. It humanizes you and makes it easier for others to bond with you. But you need to consider which of these things are things that you really want to share with others in your professional life.

Overall, you shouldn’t be too casual about combining personal and professional items. Think twice about it to be sure that it’s something you really do want to combine. Because even though you can delete the information from the page, you can’t delete it from the minds of the people that read it or the e-mails where they forwarded the information along to others.

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. I already wrote about the first one:

http://theintegratedlab.com/2009/07/should-your-lab-care-about-on-line-social-networking-question-1-of-5/

Here, I will write about the next one.

Question # 2:    There are so many sites for on-line social networking, now. How do I know which one(s) to join? Should I join them all?

Answer:

Let me start with the easy part, “Should I join them all?” The answer to that is, “No, absolutely and unequivocally not!!!” There are too many sites out there for you to physically join them all, for one. After all, you have a job, a life, and your own sanity to maintain. Even if you did try to join them all, you can’t participate in and keep-up with a multitude of sites. My advice is to try a variety of sites, see what works best for you and put your time and energy into a select few.

Being Responsive is Seen as Good Manners

In fact, you should drop out of the ones you don’t participate in so that people you know don’t think you’re active. It can be annoying when you try to network with someone in a group and they never respond. There’s no way to know that person isn’t active in that group. Some people will feel snubbed by a lack of response or a response that takes too long.

Because of that, and since there are some groups I stay in because of a single feature that I use or group that I want to stay in-touch with, but that I don’t use on a regular basis, I have all my social networking sites set so that I get e-mail when people try to connect with me. That way, I can respond quickly to those people that try to contact me in those few sites that I don’t go to very often.

What to Join

But then, how do you know which ones to join? First of all, each site or tool has some underlying purpose. Although tools such as FaceBook and MySpace are primarily for your personal life, they can be used professionally, as well, although I’d suggest being careful about blending personal and professional profiles, just as you’re careful about what you share about your personal life when you’re at work.

Tools such as LinkedIn, eCademy, Plaxo, Rzye, Viadeo, Xing and LabRoots are all professionally-based tools, although some do have personal aspects to them, as well. LinkedIn is heavily populated with people from the US, but does have a strong international population and is possibly the largest of the professional networking tools, right now. Xing has a heavy European member population, as does Viadeo. eCademy seems to be popular with people in the UK. LabRoots is strictly for laboratory-based networking.

What to Keep

So, with these few examples, based on what you want to do and who you want to be in-contact with, you might belong to more than one. I’m a heavy user of LinkedIn. I find many, many laboratory informatics people in LinkedIn, which is why that is where I felt I should start my LIMS/Laboratory Informatics group – that I could reach the most people in our industry, that way. But I belong to Xing because of a networking group I keep in-touch with in Berlin, and to Viadeo because many of the French people I know seem to rely on this site.

Every once in awhile, I “prune” what I belong to, where I will drop-out of tools I really don’t use. For example, in LinkedIn, you’ll see I belong to many groups. If you watch carefully, you’ll see that the list of groups I belong to changes over time. That is because some groups sound interesting to me but, once I’m in them, I find they’re not active or find that they’re full of advertisements.

Sometimes, if I think a group could be really useful if it had some activity, I will create a post as a kind of test, where I say something like, “Hey, I want to use this group but it doesn’t look active. What should we use it for? What’s appropriate in here?” If I don’t see some interest from people in response after a couple of weeks, I drop the group. The reason I drop the group is, once again, because I can only truly keep-up with a certain number of groups. Belonging to groups with no value merely distracts me from those I really care about.

And for the ones that I do remain a member of, I focus my energies on participating in those groups so that they remain active and viable. By doing this, I help perpetuate the groups that are useful to me.

Wikis as Laboratory Applications

If you don’t happen to know this, wiki applications such as Wikipedia keep track of all changes, and I’m using Wikipedia as an example since all of us have access to it to go look at it. These wikis have what we think of as an audit trail. One major difference between Wikipedia and a laboratory application is that Wikipedia has a different concept of security and access. Users can do absolutely anything they want, but the admins can roll it back if the change is inappropriate. That’s because, for the most part, Wikipedia wants to encourage everyone to come and change whatever they feel they should change. That’s not sufficient to laboratory needs, where specific groups or people get specific access to different items in the application.

Because many wiki tools are open source, meaning that anyone has access to them and can contribute to their code libraries, then that community of people has created security extensions to add to these tools. As such, there are a variety of security and access “add ons” that can be added to these wikis to allow appropriate access based on the security strategies the lab often wants in the software it purchases.

