We’ve talked about the new media revolution, and how scientists are publishing more research and information online, while traditional printed publications are experiencing a downward trend. If you’ve been watching, there has been a concomitant movement to make research open access, meaning making published data free, as evidenced by the growth of journals such as the Public Library of Science. This movement is aimed at improving the progress of science by making more information available for faster discoveries. In addition, a group of researchers has taken a brilliant step towards controlling their destinies and begun to ‘crowdfund’ their research via an initiative called SciFund, soliciting funds from individuals to support their work. As researchers begin to ‘take charge’ of their future in these endeavors which are linked and perhaps similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement, life science tools providers can partner with them, benefiting all. Let’s list a few ways that the status quo limits life science companies. Funding for life science research, which directly affects the growth of tools providers, is determined by the federal government, and distributed via the peer reviewed grant process. Researchers carry out this research aided by products from life science companies and publish
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Introducing The Life Science Twitter Chat: Improving Communication Between Researchers and Companies
Comprendia’s mission is to improve communication in the life science industry, and a big part of this is opening up more of a dialog between companies and researchers. We think social media is a perfect venue for discussions, and are co-founding a biweekly life science chat on Twitter. Life scientists and company representatives can openly discuss issues important for advancing research through a better understanding of the challenges faced by each. Many life science companies have a presence on Twitter, but we see them mostly as being in broadcast mode, simply tweeting about products and promotions and not engaging with scientists. We were approached by one life scientist on twitter who wanted us to connect them with a company as their efforts to engage with them regarding a large equipment purchase had not been fruitful. With an email, we were able to connect them, but the process would have been much easier if the company had been available and responsive on Twitter. Life scientists have questions directly relating to existing products as well as ideas for new ones. Companies want to hear this information and ask questions about their performance and perception. A Twitter chat will bring the two sides
Read more →Twitter is currently the most active area for life science companies in social media, we count around 170 accounts. For this analysis, we only count companies who deal primarily with non-FDA regulated products. While our survey earlier this year confirms Twitter as the top interest for marketers, we find that follow through isn’t always guaranteed. To highlight life science companies which are doing a great job on Twitter, we employed the influence tool Klout to rank them. Klout is an application which gives Twitter accounts a score according to how many followers they have and how much they engage with others on Twitter. It’s not perfect, but gives a good indication of the performance of a Twitterer. The life science companies on Twitter are shown in the ManyEyes bubble chart visualization above, and the largest circles have the top Klout. The colors represents Klout’s assessment of the performance of the Twitter account, and by viewing the chart on the ManyEyes site you can also color by the class they assign to each user, see a description of the Klout classes here. You can also access the data, and the top 10 Twitter accounts are shown below. I’d like to thank
Read more →Here’s a great video from Imperial College in which several life scientists discuss their interest in social media. Blogs, Twitter, Wikis and other on-line tools from John Conway on Vimeo. How can life science companies participate? Join us June 9th for our Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 2: The 4 B’s of First Party Applications and find out! To share this post easily, cut and paste: How Do Life Scientists Use Social Media? http://bit.ly/iZ35ss
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