Promoting Team Lead Applications

[emreerhan]

Hi all,

@ababaian correctly pointed out that we should have a strategy for promoting team leader applications. Here's what I'm thinking:

Social Media

@NoushinN I believe you wanted to take on our social media promotion. I will leave the specifics to you, but you should link directly to our website's team lead application page so we can keep track of traffic. Let me know if you need any help with using any of the social media accounts. I can definitely help with that.

Emailing mailing lists

@baraaorabi, could you contact bioinformatics groups and our own mailing list with the email I wrote in this issue?

Mailing lists

• SFU Omics group (coordinate with @klgray25)
• VanBug (coordinate with Jasleen)
• SFU/UBC molecular biology and computing science newsletters?
• SFU/UBC student societies?
• ECOSCOPE Mail List [@ababaian forwarded]
• UBC Medical Genetics Program Mail List [@ababaian forwarded]
• Others I need some help thinking of other groups to contact.

Emailing specific people

Anyone can help with this part. I have included drafts of emails that we can use to contact specific people asking them if they're interested. The emails can be found here.

Obviously you have the freedom to write your own email, especially if you're contacting someone who you have a personal connection with.

Let me know if you have any additions

[NoushinN]

@emreerhan that sounds good, I was thinking of traffic metrics as well, is there a way to keep track of how many viewers we get on the hackseq website? mentioning that in proposal letters might assure sponsors that we have a viable and interested audience...does it have google ads?

...I need help on how to link the github page to tweets.

I haven't gotten started with reddit as arun from last year suggested focusing more on twitter, reddit doesn't get as many hits but I will post there as well, just need help with linking the page.

regarding other groups to contact, some that are off the top of my head are these (mostly at UBC) but will think more:

1. Student Biotechnology network: http://thesbn.ca/
2. lifesciencesbc.ca
3. sciencepolicy.ca --> info@thespin.ca
4. scienceinthecity.com
5. R-Ladies of Vancouver
6. Ecoscope
7. postdoc society: https://www.postdocs.ubc.ca/ --> postdoctoral.fellows@ubc.ca
8. circle.ubc.ca
9. grad.ubc.ca
10. news.ubc.ca
11. Science SLAM facebook.com/SciSlamCA/
12. blogs.ubc.ca/cafesci/about/ ...

[baraaorabi]

@emreerhan: Sure! I will try to see what I can do about CS and Math at SFU. I will see about MBB too, but maybe it is easier if @klgray25 contacts their secretary? I think I should also email the current bioinformatics cohort and ask them to circulate the email around.

[klgray25]

@emreerhan @baraaorabi I can contact both the MBB department office and circulate to SFU Omics. We should probably send it to the stats department too; I can do that.

[smaslova]

Possible programs to target at UBC:

Computer Science: program: https://www.cs.ubc.ca/ student society: https://ubccsss.org/

Microbiology and Immunology: https://www.microbiology.ubc.ca/

Biophysics program: http://www.lmb.ubc.ca/graduate/index.html student society: https://bpss.phas.ubc.ca/

Interdisciplinary Studies: http://isgp.ubc.ca/?login Integrated Science Program: https://intsci.ubc.ca/

Don't forget to email Sharon :P

[smaslova]

Also, if you are going to go the reddit route I suggest the following subreddits: reddit.com/r/bioinformatics reddit.com/r/vancouver reddit.com/r/UBC reddit.com/r/simonfraser

edit: reddit.com/r/labrats

[ababaian]

Email Advertisement Flyer

I've prepared some text + a small email advertisement to send to the various mailing lists. I think we can improve the text part of the email a little bit so I'm open to suggestions.

Do you have a great biology / bioinformatics project idea? Help translate it to a reality by proposing your idea and leading a team at hackseq18. On October 12-14th we're holding a 72-hour genomics hackathon in which you and a team of 4-8 participants collaborate to make the project a reality.

Apply to lead a team or sign up to participate on someone else's team at www.hackseq.com!

[emreerhan]

@baraaorabi could you email the hackseq mailing list that we have accumulated from previous years?

[jenjaelin]

@emreerhan idk if there's a mailing list for them, but bioinformatics and GSAT departments/groups at UBC?

[jasgrewal]

Hi @jenjaelin you should be able to have it fwd'd to these program lists by contacting Sharon Ruschkowski, our program coordinator, at sharonr[at]bcgsc.ca

[emreerhan]

@ababaian The image has a typo. Applications is spelled "Applictions".

We really need to get on emailing the mailing lists. I know I'm not in charge of the email account, but I can send the first batch of emails since you're busy right now @baraaorabi.

@NoushinN have you been able to make any posts on social media?

[NoushinN]

@emreerhan I need help to post it on reddit, it is so unfriendly! Please go ahead if you have time. Twitter is taken cared of now.

[ababaian]

fixed

[NoushinN]

Team, what are your thoughts about advertising on linkedin? We can make a hackseq linkedin group..does everyone have a profile there?

[emreerhan]

@NoushinN everything's looks great so far! Yes, I can handle the Reddit account. Could you change the tweet you just posted so it doesn't say participant applications are open, just yet. We're only just opening team lead applications.

[NoushinN]

@emreerhan thanks! done

[baraaorabi]

Hi!

Sorry I've been slightly busy this week. So I just email the flyer to SFU CS and asked them to forward it to the whole department. I also just emailed Sharon to cover UBC Bioinformatics/MedGen/Genome Science.

