Comments on: Astro Coffee in Ohio http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/ Random samplings from a universe of ideas. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:46:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: Stephen Uitti http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27199 Stephen Uitti Tue, 10 Apr 2007 17:40:49 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27199 Having studied the dynamics of clubs (or churches), the key is evangelism. You need to have a critical mass. You need to have something of interest. You need to have new stuff all the time. You need to have something for everyone to do (not just sit and absorb). And you need to get the excitement out - evangelism. Growth and death of a club is generally exponential. In a given time period you lose some fraction of the group. And, the effectivness of evangelism - which has to come from club members - is also dependent on the number of people doing it. Use "exponential decay" if you don't like 'death'. But you mourn for a dead club, too. Having studied the dynamics of clubs (or churches), the key is evangelism. You need to have a critical mass. You need to have something of interest. You need to have new stuff all the time. You need to have something for everyone to do (not just sit and absorb). And you need to get the excitement out - evangelism. Growth and death of a club is generally exponential. In a given time period you lose some fraction of the group. And, the effectivness of evangelism - which has to come from club members - is also dependent on the number of people doing it. Use “exponential decay” if you don’t like ‘death’. But you mourn for a dead club, too.

]]> By: Mark http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27215 Mark Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:38:31 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27215 I wouldn't have put it that way, but did know :) I wouldn’t have put it that way, but did know :)

]]> By: Kris http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27217 Kris Fri, 06 Apr 2007 22:15:55 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27217 Hi Mark, thanks for such a nice post. We do enjoy our daily ritual here, but as Mollishka said, after a while it seems like a very natural thing to do, so one forgets it is actually quite unusual. By the way, I was probably the guy sitting right next to her, talking too much. Hi Mark,

thanks for such a nice post. We do enjoy our daily ritual here, but as Mollishka said, after a while it seems like a very natural thing to do, so one forgets it is actually quite unusual. By the way, I was probably the guy sitting right next to her, talking too much.

]]> By: Mark http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27198 Mark Fri, 06 Apr 2007 20:29:57 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27198 Hi Kris - nice to hear from you. Hi Kris - nice to hear from you.

]]> By: Kris http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27213 Kris Fri, 06 Apr 2007 20:14:17 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27213 Hi Andrea, but of course we are allowed (by ourselves) and encouraged (and do it frequently) to talk about a recent conference or a neat new result from a member of the department. And when a member of the department has a paper out, they will talk about it on that day at length(as Mollishka did on Monday). But the biggest value comes from learning what other people in the world are working on, and doing it every day. The superiority over any journal club (including our own) comes from discussing 10-15 papers a week at reasonable depth, as opposed to discussing one paper a week at great depth. Oh yeah, and we also drink coffee there, which is a good thing. Hi Andrea,

but of course we are allowed (by ourselves) and encouraged (and do it frequently) to talk about a recent conference or a neat new result from a member of the department. And when a member of the department has a paper out, they will talk about it on that day at length(as Mollishka did on Monday). But the biggest value comes from learning what other people in the world are working on, and doing it every day. The superiority over any journal club (including our own) comes from discussing 10-15 papers a week at reasonable depth, as opposed to discussing one paper a week at great depth. Oh yeah, and we also drink coffee there, which is a good thing.

]]> By: Mark http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27214 Mark Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:35:53 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27214 Hi Andrea - it was the effective use of the short lead time that surprised me. People actually read the suggested papers before Coffee and were ready to discuss them. I guess it wouldn't work everywhere and, in fact, I guess the point is that it works hardly anywhere, but it does seem to work extremely well at OSU. Hi Andrea - it was the effective use of the short lead time that surprised me. People actually read the suggested papers before Coffee and were ready to discuss them. I guess it wouldn’t work everywhere and, in fact, I guess the point is that it works hardly anywhere, but it does seem to work extremely well at OSU.

