Ok, rather a portentous title for a first blog but it forces me to address the important question of why, after years of prevarication I've started to write a blog. (Why you're here is another matter but I'll allow you to respond if you feel it would be informative).
The primary reason for this blog going live today, as opposed to next week or whenever, is that I went to a meeting at the British Library last night, organised by
TalkScience and
Nature, which was looking at what relevance Web 2.0 has to scientific research. You can download a podcast of Timo Hannay's talk from Nature (I think) but I don't think you can obtain any details of the following discussion.
It was a good meeting, better than I had expected, but I was surprised to discover that the main theme of the practical relevance of Web 2.0 was as to what role blogs do, could or should play in scientific research. Do leading scientists blog (No) Should leading scientists blog (maybe) but if they do what should they be trying to achieve?
Well, I won't bore you with the details of what people felt but rather make it clear that whilst I wouldn't describe myself as a leading scientist, it made me feel that I should blog.
So what do I hope to achieve? Well,
- Keep a record of the things that I'm thinking about, and hence, what I currently think is interesting or important.
- Discover/create a group of people who find what i'm thinking about worth reading and responfding to.
- Help me to develop these ideas, both on my own but almost more importantly collaboratively with those people.
Now, a key thing is that these blogs are not intended to be finished items, finely honed prose that would grace the pages of a journal. I've set myself 15-30 minutes per day - no more at one time. Let's just see what happens!
I don't know where this will end up going but I think that that's 1/2 the point.
Just to finish, here's a list of the sort of thiings that I'm thinking about these days and which I hope to get around to writing about.
- Public Undestanding of Science - specifically the use of demostrations to make science 'real'
- OmniScience - a project that I've been trying to get off the ground for years!! I'll tell you more 'real soon now'
- Using a Mac OS server to tryand achieve these aims
- The Speed of Everything - a book that I've been failing to write for a number of years now.
Let's see how it goes.
Elin (unauthenticated)
Sep 25, 2008 1:48 PM
I saw a Wimshurst on Monday that reminded me of the one you specified for Techniquest. Mulling thoughts over lunch I wondered what you were doing.
I saw 'blog' at the top of the screen, so I clicked. When I saw that you started it today I thought I'd comment to prove to you that someone is reading.
Bryson Gore (unauthenticated)
Sep 30, 2008 1:29 PM
Well, remarkable!! Thank you for that Elin, it proves that people come across these things. I'd never imagined it. I'm back to write another one....