1. Conversations
on
communication
September 2011
Hyderabad, India

2. Background
 Met all groups except Group A
 Focus of discussions:
 Mostly on the online environment – it presents the greatest
challenges and pitfalls
 Not to the exclusion of other media: print and offline electronic
media also have their place
 GCP is completely redesigning its website currently, to
 bring it in line with GCP in Phase II
 Optimise information value
 Phased approach in three parts – just completed structure and
began to populate with content
 Plan to seek feedback from volunteer ‘reviewers’ in the GCP
community for α version
 Website to take cognisance of IBP portal, with onward links into
IBP as appropriate
 Goal: easy navigability (including across to IBP), minimum clicks

3. New GCP website ‒ structure
Brief intro, and
onward link to
IBP:
interoperability

4. Discussions
1. Social media
2. Online discussions and blogs
3. Swan song
4. Frontiers
Social media
• Very few in the GCP community use FB, Twitter, or any other social
networking media
• Other media to consider (LinkedIn, Citeulike, Google+ (launched end
of June 2011)  might be more appropriate for a diverse group with
different interests.
• Mixed group  mixed feelings on whether or not GCP should be on
FB and Twitter
• BUT a wide consensus that we ignore such media at our peril. Akin to
ignoring popular media (newspapers, radio, TV), or the failed ‘anti-
email resistance’ of the mid-90s
• Who ‘reads’ Facebook? Very high company!

5. The Arab Spring
TRANSLATION
“How about
you? How
many
enemies do
you have on
Facebook?”
SOURCE: Jeune Afrique, p 15, 13–19 February 2011

6. Other topics
 Chats and blogs
 An area to explore – discussion fora more appropriate than blogs
 Will not replicate community discussions on the IBP portal but broader
questions at Programme level, eg, the Transition Strategy
 Discussion fora would need focus on a specific issue to be effective
 Some discussants have discussion fora or virtual shared workspaces, eg,
ontology group, and a methodology group on genome assembly
 Swan Song
 Visual medium – a GCP Channel on YouTube
 Ideas welcome, now and at any time (more thought needed)
 A GCP-defined special topic for online publication
 Frontiers – online scientific publishers with infastructure and experience
 EOIs at this point for new topic, exploring republishing the phenotyping book
(opportunity to refresh content)
 Write-ups on proposed special topic on publication table ‘About Frontiers’
 Overall
 Follow-up with particular people on specific areas on all topics discussed
 Welcome ideas on best practice from institutes or elsewhere