Green Tea and Velociraptors

Recently, Nature Jobs were kind enough to ask me to give a talk at their annual Career Expo on the role of social media as a junior scientist. In particular, I discussed how it can be used to develop a personal scientific community and enhance the research experience.

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Coverage of the talk is now up on the Nature Jobs site, and includes some of the key points I made:

• Twitter is awesome, and unlocks a whole range of possibilities, including finding new collaborators.
• Twitter can be a powerful science communication tool, especially if used as a community at conferences.
• Social media can be like networking in person, and conversations should be treated as such.
• Blogging is a great way to practice your science writing, and get feedback on your work more rapidly than through publication.
• Although blogging is an immensely awesome science communication device, it can take time to develop an audience. Some times, it’s worth guest blogging, or as part of an established network.
• Social media, overall, is about building online communities, and using them as platforms to communicate science, and open up the research process.

If anyone has any questions, please do ask! In the mean time, a simple suggestion would be to set up your own Twitter account! Who knows where your little social media venture might lead 🙂