The tongue-in-cheek paper, titled “The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of ‘writer’s block’”, contained no words except the title, the author’s name and affiliation, one self-reference, and words of praise from one reviewer who examined the manuscript “very carefully with lemon juice and X-rays”.
When physicists found that neutrinos travelled faster than the speed of light, a claim that would break Einstein’s universal speed limit, Sir Michael Berry of the #University of Bristol and his colleagues published a paper in the Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical titled “Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?” Their abstract revealed their stance: it read “probably not”.
Although some may be under the impression that this needed a bit more elaboration, the “probably not” abstract was a “precisely crafted answer to the question posed in the title of the paper”, Sir Michael told Times Higher Education.
The abstract was “perfectly informative”, in light of the title, he said: “not” because of their negative result, and “probably” because they needed a calculation to arrive at this conclusion. A “one-word abstract ‘no’ would not accurately reflect the work we had to do while writing the paper”, Sir Michael added.
In 1974, clinical psychologist Dennis Upper of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Massachusetts, US, published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis the shortest-ever #academic paper.
Key leads from this articles:
Data Visualisation
Seal level rise
These days I’m an independent data journalist and information designer. A passion of mine is visualizing information – facts, data, ideas, subjects, issues, statistics, questions – all with the minimum of words.
I’m interested in how designed information can help us understand the world, cut through BS and reveal the hidden connections, patterns and stories underneath. Or, failing that, it can just look cool!
Myself, and the rest of the crack team here at Information is Beautiful, are dedicated to distilling the world’s data, information and knowledge into beautiful, interesting and, above all, useful visualizations, infographics and diagrams.
@infobeautiful (just infographics)@mccandelish (details of my tawdry life too)This site’s RSS Web FeedFacebook email: pa [dot] david [dot] mccandless [AT] Gmail [dot] com.
I’m David McCandless, a London-based author, writer and designer. I’ve written for The Guardian, Wired and others. I’m into anything strange and interesting.
It’s been a year since I started Draw Science. Can’t believe it. The idea’s come a long way, from just a blog that I started for fun, to an open-access journal in the works. Now, I’m travelling while I set up the journal and doing a study on behalf of my other organization,
I’ve already ranted about the problems with science communication. Even when a layperson gets access to a paper despite all the pay-per-view journals, the use of esoteric jargon makes it practically impossible for the public to read fresh-from-the-lab-bench science. For the last few months, I’ve been working on a solution through Draw Science. Now it’s time to take off the band-aid and treat the wound.
“The Winnower is an excellent forum for sharing ideas and rapidly disseminating work that might not otherwise have a great forum. I think it’s an excellent tool to engage a community with a very easy to use interface that generates great discussion between authors and reviewers. In total, it was the most supportive peer review process thus far, and allowed me to engage in great scholarly discussion with my reviewers in an open and transparent way.”
“The Winnower is paving the path to the future of science communication in the most radical, exciting way. Scientists can finally put a name and a story to the research they publish; this is the definition of “open and transparent.””
“The Winnower is one of the first #publications that rightfully recognizes the educational value of both transparent peer reviews and open access scientific material. It is a modern scientific publication in the truest sense of the word”
“Re-imagine scientific publishing, unhindered by external pressures, with the sole focus to communicate science. Don’t be surprised if you end up exactly at what The Winnower is doing.”
“Although I did not ever think I would aspire to have my work highlighted in a section referred to as “The Chaff”, I find the idea of your new journal interesting and likely informative for the scientific community”
So without further ado….Today we are happy to announce that you can now assign a digital object identifier (DOI) to your WordPress.org blog via The Winnower. This is a first step of many that we are taking towards bringing scientific publishing into the modern era (we’ll soon be releasing an interface for Blogger blogs and WordPress.com blogs). We hope you’ll help us create this “agora of the modern age” by participating and by letting us know what you think needs changing or improving. Of course, one way to do that is to publish with us and another is to write a blog post! Together we can create an archived virtual library that is accessible to not only those that can pay thousands of dollars to publish but to all.
