Science, Social Media & Marketing

Proliferation of means for exchanging ideas has lead to the "popularization" of sciences. It is becoming trivial for any of us to act/pretend like a real expert by composing a set of buzz and trendy words in particular when it is feasible to brand himself/herself as an expert by heavily investing social and scientific networks with "meaningless" but still "popular" content. Consequently, real-science become irrelevant and people who are usually talked about sciences have not much to do with it, or in the best case scenario fairly have a vague quite superficial idea on what they are talking about. 

Well, fortunately mastering a subject requires top level academic studies, persistence, motivation and hard work. We observe that these values are losing ground when facing modern communicators, people with limited technical background who are able to talk about everything and nothing, and were able to build an image of someone mastering the topic. I am not a great fun of social networks, however given the importance that these have taken in our society, one cannot neglect them. There are several scientific problems to which I have dedicated enormous amount of my academic career. It is frightening when seeking for content relevant to these topics through social networks. The list of top contributors have often almost no footprint or contribution in these areas but somehow manage to maintain their "virtual expert" status through what we call the theory of buzz. Keep producing as much content - even superficial - as you can things that could demonstrate that you are an expert.

The risk of such situation is dramatic both for science as well as for society. First, scientists become these "lab" people disconnected with the "society" problems who in the most general case don't know how to communicate and therefore give the impression that problems that they are working on are already solved. Such an impression could have devastating impact on them, as it concerns future research directions, funding, motivation, etc. Furthermore, convincing you highly motivated scholars who are usually the ones bringing in the greatest innovation to pursue graduate studies are becoming more difficult. In terms of society the situation is dramatic. It is fantastic to come up with ideas, concepts that could be of great interest, while having actually absolutely no means of scientifically addressing them. 

There is nothing wrong - and actually is great - about popularizing sciences and being able to disseminate complex ideas to a broader audience (beyond the scientific community).  Actually this could be a great source of growth and innovation if done properly where real needs coming from the society meet technical innovations coming from the scientific community.

However, talking about everything and nothing and substituting scientific work with a number of buzz topics/trends being alimented from non-(appropriately qualified) experts is becoming a major concern both for the society and the scientific community. Such a overdose of "useless" content could be harmful for the society, could drive the academic community on directions that are the ones which should be followed, force schools and universities to artificially address critical scientific disciplines and consequently reduce the intellectual background of the future generations of scientists and consequently their capacity to address the real problems/needs of the society.

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's

Competition (healthy and unhealthy) is among the driving forces of our society. I recall more a decade ago my promotion to program manager at Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton, NJ, USA. It came with a single person office, an important salary raise and a two days seminar where communication/management experts explain to us what is the path to success. Well it seems that there are three classes of successful managers:

• The group of highly talented and gifted individuals who assume their decisions, have a vision and take the initiatives without caring about their short term outcome. Eventually there will be cases where things will not go as expected but eventually at some point hard work, leadership and charisma will pay out and this will happen independently on politics. Usually these are the people who will make the difference and take institutions to the next level.
• The second group of people who most likely endow their career with success are the ones working hard, delivering what was asked from them and being at the right place the right time. These are lower risk cases with respect to the first category since the outcome is predictable and bounded both on the positive as well as the negative side. These are the kind of people who will assume the job and most likely deliver what is expected from them while taking almost no risks.
• Well, the third category corresponds to people playing politics and use connections to make the difference. They are talented because despite the absence of charisma, vision and loyalty they are able to navigate and survive in critical situations and they actually just care for themselves. Their survival code consists on taking other colleague's credit and putting obstacles whenever they feel threatened to to whoever threatens them.

I guess all of us are almost certain that we are highly gifted and talented. However, I recall the expert's conclusion stating that we often cross people during our professional path who belong to the third category and suggesting to avoid working as much as you can while hoping that in your institution there are people with the willingness to Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

 

ps. I was fortunate enough to work with collaborators coming from all aforementioned populations, a situation which strengthens your ability to appreciate people being loyal to their  task/job and not to themselves.