I thought this could be useful
Since meeting other post-docs at LANL my experience has been that much more interesting. Upon meeting other post-docs, it seemed to be a general consensus that it would be helpful to have a stronger central organization where post-docs could find information, meet others, network, be better represented at the lab during this time of transition and make their post-doc experience at LANL an overall greater experience.
A post-doctoral associtation would fill the role of this central organization and enable us as a group to do more than would be possible as individuals.
I had the idea of starting this web-site to help us share ideas for this effort. It may or may not work for such a project. It may or may not turn into something useful and only time will tell. However, the way I figured it would work is this:
If you are a post-doc at LANL and would like to be able to post your thoughts on this site concerning the formation of a Post-Doctoral Association, email me with your name and a working email address so that I can send you an invitation to join this page. Once you have accepted the invitation and signed up (for free) at www.blogger.com, you will be able to post on this site. In addition to posting, it is possible for others to give feedback by reading your post and making a comment. Presently, anyone (including anonymous) can comment on this page. We will see how that works. If people abuse it, then I will change it so that you must first sign up at blogger.com and therefore have your name attached to the comment.
In addition to being able to post and comment on the site, there are other features such as profiles that can be filled out and linked to on the site so that people can get to know each other better, as well as email alerts that you can sign up for so that whenever a post or comment is made on this page, it will be sent to your email inbox of you choice. However, to get started, let's just begin with the posting and commenting and see where it goes from there.
So again, if you would like to be enabled to post your thoughts and/or ideas on this site, email me letting me know where to send your invitation and we will see where it goes from there.
To start, comment to this post and let me know if you think this will be helpful or not and let me know if you have any other ideas of how to make this site better serve our needs.
A post-doctoral associtation would fill the role of this central organization and enable us as a group to do more than would be possible as individuals.
I had the idea of starting this web-site to help us share ideas for this effort. It may or may not work for such a project. It may or may not turn into something useful and only time will tell. However, the way I figured it would work is this:
If you are a post-doc at LANL and would like to be able to post your thoughts on this site concerning the formation of a Post-Doctoral Association, email me with your name and a working email address so that I can send you an invitation to join this page. Once you have accepted the invitation and signed up (for free) at www.blogger.com, you will be able to post on this site. In addition to posting, it is possible for others to give feedback by reading your post and making a comment. Presently, anyone (including anonymous) can comment on this page. We will see how that works. If people abuse it, then I will change it so that you must first sign up at blogger.com and therefore have your name attached to the comment.
In addition to being able to post and comment on the site, there are other features such as profiles that can be filled out and linked to on the site so that people can get to know each other better, as well as email alerts that you can sign up for so that whenever a post or comment is made on this page, it will be sent to your email inbox of you choice. However, to get started, let's just begin with the posting and commenting and see where it goes from there.
So again, if you would like to be enabled to post your thoughts and/or ideas on this site, email me letting me know where to send your invitation and we will see where it goes from there.
To start, comment to this post and let me know if you think this will be helpful or not and let me know if you have any other ideas of how to make this site better serve our needs.
posted by Jason at
8:10 PM
2 Comments:
hey jason,
the page looks nice. i think it could become a good forum for discussion and would like to see it opened up to the entire postdoc community soon.
it'll be interesting to see how the pda starts forming up. my suggestion would be start going after a specific project asap. nothing seems riper for consideration at the moment than the issue of transition, mainly because these times of change at the lab are a great opportunity to chime in on an issue that has needed attention for a while. furthermore, i've met a number of postdocs who are approaching transition, are in the midst of it, or have recently gone through it who would be interested in sharing their thoughts and experiences. if we could get a group together and have them produce a document, i think that would go a long way towards helping the new admins address the issue. and if it results in a change for the better, then it would be a great thing to put on the fledgeling pda's resume.
besides being able to address specific issues, i think that having informal groups that try to achieve something specific in a limited period of time would be a motive force for the formation of a broader pda, e.g. by making clear what sort of institutionalized procedures or organizational structure would be most helpful.
cheers,
mike
Hey Mike,
I think that would be a great idea...a seminar type series where people whom have recently been through the process of conversion give a talk sharing with the post-docs what they have learned in the process.
At the end of the social last week I told Mary Anne that you had this idea and she said that she knows of one such person, recently converted, that actually already has a talk put together on the topic that she said is very entertaining.
She mentioned waiting until after the transition since otherwise such a talk might get lost in its wake, but I think that we should talk to Mary Anne and get that person set-up to go first, since they are basically ready to go, whether it is before or after transition is something that we can decide. And in the meantime, you could start recruiting some of the other people that you know of and we could get a series of talks scheduled.
I had some other ideas, in talking with Mary Anne that I will address in a separate post that concern getting a community of post-docs together through more social interactions that would help the momentum of forming the PDA. I agree with you, though, that the conversion talks are an easy first thing that we can start with in order to get the ball rolling.
Mike, I will send you an invitation to the blog so that you can make your own posts. Also, remember, anyone else that wants to put up there ideas here can let me know and I will send you the link to get in.
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