Scientific research requires a free and open dialogue to thrive. Scientists must communicate their ideas through scientific journals for debate, testing, and often retesting. Today, this is the standard process by which new ideas advance in science. Currently, one major barrier to co… …
The 2013 Wolf Prize in #Agriculture, often referred to as the Nobel Prize in agriculture, was awarded earlier this year to Dr. Joachim Messing. Messing’s work over the years has spanned many fields but what may be considered his most important work was the development of a seminal te… …
Science publishing is a multi-billion dollar industry that brings investors and owners a spectacular 30% profit annually. How are they able to maintain such high profits and what does this mean for science? Pretend you’re a scientist who’s made an important discovery. Your next step… …
The value of blogs and bloggers in science is well recognized. Blogs serve as an excellent form of post-publication peer review and host much of the scientific discussion that occurs on the web today. Indeed, it is probably true that more interaction between scientists and between scientists and the public occurs away from traditional scientific articles themselves and in “alternative” forums such as Twitter, Facebook, and of course, blogs. These mediums are becoming increasingly important in scholarly discourse and often times shape what is written in traditional scholarly articles themselves (i.e. they are often cited). But for all the benefits blogs provide they are not afforded an equal footing. They are superfluous and can disappear without a trace. We want to change that. The content of these discussions can sway opinion and act as authoritative sources in their own right. Blogs are without a doubt valuable and as such deserve to be archived and aggregated, just like traditional scholarly publications are. They deserve to “count,” to be elevated to a level that is not viewed as something extra but as something integral to scientific communication (Nicholson 2014, Nicholson 2015). We need to get around the notion that where you publish actually matters. It doesn’t. It is the content, not the wrapper, and the sooner we act accordingly, the better.
We think that that there is an inherent inefficiency in scientific publishing due to the quantum (or minimum publishable amount) of research being too large. It can takes many years to do enough research for a publication in a top-tier journal. Meanwhile, all that intellectual capital is tied up solely in the heads of the researchers rather than circulating where it could be doing some good. Also, many research ideas and results are not publishable because they are small, negative, partial, or just don’t fit the criteria of other journals. But many of them can be expressed briefly and could aid other researchers.
Primarily because it is part of being a good scientific citizen but you also might get the feedback you need to improve your research. Entries in the Journal of Brief Ideas are permanently archived, searchable, and citable, so they have the same publication status as in any other journal. That means that you can get credit for your idea as soon as you have it. You can put the entry on a CV, attach it to your ORCID profile, or use it as you would any other publication.
In addition, if you are a good researcher, you have more ideas than you can pursue at length. Wouldn’t you rather be credited for those ideas and see somebody else build on them than have them disappear from the research community completely, or have somebody later come up with the same idea and have them get credit for it?
For something as brief as 200-words, wouldn’t you rather just judge the quality of an idea yourself rather than have that judgement proxied by an anonymous peer reviewer? It is impractical to have 200-word ideas reviewed pre-publication so we choose to have a post-publication review system. There is a rating for each idea and for each researcher so you can judge quality by those ratings if you don’t trust your own judgement.
The Journal of Brief Ideas is a research journal, composed entirely of ‘brief ideas’. The goal here is to provide a place for short ideas to be described – in 200 words or less – for these ideas to be archived (courtesy of Zenodo), searchable and citable.
The Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal publishes all outputs of the research cycle, including: project proposals, data, methods, workflows, software, project reports and research articles together on a single collaborative platform, with the most transparent, open and public peer-review process. Our scope encompasses all areas of academic research, including science, technology, humanities and the social sciences.
The 1000 Word (or ten hundred word to be exact) Challenge was born out of the XKCD comic strip Up Goer Five, a very successful attempt at using only the 1000 most common words to describe the blueprints of the NASA rocket Saturn V. Geneticist Theo Sanderson created a text editor that tells if each word typed is one of the 1000 most common words (and thus allowable), and soon scientists around the world were challenging each other to describe their own research using only these 1000 words. The Burke Museum was already planning an end-of-the-quarter happy hour and invited FOSEP to hold their 1000 Word Challenge during the event.
FOSEP received almost 40 individual entries from across the campus, from researchers in atmospheric science to biology, from anthropology to applied materials science. David Domke (professor and acting chair for the Department of Communication at the University of Washington (UW)), Alaina Smith (Director of External Affairs at the Burke) and Andrea Cohen (Museology Program Assistant at the Burke) served as the judges for the event.
