What’s the news from the biggest healthcare investment conference, JP Morgan, happening this week in San Francisco? We’ve created a Tweet cloud of almost 1800 Twitter status updates tagged with #jpm12. Each word is linked to a Twitter search, and you can also see an archive here. How well do you think the Tweets reflect the news and sentiment at the conference? If you’d like a more in depth analysis, contact us.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: JP Morgan Healthcare Conference Tweet Cloud #jpm12 http://bit.ly/jpmcloud

ScienceOnline 2012, the premier meeting spot for science bloggers and digital influencers, is a month away (follow on Twitter via hashtag #scio12)! Here is the word cloud from almost 1800 Twitter status updates over the past month, with the largest words indicating the most popular. (Note: #scio12 organizers’ Twitter handles were removed from the word cloud). Each word is linked to a Twitter search of the #scio12 hashtag and the term (Note: the Twitter search only extends back 8 days and thus some links will not work). In case you haven’t been following, the word ‘tattoo’ appears because there will be a group of people visiting a tattoo parlor (and some getting tattoos!) at the meeting, inspired by Carl Zimmer’s new book ‘Science Ink’. We’ll have a fun contest at #scio12 related to this subject. We’re also happy that the word ‘art’ is prominent, as we think that an appreciation of the two leads to better science communication.

We’ll be at #scio12 talking to bloggers about acquiring company sponsorships for blogs or networks, contact us if you’re on ‘either side’!

We monitor the Twitter status updates for every life science conference, and noticed something very curious about the number of these so-called Tweets for two recent conferences, the American Society for Cell Biology conference (ASCB) and the British Society for Immunology Congress (BSI). We found that although the ASCB meeting had about 8 times the number of attendees as BSI, the number of Tweets from the former is only slightly larger (~20% more for ASCB). Further analysis of the BSI Tweets showed a great effort by a life science company which generated a lot of buzz and more Twitter activity. Their campaign demonstrates five elements necessary to successfully engage life scientists at a conference and generate new leads, and we detail them below.

1. Planning. At first we thought the large number of Tweets (per attendee) for the BSI conference might be a result of the conference organizers promoting Twitter, for example displaying the hashtag prominently on the website (the hashtag is a text identifier that begins with “#” appended to status updates related to the conference, e.g., #ASCB2011). However, we found that both the BSI and ASCB organizers did equally poorly in this aspect (sorry, the truth may hurt, they could learn a lot from the ACS or our guide). However, Life Technologies (LIFE) picked up the slack by Tweeting the hashtag early and creating a video featuring the hashtag and announcing their presence at the conference. Planning ahead not only generates anticipation for the event, but allows researchers to come to the conference ready to participate in social media. Conversely, no company took the lead for ASCB, and the request by President Sandy Schmid to Tweet more during the first day of the conference likely fell mostly on deaf ears. Life scientists, if they do Tweet, are much less likely to get started in the throes of a conference than if they plan ahead by setting up the hashtag search, making sure they have access to the internet, bringing a charged smart phone, etc. (and we won’t bring up ASCB’s little incident in 2009, because they rectified it quickly).
2. Creativity. LIFE came up with a campaign for the BSI conference which included wristbands and small gifts which they gave out to anyone who Tweeted with the hashtag #giftfromlife. These items, along with the video they created, were likely inexpensive but they got a lot of mileage out of them such as retweeting by scientists with pictures, which spread the message. Perhaps contrary to our comments in #1 regarding new Twitterers at conferences, these free gifts actually motivated two attendees to Tweet for the first time! Yes, scientists swoon over freebies, and it was clear that the buzz was so strong that even non-Twitterers heard about it.
3. Fun. This ‘buzz contagion’ was likely due to the tone that LIFE set from the beginning video, calling the ‘stars’ of it ‘Tweethearts’ and warmly welcoming people to meet them. It was clear that they cared about the scientists, enjoyed using social media to connect, and their jobs as well, leading to a fun atmosphere. With budgets tightening, and all the information that is freely available on the web, conference and exhibit attendance is waning. This ‘joie de vivre’ is what is needed to attract life scientists back into exhibit halls where they can interact with the tool providers which aim to help them, and we commend LIFE for their efforts.
4. Engagement. Comparing the Tweets of each conference it was clear that at BSI there was more of a friendly vibe between scientists and companies, while at ASCB one life scientist commented that 50 ‘random vendors’ were Tweeting, indicating a disconnect. We have noticed that some companies think that it is acceptable to schedule all Tweets ahead of the conference, and don’t engage with scientists at all during the event! Contrary to this, LIFE staff Tweeted a lot during the BSI meeting, even responding to the wifi issue. Additionally, they did a great job of introducing themselves virtually via pictures and IRL (in real life), as one BSI attendee commented.
5. 24/7. It was also clear from LIFE’s tweets that they didn’t just ramp up Tweets for the conference, they have been involved with the community and likely knew some of the Twitter-savvy attendees before going in. This not only led to a seamless transition to Tweeting from the conference, but also helped them plan their strategy as they know what works. It is clear to us that some life science companies start Tweeting at a conference and expect results. As we’ve talked about before, companies need to work on social media 24/7, not just when you want results (but there are also ways you can easily work it into your daily routine.)

