Click on the hashtag #Scio14 to view all of my posts from ScienceOnline Together.

There was one more session before lunch on our final day, and I headed to the session on Online Communities: Meeting, Managing, and Moving Forward.  Masterfully led by Lou Woodley, this session provided me EXACTLY the information I was looking for.  Lou started with some brief comments on community, communication, commitment, and then a fourth “c” of coordination.  I learned that most online communities fail because of a lack of action, and that people need to be recruited from online communities to be advocates for that of the online community to succeed.  Audience members also mentioned that it is important to find our from the online community what individuals expect from being involved with the community, and what they hope to get out of the involvement.  Twitter chats were mentioned, as they are effective in gathering a large audience beyond the original community to participate in an online discussion, but does it actually *build* community?

The ScienceOnline mascot hanging out with some trilobites printed with the 3D printer

Next up – lunch!  After helping ourselves to a delicious build-you-own taco buffet, I sat at a table with a group talking about science podcasts formatted as a quiz/game show.  Rachel Pendergrass (@backtobeatrice) led the discussion and is going to be producing this new podcast series.  We had a fun and exciting table discussion, and I hope to contribute to one of Rachel’s podcasts in the future!  Keep an ear out for me.

But then, after lunch, it hit all of us…

I need a #scionap. #scio14

— Jen Davison (@JenEDavison) March 1, 2014

The final session of the conference brought everyone back together for some reporting out from all of the session (I counted 36 people giving one-minute reports).  We also learned that next year’s ScienceOnline is going to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, on the campus of Georgia Tech.  I already have February 18-21 penciled in on my calendar.  We were told that one of the reasons this location was picked is because it is below the “snow line” and we would not have to worry about travel issues.  But then, several tweets came out (as it was not that long ago that people had to sleep in their cars and in schools overnight in Atlanta because a storm became very severe very quickly):

#scio14 anyone remember that Atlanta wasn’t spared from snowmageddon this year? — Doc Ricky (@drricky) March 1, 2014

Then, just like that, the conference ended!  It was too late for me to catch a flight back to Philadelphia, so I dashed off to do a quick tour inside the North Carolina State Capitol building, just blocks away from our conference hotel.  Seeing as I had just visited the Texas State Capitol when I was in Austin earlier this year, I couldn’t give up the opportunity to check out another capitol building.  I only had 15 minutes to zip through, but I was rewarded with a site I had never seen in any other state capitol building – the office of the state geologist!  (a restored office, but still wonderful to look at, even if for only a few minutes).

North Carolina State Capitol Building in Raleigh, NC

The State Geologist Office in the North Carolina State Capitol building.

Time for me to pack up and think about how to wrap up my thoughts and reflections on ScienceOnline 2014.