On Friday afternoon, the judges narrowed down the entries to the top 15. These 15 contestants were then each given an opportunity to share both how they would normally describe their research at a scientific conference and how they describe their research using only the 1000 most common words in the English language. Contestants were judges on three criteria: Language – Does the entry convey the work of the grad student in a clear and concise manner, using the 1000 words in an economical and grammatically correct fashion? Style – Does the entry go beyond clear word choice to incorporate humor, prose, rhythm or other elements of style to good effect? and Presentation – Does the candidate present their entry effectively? Considerations are enunciation, volume, posture, and dress?
Yasmeen at a scientific conference: I study the link between sperm chemotaxis and fertilization success. Eggs in animals such as sea urchins release chemicals that act as sperm attractants. Sperm use chemotaxis – that is, orientation towards the source of a chemical gradient – to find the eggs. However, it is unknown whether sperm chemotaxis directly contributes to reproductive success.
Last Friday the Burke Museum hosted FOSEP’s inaugural 1000 Word Challenge with fantastic results. Just under 200 people were in attendance, and the grand prize winner by Yasmeen Hussain included, “Some man things are better at listening than others. I want to know if the man things that are better at listening are also better at making babies.”
I’ve been pondering the question, as part of my #Research Fellowship training and academic reputation development plan: If I was to concentrate my #reputation building into a subset of journals what might they be? I decided to think about what journals I cite from and what journals I am cited in. To do this I used the bibliometrics from the Web of Science database to analyse my papers. I then used the allied Journal Citations Reports database to explore more about these Journals and their subject categories. I’ve looked in detail at all those journals where there are two or more #citations (about 1/3-1/2 of the total)
Who do I cite?
I’ve charted the results by number of papers that I’ve cited. It is worth noting that over half of the references that I use in any one paper refer to non peer-reviewed sources of data, such as farm management costings books and #agricultural statistics.
The journals and number of papers that I have cited from. A few journals dominate with quite a long tail. Amongst the titles there are words like systems, #Operational Research, #agriculture, environment, & ecology.
What strikes me is that I have done two things: 1) drawn in a wide range of underpinning literature on the science of agriculture and the environment, 2) drawn in a lot of scientific literature that has to do with Operational Research and or agricultural/ environmental systems. This is a clue as to how I maybe working as a scientist.
Who cites me?
I’ve repeated the analysis and considered which journals are the source of citations to me.
The journals and the numbers of papers citing me showing a few dominant journals, a long tail and the words management, systems, engineering, technology, and production featuring amongst titles
Again there is a subset of dominant journals citing my work. Two of them; Agricultural Systems and Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment; are dominant in both. A noticeable change from the journals that I cite is the absence of Operational Research and the addition of engineering, production and technology amongst titles. This is again another clue about how I seem to be doing ‘science’.
Science consumer to science producer
To get a clear idea about how I map the science I consume into science consumed by others I decided to group all the Journal titles into their subject categories. Where a Journal was categorised over more than one category I split the paper counts equally. I then compared the two after normalising to 100% to bring both counts onto the same scale . Colour coding and shading helped pick out broad groups. This is all shown in this column chart.
Comparing the science I consume with where my science gets consumed showing a clear difference in subject categories with less Operational Research and more engineering, technology and multi-disciplinarity.
The shift in subject categories is quite strong. I am very much an applied Mathematician and Operational Researcher as I consume its science, but don’t produce the science consumed by it. Overall I consume science from all three of my degrees: Agriculture, Applied Environmental Science, and Operational Research (see below). I combine that within a systems modelling framework and produce insights into agricultural and environmental systems that are of benefit to managers, engineers, technologists, applied [multidisciplinary] scientists, and fellow systems modellers and analysts.
My educational background showing my three degree of Agriculture, Applied Environmental Science, and Operational Research
This does seem a rational picture in hindsight, but much more telling given this hard data. It does lend support to the idea that the group that I have been part of provided a key service to Agricultural Engineering. I joined the group at the former Silsoe Research Institute (SRI); a Public Sector Research Organisation specialising in agricultural engineering and its offshoots.
