Gold Mine!!

[Alan C. Lawhon]

I had an amazing experience earlier this evening which bears directly on how we go about recruiting new FAH donor-participants.

I was having dinner at a local restaurant when a group of approximately ten young people came in and sat down at a long table very close to where I was sitting. As one of the group passed by me, I played a hunch and casually asked if they were members of a local repertory company? (We have an actor’s troupe here in town and I thought they might be part of it.) “No,” he replied, “… we’re just nerds.” I flashed a quick smile as I reached for a computer book I just happened to have with me. He laughed, so I quickly addressed the entire group telling them that I would love to talk with them about something once they were through eating. One in the group expressed a bit of curiosity as to what I had in mind, so I cryptically declared, “I would like to invite you all to join me in doing medical research …” There was a slight pause as I let this sink in, then I stated: “It actually involves participating in the world’s largest distributed computing project.” This seemed to interest a few of them, so they nodded and indicated “OK.”

While they ate I asked the waitress to bring me a sheet of paper that I could write on. I recalled from memory the Folding@Home web page URL as well as the URL for the icronic.com “Team 93” flash video. I also included a reference to the Wikipedia pages on protein folding and FAH. When they were finished eating, I came over, sat down, and started off by asking if any of them just happened to be a Linux expert? None of them were Linux gurus, but one of them had a good friend who was Linux knowledgeable. Anticipating a possible question in advance, I started off by telling them that I wasn’t trying to sell anything and I had no financial motive in this, but I do have a sister with Parkinson’s disease and that is why I’m involved. I then spent some time (less than five minutes) explaining protein folding and why protein folding (and misfolding) is important – as well as how the Stanford FAH project ties in to all this. I specifically mentioned FAH is producing “good science” pointing out last year’s Alzheimer’s breakthrough and how the identification of a new candidate drug (for the treatment of Alzheimer’s) came directly from insights gained from a FAH simulation project. I also mentioned that approximately 166,000 people from all around the world are participating in FAH. I then asked if they have worked on projects together as a team? Several of them shook their heads “Yes” and nodded in the affirmative, so I responded “That’s great because this is something you can all do together! When you download the software, you can either join and fold individually – under your own name or your own moniker – or you can form a team and all fold as members of the same team.” I then rattled off a number of teams that I’m aware of, stating “Google has a team, Intel has a team, there’s even a team consisting of people from Vietnam.”

To my surprise and delight they were all paying attention and quietly soaking in what I was saying. I sensed that I had said enough, so I handed the sheet of paper to the young man I had spoken to earlier – the one who had told me “No, we’re just nerds.” He looked at the URLs I had written down and said, “Thanks! I’ll pass this on to a bunch of my friends.” I responded by telling him, “Oh, that would be great!” I closed by telling them, “Once you become protein folders, you can tell your friends that you are medical researchers – and it won’t be a total lie!” This also elicited smiles and grins from the group as they all glanced back and forth at each other. (I think I was connecting …) I thanked them for their time and wished them all a good night.

I may have struck a gold mine tonight. We may have as many as ten (or more) new folders as a result of my five minute presentation. (If the young man actually follows up by sending the URLs I wrote down to his friends, there may [potentially] be more than ten new folders!) I’m looking forward to getting my FAH postcards printed up since having those cards available and on hand - and ready to pass out to each member of the group - would have been perfect.

Tonight was serendipity, (I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time), but this is how we go about recruiting new folders!

[art_l_j_PlanetAMD64]

I may have struck a gold mine tonight. We may have as many as ten (or more) new folders as a result of my five minute presentation. (If the young man actually follows up by sending the URLs I wrote down to his friends, there may [potentially] be more than ten new folders!) I’m looking forward to getting my FAH postcards printed up since having those cards available and on hand - and ready to pass out to each member of the group - would have been perfect.

Great! And those "nerds", at least some of them, are likely to have some pretty high-powered CPUs and GPUs.

[texinga]

Very well done...Bravo!! That was a great story of "getting the word out" about Folding and thanks for sharing it with fellow Folders!

[bruce]

I agree: Bravo!!

My only question is what kind of group of Nerds wouldn't have at least one Linux Guru? (I don't expect an answer )