SCIENCEONLINE2012 NEXT WEEK. Hosanna! Next week is the science blogger's Holy Week. It's nearly time for @scio12, the 6th iteration of the blogger's annual festival of F2F, ScienceOnline.
The meeting will run from Thursday January 19 through Saturday January 21. As usual, registration filled up almost immediately, even though this year the meeting has been moved a smidgen, from the Research Triangle to a more elastic venue, Raleigh NC. That makes it possible to cram in more people, creeping toward 500 this year. If you are still a last-minute hopeful, fill out the waitlist here. By all means remain hopeful, but I wouldn't cancel your other plans for next week quite yet.
HOW TO BE THERE VIRTUALLY. However, you can participate even if you can't get to Raleigh. Some of the sessions will be livestreamed, and most of the sessions are scheduled for recording, with videos posted on the #scio12 site eventually. News about these, and everything else SciO12, on the home page here. Plus, you know, the usual tweets and blogging, etc. See below for details.
HOW TO DO AN EBOOK. But first, a plug for the SciO12 session "Making Book on eBooks: How to write a science or medical eBook and publish and sell it online" that Carl Zimmer and I have put together and will be moderating Friday morning (January 20) at 10:30 ET. Here's the description:
The emphasis in this session will be on practical steps for science writers who understand that electronic publishing has turned the book world upside down and who want to take charge of preparing their books and bringing them into the world online. Participating will be science writers who have done eBooks and science writers who want to do them. Topics will include eBook basics, reasons to choose eBooks over traditional publishing, the new outlets for long-form writing that is not-quite-a-book, DIY v. publishing services, deciding how much help you need, and other topics you suggest. We'd also like to begin figuring out if the Science Online community can build a supportive network for eBooks similar to networks that foster genre books such as scifi, mystery, and romance.
We'll miss you if you can't be there, but Carl and I have developed a pretty comprehensive handout that is already online. Find the eBook session handout here. Plenty of stuff on how to become an eBook author, whether you hope to hook up with a commercial publishing house or to do it yourself. The articles range from optimistic assessments of the boundless future of eBooks to reality checks about their limitations, economic and otherwise. Also lots of nuts-and-bolts — for example, how to do an eBook and get it online for free, almost. Also lists of publishers and examples of eBooks.
MORE ON HOW TO BE THERE VIRTUALLY. I don't know yet whether our eBook session will be one of the livestreamed sessions. Whether or not, you can probably consult the recording eventually.
There are several other ways to keep up with the meeting riches remotely:
And the Twitter hashtag is, of course, #scio12.
GOD IS IN THE DETAILS: PEOPLE, PROGRAM, ETC. Here's who's registered for SciO12. There's something for everyone in the science blogosphere at this meeting--blogging science journos, blogging scientists, blogging science teachers, blogging science anyone.
Lots of sessions for writers. A sample: David Dobbs and Maryn McKenna (and doubtless others whose names you know) offer tips on book-writing. Paul Raeburn and Maia Szalavitz on medical blogging. Hannah Waters and Lucas Brouwers on moving from blogging to the mainstream media.
Lots of sessions for scientists. Examples: How to explain your research clearly in two minutes. Data managing. Media skills.
Plus hands-on workshops. Learn podcasting, making videos, nature photography, mapmaking and much else.
And much, much more. Here's the full program for ScienceOnline2012 with links to supplementary material. ScienceOnline is unlike any conference you've ever attended. Co-organizer Bora Zivkovic explains this unconference philosophy at A Blog Around the Clock.
Because I'll be at SciO12, I won't be posting the usual sort of column here next Friday. I may post some snippets during the meeting, and I do expect to be writing about SciO12 here in the weeks after the meeting. (I suppose I may use Twitter during the meeting too, although I gotta say I find a lot of meeting-tweeting to be useless and often bizarre. "Awesome!!!!" is not an informative assessment of a meeting talk. Repeated declarations of how excited the twit is to be there don't convey much about a meeting either.)
If I do blog from the meeting, you can find my On Science Blogs This Week posts here on the NASW site as usual and my Google+ stream too. Follow my meeting-tweeting, if any, @tamfecit.
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