Takeouts
I’ve a much clearer idea of how I work as a scientist and where I make my contribution: The impact and identification of better, newer, or greener on the decisions that shape agricultural and environmental systems.
The shortlist of journals that I should focus on are the ones that I am cited from and that I cite from. This set includes Agricultural Systems, Biosystems Engineers (formerly Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research), and Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment.
A tilt towards where my science is consumed makes sense so International Journal of #Life Cycle Assessment, Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Environmental Management are strong candidates.
I need to consider Journal remits and bibliometric impact factors to really establish a core set.
What could be a fun addition is to consider the subject mappings that includes in a middle column where I’ve published.
This site gets my interest. Yes I do blog about peer-reviewed research, especially papers I am cited by or may cite. Yes that is as much a form of science communication as it is my own personal reflective thought. Done well it could add to #academic#reputation and digital footprint.
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
Research Blogging
If you’re a blogger who writes about serious research, Research Blogging offers you a way to distinguish your serious posts from news, politics, family, bagpipes, and so on. We can direct your regular readers — and new readers — to the posts you’ve worked the hardest to create. All you need to get started is a blog and a peer-reviewed research report that you’d like to discuss.
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
Do you like to read about new developments in science and other fields? Are you tired of “science by press release”? ResearchBlogging.org is your place. ResearchBlogging.org allows readers to easily find blog posts about serious peer-reviewed research, instead of just news reports and press releases.
How it works
Bloggers — often experts in their field — find exciting new peer-reviewed research they’d like to share. They write thoughtful posts about the research for their blogs.
Bloggers register with us and use a simple one-line form to create a snippet of code to place in their posts. This snippet not only notifies our site about their post, it also creates a properly formatted research citation for their blog.
Our software automatically scans registered blogs for posts containing our code snippet. When it finds them, it indexes them and displays them on our front page — thousands of posts from hundreds of blogs, in one convenient place, organized by topic.
Our editors identify the notable posts in each major discipline, publishing the results on our news page.
Other services like PubGet index our database as well, so every time readers search for a journal article, they can also locate blog posts discussing the article.
Fab training course. It is doing me the power of good to have a refresher, but also from this Professor. He is essentially a self made man who has dug deep to find very human answers in himself to push forward.
I am so glad that this paper writing course was not another re-hash of the hypothesis centred paper approach. This course gave you the behind the scenes approach to getting it done, giving strategic tips to write #papers of any kind! Most of my work hinges on systems modelling. I’ve never seen a hypothesis formally stated in the literature that I read or even really figured out if it is implied. As a result I’ve mostly struggled and failed to operationalise earlier learning.
Part 1: Why publish and where?
I like the idea of focussing on a set of #journals and consistent keywords to develop your #reputation.
I like the idea of a set of journal at impact factor 4+ to aim the best stuff at. A set at around 2 to fall back on and a final set of <1 further fall back on provided that have good readership. This is a better way to build a directed reputation than the more scatter gun approach.
I think for me I need to slant my outputs not at #Operational Research but more at Agri-environmental engineering, policy and #science. [Note to self if possible analyse my #citations and peers for journal coverage]
Your quality bar on your papers defines your intellectual reputation (more than any other lever).
How to produce papers?
Guides to #publishing papers are like diets -develop the one that works for you!
I really like this killer idea. Separate the intellectual heavy lifting into a #planning phase that takes time from the physical drafting and #delivery of the manuscript. Trying to think as you write means that you have to repeatedly return to the time consuming heavy lifting to move the paper on the next notch before you are yet again diverted to the more pressing aspects of the day job.
Intellectual phase
Define the message -one sentence
Define the structure
Determine the key information to include in then paper
Define the information needs in the introduction
Deliver
Write drafts
Plan of attack (Key to intellectual contribution -get balance of paper right)
Results
Discussion
Conclusions
Methods (& Materials)
Introduction
Abstract
Title
Keywords, Acknowledgements, References
F.O.C.U.S
The purpose of a paper is to be read and used [to communicate] (not to baffle, show off, prove hard work, to prove we are better). It is your sales pitch of your ideas and intellectual contribution.
