[Editors] Technology Review query

[Elizabeth Thomson]

Hi Everybody,

Monya Baker of Technology Review magazine contacted me recently about 
a new section for the magazine that some of your researchers might 
want to get involved in. Essentially the new "synopses"  section will 
highlight the most interesting advances in several technologies.

Here's where your researchers come in: According to Monya,  "One 
thing that makes the synopses special is that we go out of our way to 
weed out hype. To do so, we rely on experts."

Below is an overview from Monya of how this will work. Seems to me 
that some of your graduate students and/or professors might be 
interested.

People who are interested can contact Monya directly as per her 
instructions in the last paragraph of the overview.

Cheers!

Elizabeth

===================================
Elizabeth A. Thomson
Assistant Director, Science & Engineering News
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News Office, Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)
<thomson at mit.edu>

<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www>
===================================

Here's the overview:

Each month, this section will highlight the most interesting advances in
several technologies.

I'm looking for three kinds of people to participate.

--finders (These are folks in a specific field who regularly come across
cool stuff)
--vetters (Folks who can recognize cool stuff)
--writers (Folks who can explain cool stuff to a reasonably intelligent
Luddite like me)

This would be the idealized procedure:
1) Each finder would send me two articles or announcements a month with a
sentence about why each is going to shape the field.
2) I would collate these candidates and forward to the vetters. Vetters
would pick out what's cool and what's derivative. (Vetters will probably be
professor types)
3) Based on the vetters' opinions, three to four advances a month get shaped
into 300-word summaries by the writers. (Finders and writers will probably
be the same people, but you can't write about an advance you have a
commercial interest in.)

I'm thinking the best way to do this is to have lots of finders in different
fields. The fields I'm thinking of are
The general areas we want to follow in infotech are below. Interested people
with other areas of expertise may also apply.
1) Hardware (including automation and more sophisticated chips, quantum and
molecular computing)
2) Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Human-Machine Interfaces
3) Decision Support, Informatics, Data Mining, Modeling
4) Graphics and Visualization
5) Connectivity, Networking (including fancy phones and broadcasting)
For biotech, we think about protein modelling, differentiation, genetics,
immunology, a pretty wide range.
For nanotech, we cover materials science as well.
We also want to cover energy and transportation occassionally.

Here's what the "vetters" do (2)
Vetters do not make a big time commitment. Basically, I'd send them one list
of about 10 abstracts (sometimes titles with an explanatory sentence) a
month. I ask folks to vote 3 things as important and 3 not. If they have
time, I ask them to explain their decisions. In the past, some folks have
preferred to comment on each idea rather than vote 3 in and 3 out. That kind
of input is welcome as well.

Here's what the "finders/writers" do (3)
A new section of Technology Review, will highlight the most innovative
research in a collection of brief articles.

As part of this, we are looking to hire a handful of graduate students
("finder/writers") who keep abreast of goings-on in computer science and
electrical engineering.

Each month, finders/writers consider articles and advances in agreed-on
sources (journals, conference proceedings, patents, lab demonstrations),
pick 6-10 that look important, and send the editor a list of these with a
very brief explanation of what it is and why it matters.
WRITERS CANNOT COVER WORK THAT THEY HAVE A FINANCIAL INTEREST IN AND MUST
DISCLOSE REAL AND APPARENT CONFLICTS OF INTEREST.

The editorial staff and advisors pick 3-4 to be covered as articles. We pay
$100/month for tracking advances, and a $150+ bonus for each 300-word
article.

If you are interested in being part of this network, please send an email to
monya at mit.edu. Include the following:
1) the area(s) you can cover
2) three ideas for potential advances
3) your CV
4) a writing sample
(The writing sample should not be for the specialist but for the educated
layperson, one who doesn't mind reading hard stuff but doesn't know a kernel
from a cluster.)

--