As I said in the welcome comments at ScienceOnline2010, this annual conference has been a “labor of love” for me and Bora. Over the last five years, we’ve given thousands of hours to the planning of the event and outreach to the online science blogging community, and made no financial profit — just seeing and hearing how much each of the participants has enjoyed the conference has been compensation enough. (Read this post to learn how I recovered from the intensity of the conference planning.)
We’re looking forward to ScienceOnline2011, the fifth and, we hope, biggest and best conference yet.
But, we need your help.
This summer, Bora and I have been focused on our jobs — I took a new job at Duke, and Bora turned his considerable expertise in science blogging into a new job with Scientific American. (We also teamed up with Dave Munger, and now also Jessica Hekman and Mark Hahnel, to launch the ScienceBlogging.org aggregator.) Which means there’s much to get in place for ScienceOnline2011 to be a success, and before we can open up registration on Nov. 1.
So, we’re appealing to the community, and hoping for some crowdsourced assistance. Here are 10 ways to help us:
- Fix the logo. The ScienceOnline2010 logo looked great, but had a serious flaw — the fancy atom couldn’t print on a non-white background. We need someone with Photoshop or Illustrator expertise to rebuild the logo and customize it for ScienceOnline2011 (notice we’ve reduced the size and placement of the atom). Huge thanks to Fabiana Kubke in New Zealand for redoing the logo. Download a zip file with the new logo: ScienceOnline2011-logo
- Design the T-shirt — be creative — and arrange for printing and delivery (and maybe help find a sponsor to underwrite the costs).
- Be the webmaster for this site, and help us make it more compelling. Got a few volunteers. Look for site improvements shortly.
- Be the webmaster for the planning wiki, and help us get the look and feel there to match this site. Also on the wiki, add your program ideas and tell us if you’d like to be a session discussion leader.
- Find a sponsor. Download the ScienceOnline2011 info sheet and share with companies, organizations, institutions and individuals who might be willing to become a sponsor of the conference — have them contact me (zuiker@gmail.com). While you’re at it, visit the ScienceOnline2010 sponsors (logos linked here) and share your appreciation for their past support.
- Find a donor willing to help us order lots of Flip video cameras. At ScienceOnline2010, we were able to give out a couple dozen cameras in exchange for short videos of conference participants (see this post, for example, and more examples here). Or, donate your gently used Flip cameras.
- Find a North Carolina organization willing to be our institutional partner (meaning our checkbook — accept sponsorship checks, write a few dozen checks to pay our bills, earn our admiration and gratitude).
- Offer another way to help. Use the Contact form to let us know about your talents, interests and experiences, and how we can put those to use in planning the conference.
- Help someone in your community learn to blog, tweet or make use of social networking tools (Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr). Why? ScienceOnline2011 is a BlogTogether event, and we want the spirit of conversation to spread (read this essay for background).
- Sign up for updates so you can be the first to know when registration opens. Tweet, blog and tell your friends, too.
Our deepest thanks in advance for all who step up to help. Contact us posthaste — the Contact form is best.
Hey guys, I am happy to help out with webmastering this site and the wiki. I already webmaster Deep Sea News and my own site and know the ins and out of self-hosted WordPress.
I’d be happy to help with the logo. Any indication as to why the logo couldn’t print properly last time other than on white background?
Kubke — logo problem is that the atom is multiple layers, part vector and part raster, and font is unknown. I can zip and send you the file, and you can look under the hood, so to speak.
Anton. Sounds good. I can modify/redo it in Corel, and export it into whichever format the printers prefer. Shouldnt take too much time
Hi Anton, it looks like @Kubke got here before me to the logo, if you need any help Fabiana please let me know. Also, the link on my name appears to link to Jessica. Thanks.
@Mark sure thing. would welcome help/input. Will give you a shout out as soon as I get the files from Anton
Looks like the logo font is Swiss 911 Compressed.
The best t-shirt place in the RTP area (IMO) is Aardvark in Raleigh . They did the work for NCDevCon and we got high quality work at a reasonable price. It is a locally owned and operated business.
have been visiting ur website around 3 days. really love what you posted. by the way i am doing a research relating to this topic. do you know any good blogs or maybe online forums where I can get more information? many thanks.