*** Newsflash: We are continuing our successful work with Darwin as part of The Darwin 150 Project. Science superstars Sean Carroll, E.O. Wilson, Everett Mendelsohn, and Jonathan Weiner are all participating in our free lecture series. Don't miss it! ***
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What started as an innocuous social experiment to get 200 people on Facebook to join in wishing Charles Darwin a Happy 200th Birthday turned into a 2-week sprint to get 200,000 members and as much press and interest as humanly possible.
It ended on Thursday, 2.12.09, Charles Darwin's 200th Birthday, with an amazing, hour-long conference call put together so hundreds of fans could listen live to some of the most brilliant scientists alive today speak about Darwin, his legacy, and his impact on their work.
Here's the mp3 recording (skip forward the first 5 minutes) and the powerpoint presentation from the call! Download DarwinFacebook-2-12-09-PhonePres-1
I am still amazed we pulled it all off. :)
Not only did we hit 200,000 members just in time (11:49pmPT on Wednesday, 2.11.09), but we got a ton of press coverage and support, especially given the short period of time we ran this campaign, including:
* Scientific American's sponsorship and promotion of the group throughout their site and Facebook messages and magazine group. Here's their Darwin material on the site.
* The New York Times Science Blog write-up
* The Wall Street Journal technology blog, Digits write-up
* BBC Science podcast mention and interview with Phil
* Popular techie geek blog Reddit.com write-up (and special Chuck graphic!)
* Indie liberal paper, IrregularTimes.com, gave us a write-up and changed their Darwin Shop to link to our Facebook group
* ThinkGeek.com's sponsorship--they not only gave our members an exclusive discount, but emailed their entire customer file about the group
* Citrix Online who donated the phone lines for the conference call also put out a consumer press release about the group
And support from the scientific community was awesome in part perhaps because this was a chance for them to connect with regular folk and teens--not scientists, not even necessarily science fans who had heard of them before--but people who were just inspired by Darwin in some way and wanted to get involved with this crazy effort. Here's the final lineup of scientists who joined us for our hour-long call on Darwin's Birthday. These are real heavy-hitters. Each spoke for about 5 minutes. It was amazing that we got them all on the phone at the same time! See below for full list.
So what's next? Well, membership is continuing to grow--we're at over 222,000 members now and over 3,500 wall posts, and 70 discussion threads.
The volunteers have decided to keep going throughout the bicentennial year.
Visit http://www.darwin150.com for more info.
Activities:
* Monthly lectures with prominent scientists (Sean Carroll has already agreed as have several others)
* New goal: *1 million* members by November 24, 2009, the 150th Anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species
Do you want to help?
* We need help promoting the group and the lectures
* We need more help monitoring the Facebook page
* We need volunteers to help run local meetups
E-mail Phil if you want to help at [email protected]
Thanks so much to my close friend, Phil Terry, for starting and leading the group. It was a blast to meet and work with such smart people on a common goal for a wonderful cause (long live science!)--many of whom I did not know until this project: Chris Farnet, James Falvo, Colin Purrington, Kurt Koller, Gerardo Camilo, Melea Seward, Jen Frazier, Joe Ranft, Beth-Ellen Keyes, April Posavetz, and 300 others.
FINAL LIST OF SCIENTISTS ON THE CALL
Sean Carroll is Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin, and award-winning author of the new book Remarkable Creatures : Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), The Making of the Fittest (2006, W.W. Norton) and of Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo (2005, W.W. Norton).
Professor Hidde Ploegh is member of the Whitehead Institute and Professor of Biology at MIT.
One of the world’s leading researchers in immune system behavior,
John Rennie, appointed editor in chief of Scientific American, is only the seventh editor in chief in the nearly 164-year history of the magazine.
Professor Paul E. Olsen is the Storke Memorial Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University.
Professors Andrew Baker and Peter Glynn, both at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. T
John Dowling is the Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences at Harvard University and the director of the Dowling Lab. Dr. Dowling's current research focuses on the vertebrate retina.
John Durant is Professor and Director of the MIT Museum.
George Amato is the Director Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History.
Rodolfo Dirzo is Professor of Biology at Stanford University and director of the Dirzo Lab.
Peter Raven is the George Engelmann Professor of Botany, Washington University - St. Louis and President of the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Pulizer-prize winning Professor Jonathan Weiner spent twenty years as an independent writer, and joined the Columbia School of Journalism in 2005.
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