We didn’t work with LIFE on this campaign, but know one of its leaders through our interactions on Twitter, Nicol Watson, Regional Market Development Manager at Life Technologies in Paisley, UK. Nicol told me that he actually initiated the #BSI2011 hashtag a few months ago, and he shares our aim to encourage life science hashtag utilization. He added “We wanted to improve the BSI 2011 conference experience for everyone and make researchers feel special. When a researcher used the #giftfromlife hashtag, we personalized a gift for them, and we really made some great connections at the conference.” The #giftfromlife hashtag was used 107 times and even ‘transmogrified’ into #giftforlife!

Clearly, the LIFE team created a buzz and likely got many great leads from their efforts (sometimes difficult from Twitter or Facebook), for what seems like a modest budget. If you want to achieve this at your next event, start now and let us know how we can help, we can also provide in depth analyses of any 2011 life science conference social media activities through our Social Media Compass reports.

To share this post, cut and paste: A Tale Of Two Twitters: The Secrets To One Life Science Company’s Conference Success http://bit.ly/tu2xyw

Hashtags are text strings prefixed with a ‘#’ character which are used mostly on Twitter to tag status updates as belonging to an event or discussion. Life scientist Twitter usage varies widely between disciplines, and we can understand why and glean useful information about trends and influencers by analyzing Twitter conversations using the hashtags as a search query. For this post we’ll use the associated Life Science Hashtags Google spreadsheet and our social media monitoring tools to describe and document the different types of life science hashtags. Our goal is to help the community better communicate through increased understanding and standardization of life science hashtags.

Conferences are the most straightforward utilization of hashtags, the organizers are (normally) the arbiters of the correct identifier for tweets (Twitter status updates) from the event. The conference hashtag is normally listed on the conference website, or you can look for them being used in the designated Twitter account (listed on the Google doc, and for a shortcut follow our life science conference Twitter list). You can see on the spreadsheet we’ve done analyses of the tweets that came from some of the recent conferences, the number of updates varies from hundreds to thousands for each event. Using our social media monitoring tools, we calculated the percentage of attendees tweeting and the results can be seen in the chart below.

You can see that the percentage is between 2-16%, and that as expected, the computer savvy life scientists at ISMB (annual meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology) have the highest percentage. We intended to include the numbers for the Science Foo Camp (#scifoo) held recently in San Francisco, but they were such outliers that they would have dwarfed the others, with “405%” of the attendees tweeting. Clearly this is indicative of both the tech savviness and influence of the #scifoo attendees and fans, and it also points out that those who don’t attend conferences often also tweet about it. Unfortunately few tweets are geotagged, so it is difficult for us to ascertain who is actually in attendance at the conference, and the numbers are just meant as a guide.

Life science companies should note that different groups of researchers will have different propensities for certain social media applications. So the statement that scientists don’t use Twitter isn’t entirely true, and we find that many life scientists are in ‘listening mode,’ watching conversations held there. Additionally, the life scientists that are tweeting are becoming strong influencers for many reasons, including the fact that Twitter affects search engine results. Moreover, life scientists who engage in social media indicate that Twitter is the best place to get scientific information. We looked at a few more metrics for the conferences we analyzed, you can see them in the spreadsheet, and feel free to help by adding more data.

Participation in conference tweeting can also be affected by the way that the organizers are ‘friendly’ towards social media, we’ve encouraged them to create an environment amenable to interaction. Do they publish the hashtag clearly on their website? There was confusion at #isscr as to which hashtag to use, which makes both tweeting and tracking difficult, an ‘activation energy barrier’ to participation, if you will. ASM is very involved in social media and helped to encourage attendees to tweet, perhaps causing the percentage of Twitterers there to be higher than with the ASV meeting (microbiologists=virologists, right?).

