Tag Archives: scifund

Open Notebook

My #SciFund Marketing Strategy

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The marketing of my project (and those of the rest of the #SciFund-ers) is the most essential aspect of the Challenge. I can’t expect random people to show up on RocketHub looking to spend money. Besides writing an effective proposal that turns potential contributors into actual contributors, I need to market the hell out of myself and use my entire network of friends and colleagues to join the cause (and get them to contribute as well).

I like to pretend that marketing is my specialty. To some extent that is true, I would say I know more than most scientists in this regard, but research is my real specialty and I can research and apply anything. So my first step in my marketing scheme is to learn what worked for the most successful projects in the first round. Luckily the awesome folks at #SciFund (Jai and Jarrett) wrote up blog posts that explained what worked so well for each person. Check out the posts here, here, here, and here.

From what I’ve read there are 3 main groups that us #SciFund-ers (from now on referred to as we) should hit hard and can probably expect contributions from:

  1. Friends and family
  2. Social network and audience
  3. Personal favors/miscellaneous

The personal favors group is a bit of an enigma so we can’t really target our marketing scheme in that direction, well we can but not directly. I’m defining personal favors as people who are contributing to my project that I don’t really know. For example in a couple of the examples I linked, some of their projects got picked up by national media outlets.

In order to target this potential audience, I need to make sure that my project is accessible and updated frequently. That is just a good blogging habit and extremely important to build an audience. Luckily for me, my research is constantly being updated and I’m always writing notes, thoughts, ideas, etc to keep my content fresh.

But I/we can and should hit up our friends and family. The least that I should hope for is that they tell their friends and family. I’ll call that social networking the old fashioned way. But I can hope for something like a 10% conversion rate. I think that would be a great number. By that I mean that 10% of people I ask to contribute will contribute something. And I think something like 25% would be willing to tell their friends. I’m making up these numbers of course, but I think they are reasonable (although something like 1-5% is more likely for people who will donate).

Social networking is going to be key in this campaign. It is very similar to old fashioned networking, but the information will spread much faster. Not only that, but in this case having a large social network isn’t as important as having the right connections. For instance, my social network is comprised completely of colleagues from around the world thanks to ScienceOnline 2012. If a few key people (those with even larger reach than my own) in my network contribute and share my proposal, I think I have a great shot of making my goal.

But my marketing campaign isn’t ending there. I am affiliated with the GPSA as the Media and Transparency Committee Chair and I have made quite a few connections within UNM with regards to promotion. Part II of my marketing campaign will be to reach out to those within UNM and others in ABQ to help spread the message.

To reach a broad audience I actually am not going to focus on my project. My aim will be to show people that crowdfunding is a viable alternative to traditional scientific funding. To do this I am contacting the UNM Marketing and Communications department (those responsible for maintaining the UNM homepage and the news site), the UNM Daily Lobo, and the Weekly Alibi (Albuquerque’s best newspaper, in my opinion) and asking them to work on an article about crowdfunding for science and featuring my project as an example of the process. By being a pioneer for the UNM community, perhaps I can show other students that crowdfunding is a real alternative, cultivate relationships for the next round of #SciFund, or even spearhead a UNM centric crowdfunding platform (that would be ideal).

The final aspect of my marketing campaign incorporates my local scientific community. I will speak with the Physics and Astronomy Department Chair about possible promotion outlets (with his backing for added support). On top of this I’m a new recruit of the Initiative to Maximize Student Diversity (IMSD) program and hopefully they have some outlets for support.

And as I travel forward in time, I’m sure I’ll come across new outlets to promote my project and I’ll be pursuing those as well. In the meantime, I have a lot to work with and I hope I have another open science success story to contribute to the world!

Open Notebook

The Best of #SciFund Round 1

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If I’m going to get people interested in my research and get people to want to support my project I’m going to have to pool all my skills as a scientist and a marketer together. As a scientist I need to do some research. So I’m going to read the most funded projects in the first round of the #SciFund challenge and try to determine what stands out in those projects to me. Here is the link to the first round participants, and now let’s get to it:

