Chempedia Lab: Slides from Fall 2010 ACS Meeting in Boston

The slide deck above is the one I presented at the Fall ACS in Boston discussing Chempedia Lab. Although attendance at the symposium was on the light side, based on the Q&A at the end and discussions afterward I learned that: (1) the idea of Chempedia Lab seems to resonate; and (2) Chempedia Lab still isn't widely-known as a resource for answering experimental chemistry questions.

The talks at this symposium spanned a wide range of uses of the Web and social media in chemistry - from education to research. Two struck me in particular. One was by Phil Janowics from Cal State Fullerton who talked about building a worldwide virtual chemistry classroom. The other was from Aaron Finke (Carbon Based Curiosities) who talked about social and scientific issues of blogging in chemistry.

One thing I'd like to see more of in future symposia on this topic is talks discussing Web technologies that can be applied to the communication of chemical information. I think there's an unfortunate tendency by those experimenting with the Web and social media in chemistry to use tools that may less than ideally suited to the job. Likewise, it's important for developers to see new opportunities emerging from non-technical users of the Web. Technology-focused talks at these kinds of symposia might help bridge the gap.