I love Stephen Sondheim musicals. In particular I love the way he can build an ensemble piece in which there can be 10-20 people onstage, apparently singing, shouting, and speaking complete disconnected lines, which nonetheless build into a coherent whole.

Coming from me that may sound a strange title, but while I am very positive about the potential for online tools to improve the way we communicate science, I sometimes despair about the irritating little barriers that constantly prevent us from starting to achieve what we might. Today I had a good example of that. Currently I am in Sydney, a city where many old, and some not so old friends live.

A thought sparked off by a comment from Maxine Clarke at Nature Networks where she posted a link to a post by David Crotty. The thing that got me thinking was Maxine’ statement: Alright, in isolation this doesn’t look like much, read through both David’s post and the comments, and then come back to Maxine’s,Â

So BioBarCamp started yesterday with a bang and a great kick off. Not only did we somehow manage to start early we were consistently running ahead of schedule. With several hours initially scheduled for introductions this actually went pretty quick, although it was quite comprehensive.

The UKOLN Institutional Web Managers Workshop is running in Aberdeen from 22-24 July and I am giving a talk discussing the impact of Web2.0 tools on science. My main theme will be the that the main cultural reasons for lack of uptake relate to the fear of losing control over data and ideas. Web2.0 tools rely absolutely on the willingness of people to make useful material available.

There has been lots of interest amongst some parts of the community about what has been happening on FriendFeed. A growing number of people are signed up and lots of interesting conversations are happening. However it was suggested that as these groups grow they become harder to manage and the perceived barriers to entry get higher. So this is an attempt to provide a brief intro to FriendFeed for the scientist who may be interested in using it;

Image via Wikipedia There have been a number of interesting discussions going on in the blogosphere recently about radically different ways of practising science. Pawel Szczesny has blogged about his plans for freelancing science as a way of moving out of the rigid career structure that drives conventional academic science.