The Policy Council’s ad-hoc Conference Highlights Committee is seeking volunteer writers and editors to produce high-quality blog articles featuring aspects of ISDC2021 that should be disseminated to the public at large. The Conference Highlights blog would be published on the Society website. We have identified an Editor-in-Chief and are still seeking a Coordinator who can organize volunteers in advance of the Conference. Contact me if you would like to contribute or have suggestions for who we should ask.
Hello, Prof. @sara.metcalf.
What do you mean by high-quality? What is the criteria/checklist for a high-quality blog post? I would like to know before I write something that might be rejected because my writing style might be too informal? Simple? I hope it is relatable…
Will there be videos in/of this blog series? Like the ones from past conferences? Some people prefer listening because they spend so much time reading journal articles, books, etc.
How is this different from a magazine? Is there usually an Editor-in-Chief for blog posts?
Well wishes,
Christine
Ideas (if this is a magazine. I am borrowing ideas from the ISE Magazine…the one the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers makes)
- Tweets/Quotes from the community
- Practitioner/applications articles
- Short segments highlighting published research articles
- Comic
- Advertisements from sponsors (e.g. software vendors)
- and of course pictures!
Other ideas
- describe the conference in x number of words or one sentence
- poem/song
- artwork
- video highlights montage of a picture from each presentation (5 days in 5 minutes? Like some highlight videos of some World Cup…it was 90 minutes in 90 seconds?)
Hello Christine, thanks for your interest and ideas! I don’t have all the answers at this time, but we’d love to have you contribute to both the planning and the execution of this effort. I will invite you to our next meeting and follow up with you by email to connect you to the team. Appreciatively, Sara
Hi Christine: Glad to have you join the team. I’ve got some responses from @jack regarding the questions you asked, and have pasted these below.
What do you mean by high-quality? What is the criteria/checklist for a high-quality blog post? I would like to know before I write something that might be rejected because my writing style might be too informal? Simple? I hope it is relatable…
- We are looking for blog submissions of 600-1,000 words, written in a crisp journalistic style. You would first propose a topic for your blog and describe the idea in a sentence or two. We would tell you whether your topic is accepted (which we would do as long as the description sounds clear and potentially interesting to Society members.) Then, you would submit your blog piece to us during the week after the conference. We will publish the best blog pieces, probably 5-10 of them, depending on how many good ones we get. If your piece is one of those 5-10 selected, we would do some further editing to get it in great shape, and also ask you for a head-shot photo of yourself.
Will there be videos in/of this blog series? Like the ones from past conferences 1? Some people prefer listening because they spend so much time reading journal articles, books, etc.
- We were not planning to publish videos. The blogs will all go into the “Wisdom” blog at the SD Society website (System Dynamics Blog | System Dynamics Society), written out and usually 500-700 words (accepted submissions may be edited down to fit this word range.) Of course, these blogs are not journal articles or books, which are long and not always fun to read – whereas blog pieces are short and snappy and fun to read!
How is this different from a magazine? Is there usually an Editor-in-Chief for blog posts?
- This is not a magazine, it is more like a contest held by a literary magazine. Once the contest is over and the pieces published online, we close shop…until maybe next year, when we’ll do it again, if everyone has enjoyed it the first time around!
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thanks for the awesome information.
Hello, Prof. @sara.metcalf.
I am interested in joining the System Dynamics Blog. How is it possible?