Monday, 30 June 2008

The selling point....

A great article taken from Scientific American on Science 2.0 -- Is Open Access Science the Future?

The following quotes have been taken from the article as the quote taken from another source has been

Web 2.0 technologies open up a much richer dialogue, says Bill Hooker, a postdoctoral cancer researcher at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Portland, Ore., and author of a three-part survey on open-science efforts that appeared at 3 Quarks Daily (www.3quarksdaily.com), where a group of bloggers write about science and culture.

“To me, opening up my lab notebook means giving people a window into what I’m doing every day,” Hooker says. “That’s an immense leap forward in clarity. In a paper, I can see what you’ve done. But I don’t know how many things you tried that didn’t work. It’s those little details that become clear with an open [online]notebook but are obscured by every other communication mechanism we have. It makes science more efficient.”

The above scenario I think sets out more clearly the selling point as such for the research - I also see it linking with the point of how technology and paper are complementary for the reason that if the paper is obscuring a communication/workflow path because of the affordances it has as mentioned in the scenrio. I would see then exploration of if/how the elab book can enhance the workflow and most importantly be part of the workflow.
This is what must be achived must ensure not a focus on what a lab books functionailty is, but instead on actually what it is.


Finally the last quote below I think captures a selling point, as well as highlighting the risks and dangers that scientists are so wary about. Taking the position as an advocate for the research, it is important to have a wider perspective in order to fully appreciate the workflow.

"That jump in efficiency, in turn, could greatly benefit society, in everything from faster drug development to greater national competitiveness.Of course, many scientists remain wary of such openness—especially in the hypercompetitive biomedical fields, where patents, promotion and tenure can hinge on being the first to publish a new discovery. For these practitioners, Science 2.0 seems dangerous: putting your serious work out on blogs and social networks feels like an open invitation to have your lab notebooks vandalized—or, worse, your best ideas stolen and published by a rival.To advocates, however, an atmosphere of openness makes science more productive. “When you do your work online, out in the open,” Hooker says, “you quickly find that you’re not competing with other scientists anymore but cooperating with them.”

The argument of now with a move towards science 2.0 that your not competing but instead co-operating may require a full social culture change. Question if such instances have occurred before in work environments. Is this something that has to be forced upon people to be really effective ?


Thursday, 19 June 2008

“Designing is not a profession but an attitude”

A post taken from 37signals By Matt

“Designing is not a profession but an attitude” is an excerpt from László Moholy-Nagy’s 1947 book “Vision in Motion.”

The designer must see the periphery as well as the core, the immediate and the ultimate, at least in the biological sense. He must anchor his special job in the complex whole. The designer must be trained not only in the use of materials and various skills, but also in appreciation of organic functions and planning. He must know that design is indivisible, that the internal and external characteristics of a dish, a chair, a table, a machine, painting, sculpture are not to be separated…

There is design in organization of emotional experiences, in family life, in labor relations, in city planning, in working together as civilized human beings. Ultimately all problems of design merge into one great problem: ‘design for life’.

We often put “designers” and “creatives” in special silos. But when you look at it from this “design for life” perspective, everyone is designing: writers, programmers, managers, CEOs, HR departments, parents, etc. Design and creativity don’t belong exclusively to people who use Photoshop.

Related: László Moholy-Nagy’s visual representation of Finnegan’s Wake


Why blog this?

I think the quote correctly captures a perspective on how to view the many forms and

challenges that design can take, the concept of how design is an indivisible experience I think may have a link with understanding the design of the lab information ecology.


A further poignant quote that is useful for thinking about fieldwork:

" The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes" - Macel Proust