Jason Morrison found an interesting article called <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/10/superhappydevcon_20_hints_at_h.php">Silicon Valley Hackfest Hints at How Laboratory Scientists Could Communicate</a>. Here's the money quote:<br>
<br><p style="margin-left: 40px;">"Coders are accustomed to communicating with each other must faster
than their laboratory-bound counterparts. Some Google employees told me
how they are barraged each day with a phalanx of email. Countless
message boards, IRC channels, and other sites allow isolated
programmers to share with each other. And then we have this: a
gathering with lightning talks and guys squeezed ten to a folding table
sharing ideas as quickly as they can speak. Perhaps this allows their
culture and projects to evolve more quickly as well. </p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">By comparison, there are few chemistry message boards, and only the
open access journals like chemistry central include a comments thread
alongside every peer-reviewed research paper, and conferences are dry,
twice-a-year poster and powerpoint affairs.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">It makes
perfect sense that information technology for laboratory scientists
would lag behind that which is at the disposal of career programmers,
because the coders can make their own. But despite that understanding,
I want more. I want lightning talks, and hack days, and zillions of
active boards for biologists and chemists and physicists." </p><br>Interestingly, Jason points out that he originally found the article because it was linked two in a different post by Bryan Bishop, who has posted to the BBF-standards workshop.<br>
<br>I'm not sure how a biology-based 12-hour hackfest / devhouse would work, but we should figure it out and hold one (we could at least have a parts curation party for the registry...).<br><br>Mac<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Jason Morrison</b> <<a href="mailto:jason.p.morrison@gmail.com">jason.p.morrison@gmail.com</a>><br>Date: Jan 28, 2008 5:42 PM<br>Subject: Science BarCamp/SHDH<br>
To: Mackenzie Cowell <<a href="mailto:macowell@gmail.com">macowell@gmail.com</a>><br><br><br><a href="http://www.barcamp.org/Barcamp%20and%20Hackfest" target="_blank">http://www.barcamp.org/Barcamp%20and%20Hackfest</a><br>
<br>(links to <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/10/superhappydevcon_20_hints_at_h.php" target="_blank">http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/10/superhappydevcon_20_hints_at_h.php</a>)<br><br>Of interest: I think the barcamp article is posted by Bryan Bishop<br>
(<a href="http://heybryan.org/" target="_blank">http://heybryan.org/</a>) from Austin TX and has posted to the<br>BBF-standards mailing list.<br><br>Jason<br><font color="#888888"><br>--<br>Jason Morrison<br><a href="mailto:jason.p.morrison@gmail.com">jason.p.morrison@gmail.com</a><br>
<a href="http://jayunit.net" target="_blank">http://jayunit.net</a><br>(585) 216-5657<br></font></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Mac Cowell<br>iGEM Coordinator<br><a href="http://igem.org">igem.org</a><br>231.313.9062