how online networks (mostly) kept a lone bioinformatician from going insane
TRANSCRIPT
How online networks (mostly) kept a lonebioinformatician from going insaneNeil Saunders
DIGITAL PRODUCTIVITYwww.csiro.au
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obligatory advertising slide
Transformational Bioinformatics TeamAustralian eHealth Research Centre, CSIROhttp://aehrc.com/research/biomedical-imaging
Goal: develop advanced computational and statistical methodologies and apply them to large datasets in the health/life sciences space
Bill Wilson Denis Bauer Firoz Anwar James Doecke Neil Saunders Sam Burnham Aidan O’Brien
Type Detail Value People
Software NGSANE: Lightweight Production Informatics Framework for High Throughput Data Analysis
Collaborators: MQ, Garvan, ANU Denis
Contract Colo Vantage modeling CRC interventions Janssen (J&J Pharma)
$100,000$125,000/yr for 2 years
RobSam
Publication A blood based predictor for neocortical Aβ burden in Alzheimer's disease: results from the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and lifestyle study of ageing
Burnham et al. Molecular Psychiatry. IF=15
Sam, James, Bill
Grant MND Research Institute $100,000 Denis, Bill
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back in the year 2000sequencing microbial genomes
one Windows machine, several thousand chromatograms
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what I learned from mailing lists“community norms” :-)
Neil,I’ve never written a “RTFM” post in my life...
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what we learned from blogswant to express an opinion? be prepared to engage
https://xkcd.com/386/
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structural bioinformatics Brisbane 2006 - 2009predicting protein-protein interactions (Predikin)
something else happened in 2006 (more on that later)
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an unlikely science communitythe life scientists group at FriendFeed
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why was FriendFeed important?because it was not one of these - “facebook for scientists” a.k.a. fb4sci
social networks for scientists
too many
high barrier to entry
benefits unclear
but do give you ”web presence“
N. Saunders (SMMS, UQ) Science networks November 26, 2008 8 / 29
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health “omics” CSIRO 2009 - presentthis is very much the age of Twitter
but what can you do with a real-time stream of 140-charactermessages?
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and so back to forums...forums have evolved and are still valuable
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thoughts on online community 1/nfour ages of online interaction (at least since c. 2000)
the age of forums/mailing lists and portals
the age of blogs
the age of “facebook for scientists”
the age of Twitter
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thoughts on online community 2/nonline communities
No matter who you are, most of the smartest people workfor someone else- Bill JoyIt’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.- Clay Shirky
clearly they are A Good Thingthey’ve provided me with advice, support and comfort for 15+ years
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thoughts on online community 3/ndon’t be a lone bioinformatician
https://biomickwatson.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/a-guide-for-the-lonely-bioinformatician/
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thoughts on online community 4/nlocal versus online
is online community “enough community”?what about local communities?
what about bioinformatics in Sydney?
DIGITAL PRODUCTIVITYwww.csiro.au
CSIRO Digital Productivity
Neil Saunderstew website