PharmTalk

Let it flow!

Posted by Jon Maybaum, ASPET Web Editor

Several months ago, ASPET leadership undertook a major project to overhaul the society's website. Now, thanks to the efforts of Executive Officer Christie Carrico and her staff, the first phase of this transformation is complete. In August 2009 the new site went live, bringing with it many updates and improvements, including:

• Reorganization of material, to find things more easily
• More attractive and functional user interface
• RSS feeds for selected pages
• PharmTalk  - The President's Blog (a place for direct interaction between the ASPET President and society members)
• Discussion Groups capability, to facilitate interaction among members, and between members and society leadership
• Improved use of online forms for symposia submissions, copyright permissions and awards (coming soon)
• Interactive advocacy resources

While these changes already represent a substantial enhancement from the previous website, we believe that having better technology available will provide opportunities to make the site even more valuable for ASPET members, as well as for a broader audience. My most important task as Web Editor will be to bring these opportunities to fruition, by engaging people who want to participate as both consumers and producers of information, and by developing effective ways to use the new website as a communications tool. I hope to use this column as the "pipeline" for a continuing dialog about how accomplish this task.

Even though we are just settling into the initial form of the new website, there has already been a lot of discussion about new ideas and initiatives to extend it. Here are a few things that we are thinking about...

Micro-Communities

Websites can be great tools for knitting together people who are physically far apart, and allowing them to function as communities. Because some investment in effort and technology is needed to create and sustain such communities, it often takes hundreds or thousands of participants to form a critical mass that makes the investment worthwhile. But in the diverse and specialized world of research, there are many potential "micro-communities", each comprising perhaps a handful of labs, that would benefit from being able to communicate effectively about finicky experimental techniques, scarce reagents, etc. We would like to explore the possibilities of fostering such micro-communities using the ASPET website.

ASPET Expert Views

The combined expertise of ASPET's membership is an enormous asset that could be leveraged to benefit both its individual members and the society as a whole. We envision an interactive column (in a blog format) where ASPET members are commissioned to write concise articles about pharmacology-related topics with a short turnaround time, while the topic is generating a significant amount of public interest. The purpose would be to provide for general audiences a timely analysis of each subject that is more in-depth and insightful than pieces produced by writers without a background in pharmacology. The author would also respond to questions or comments posted by readers, for a limited period of time. We anticipate that this column would become known as a place for scientists, science writers, policy-makers and sophisticated lay readers to go for thoughtful, reliable information and discussion about issues with pharmacotherapeutic implications.

Mentoring Resources

The future of any family rests in the success of its younger members, and this is certainly true of ASPET. One of the highest priorities for ASPET leadership is to develop ways to help students, trainees and junior faculty advance in their careers and their lives. The ASPET website has the potential to facilitate mentoring in a number of different ways, including compilation of mentoring resources and maintenance of peer-to-peer discussion and support groups.

These examples are just a few among many possibilities, to give some flavor of what you might see on the ASPET website soon. An ASPET Web Advisory Committee is being formed to help prioritize our web initiatives...but they and I can only know what is really valuable and important to you if we hear your feedback. That's what the "Comments" link is for :-)