There is still programming involved, just as with many commercial applications, though. Some say it’s simpler programming, others say that it isn’t. Regardless, there is still programming of the software that takes places, both at the developer level (to add to the actual application) and the user level (to create new forms), it appears.

Amazon and the Lab

Amazon hosts computing power. Some people use it in a true HaaS (Hardware as a Service) model, where it entirely takes the place of their own computers. Others use it more as labs had used the supercomputers, in the past, as an hourly computer timeshare.

The speaker had been come from one of the supercomputer centers before his current job and was able to outline all the differences between that older supercomputer timeshare model and how people now use Amazon:

1.                Only certain people can apply to use the supercomputer. Amazon lets anyone with a credit card use their computers.

2.                To use a supercomputer, you put together a proposal and wait for it to be reviewed and accepted or rejected. With Amazon, you start as soon as you give your credit card number and setup your account.

3.                Amazon is priced more cheaply than the supercomputers.

4.                Sometimes, the supercomputers get backed-up and your job might have to wait a matter of weeks, even, to be run. With Amazon, you just login, submit your job, and it runs.

The point the speaker made is that this empowers the startups and smaller companies. They have immediate access to run their terabytes of data through whatever calculations they need to process, it might take a few hours and cost them a few dollars. The entry barrier has been torn-down between them and the ability to do these calculations to further their research to compete with the larger companies.

A point I’ll make is that this relates to the social networking topic. With the social networking tools, it breaks-down the barrier that anyone has to organize others and communicate with them, the Amazon model breaks-down the technology barrier regarding HPC and computing ability and power, in general.

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.

1.                Why should I care about on-line social networking? Will it help my lab?

2.                There are so many sites for on-line social networking, now. How do I know which one(s) to join? Should I join them all?

3.                Should I combine my personal and professional life in my FaceBook page?

4.                Do I really have to start Twittering? If so, why, because I just don’t understand what it’s all about?

5.                If I get involved with on-line social networking, do I need to bother coming to ALMA meetings, anymore?

Although another person and I were the presenters and had some initial thoughts to pass along to the group, the group came up with some ideas and thoughts to add to that, and these questions were answered well-enough to get people headed in a direction that would be useful for them.

So, I could just summarize that, here. BUT (yes, you knew there would be a “but,” didn’t you?!       ) – BUT I’m not going to do that, right now. Instead, I’m merely going to start you off with this thought:

Networking is networking, for the most part. Treat it about the same way whether you’re networking with people in-person or on-line and that’s how you should view it. You will start to understand the differences, over time.

And, I will come back on another day to answer these questions, above, so don’t forget to keep reading “The Integrated Lab.”

http://friendfeed.com/the-life-scientists/5f259c1a/anyone-tried-other-eln-software-outside-of

FriendFeed is a way to share information with friends. In this “conversation” someone is asking for information on ELN software. This site came by the information because it was bookmarked in Delicious, an area where we can put a “bookmark” our links so that others can share those bookmarks. And, of course, I’m writing here in The Integrated Web’s blog area to share this information with you. All-in-all, lots of strangers influencing and communicating with strangers.

The way we share information has changed from clipping articles or making copies to give directly to friends and co-workers, to sharing links with people we don’t know. Each of us leaks our influence into a wider area of people. Of course, we all know this unless we’ve been living under a rock.

In our modern times, things change often and quickly, but there has always been change. The change in the delivery of information has progressed over the ages. Look at John Trigg’s posting about support in the middle ages. Although entirely meant to be humorous (and I’m STILL laughing!), think about what the “user” says about the scroll – that it doesn’t require all that page-turning! Many of us have said similar things when presented with replacement tools and technology. There is always an adjustment, sometimes quite severe, but our current adjustments always seem the most difficult. That’s because they’re happening now and what happened yesterday or to someone else is merely a distant thought compared to now.

John’s posting was especially timely for me because, just yesterday, I finished reading Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody, which describes the way that on-line social networking has influenced our organizing efforts. In it, he uses the printing press as an example. Scrollmakers were upset to be put out of work, but a new industry was created, of course. One clever fellow came up with the idea of creating books of a size that they could be carried easily on one’s travels – the predecessor to what we now call the “paperback.”

And so, although the changes we see are interesting, it’s not amazing in the least that they are taking place. What would be truly amazing is if change stopped. Well, maybe that will happen when the Earth stops spinning on its axis.