About a month ago (maybe two?) I posted saying I had this world conquering scheme. The idea was to piggy back on the heels of Michael Nielsen (he presented at TED about the future of scientific discovery, aka open science) and present about Open Notebook Science at TEDxABQ.

Well that dream came to a crashing halt yesterday when I was notified that my presentation idea didn’t make it through the cut.

At first I didn’t think much about it. They didn’t think the presentation was effective or world-changing? Ok, no big deal. Moving on…

But now I’ve had 24 hours to fester and think about it. And my final verdict? The selection committee is just as narrow minded as the whole rest of the scientific community. Why do I think this? Here is the feedback I received:

It was hard to visualize how you’d communicate the open notebook concept. How do you explain that to someone and get them excited about it in under 10 minutes? When they get excited about talks, those are the ones that go on stage. It was hard to see the world-changing implications…

I can understand that maybe the abstract I wrote wasn’t exciting enough. Fair enough. If I recall, my abstract was very similar to the one I submitted for the NMGPSC back in April except that I omitted the stuff about methods for ONS and the success of Physics 308L.

The thing that bothers me is that last sentence, “It was hard to see the world-changing implications.”

Here is a concept that only a handful of people in the world are practicing. They community is growing every day. And we have an IGERT (hopefully!) on the way. The movement is gaining steam. Open Science is getting a huge push from the government. Scientists across the country and globe are realizing the need for open data. And the UK just passed some laws REQUIRING open access!

And it’s hard to visualize the world-changing implications?!

Sweeping declaration: The selection committee for TEDxABQ are no different than the people who impose impact factor limitations for the “top-tier” journals like Science and Nature!

This is exactly the thing that open science and open notebook science is competing against. This world where impact factor is more important than accessibility, content, and integrity has got to change.

And this talk was supposed to do that…

What can I do? Well first I write this post venting my frustration about the close-mindedness of some. Then I work on improving. Improving my abstract, improving my clout, and improving the awareness and need for direct access to science. Open science and open notebook science are going to be huge. That is my promise!

ASIDE: There were also some comments about being able to fit the talk in under ten minutes. My gripe with this, is that TEDx prepares its speakers to be able to present in the time allotted.  So for them to select/neglect my presentation based on this aspect seems wrong. And to that I say, I already presented this concept in 15 minutes with over 5 min of extra content. Take that away and I have a 10 minute presentation.

And if they want flash and pop, they haven’t seen the way I dress. I’m all about the delivery. As a challenge, I bet I could present the concept of ONS in under 5 minutes!

Challenge Accepted!