  • Helping Elephants and People Coexist (Goal: $7k; Raised: $4110) – This proposal is extremely simple, they need to hire someone and quickly explain why their applicant is needed. Personally I don’t feel that their proposal makes me want to donate money because I don’t know anyone involved and I don’t think they do a great job of selling the hiree, but I like that they have a decent reward system and tons of supporting links (an area I think I would excel in).
  • Hey! Did you miss that fish?! (Goal: $6700; Raised: $4600) – The writing in this proposal is pretty good! The author makes a few mistakes however; 1) cheese factor and 2) links to article behind paywall. But the proposal is pretty engaging and really enthusiastic. I think the reward system is a bit weak though.
  • Force of duck: Measuring explosive erection (Goal: $3125; Raised: $2100 ) – This proposal is really engaging. They present an interesting question and a really achievable solution for their funds. I’m not going to lie, I wanted to donate some money.
  • Serengeti Live (Goal: $14000; Raised: $5085) – I don’t think they set up their project very well. I’m not hooked as to why this study is beneficial. I’m sure it is, but I don’t think they did well. I think the raised so much money because they are dealing with lions and people like animals.
  • Alien vs Predator (Goal: $3000; Raised: $1330) – Honestly, I don’t like this proposal at all. I don’t think they effectively or entertainingly explained why I should donate to the project. There was no hook, which the “Duck” proposal did really well, and I think that really hurt (even though they raised over $1000). What did I like? I’m not sure…
  • Ancient Roman DNA Project (Goal: $6000; Raised$10171) – First off, holy cow! They achieved almost double what they asked and it was a lot! This proposal has a really engaging hook, but I don’t like that they played into the 99% theme (Occupy Wall Street) that was going on at the time (November 2011). The proposal is filled with a lot of information about the project and a lot of it is really engaging. The formatting really helps readability (lots of sections instead of 2/3 sections with big paragraphs).
  • Turtles in the Deep (Goal: $2500; Raised: $3243) – This isn’t fair, of course cute sea turtles are going to get funded… But they present the research in an actual useful way by saying that these studies can make fishing more efficient and less harmful. Plus they are concise enough to keep the reader engaged.
  • The Yin Yang World of Venom (Goal: $12000; Raised: $3000) – Here is another project proposal that I don’t really like. The author never hooks me to the project. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I’ve read like 10 of these in a row, but still there should be some hook. He takes way to long to get to the problem at hand and by then I was already lost.
  • Why is this dolphin’s fin on backwards? (Goal: $5000; Raised: $1165) – This is a really good project description. It breaks the project into two studies and after each explanation demonstrates what the funds go toward. It’s also really short which makes me like it more, and it is a really interesting question!
  • Athlete’s foot in worms (Goal: $1000; Raised: $1000) – As a scientist, I wish the author had provided a little more detail about the process of using worms for athlete’s foot studies, but the fact is I was interested in the project on the description provided.  I appreciated the novel approach of using worms, but I wish that was put into more depth. Also it would have been nicer if there wasn’t the sob story about not getting paid summer salary. I think the reward system is a little weak too.
  • Dolphinpalooza (Goal: $4500; Raised: $1070) – I think this is the best proposal I’ve read so far. It gets right to the point, is witty, clearly explains what the money will be used for, and why the study is important. I think the reward system doesn’t compare with some of the others, but honestly is more what I expected from a non-artistic funding platform.
  • Domesticating algae for the 21st century (Goal: $3300; Raised: $1120) – This is a project that I actually imaged that most would be like. And unfortunately the proposal isn’t what I expected. There is too much superfluous information that I wouldn’t want to see in a proposal that is going to be publicly funded. And while the project is interesting, there was emphasis on things I didn’t particularly care about and not enough information on things I did. Maybe I’m thinking about this process the wrong way though…
  • Cancer? Yeast has answers (Goal: $2500; Raised: $2835) – This project is tough to identify what I liked and what I didn’t. Honestly I didn’t like the proposal, but it must have been effective because they raised more funds than they asked for. Interestingly this proposal was similar to the previous one in terms of subject (molecular biology) and to me had the same shortcomings. But again, maybe I’m thinking about things the wrong way.
  • Transforming the way we publish research (Goal: $12000; Raised: $1565) – This is a proposal I was really excited to read, but was way too long for my tastes. Perhaps that is coming after reading and analyzing like 20 of these things. Another problem I have is that I’m not convinced that this project will work, but I’m an expert in the field.   Now I’ve done a bit more reading and I watched the video and I actually know the people who were involved in the project! It was an excellent proposal and I hope the project works out for you. The video was excellent by the way.
  • Mathematics of Direct Democracy (Goal: $3260; Raised: $1320) – I think I’m about spent. To me at this stage (since I’ve been reading and analyzing for 4 hours) this proposal seems overly vague, but I get it. The mathematics are complicated enough that I wouldn’t expect the author to delve into it, but some explanation of the math process is in order no? The explanation wasn’t engaging to me, but again I’m pretty done with reading right now.
  • Support Zombie Research (Goal: $3500; Raised: $5000) – This is a really effective proposal. The reward system is awesome and in line with what I had in mind. The question is interesting and engaging while being very simple and short in explanation. The project seems very achievable and the money seems really reasonable. I think they had help from a notable outside source, and I hope I can have the same kind of pull when I post my proposal.

