SfNBANTER - A Review

What can one say about SfNBANTER -the premiere social event of the fall conference season? Once again hostess Dr. Becca excelled with another exemplary venue, menu, cocktail list and guest list. As exclusive as ever, the event was nevertheless overrun with the twitteratti and bloggeratti.

Dr. Zen wins the SfNBanter style award, again!

One must open with a very sincere Thank You to Jonathan Gross and the BioData team for sponsoring the event. It was great to meet Jonathan in the flesh finally, and chatting to the BioData team was fun and added a sense of relevancy to the wired nature of the event. After all, who better to sponsor a Tweetup than an informatics company with a very active social media presence?

This writer met old friends from the IRL (@mocost next time I'll manage more than "hi", @aechase, as ever a pleasure), old friends from the real (on line) world (including the mysterious and prolific @Scicurious and some true pseuds who must remain nameless, but know who they are), and made acquaintance with new peeps. Particular highlights were getting an awesome brain-Xmas tree ornament from @artologica, stalking @loveofscience, punking @mikechorost, losing a bet with @sugarscientist, making @artfulaction blush and swapping zombie tales with @bradleyvoytek. @noahWG and @genetrapper bought me beer, and thus consolidated themselves in the deep, fuscus and wormridden core of my heart for evermore.

A very special moment of the evening was meeting with some of my Scientopia peeps who I've known for years, but never met before IRL. And apologies once again to Drugmonkey for disappearing, and Namnezia for not saying goodbye. I was a case study in nicotine overdose by the end of the night and a brief palate cleaning walk around the block turned into an epic stumble home via a late night pizza parlour and meeting a poor homeless woman who wanted me to help her walk to Massachusetts. The state, not the Avenue...

I wish I could throw out a Heyya to all the folks I met, but the mixture of beer, avatars and real names was dizzying. Even i got confused about how to introduce myself. And that i think is the key to these events. Living online allows us to escape, expand or avoid daily social strictures, be they work or family indicated. Online we can be freer in our expression and find an audience of friends and peers to share our thoughts and writing with.  It was great to meet so many cool, wired and desiccated dedicated folks from all ranks, fields, and social backgrounds.

So join us next year in New Orleans for #sfnbanterIII - in 2010 we celebrated with SfNPosterface in a nightclub with 2000 people. In 2011 we proved we have traction in DC. What will we do in 2012 in the French Quarter?....One positively shudders to even contemplate the debauched science we'll conjure... ;)