What's the point of this 'Twitter' thing then...

As a self-professed 'people person', I can honestly say that, until very recently, I didn't really 'get' the power nor point of Twitter and the like. I'm on Facebook, of course. I joined nearly ten years ago when you needed a uni account and people didn't realise what it was or could be, so I know what the concept is, but I've never really appreciated the power of it as a tool to communicate new ideas rather than just a place to check out ex-classmates, ex-boyfriends and their ex-classmates and ex-boyfriends.

So what’s caused this change, then? Well, a number of things actually. Mainly, I’m coming to a haitus in a fairly typical research career and for the last (nearly) two years I’ve been trying to get a job back in industry.

Trying. It seems that our degrees/PhDs are not that special or unique after all. Something no-one tells you. There are so many degree'd and PhD’d people now, that you have to find the thing that you have that is different and extra to all the other people out there and capitalise on that ‘thing’ to get your desired role. But (and yes, I did just start a sentence with 'but') what if you don’t know what that ‘desired role’ is? And (now ‘and’, my GCSE English teacher would not be impressed - Hi, Mrs. Hughes!) I think that this accounts for a lot of people – particularly a lot of PhD graduates.

Why don't we have any idea what we can do? I think, primarily, that we simply don’t know what else we can do because during our PhDs we are surrounded by people who did the conventional degree-PhD-PostDocs-academia - i.e. our bosses. This is a perfectly valid and potentially fulfilling role, but we don’t ever seem to talk about any other choices because this would be a ‘cop out’. Those PhD students that leave the lab to become tax attorneys, patent lawyers and teachers are met with a (fairly sizable) level of derision. They've ‘given up on science’, they couldn't cut it. I’ll be honest, until fairly recently, I probably felt similarly.

The problem is that by not talking about the other options, and there are plenty of others, and, in particular, by devaluing the other options, those people who perhaps aren’t suited to the life of a research scientist are left floundering.

So there I was, wondering what else I could do with my qualifications, my talents and my ‘transferable skills’ and who do I ask? My boss - who wants me to stay (Of course he does, I’m the only PostDoc in a group with an increasingly absent boss)? My PhD supervisor - who planted the seed of research in my brain (and is probably somewhat invested in the idea that I will continue his scientific genealogy)? My PhD cohort - mostly we’re in the same boat (and trust me, nobody wants to be the first to say that they have no idea what they’re doing with their life)? My (new) husband - who  thinks my degree and PhD should be rewarded with riches and fame? Or even, God forbid, my parents - who have very little understanding of what I do (my Dad still doesn’t get that there’s no-one to tell me the answer)?

This is where Twitter comes into it’s own. Unless you’re guilty of some seriously questionable behaviour, most people will let you ‘follow’ them – allowing you a rolling, updated, 160 character facebook status of their lives, if you like. Unlike Facebook, where an unsolicited 'Add' is a thing of cringe-making comments of 'who the f$£k is so-and-so Edwards?', Twitter is designed for you to be able to see what complete strangers are broadcasting to the world. It's supposed to be less private and you immediately have access to an insight into the jobs, opinions and day-to-day lives of everyone you follow, particularly if they realise the power of this medium for shameless self-promotion and detailed descriptions of their work - which most SciComm people should and do. Over the last few weeks, since being on Twitter, I've learnt about the changing attitudes to the hallowed world of publication and open access research, found job ads, got a place helping to organise a session at a major scientific communication conference, been approached to enter a science communication competition and, oh yeah, shamelessly guided over 1000 views to my blog (although I'm sure Facebook helped, too!). I have also learnt a lot more about new and exciting science than I've got from reading my usual list of detailed, focussed and often-not-particularly-exciting journals for my own research.

Yes, Twitter can be a really fun and a great way to find out about things you like socially, but, by it's nature, it's fundamentally a place for promotion. Promotion of ideas, promotion of products and OK a LOT of self-promotion. But, if you know what you're doing if you follow the 'right' people you can learn SO much from the 140 character snippets. The fact that everything is limited to 160 characters means that you get a précis of what's being said, promoted and commented upon. You can then decide of you want to follow the link to an interesting paper, article or, occasionally, random picture of a funny badger.

If you are interested in Scientific Communication and journalism, I've started a running post - a sort of Who's Who in the area...

Pretty much any field can be found and 'followed' on Twitter, giving you crash course in anything you can think of. So my advice would be - If there's something you think you might be interested in, an area of science, retail or life in general, something you've always thought 'I wonder what that job is like' - get on Twitter, have a skulk around and oh yeah, follow me - I've only got a few followers and we all need to save face, don't we?