Life scientists also use hashtags to organize topics and to inspire each other. For example, #madwriting was started by @nparmalee to encourage time for researchers to leave the bench and computer and concentrate on writing, presumably publications and theses. This hashtag is used about 350 times a month and helps scientists to unite over a common task. #scicomm and #scienceblogging document tweets about science communication and blogging, respectively, and were started by science online superstar @BoraZ. The hashtag #greenfieldism was started by @carlzimmer in response to a statement made by Susan Greenfield that use of the the internet leads to autism. This ‘meme,’ or a theme copied and disseminated broadly on the internet, resulted in 1400 tweets, as scientists joked about ridiculous causes for everything from earthquakes to global warming. We see that scientists have a great sense of humor as they interact on Twitter, and have started hashtags such as #drunksci in which they talk about doing science inebriated (hopefully joking, of course that isn’t safe!).

In general, hashtags are also used for chats on Twitter, in which the leader usually designates a set time (normally weekly) for whoever wants to join an active conversation on a topic. We don’t see this as much with the life scientists, and believe a big opportunity exists for further engagement by choosing hashtags to discuss topics important to researchers. Currently we see many life science companies in ‘broadcast’ mode (see our Twitter list), they tend to sprinkle hashtags into their updates to get more exposure, but no concerted effort has been made to standardize them and use them to engage researchers. For example, what is the standard hashtag for stem cells, #stemcell or #stemcells? Which should be chosen to avoid ‘contamination’ with unrelated tweets? The very general hashtags #lifescience and #biotech are used about 800 and 3000 times per month, respectively, with the latter containing more ‘noise’ from non-life scientists (e.g., investors, GMO opponents, etc.).

We will continue to collect and analyze life science tweets and other social media data so we can provide guidance, and we invite you to add terms in the ‘topic’ or ‘chat’ category to the Life Science Hashtags spreadsheet. Starting a chat is a fantastic way to get engagement, why not start one so you can become a channel of information? You’ll also glean information once standardized hashtags are in place, as can be seen with our Social Media Compass™ report on the ASM 2011 conference which was created using the #asm2011 hashtag. We are actively monitoring tweets from all items in the Life Science Hashtags document, feel free to reach out to us with terms you’d like us to track or to discuss a Social Media Compass report. Another great way to get started is to follow relevant hashtags (use a search column) in a Twitter application such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, and use them in updates where appropriate to get more exposure.

Which topics would you like to see discussed on Twitter?

Special thanks to Angela Alexander (@thecancergeek) and Jonathan Gross of BioData for lots of help in generating and maintaining the Life Science Hashtags document.

To share this post, cut and paste: Hashtags: Helping Life Scientists Communicate with Social Media http://bit.ly/qMOBL8

Here is our latest collection of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. Science Online 2011 Conference

The fifth annual conference for science bloggers will take place in North Carolina January 13-15th. Science blogging is an exploding area, and learning more about and sponsoring the conference is a great way to reach these increasingly important thought leaders in life science. The conference sold out in 45 minutes, but you can still sponsor and I think it’s a great opportunity to show your support and get exposure for any online campaigns. I’ll be in attendance as well, let me know if you have questions or want any specific information about the conference.

2. Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2010 Meeting had 550+ Tweeters!

I attended SfN this week and made an archive of the tweets. Currently the summary lists 572 people tweeting with the #sfn10 hashtag, and I estimate that 80-90% of these were actually at the conference. With 30,000+ scientists at the conference, this is still only 1-2%, which is a low number, but I was able to find at least one exhibitor at the conference (Jove) who said they got good results from their tweets. Also, I think the number is growing as more life scientists discover it’s a great way to get the buzz of what’s going on. You can even watch what’s going on in real time via applications such as visible tweets (and note that people are still talking about the conference after it’s over!). Tip–if you’re looking for life science researchers to follow, search for conference hashtags (e.g. #sfn10) or check out and follow our Twitter List of SfN 2010 attendees.

3. fluorXchange launches

At SfN we did a soft launch of a new application for fluorescence researchers called fluorXchange which we developed with 89 North. It’s a web 2.0 application which integrates research publications, a wiki, forum, blog and has community features. We plan to write up more details on how we designed the application soon, for now check it out and let us know what you think!

