Feature image above courtesy Natalia Bilenko, Data source: PubMed The Spring 2014 issue of the BSR made a splash with Anum Azam’s feature piece, ‘The First Rule of Data Science.’ For many PhD students in the sciences, grim job prospects in academia make the advent of data science seem like a godsend. And so far, blasting
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Quick quiz: Does the earth go around the sun, or does the sun go around the earth? If you answered that the earth goes around the sun, congratulations! You scored better than 26% of respondents in the NSF’s 2014 Science & Technology: Public Attitudes And Understanding survey. Yes, let that sink in for a moment.
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I met George Ludwig at a wine tasting in Noe Valley last week. He is the founder of 6builder.com, “a content marketing automation suite that drives new customer acquisition via #Twitter.” This site facilitates the process of a company or an individual obtaining followers that share interest in a particular topic. (Target marketing at its finest.)  The question I posed to him is this: can individual scientists gain credibility as a reliable source of information using this tool the way companies gain trust from their followers when marketing their product? I believe that this is an important way to connect with the general public.

So–what, when, and for whom to post?

Social networks are undisputedly tools for dispensing information, be it objective or not. Well, I’m relatively new to Twitter. Call me old fashioned. Maybe Twitter is already a thing of the past, and I am just starting to get on the bandwagon at the last stop. Maybe the way we have been using social networks is an antiquated approach. I propose that researchers who haven’t “updated their status” should consider harnessing social networks to effectively communicate their science and better public engagement of the research as well as the people behind the scenes, the researchers.
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