Key Takeaways from #SpotOn17

This blog has been cross-posted from Digital Science. A huge amount of information was covered ranging from communication, mentoring and diversity to the importance of community in research. Expert speechwriter, Simon Lancaster, delivered an informative and entertaining keynote talk on ‘The Rhetoric of Research’. What was clear was that researchers need to work on developing a wide range of skills throughout their career to effectively communicate their work and therefore progress and thrive in a digital world. A researcher’s work does not begin and end on the lab bench! Below I summarise three key takeaways from SpotOn17: There’s no universal recipe for being a great researcher There are a plethora of ways to be a great researcher. Tools exist to help researchers develop and grow but are never the end-all. One must explore the options and start by doing what they will enjoy while taking pride in their work. There is an almost infinite list of tools available! Technology can be overwhelming but it’s also a researcher’s best friend. The Tech Slam at SpotOn showed the audience many ways in which technology can assist scientists in conducting their research more efficiently. Here are three examples of a scientist’s everyday problems: Problem: ‘I can’t do communication on top of my cell culturing work that takes 3h/day’ Answer: No problem, give the cell culturing job to a robot and use the time to work on letting the world know about your work. Hackscie...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Open Access Publishing SpotOn SpotOn17 Source Type: blogs