4. Comprendia’s Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 4: Webinar December 9th

We’ve heard from many of you that you need help in three areas with traditional and new media marketing: integrating, measuring, and adapting. In this four hour webinar, we’ll show you how to make the impact of your efforts more than the sum of the parts. We’ll cover metrics, return on investment/relationship (ROI/ROR), engagement, social media monitoring/sentiment analysis, search engine optimization, and inbound marketing. Of course, we’re also always open to your suggestions, feel free to contact us.

The soundbytes tag on Delicious contains all links mentioned, as well as others we think are useful. Sign up for Comprendia blog email updates to get our mix tapes delivered to your inbox.
To share this post easily, cut and paste: Sound Bytes: Links and Tips For Life Science Marketing & Social Media 11/18/2010 http://bit.ly/soundbytes1118

Comprendia has been invited to present a social media workshop for the chemical industry by Informex, the leading meeting place for buyers and sellers of high-value chemistry for a broad range of applications. Learn more from Informex’s press release about the social media webinar for the chemicals industry, and register here. If you’re interested in hiring Comprendia to train your group, see our life science social media training and workshop opportunities.

Twitter is not just for breakfast any more. Life scientists and companies are using it to learn and share information, and there are likely a few thousand life scientists and more than 100 related companies using it. One of the really great things about twitter is that you can find connections based on the content they are tweeting, and you don’t need to know them to follow and vice versa. Whether you’re in marketing or do research, the value lies in following a good quantity of high quality life scientists, and having them follow you back, and here are some tips and tricks for achieving this goal.

Follow more life science twitterers. We know purists who think that ‘if you tweet, followers will come,’ they want to grow ‘organically.’ However, if you look at the vast majority of twitterers, their number of followers is roughly equal to the number they follow. So, if you want 1000 followers, you’ll likely need to follow 1000 (and I think is the minimum number you need to get any real traction on Twitter). The good news is that there are many great ways to find life science twitterers, including:

• David Bradley’s Scientist Twibe–600 scientists (perhaps not all life scientists). Follow these scientists, add yourself to this list, and browse sites like wefollow and follow people and add yourself to the appropriate list(s).
• Search Twitter for terms you’re interested (e.g., RNAi, epigenetics) and follow twitterers in search results. Some twitter applications like twhirl allow you to add searches to your stream, making it easy to follow as you go.
• Conference hashtags. Tweets from most life science conferences include a ‘hashtag’, e.g. #asmgm for the ASM General Meeting. Search for the hashtags and follow twitterers.
• Find a great life science twitterer and follow who they follow. Their list can be found on their profile page by clicking on the ‘following’ link. Don’t follow their followers, as these lists are usually a lot more noisier than the list they are following.

Note: You shouldn’t follow more than 100 people a day, as Twitter may flag you as a spammer.

Provide good content. Twitter is used to share news and information related to your interests, be they personal or professional. To get people to follow, you need to give people something interesting to look for. We’re big proponents of using RSS for this function, you can even set it up to send yourself a daily email of customized content from across the web. Of course, you can also promote yourself, as long as you follow our 90/10 rule: provide 90% selfless content, and 10% self-promoting content.

Engage. It’s not enough to just follow and tweet good content. You also need to engage with the life science community. It should come naturally, if not you’re not following the right people! Retweet interesting content, reply to twitterers who capture your attention, or just say hi. I think you’ll find that you’ll even make some friends! They don’t call it SOCIAL media for nothing!

Think holistically. Most social media applications work best synergistically with other tools. A twitter account works much better if you also have a blog which you can tweet about, for example. Also, it’s a good idea to get to know the twitterers you follow by leaving comments on their blogs. The general theme is, be a part of the community! You’ll find you know more about your field and the world in general by following Twitter. You may not notice it right away, but you’ll be getting ‘Tweet Cred’ and your number of followers will grow.

Lighten up. There are many brands, life science and otherwise, on Twitter. The most successful ones show they’re human and tweet some personal information. Regardless of your motives, it’s a good idea for many reasons to show you’re human. For one, it makes the experience more enjoyable. It doesn’t have to be anything unprofessional, it can simply be commenting on the weather, for example. As we’ve pointed out, engaging is key, and nobody wants to interact with a robot! You also may find you share hobbies, etc. with other life science twitterers, allowing you meet those you might otherwise would not have.

