Social Media: Why Life Scientists May be Missing Out on a Good Thing
I have previously written several posts on the reluctance of life scientists to use social media and online social networking sites. While I realize that scientists may be somewhat socially challenged, the almost universal disdain for social media is puzzling and troubling to me. More importantly, the reluctance of life scientists to embrace social media flies in the face of some revealing new statistics on social media use by the American lay public.
According to a recent survey by Forrester Research, “half of online adults now belong to social networks like, Facebook and Linked In, a 46 percent growth rate year-over-year.” More importantly, almost a quarter of Americans are content creators who write blogs, upload video or audio or post articles online.” Interestingly, the growth of social media is being driven by adults 35 and older. The survey found that four of five adults of all ages use social media including blogs, social networks and review sites. Finally, most adults visit social networking sites, in way or another at least monthly.
Many scientists who I have talked with (mostly graduate students and postdoctoral fellows) primarily use social media to stay in touch with friends or “hook up” with others after laboratory hours are over. And, other scientists—mostly laboratory heads and principal investigators—view social media as a colossal waste of time. Unfortunately, the scientists who underutilize or shun social media don’t understand its hidden potential to advance scientific research and perhaps more importantly to interact with the lay public to demystify “science.” In my experience social media has been a powerful way to disseminate information and quickly reach large numbers of people. Isn’t this what science is really about?
Until next time....
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like it or not, writing a carefully-constructed resume or curriculum vitae (as resumes are known in scientific circles) is a vital part of any successful job search. Inexperienced job seekers tend to hastily craft resumes without paying much attention to format, style or content and then wonder why they can’t land job interviews. The best way to approach resume writing is to think of a resume as a work of art–something that requires a lot of thought, creativity and attention to detail. As one well-known professional recruiter and job search expert put it”Trying to find a job without a smart, well-crafted resume is like showing up for dinner at a fancy restaurant in a T-shirt and cutoffs. They won’t let you in.” 
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While life sciences companies are still reluctant to take the “social media plunge,” many other companies (with active social media programs) frequently hire employees known as social media managers who oversee and run their social networks. This is because successful social media websites require daily attention and are extremely time consuming and labor intensive. In general, employees who are hired for these jobs have strong backgrounds in social media and technology but frequently possess little expertise in the industry that they are working in. Because social media is so new, many hiring managers believe that the social media and technology skills of these managers are more important than an understanding of the industry that they work in. However, while this practice may be acceptable in other industries, it won’t be the case for the social media managers who oversee pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices and diagnostics social media websites. These managers will likely be required to have a firm understanding of current rules and regulations guiding drug development and marketing and advertising of approved life sciences products. This will be necessary if the drug makers who hire these managers want to steer clear of regulatory scrutiny by the US Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies..jpg)
While I was at the Experimental Biology meeting in New Orleans, LA this past week I presented a seminar entitled “Using Social Media For Career Development in the Life Sciences.” This was the first time that I presented this talk, and was expecting a large turn out given the popularity of Facebook and more recently Twitter, a microblogging platform. Much to my surprise only 15 students showed up for the talk—many of whom hadn’t heard of Twitter and were only vaguely familiar with Facebook. Luckily, a few attendees had Facebook profiles and one or two were on Twitter so the talk wasn't a complete bust. Nevertheless, the lack of interest in this talk was extremely puzzling to me—my other seminars, “Interviewing Tips” and “Alternate Careers for PhDs” were very well attended and I was booked solid for one-on-one resume critiquing sessions during the five days I was in New Orleans..jpg)
Are you a life sciences or healthcare professional with a passion for computers, IT or software development? If so, you might want to consider a career in health informatics—one of the hottest, new fields in the life sciences and healthcare industries. Health informatics specialists typically have expertise in medical records and claims, clinical care and programming. In other words, they have a foot in two worlds— medicine and technology — and can easily bridge the often daunting gap between them. It is important to point out that there is a difference between healthcare IT and informatics personnel. The health IT people run the servers and install software, but the informatics people are the ones who analyze and interpret clinical/ medical information and work with clinical and other healthcare staff to advise and help them.
The US economy has lost about 7.1 million jobs since December 2007 and nationwide unemployment is hovering around 8.5 percent. Despite the lost of about 80,000 pharmaceutical jobs over the past three years and unprecedented consolidation taking place in the life sciences sector—Merck-Schering Plough, Pfizer-Wyeth and Roche-Genentech—the job prospects for scientists at biotech companies, medical devices and diagnostics, and government appear to be stronger than anticipated. While drug discovery and sales jobs may be scare, there are rapidly emerging opportunities in the fields of medical communications, regulatory affairs, biomanufacturing, clinical trials management , bioengineering, medical devices/diagnostics and website development and management..jpg){kind=small}
For the past five years, I have been giving career development seminars that offer graduate students and postdoctoral fellows alternate careers choices (instead of research) for life scientists. The intent of these seminars is to get students who may not be enamored with a possible life long career at the bench (I know that there a lot of you out there) to think about what they really want to do after they complete their graduate or postdoctoral training.
The social development of the web 2.0 has largely bypassed science. Hugely popular websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, Delicious and the like have millions of members and generate huge amounts of traffic. But those who use these sites come from all walks of life. None are devoted solely to science. 
For the past 60 years, American science was second to none. However, the US is perilously close to losing that distinction. Put simply, American science, like its economy, is in free fall.