]]> By: Andrea http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27212 Andrea Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:33:26 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27212 While I was in grad school, an OSU-style Preprint Coffee was introduced into an environment of a pre-existing, less formal morning coffee (which featured a mixture of scientific discussion and socialization). Reactions, and success, were mixed. Many of the objections were to the narrowed focus of preprint coffee -- it became more difficult for observers to come in with their latest plots to start discussions (either of the "hey, this is neat" or the "what the heck does this mean" variety) or for people to talk about the neat results from a conference they had just attended -- the preprint structure made it very formalized, and unless you had a paper on astro-ph that day you'd be hard-pressed to talk about your own work. I'm actually a bit surprised that you view morning coffee in the context of a journal club, and as a superior one at that -- it seemed to me to be a poor imitation, at least in the implementation at my institution. There just wasn't enough lead time for anyone other than possibly the person who led the discussion to have read the paper, and usually not even that person (the usual seemed to be for the person leading the discussion on a particular paper to have read the abstract and conclusion and looked at the figures), leading to a very shallow discussion. And quite frankly some days the papers of the day were poorly selected (or interested only the person selecting them), or there just wasn't anything worth talking about. I emphasize that although this was in imitation of the OSU model it was *not* OSU, and implementations may vary. But I didn't find it terribly useful. While I was in grad school, an OSU-style Preprint Coffee was introduced into an environment of a pre-existing, less formal morning coffee (which featured a mixture of scientific discussion and socialization). Reactions, and success, were mixed. Many of the objections were to the narrowed focus of preprint coffee — it became more difficult for observers to come in with their latest plots to start discussions (either of the “hey, this is neat” or the “what the heck does this mean” variety) or for people to talk about the neat results from a conference they had just attended — the preprint structure made it very formalized, and unless you had a paper on astro-ph that day you’d be hard-pressed to talk about your own work.

I’m actually a bit surprised that you view morning coffee in the context of a journal club, and as a superior one at that — it seemed to me to be a poor imitation, at least in the implementation at my institution. There just wasn’t enough lead time for anyone other than possibly the person who led the discussion to have read the paper, and usually not even that person (the usual seemed to be for the person leading the discussion on a particular paper to have read the abstract and conclusion and looked at the figures), leading to a very shallow discussion. And quite frankly some days the papers of the day were poorly selected (or interested only the person selecting them), or there just wasn’t anything worth talking about.

I emphasize that although this was in imitation of the OSU model it was *not* OSU, and implementations may vary. But I didn’t find it terribly useful.

]]> By: Mark http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27197 Mark Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:19:56 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27197 That's an interesting point that I hadn't thought of Julianne. I don't have a feeling for the theorist/observer composition of the OSU Coffee. I knew more theorists there, but there's an obvious reason for that. That’s an interesting point that I hadn’t thought of Julianne. I don’t have a feeling for the theorist/observer composition of the OSU Coffee. I knew more theorists there, but there’s an obvious reason for that.

]]> By: Julianne http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27210 Julianne Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:15:40 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27210 I think that part of the key to a self-sustaining preprint-coffee is critical mass of theorists. For a theorist, hashing out the latest papers is closely linked to developing new ideas for papers of one's own. For observers and experimentalists, time spent talking about the latest papers is time taken away from reducing your own data or fixing your own device. It's not that the latter doesn't benefit from coffee-style discussions, but the benefit to one's own work is much less immediate. The difference is really one of lead time. A theorist can potentially have an idea, sort through some calculations, make a few plots, and have 75% of a paper in a month. Moreover, during that time, just talking ideas out is a key part of the process. In contrast, when an experimentalist or observer takes up a new idea for research, it's six months or a year until you get the proposal submitted, more time until it's accepted, then many more months until you get the data (or build the device), and then many more months of analysis and interpretation. Thus, you're really limited in the number of new ideas you can pursue, reducing the benefit of churning through dozens of possible new ideas every week. I think that part of the key to a self-sustaining preprint-coffee is critical mass of theorists. For a theorist, hashing out the latest papers is closely linked to developing new ideas for papers of one’s own. For observers and experimentalists, time spent talking about the latest papers is time taken away from reducing your own data or fixing your own device. It’s not that the latter doesn’t benefit from coffee-style discussions, but the benefit to one’s own work is much less immediate. The difference is really one of lead time. A theorist can potentially have an idea, sort through some calculations, make a few plots, and have 75% of a paper in a month. Moreover, during that time, just talking ideas out is a key part of the process. In contrast, when an experimentalist or observer takes up a new idea for research, it’s six months or a year until you get the proposal submitted, more time until it’s accepted, then many more months until you get the data (or build the device), and then many more months of analysis and interpretation. Thus, you’re really limited in the number of new ideas you can pursue, reducing the benefit of churning through dozens of possible new ideas every week.

]]> By: Mark http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27211 Mark Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:35:16 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/05/astro-coffee-in-ohio/#comment-27211 I remember you mollishka. The "fiesty" comment was meant in good humor - it certainly isn't scary. I enjoyed the tone of the discussion a lot - frank, lively, friendly, fun and knowledgable. I remember you mollishka. The “fiesty” comment was meant in good humor - it certainly isn’t scary. I enjoyed the tone of the discussion a lot - frank, lively, friendly, fun and knowledgable.

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