Hello BioStars community--
We were thinking about ways to do some outreach for BioStar to grow and build the community. I know there were some ideas in a previous thread with good social-networking suggestions (Helping Biostar Grow). But we recently approached Istvan and offered to do a flyer/information sheet that we can bring to the American Society of Human Genetics meeting next week in DC. We'll have some at our booth (1337), and we'll put some on the "free" table that most conferences have.
First: here's the proposed v1 flyer, as a PDF. It's kinda big for mailing around, but that preserves the image quality, just FYI.
Feel free to download it, have a look, and print some. We've found that good places to put materials like this are near lunchrooms (if there's an announcement sort of place), mail rooms, and quite often your science librarian would help with some placements. And if there are conferences you are going to, and if you could print out a couple of dozen, you can also usually put them on "free" tables.
Also, as this is a v1, we'd be happy to take suggestions for a v2. Or if the community has comments about the flyer (and that we maybe used some of your text...thanks for those great questions) do let us know.
Comments? Questions? Other ideas for good places to locate items like this?
Thanks for your input.
PS: We'd be interested to know if you have printing issues; we are using US standards and I'm not sure what will happen elsewhere.
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EDIT 1 by Mary after numerous answers/comments: Thanks for the feedback everyone! We'll have a look at all of it and consider the options. To summarize quickly: some people want more information, some people want less. Heh.
Just a word on our philosophy on this: this flyer is an awareness tool. It can't convey all the information about the site. That's better done in some of the other strategies discussed below. This item does not preclude any other stuff, it's just one tool. This is designed to intrigue people about the possibilities, and bring them over. And give them a few quick tips on using the site.
We find often the best thing is to talk to people with fresh eyes. We'll discuss it with people next week--people who have never seen the site, and see what their questions are. You may have similar conversations at your sites. Please bring that feedback along as well.
Also, feel free to develop other flyers. There may be some that are designed for sub-groups. We picked stuff that we hear from people a lot to highlight. You may work with other groups who have other types of questions/interests.
I better place to discuss this would be http://groups.google.com/group/biostar-central
Very nice flyer!! I wonder if this can also be used as a poster to present biostar at some congress or workshop.
Maybe you should update the URL to "biostar.stackexchange.com"... I know it's more complex-looking than biostars.org - but I think anyone that takes a mental note of the address and tries it later might end up going to biostar.org instead of biostars.org.
If this isn't going to be discussed on the 'meta' Google group, then the question should be Community Wiki.
I've just posted a snapshot of your pdf on FriendFeed
Looks good and nice idea
Also I think stackexchange already has a fair amount of brand recognition, especially among bioinformaticians that might have used stackoverflow before.
@Paulo: We could raise it there, but seemed to need wide discussion. Not sure if everyone reads over there?
@Bio_X2Y: We went with the URL as provided in the green "Spread the word!" box. And this might still work if the site moved away from stackexchange. Thanks for the other comments + printer test too, btw.
Oh, that's good to know. Hadn't noticed that checkbox before (but I think I haven't asked a question yet). I see it's in the faq which I've read before but apparently not close enough :D
Is it coincidence that the booth number is 1337? I think not.
@Zach. lol, that had to be explained to me. Guess I'm not as much of a geek I thought I was :D
Thanks for the flyer Mary! Great idea and concept!
Thanks for sharing this Mary. Innovative idea. Along with other suggestions by Bio_X2Y, you may consider adding the geographical location of BioStars plotted by Neil.