“Do they see what you see, and understand what you understand? Is it easy and useful for them to read? What knowledge/ information do you want to leave them with?”
“If you cannot describe the message clearly and concisely you are not ready to write the paper”
The best structure is the simplest path for the story you want to tell. Clear redundant material off that path
Use a storyboard to organise the figures and tables into the story line you need for your message. What is missing? Are they needed at all? Use the storyboard as a research planning tool to target the graphs and thus work you need to do to support the story, but revise when a new story emerges. [Storyboard planning maybe very good for designing model runs for a paper if not building the model itself]
Allow time and have fun collaborating
Results: Describe, Compare, & Explain on each. Plant the hooks you will return to in the discussion. Be specific with comparisons and explanations never generic. Keep it to the points that add to your message
Key point: Do not start writing the papers until you have prepared the material. If the preps done then in half an hour snatch moments another bit can be written up.
Discussion: Bring out the main points first. Write a separate discussion to ensure you develop it well.
Materials and Method: the reader should be able to repeat your work. Include Quality assurance steps. Reference standard methods, describe what is different, but avoid referring to you own papers for basic details to help the paper stand on its own feet.
Introduction: What are the drivers of the work?, what is already known and done?, where are the gaps?, and what are we going to deliver?
Conclusions: Demonstrate delivery of the message, what is the point of the paper?, and each aim and objective should have a corresponding conclusion.
Title: This is the key hook. It is what people see first, if anything. Good titles are either short or contain colons and are brief, direct, and meaningful.
Abstract: Critical to further reading. Use 4 sentences: 1)The driver for the work, 2)The approach taken, 3)The key results, and 4)The main conclusion.
Visual/Audio-slide/video Abstracts: Important and no clear best practices
Keywords: Direct, meaningful, and consistent (Inconsistent keywords = lower citations as you become harder to find. Find a couple of key signature keywords and use them everywhere
Acknowledgements: funders, helpers and legal issues. Keep it brief
References: Follow the formatting instructions and check citation and reference list agree in both directions.
Basic rules: Keep to word limits, rules, and format guidelines. Do not flood journals -spread papers around if coming in a batch else be forced two rite one all singing paper. Don’t self plagiarise. If it is needed and it is published refer to it or come at it from another direction. If resubmitting post rejection to a new journal explain why and what you ave done to improve the article.
Have high standards of internal proof reading.
Handle referee comments constructively, properly, be timely.
Be a completer finisher!
Recieving criticism and rejection. Calm down and read and re read and re read the feedback until you feel more composed to respond positively. Keep at it as the light at the end of the tunnel never goes out.
Reputation is social mental construct that lives a very real existence entirely outside of you. It is the other person’s perception of another person’s perception of you. Essentially, it is social proof of trust in you. It can be influenced, it can be destroyed, but it can’t be explicitly created. It is slow to grow and readily damaged.
Reputation can inspire those around and motivate you to reach great fulfillment of self. Reputation precedes you and can make people far away defend your name as well as being a great marketing asset.
1a) What area of research do you want to be recognized for?
I want to be best known for research into the impact of better, novelty, innovation, and change on farmers’ decisions and #agricultural systems
2) to fully grasp the environmental burdens of decisions I develop agricultural system model-based Life-Cycle Assessments (LCA). These are quantitative hard-systems engineering approaches.
2) Do you want to be known as a specialist or a generalist?
Operational researchers are interdisciplinary generalists. I am a relative specialist with my core competence at the interface of #agriculture, decisions, and the environment. I can be flexible and already extend towards modelling connections out to waste water treatment and renewable energy systems
3) Which academics around the world do you admire and why?
