Team:Stanford/Twitter

Project Overview

In order to foster collaboration between iGEM teams, the Stanford team this year created a virtual iGEM community on Twitter. We made a list that teams who already had Twitter accounts could subscribe to and encouraged teams that hadn't yet created accounts to sign up. Teams that joined the list could see the tweets that other teams sent out and respond, helping each other troubleshoot projects.

Goals

• Create a significant Twitter community on Twitter
  • We decided that in order to be a legitimate list, we had to have at least half of the igem teams sign up.
• Provide a platform for teams to help each other solve problems and share advice.
  • Every team runs into difficulties. Chances are good that the problem has already been solved by someone else in the igem community. We wanted to allow good tips to spread quickly through the community, so that we could all spend more time on our projects and less on troubleshooting.

Accomplishments

Logos of some of the teams following our list

Our iGEM 2010 Twitter list contains 52 of this year's 128 teams, including 25 teams who had previously not had a presence on Twitter.

We observed several instances of teams conferring over lab troubles and helping each other find solutions.

While we didn't reach our enlistment goal of half the teams, we came pretty close. As for the purpose of creating a place for iGEM teams to interact and help one another, we definitely succeeded.

Join us on Twitter!

Hello iGEM teams!

We'd like to encourage your team to follow the igem-2010 list on Twitter.

Stanford iGEM sees a great opportunity in expanding the Twitter iGEM network. iGEM could use Twitter as a means of opening up dialogue between the teams to create an environment where we could get prompt responses to questions about materials, equipment, and protocols. For example, sharing troubleshooting advice on Twitter is a great way for teams to help other teams.

The more iGEM teams we have on Twitter, the more the iGEM community will thrive. To help teams register and join the igem-2010 list, Stanford iGEM has prepared a Twitter Tutorial offered in: English, Spanish, French, Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese. The tutorial can be found below or at http://www.screencast.com/users/karpadillo.

The tutorial will show how to register for an account, the different types of “Tweets,” and the importance of following the igem-2010 list. If you don’t have access to Twitter, please reply so that we can arrange an alternate form of communication (i.e. email list, etc.). If you already have a Twitter account, and wish to be on the 2010-igem list, simply follow the instructions provided in the tutorial (skip ahead by approximately 2 minutes and 20 seconds).

By following the 2010-igem Twitter list, you will be able to automatically follow and communicate with other iGEM teams. Furthermore, since this list is currently under the management of the Stanford iGEM team, we are also filtering out miscellaneous parties not directly associated with iGEM as to reduce spam. With further development, we hope to pass control of the list over to an iGEM team committee or to iGEM headquarters.

Please take the time to seriously consider this request. We wish you the best of luck on all your experiments and hope to see you on Twitter soon!

Sincerely,

Stanford iGEM 2010

Tutorial Videos

English

Spanish

French

Mandarin

Japanese

Korean