Overall notes (written in the order I thought of them):

  • The reward system is a bit scary to me. We are applying for funds which means we don’t have any. A lot of rewards actually require money, so how do they send people rewards that require a payment of some sort? Do they use the fund money? And most people in this program aren’t artists (which is what Rockethub was designed for) and aren’t producing goods, so what exactly is expected of a proper reward for a contributor?
  • It seems silly that some people are applying for funds in an open science sort of way, but are going back to closed science. I think a major sell of my project is that everything is in the open and accessible to the project planners.
  • What does someone who does everything in the open have to give as a reward? Can I send people 1mL vials of D2O or DDW?
  • Is it bad that I have a problem with the projects not listing exactly what they need money for? Maybe they all originally did, but after review it was determined not to do that?
  • Is it wise of me to look at this as a competition? By that I mean, should I feel like I’m competing with the other SciFund proposals? I really feel like I am, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be contributing to the social group.
  • How important is the project description? By this I mean are most contributors familiar with the project proposer, or are there a number of random unknown contributors? This would make the proposal much more important even if you are attracting just a handful of unknowns.
  • How many people view the videos? How many contributors view the videos?
  • Are there analytics about the number of visits to each page and the number of contributions each project received? I bet those would be some useful numbers.
  • It seems to me that there is no correlation between what got a lot of money and how well written the proposal was. But I didn’t read any of the proposals that didn’t make much money. Here I wasn’t looking at percent funded but overall money.
  • If I had to pick a trend though I would say more generally appealing projects received more money: cute and cudly, history, cancer, and zombies got the most money.
  • I would have guessed that catchier titles would have received more money, but I guess when it comes to money it doesn’t matter how catchy you title is, content is king. Would general marketing strategies even work in this forum?
  • I feel like my project has a good chance to succeed and an equally likely chance to fail based on what I’ve learned. I could write it so it has a general appeal, being the importance of water in research. I know how to write good generally informative pieces. But on the flip side, is my network strong enough? Can I convince people to donate big amounts? Will people even view my stuff as importantly as I do?
  • Is the reward system a good incentive to contribute? Is there any data on that?

I think that’s enough for now. Hopefully my study is useful to someone and feel free to ask me questions in the comments because I understand these notes aren’t written for everyone (mostly just me).

Open Notebook

#SciFund Proposal Planning

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DDW Project Proposal

Here is the link to my project proposal for the SciFund Challenge. There is nothing there yet, but I’ll fill it up tomorrow and Friday. The video stuff won’t come until next week and images will come after that. Right now I’ll be planning everything out, but first I’m going to do a bit of research. I’m going to read all the SciFund challenges from last year and pick out pieces that seem to really work as compared to how successful they were in their funding goals. I’ll write up a notebook entry on this later tonight.

In the meantime feel free to provide some helpful tips in the comments below.

Open Notebook, Water Type Effects on Organism Growth

#SciFund Challenge… I’m in!

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I’m super excited because I just received word that I have been accepted to round 2 of the #SciFund challenge. I posted my pre-proposal last week, and from the looks of it I have a lot to do. I received an email that details what needs to be done this week and over the course of the month and some awesome details about the challenge:

  • 140 other researchers got accepted and we’ll all be working together to refine our proposals to make our funding goals. This is going to be a community experience all around: proposal editing will be a collaborative process, and the funding process is crowd based (hence crowdfunding). I’m very much looking forward to this experience.
  • This week my plan is to get familiar with the crowdfunding process and to develop my project proposal. I’ll be developing this in the open as usual so I’ll welcome all your feedback.
  • Next week and the week after, the plan will be to receive feedback for the proposal from others in the competition and hopefully all you who follow my notebook.
  • I’ll also need to develop a promotion strategy. That’s where the world comes in. I’ll obviously be tapping my family’s network, but I’ll also be asking you to tweet, facebook, +1 my efforts to help me reach my goals. I’ll also to to figure out how to get  the university involved and maybe take out an ad in the local newspaper to reach my goal.
  • At some point I’ll need to make a video proposal. So I’ll be needing some feedback on this. While I have video making chops and tools, this project will be the most important thing I do until I graduate so it will have to represent my best work. Anyone interested in helping me story board my proposal should comment below. Again, all that will be open.
  • Finally, I’ll need to come up with a reward program for contributors. This should be fun since I have a multitude of talents that I love to share with all. As an example if anyone contributes $100 I will design business cards for them for free (the printing cost is on the contributor). For a lower level contribution something like for every person who donates $15-25 I will email them a picture of Trex and myself doing experiments in the lab.
  • Finally between this week and next I will need to complete the first draft of my project proposal. According to the welcome email, “This first draft will include the following elements: title, video, rewards, images, and description of your project. Your project description should include the following: a welcome, a call to action, a detailed description of your plans, and a thank you. Please note that the project description should not go on for too long.” I don’t think I’ll be able to have a video done this week, but a story board should not be out of the question. I will look to film it next week.

That’s all for now. Like I said in the coming days, I’ll be setting up a Google Doc to outline and refine my project description, video storyboard, and reward system. Perhaps I’ll mindmap an outline. And remember all of this will be done in the open along with the project as it progresses once the funding is underway and complete! Crowdfunded open science? Yea, that’s awesome!

Ecoli1, Open Notebook, Water Type Effects on Organism Growth, Yeast1

#SciFund Challenge Accepted!

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If you watch “How I Met Your Mother” you’ll get the title of this post. But if you don’t then I’ll let it be known that I have just completed my submission for the second #SciFund challenge which is hosted by RocketHub.com. Here is my submission:


Effects of DDW on Microorganisms