This list is good to get you going on getting more followers and mastering twitter, and we also offer Twitter training and as part as our Workshop 3: The Rule of 3’s for 3rd Party Applications: Strategies, Tactics, and Metrics. Contact us for more information, and subscribe to our blog so you’ll get this information in your inbox hot off the press.

Note: The Twitter ‘mascot’ is a blue bird, so a blue dodo seemed fitting for life science. Get it?

To share this post easily, cut and paste: How To Get More Life Science Followers on Twitter http://bit.ly/chUQl5

I have blogged at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) convention for three years now (see posts here), and I am always very grateful that they give me a pass in exchange for blogging. It’s a great experience for me all around–learning, meeting, and getting exposure for Comprendia and the San Diego Biotechnology Network. You may have heard that this year the media, including me, were shut out from the keynote sessions featuring Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Al Gore. I was incredibly disappointed as two of these are big heroes of mine (I’ll let you guess which ones). Two of my friends/colleagues gave feedback: Christiane Truelove and Mike Spear. I recently wrote an open letter to life science conferences with suggestions for improving them, and wanted to give an update and some examples specific to the BIO 2010 convention and how it could be improved.
Improve website information. It is very difficult to find information on the BIO 2010 website. For example, I was interested in finding all of the attendees from San Diego at the conference, and this was near impossible. Instead, I had to look up or go to individual breakout sessions to find them. There are super sessions, breakout sessions, business development presentations, and partnering, and with an estimated 13,000 in attendance, I’m sure I only met with a fraction of the San Diego companies in attendance. BIO sets up a great interface for partnering and searching, but this is an additional cost, and what happens to it after the conference? I suggest opening that up in an interface that is available year round to facilitate more interaction and to help the media give more intelligent coverage of the industry.
Choose keynote speakers who ‘get it.’ We don’t really know why the media were excluded from the keynotes, but some speculated that the speakers give ‘canned’ presentations at each event, and don’t want reporters making this information public. Others commented that the Bush/Clinton appearance was more of a ‘Mutt and Jeff’ show than a serious discussion about biotechnology (I heard Bush made up a new word which I’m sorry to have missed). Regardless of the reason, isn’t one of the major objectives of BIO to get the word out to the public that important people care about biotech, and have messages for the outside world? Having keynote speakers who do not allow media coverage would seem to only have the benefit of attracting BIO attendees. In the future, I suggest inviting speakers who are not only famous, but who can be the advocates we need.
Take good care of the exhibitors. There is no doubt that the choice of non-media friendly keynote speakers affected the coverage of the conference, and don’t forget that the exhibitors pay dearly to be at BIO. This event is their big chance to get news out, whether they’re a biotechnology company or cluster. Anecdotally, I heard that ‘the big media names were not at BIO this year,’ which is a bad sign. As part of the media, I got a flurry (maybe 50?) emails from exhibitors and followed up on very few of them. Also, of the projected 13,000 who attended BIO this year, how many spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall? I’m betting only a small fraction, as several exhibitors commented that the meeting was slow. By most accounts, BIO is becoming more about the partnering meetings than the exhibit hall, but will this be sustainable? Related to this is the comment about making the website more interactive and opening up the partnering interface to all. More access to information helps everyone.
Leverage the media. Related to this last point, if indeed the professional journalists are becoming less interested in BIO, help bloggers like myself to cover the event more fully. I suggest you employ a team of bloggers who start six months before the conference, planning in depth coverage of different aspects. Think about it, you’ve now got some control of media coverage, the opportunity is golden, and will give the BIO site search engine fodder for many months after the conference is over.
Ride the social media wave. It must be said that BIO appears to want to ‘turn on’ social media shortly before the convention so that it can be leveraged only when needed. For example, a flurry of meetup invitations were sent about a week before the convention–these groups need to be cultivated year round. The efforts they’ve undertaken are great, but they’re just scratching the surface. The image on the right of this post is the word cloud of the BIO2010 twitter stream. Check out the twitter hashtag search, we counted around 50 people tweeting about BIO 2010, or 0.4% of the estimated 13,000 attendees. Imagine the power of enlisting just 5%, or roughly 10 times that amount. The BIO coverage would be fantastic, allowing those who couldn’t attend, or even those like me who were busy the whole time and did not even see a small fraction of the conference. Think it will result in less people attending? That thinking is so outdated. I can guarantee you that even this minuscule coverage made more people think about the convention than before, when perhaps more official, ‘sterile’ coverage was the norm. BIO will continue to own all of the official recordings of the meetings, and if anything, they’ll sell more copies due to piqued interest (although I would argue that the entire conference should be ustreamed live).
Help us help you. Yes, the media was very frustrated with BIO 2010. I think it was partly personal, as we were treated like outsiders, but realize that all of our careers depend upon heavily the success of biotechnology. If BIO is not taking every opportunity to communicate biotechnology to the public during this convention, can we count on them to be an effective ambassador year round? We are very eager to help BIO with its objectives, because we care about the cause and also our livelihoods. I hope that this blog post is seen as a constructive effort to visualize how we can all work together to make biotechnology as an industry as successful as it can be to heal, fuel, and feed the world.
To share this post easily, cut and paste: Constructively Deconstructing the #BIO2010 Convention http://bit.ly/dBMjw7

