Online Social Networking for the Chemical Sciences

The internet has revolutionized the manner by which we can represent ourselves online by providing us the ability to expose our data, experiences and skills online via blogs, wikis and other crowdsourcing venues. As a result it is possible to contribute to the community while developing a social profile as a scientist. While research scientists are primarily still measured by their contributions to science using the classical method of citation statistics, a number of freely available online tools are now available for scientists to develop their online profile. This is particularly important at a time when alternative measures of contributions to science are being developed – the so-called world of Alternative Metrics. The concept of “rewards and recognition” for participation will be discussed in terms of how the Royal Society of Chemistry intends to add to the alternative metrics data flow to acknowledge scientists for their contributions. This presentation will provide an overview of the myriad of tools available to you at any stage of your career and will hopefully encourage you to actively manage your profile as a scientist as the resume of the future will likely be summarized by your activities and profiles online. I will highlight how to ensure that your personal social media profiles can be made engaging to potential collaborators and employers, how social media can be utilized to engage people into events and how to drive traffic to your own sites should you choose to set them up. I will review how my own profiles cover my diverse career in chemistry from “lab-rat” to software product manager, to entrepreneur and into the publishing world and my personal efforts to try and popularize science using some of the social media tools.