Renewing Our Vows: Our Mission, Our Pledge and Our Future
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This week BenchFly celebrated a couple of very exciting milestones – neither of which would have been possible without the outpouring of support we’ve received from the community. Both milestones reflect the core of why we started BenchFly. So on the eve of a very exciting announcement, we’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone for helping us in the pursuit of our mission.
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Before moving forward, a quick look back:
Why did we start BenchFly?
Here’s an excerpt from my original article explaining our Mission.
Our Mission
To support and celebrate researcher’s lives at the bench in order to make research a better career for current and future generations of scientists.
Why?
Research is hard. Very hard. It’s a profession ripe with uncertainty, stress and failure. It demands everything you’ve got and is always willing to take more. It doesn’t work 9-5 or take holidays off. It’s always there.
Throughout my research career, I have watched many of the most talented colleagues I’ve worked with leave science. What starts out as a burning passion, fizzles over time to become less about changing the world, and more about changing their job.
At BenchFly, we want to keep scientists in science.
Along with our Mission came Our Pledge to You.
Our Pledge
Uploading, viewing and sharing protocols on BenchFly is free.
It has to be.
Whether in a small lab in a small school in a small country; or in an empty lab in an empty department at 3am- researchers worldwide should have access to the same expert instruction at the click of a mouse.
The Bottom Line: We’re here for you – the bench researcher. We aim to provide you with materials you need to be successful, both at the bench and away from it. An important part of this process at BenchFly is your participation. Science isn’t a one-way conversation so neither are we. It is this fact that has made our week’s milestone’s so exciting – they are a direct result of the community’s participation.
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This Week
We received our 100th video upload!
Although we had a pretty good idea of how many videos had been uploaded, we didn’t realize we had hit 100 until after the fact. Ironically, the video that was uploaded is a perfect representation of our mission. It shows the differences that can arise from using two different techniques that, unless someone explicitly showed you otherwise, you might think were equivalent. It’s the kind of information that can improve the reproducibility and quality of your results, with just a simple adjustment to your technique. It also turns out to be a member of our new category!
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BenchFly was accepted to Alltop!
Started by Guy Kawasaki and friends two years ago, Alltop is an aggregator of content akin to an online magazine rack – organized by topic. This week, BenchFly was added to the Science page on Alltop, joining the likes of many of the most highly regarded science blogs on the web. This doesn’t need to turn into an Oscars speech, full of tears and rambling, but we do want to make one thing clear: Thank You. Without your contributions, feedback and readership, we would not be in a position to humbly accept this honor.
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Moving Forward
In support of our mission, we’ve put together a campaign that will be launching next Tuesday, called Search for Research. We’re doing our best to keep it a secret for a few more days, but given how excited we are – it’s going to be a serious challenge! In fact, it’s very likely little details will slowly leak out on Twitter and Facebook over the next few days, so keep up with the latest lack-of-restraint there…
Thanks for all of the support and for making this a very special week for us!
– Alan
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If you’d like to contribute to the BenchFly Blog, we’d love to hear from you! Contact me directly at [email protected].
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