In no real order I admire the following academics
Laura McLay (Punk Rock Operations Research Blog) I admire because I enjoy her accessible and witty insights into OR theory, practice and profession and I am impressed with her social media presence and strategy. Laura McLay is Professor of #operations research, ISyE dept at #University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ian Frommer (@or4green) came to my attention several years ago as a prolific blogger and tweeter of Operational research for Green. Ian Frommer is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy* in New London, CT with interests in energy and the environment. I admire Ian for bringing the area of #Operational Research and the Environment to greater prominence on social media
I first came to read Stafford Beer‘s works in the 1990s and gained many of my formative influences as an Operational Researcher. I liked that he was a good communicator, a conceptual thinker on management cybernetics, and a of bit left field character
Eric Audsley I admire for his thought leadership in my field in the UK and Europe, for his stewardship of the same and for the numerous models and programs of his that I use. He has been my line manager and or project manager since October1996 at the former Silsoe Research institute
Andres Weintraub (left) a Professor in the department of industrial engineering in the University of Chile and Carlos Romero (right) a professor of economics at the Technical University of Madrid I first met at The Euro Summer School on Operational Research in Agriculture and #Forestry management in 2009 in Lleida and Solsona, Spain. I admire both for their career long prestige and international stewardship of my field, best embodied as two of the four editors of The Handbook of Operations Research in Natural Resources
Lluis Miguel Pla is a personal friend and coordinator of the Euro Working group on Operational Research in Agriculture and Forestry Management. I admire him for his stoical long standing stewardship of my field in Europe. He is an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Lleida, Spain
I admire Richard Dawkins fierce integrity in challenging society’s preciously held eternal truths and his broad spectrum skills at communication of science via many different media
Christopher Ryan, PhD really impressed me by having an idea that changes the way we can see the world. I was impressed that he wrote it up as a New York Times bestseller and presented it a TED conference. His academic and communication skills are impressive and as is his fearlessness in confronting taboos, norms and beliefs with science.
Brian Camm, David Morris, and Bill Dilke from Seale Hayne College and Paul Webster and Nigel Williams from Wye College all helped inspire and teach me quantitative approaches to farm planning and control. A big shout out goes to Professor Jim France and Dr Les Compton for their stewardship of Agricultural Research Modellers Group
What are my take outs for top role model traits: Thought & opinion leadership, stewardship, communication skills, advocacy, perseverance, honesty, integrity, & trustworthiness.
What doesn’t take prominence: I know nothing of their private wealth nor if they wield political power. I am more aware of their intellectual achievements, but I can’t often say that they are directly useful to me. The later point is a bit like Antarctica…it feels good to know it exists, but I’ve never been there.
What matters here is that reputation is a natural outgrowth of one’s self and one that is easily damaged if you are caught faking it. Trust is fragile and social proof of trust can turn against you.
4) What key activities do you want to do that define who you want to be?
a) Research: Applied agricultural systems decision modelling
b) Communication: Written, oral and digital channels to peers, clients, industry & public
c) Leadership: Contribute ideas and coordinate networks
d (a) Educator & Trainer
d (b) Life long learner
5) What is your publication strategy?
Journal
Reason?
Number of papers to date?
Number of papers you want?
1? Journal of the Operational Research Society
0.91 2013/2014 journal impact factor – Kudos and contribution to my profession
9) What items of esteem/ activity do you NOT value?
None of these are bad per se, but one needs to carefully balance costs with benefits.
Excessive membership of Professional societies
Excessive refereeing of papers and grant proposals
Onerous conference/ session organization
10) What is your dissemination strategy?
The outcomes of my work tend to best inform the thinking of scientists, engineers, the policy community, and the more progressive innovative section of the farming community. The dissemination ‘ecosystem’ is in a state of flux with the advent of open access journals and digital & social media bringing everything to within a Google mouse click. The trend maybe away from print to digital, but face to face is important. Being out there is good, being found above the white noise is better.
c) Social Media
I use Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net to make preprints available. I have a blog to post a more narrative discussion. I use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn to promote links back to my work. I do have a ResearcherID, Google Scholar, and an OrcidID to further increase exposure. For supplementary material I can use slideshare, Youtube, & Prezi.com.
My Social Media Klout score is in the 45-55 range
d) Influential opinion formers?
Bonus Question) Is your plan appropriately aligned with the University’s 415i plan?
yes
Career evolution
My professional interests are represented here #Agriculture #OperationalResearch ( #OR ) #Environment
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
Laura McLay (
Ian Frommer (@or4green) came to my attention several years ago as a prolific blogger and tweeter of 
I admire 
