JimboPalmer wrote:
You seem to want the Biochemists to quit doing biochemistry and type on social media instead. I am skeptical they studied Biochemistry for all those years to abandon it.
No, I do
NOT necessarily expect the hardcore biochemists at the heart of this awesome and virtuous endeavor to fully abandon their precious work -- which only
they can perform -- and devote all of their time to social media instead.
But I do think that, out of the hordes of individuals who have joined the project as volunteer folders, many of whom are at best laypeople in the field of biochemistry, surely there exists a decent-sized subgroup that
does actively participate in social media (without connection to FAH), and it would be nice to think that
they would want to self-organize as best they can in order to execute the necessary "marketing" activities (of which social media is only one part) as effectively as possible.
As scientists and/or techies, it should only be natural that we view this amazing Folding@Home project as a
system-based enterprise/business/entity. The
main goal of this business is obviously to do the hardcore science and find a cure for diseases such as COVID19. But like any "living" entity, it also has a secondary goal of [1] first-and-foremost ensuring its continued existence, and [2] doing whatever is necessary to help forward its primary goal(s). And for any business-like enterprise, that's where "marketing," "public relations," and -- today -- "social media" come in.
For FAH, efficiently "doing the science" ultimately depends on having enough compute-power. So doing whatever is necessary to ensure (and grow) the necessary compute-power is ultimately almost as important as the hardcore biochemistry know-how itself. And
somebody has to do it.
And of course somebody is apparently
already doing it, as evidenced by the massive amounts of compute-power donated by big corporations, which surely are the result of somebody high-up doing the necessary corporate PR. But, as you say, the biochemists are very busy and apparently need our help.
And just as a big corporation whose primary job is to churn out high-tech widgets to generate big bucks will not say to itself "do people expect us to abandon our production line and invest in marketing?", and will instead make sure that part of its organization and resources are indeed dedicated to marketing activities, so too must our "organization." And if our organization is not well-funded enough to proactively create such a full-time "marketing department" on its own, then we as volunteers should be doing our best to self-organize in that direction.
JimboPalmer wrote:
I would encourage you to give up on 'them' and decide to do what you can.
For me, I do a pretty good job of looking at problems from the computer's point of view and compare and contrast that with the human point of view to find solutions. So I read here and answer when I feel I understand. (Sometimes the humans get frustrated that I want the computer's point of view, as well) Would I be good at twitter?, no idea, never interested in finding out.
I am simply suggesting that each of us try and do as much as he/she honest can -- and preferably in as
coordinated a manner as possible.
If you, personally, are not the "social media" type -- then that's fine.
But for each of us who
are active on social media, I humbly suggest a bit of introspection to see what more we can contribute on this front.
I see many of the FAH researchers actively and prolifically tweeting hardcore science, and this is perfectly fine! This is obviously important for scientific collaboration, as well as for "social positioning" within the clique.
Many of these researchers are also actively tweeting politics, or other "fun" personal stuff -- and that is perfectly fine as well. I would like to see, however, these same researchers -- especially those with big followings -- tweeting a bit more FAH advocacy with the "common folk" in mind. Or at the very least, more frequently Retweeting and/or Liking such advocacy tweets by others.
IMHO, the same goes (even more so) for the general members of the folding community and its general supporters in the world of tech.
Just my "two cents." Hope that it might help to incrementally trigger some additional marketing-related efforts.