If you’ve been following this blog or the San Diego Biotechnology Network, you know I’ve obtained complimentary passes for myself and others to blog at life science conferences. I am incredibly grateful to those who have obliged, but I always want more. We’ve all noticed that IRL (in real life) conferences are suffering due to the economy. It is sad to see that several of them are not leveraging the new media model fully to improve their situation. Those of us who live and breathe social media realize that you need to ‘let go’ in order to grow in this new era, something Seth Godin explains expertly in his book Meatball Sundae (which I’ve reviewed along with two other of his great books). Below, find my suggestions to help life science conferences not only adjust, but thrive in this new economy.

Use social media to engage year round. I normally see a flurry of activity from the social media champions of a conference a few months before the event. While this is a great start, the smart conference organizers are engaging scientists all year round. As I’ve covered earlier, social media works best when it’s a sustained effort. You’ll gain a lot, from getting feedback from scientists, to getting more ‘tweet cred’ and followers in the process.

Employ a team of bloggers. I talked with a major life science company who actually canceled a press conference at a recent meeting because there wasn’t enough media there. Do you know how many scientists are dying for the chance to cover your conference? Even if the media coverage suffers due to the economy, a few free passes will go a long way in getting the word out about the conference. You may need to become more involved in structuring the guidelines, etc., but in some ways, you’ll have more control, as those who receive a free pass will feel obligated to cover as much as possible. Give all bloggers press passes as well, so they can access computers and other items necessary for covering the meeting. Want to see great information about bloggers and journalism? See famous science blogger Bora Zivcovik’s excellent blog posts on the subject.

Make your website as informational and interactive as possible. There are three life science conferences I’ve been to in the past year in which the full schedule was not available online before the event. I really don’t know why this happens–how can an attendee plan properly, let alone a blogger? Leading to, and during the conference, your website can be a nexus for scientists to learn about the event. Also, your search engine rankings will likely benefit greatly as well as you add more content to it and get more visitors.

Post all social media policies well in advance. I’ve encountered a few ‘SURPRISE!’ announcements while covering a conference as a blogger, for example the big ‘no tweeting allowed’ signs at one conference last year. The AACR meeting’s social media policies are a great start, and you can see from the twitter stream that when attendees feel encouraged and confident, that more coverage results. In addition, scientists presenting at the conference will feel more comfortable, knowing that such policies exist.

Offer free, good quality WiFi. I talked with Bora Zivcovik about the Science Online conference he holds every year to discuss innovations in online science communication. In 2010, for WiFi support they actually hired the company that handled WiFi for the superbowl. Now, this group likely used a lot of bandwidth due to their nature, but you should consider that WiFi is an important part of getting your conference covered, along with access to power sources.

Live stream video from the conference. In the ‘world’ of social media, live video streaming of conferences is the norm. Mostly, companies use the Ustream service, which is free to users, and I’m sure there are many options. Benefits? Your conference is now viewable and ‘shareable’ globally. You’ll be able to save and reuse the content as you need, a powerful way to get content for your website for the entire year. Worried about people not attending? Face to face networking is still of utmost importance, and many wouldn’t trade that for virtual attendance–my view is that your attendance will remain the same. Indeed, I’ve heard that views of live streamed conferences can be 5-10 times the IRL attendance. Think that will help you to attract sponsors and speakers? Definitely!

Flip cams in the exhibit hall. Know how easy it would be to give some scientists flip cams, and task them to upload videos to your YouTube channel? Dead easy. Exhibitors, attendees, those not attending will love it, as one of the most important parts of a conference is the ‘buzz’ on the exhibit hall floor. Also, I’ve found that blogging a conference is hard work–videos of those who want to spread the word about their products are easy and speak volumes. Think of it as those disposable cameras they distribute at weddings (but be sure to get the proper clearance before distributing videos).

