Yesterday I asked over at FriendFeed for the feedback on my early attempt of making visual CV (big thanks to all who commented). Here’s a revised version that hopefully looks much better. The key to read the image above (click to see larger version) is as follows: Y-axis represents time (with dotted line indicating more or less the present moment); areas of interest are along X-axis; color of the phrases indicates my confidence level; font size denotes amount of time I spent on the topic (so in this case I have spent lots of time using perl, but I still don’t feel very confident about it); placement of the phrases denotes which areas of interest particular project/phrase spans; area below the dotted line shows my approximate plans and hopes for the future.
The first version had “Photography” area instead of “Visualization”, but I needed to change that since it was confusing everybody and raised questions why I put a hobby on a professional CV. Photography (or visual arts) is not my hobby. My hobby is choir singing (which I do for over 14 years already, currently singing jazz and gospel). Visualization/Photography is there to indicate that I consider data visualization one of the most important elements of scientific method. What I’m trying to figure out is what kind of presentation can help us in understanding really complex systems, such as human (genetic, to make it easier) diseases. And when we understand them curing is going to be much easier. At least I hope it will.
Anyway, the true reason to post it is to ask my readers for feedback on missing elements of my plans. So far my ideas for the future research projects split into a few paths. First path is to work further on bacterial systems (or subsystems, such as secretion systems etc.). This work would translate later on into something I call Synthetic Biology Framework, which would be a tool helping in designing new biological systems, and maybe later would result in creating a programming language for a cell. My first ideas about the framework were to design engineered bacteria producing some important compounds, maybe drugs, but now I think the cooler use for the framework would be to design bionano machines. The second path is about modelling of human diseases, with important milestone which is analysis of human genome and metagenome (genobiome as I call it) – if the data will be available. Because I don’t think I could do better here than thousands of scientists if I were using the same information, here’s a moment where synthetic biology comes into play again – I hope that I could design nanomachines that would server as quick diagnostic tools or would be reporting the body state in some mostly non-invasive way (aiming at issue of “how is my cholesterol level building up”). The third path is mostly empty and concerns visualization methods. So far I have no clear idea how to build a system that would visually assist in understanding how cells work. I plan to experiment with 3D printing and 3D visualization of biological networks, but I have no clear idea where this will lead me.
So if you have some opinion, comment, idea how to connect some dots, how to jump from one area to another (for example I have no yet idea how to approach pharmacogenomics), or if you think that it doesn’t make sense at all feel free to comment.
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Freelancing science 
End of freelancing as scientist (for now)
Almost a year ago I wrote a post about officially becoming “freelance scientist”. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but taking over the world from a small flat in the middle of nowhere in Poland sounded like a good idea. And it definitely was a good idea, however not in a way I thought it would be. Today I am hoping that all things will go fine and I’ll be employed since February in a calm academic environment.
What I aimed for?
My plan was to become freelance scientist – to be able to thrive financially and intelectually without relying on gaming grant systems. I had hoped to secure support from private sources, form a virtual institute and live happily in the middle of nowhere while still having an impact on the world’s science, possibly all under “open research” badge.
What didn’t work?
Side comment: if you read excellent piece by Hugh MacLeod entitled “How to be creative”, you shouldn’t find the issues below surprising :).
The main reason I started to look for a job already some weeks ago was that freelancing as a scientist turned out to be unsustainable financially. And don’t get me wrong – money wasn’t an issue, as long as I was willing to put all my time into other’s people projects. All. My. Time. Booking some time to work on my own ideas meant burning savings at a quick rate. But I had to work on my own ideas. I didn’t feel like I’m learning very much, because I worked on things I was already quite good at. Intellectual stretching was not that big.
Because of the issue above, I’ve put together far less work than I aimed to. I have lots of posts, manuscripts and presentations which I didn’t have time to finish. I was too busy doing freelance work, finishing the projects I had promised to do, inventing new projects and hiding under a bed worrying about where this is all going.
Working in the middle of nowhere was a plain mistake. It sounds nice, but f2f networking (“showing up”) is far more important than I’ve thought. Working in Poland is an issue on its own (no matter if you’re a freelancing or an academic scientist); working outside of any major city makes it even worse.
Partially connected to the former issue was the fact that I tried to do all things alone. Wrong. Very wrong. Things like virtual institute will not work, unless there’s a team. Period.
And finally, I didn’t give myself enough time to make the whole system work. It turned out that I had no idea about so many things influencing money-flow in the system, that it’s not surprising at all that it didn’t click in so short (12 months) time.
What worked?
One of two biggest advantages of this crazy 12 months was that it was a great learning experience. When I look at my older colleagues working in academic environment, I’m pretty sure they don’t experience “felling like an idiot” moments all that often. Such moments happen quite frequently in grad school, but seem to become rarer the further science career advances. On a contrary, I had such moments all the time in the last year. I was experimenting with blog posts, stupid ideas, unbalanced opinions and I was scared as hell each time. And I have learnt much more than I would do playing safe. Have you watched Ken Robinson’s talk at TED? He put a beatiful phrase – “prepared to be wrong”. Keep that in mind.
People were second most important factor here. I was amazed by a number of people that have helped me along the way. Lots of them have encouraged me, pointed to useful resources or invested significant amount of time into answering my silly questions. Many times I was blown away by the help I had not expected. Biogang/Life Scientists community rules.
Frequently quoted phrase from Bill Hooker’s essay, “I’ve never had an idea that couldn’t be improved by sharing it with as many people as possible — and I don’t think anyone else has, either.”, turned out to be absolutely true. Each time I presented my ideas, people were interacting with them, not judging them. I was given suggestions I would not come up with by myself, even if it was clear that we’re not going to do business together.
What now?
The job I hope to land next year is going to address the things I’ve written about above. I hope to have some financial stability and necessary time to advance my plans. It will also provide a support for such events like “Startup weekend in science”, which I plan to invite you all later next year.
The main goal is still valid and I don’t give up on it. I’ve found (or rather the other way round) a real-life example, ProTech Institute from Lithuania, which means that it can be done – it’s just a little harder if you’re a (still, but not for long) PhD student.
So it’s end of freelancing for now. Lessons learned. Back to real-life™ again :).
Posted by Pawel Szczesny on December 9, 2008 in Career, Comments