Open, open, open. Conferences run the gamut from very academic (e.g., ASCB, AACR), to those run as a business (e.g., Cambridge Healthtech Institute). Regardless of a conference’s position on this spectrum, benefits can be made from choosing to open up access rather than restricting it. Academic conferences have at their heart goals to further scientific progress–what better way than to encourage dissemination of information? Those worrying about being ‘scooped’ are naive and should realize that unethical behavior, be it word of mouth or information shared online, is a possibility at any conference, and the latter is more easily tracked and punishable. Conferences run as businesses can also benefit from opening up access. There are myriad benefits to speakers and sponsors from providing more access. Smaller fees can be imposed for ‘virtual’ attendance, and likely with a very minimal expense for software and broadcasting.

In conclusion, with every decision you make about your conference, choose the more ‘open’ option. One upcoming conference is restricting all media from their plenary talks. My prediction? It will completely backfire, as nothing motivates a twitterer, etc., more than a restriction, and there will be a large amount of negative attention that will result. Controlling access to information is no longer a business model, but the good news is that there is plenty of progress for life science conferences, and money, to be made with the new model. Try opening up your next conference–what do you have to lose?

To share this post easily, cut and paste An Open Letter to Life Science Conference Organizers http://bit.ly/ajyEzH

We recently did speed networking at a San Diego Biotechnology Network (SDBN) event , and many of the scientists were pleased with the number of connections they made, and asked when we would do it again. This made me stop and think about the importance of face to face (f2f) interactions, and why they are more important than ever these days. The fact that we can connect online now in more ways than ever is powerful, but it makes face to face interactions and events more important in many ways, and we’ve outlined a few below.

The Personal Touch. At all of our SDBN events, I make a point of verbally inviting everyone I meet to connect with me on LinkedIn. Yes, this benefits me, but it also helps younger scientists feel less shy about reaching out to me online. Seeing that I’m a real person, who wants to help them, is important, and is much more successful than inviting someone I’ve never met via email. The fact that we all get so many electronic messages a day has made us understandably suspicious. Think about it, probably 99.99% of human interaction, over history, has been f2f, and we’re ‘wired’ for it (ironic pun intended ;).

Serendipity. As noted recently by Xconomy’s Luke Timmerman, attending biotech events sets you up for ‘concentrated serendipity,’ since running into highly relevant professionals, whether you know them or not, is very likely. Even though travel budgets are tight, and so much can be done online (the recent ScienceOnline2010 conference even had a presence on Second Life), make an effort to go to conferences and networking events. Being in San Diego, we’ve learned the benefits of attending most of the local conferences even if they aren’t exactly in our area.

Word of Mouth. You likely know I’m a big Twitter fan, and often go to ‘Tweetups,’ or informal get-togethers with people I interact with online. These meetings are great because you get to know people IRL (in real life), which is often much different than through the internet. What I’m always struck with, however, is how almost every time I get some advice that I follow almost immediately. For example, at the last Tweetup, I learned about Google Maps for the BlackBerry (completely awesome, you should be using it–I’ll tell you in person next time I see you ;). Now, we all get all sorts of advice from friends through email, etc. during the day, but hearing it verbally really trumps most electronic forms of communication. Whatever message you’re looking to get across, there is nothing more powerful than word of mouth, it is thought to be thousands of times more effective than other methods.

Chemistry. At Comprendia we love skype and GotoMeeting, they allow us to present information to anyone, anywhere, and they do offer some of the elements of f2f interactions. During a recent GotoMeeting session, however, I told a joke and I have no idea how it went over, as I couldn’t hear laughing. If you know me, you know I like to use humor as an ice breaker. If you’re not f2f, however, the ice may never be ‘broken’ and it is hard to tell whether you’ve got good chemistry. Now, it’s not always paramount for a client-vendor relationship to have good chemistry, but if you’re going to partner with a company, it is very important. Being f2f is the best way to determine whether you understand each other and will be able to work together in the long term.

My point? Get out there and meet each other! Through our experience with the SDBN, we frequently see the wonderful benefits of f2f interactions. Everyone from more senior professionals, who might not have extensive online networks, to those who are more junior and may live in the ‘IM’ world too much, can benefit from more f2f interactions.

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