I will try now to get in touch with other UBC departments (CS, biophysics, microbio&immun, biophys).

[klgray25]

Hey guys! Quick update: I have sent the information out to the SFU Omics mailing list and forwarded it to the MBB and Statistics and Actuarial Science admin at SFU for them to forward to their respective departments.

[baraaorabi]

Update: Sharon sent out the email flyer yesterday. Today I also got SFU CS emailed by our grad assistant.

[klgray25]

Can confirm that the email went out to the MBB, Biological Sciences, and Stats departments.

[ababaian]

When in doubt, talking to people in person is probably the best motivator =D Y'all should make sure to show up at VanBUG on thursday and start convincing people to lead teams!

A

[jasgrewal]

On that note, can someone send along the team lead recruitment slide to me, plus the official email request to VanBUG for being a community sponsor? Doesn't have to be super formal, I would just like it for when I announce it, and for our internal records. Thx! @emreerhan @jenjaelin

[emreerhan]

@SweetiePi I believe you mentioned that you could make the slide for Vanbug. If you had a chance to finish it, could you pass it along to Jasleen?

@jenjaelin you wrote a draft of the email a while back, could you pass that along to Jasleen?

Thanks guys!

[alexsweeten]

I believe @NoushinN beat me to it.

@jasgrewal The team lead recruitment slide can be found here

[jenjaelin]

@jasgrewal the email draft can be found here

[baraaorabi]

@jasgrewal for the community sponsor, should I send something to dev@vanbug.org from hackseq's gmail? Or is there some other email?

[jasgrewal]

Hi @baraaorabi , that's alright, I already sent the message to vanbug dev based on the draft @jenjaelin pointed me to yesterday :)

[baraaorabi]

@jasgrewal you're da best!

[emreerhan]

Hey guys, we're going to have to extend the team leader application deadline, as we expected. We have 4 applications right now.

I highly encourage that we all reach out personally to people that we know. I think that gives us the highest chance of reaching potential team leads.

[baraaorabi]

When are we thinking about next deadline? Do you think mid-June would be good? I wanna update the flyer with the new deadline, and then re-email it to the mailing list.

I sent out few personal emails to people at SFU and VPC. @emreerhan do you think you should talk to some people in Inanc's lab? Maybe even Inanc himself :-D

[jenjaelin]

maybe set the deadline to the end of the week for our next meeting?

[baraaorabi]

Max Libbrecht replied to me: "I don't have time to be a team lead, but I'm happy to advise a team or give project ideas."

I was talking to @emreerhan, and maybe we can have some sort hand-off mentoring team leaders?

[klgray25]

Hey @baraaorabi, what exactly do you mean by "hand-off mentoring team leaders"? As in, a leader that moreso assigns tasks than works with the group? Or, a team with a designated leader that simply is working off one of Dr. Libbrecht's ideas (perhaps if there is someone interested in leading a team that doesn't have an idea...) (Are the ideas or the tasks being handed-off?)

Why do we only have 4 applicants? I thought there were 5 before.

[emreerhan]

As a part of previous hackseqs we have had the option of people signing up to be mentors. It's one of the options on the team leader applications. I suggested to Baraa that Dr. Libbrecht can be a mentor this year. The responsibility of a mentor is to show up whenever they have time to the event, and provide help to any teams who might want any.

We have 4 applicants. 1 of the applications is from when I tested the form to see if it would record the result.

[emreerhan]

@jenjaelin I dont think 1 week is enough time to get 4-5 more applications. I was thinking more like 2 3 weeks.

@klgray25 when were you thinking of opening participant applications?

[NoushinN]

I talked to R Ladies Vancouver but will be great to send an official letter to them, here's Anna's email Anna.Posacka@ocean.org

[emreerhan]

I have 2 more "yes"s for team leads. They'll write their proposals in the next 2-3 weeks.

[baraaorabi]

Yay \o/

On Wed, May 30, 2018, 3:11 PM Emre Erhan notifications@github.com wrote:

I have 2 more "yes"s for team leads. They'll write their proposals in the next 2-3 weeks.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/hackseq/hackseq18/issues/13#issuecomment-393336432, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AF_gOUlo5IA0kRBqUC8_kKjLKGBeecEUks5t3xkVgaJpZM4TlQt_ .

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Baraa Orabi Simon Fraser University Department of Computing Science

[klgray25]

Having Dr. Libbrecht as a mentor sounds great!

@emreerhan I believe in previous years the participant applications were opened late in the summer (ie. late August). Does that sound about right or do we want to talk about opening them earlier?

Great job on bringing in more team leaders!

[baraaorabi]

@klgray25: I think late August sounds right if we are holding Hackseq mid Oct.

So regarding Max, I think we need to formalize how mentorship is going to work as opposed to direct team leading. Do we have examples from last years on how that worked?

On Wed, May 30, 2018, 3:19 PM klgray25 notifications@github.com wrote:

Having Dr. Libbrecht as a mentor sounds great!

@emreerhan https://github.com/emreerhan I believe in previous years the participant applications were opened late in the summer (ie. late August). Does that sound about right or do we want to talk about opening them earlier?

Great job on bringing in more team leaders!

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/hackseq/hackseq18/issues/13#issuecomment-393338196, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AF_gOVdtYA88M_lgFu-gIX2fAtCaoB6Oks5t3xrogaJpZM4TlQt_ .

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Baraa Orabi Simon Fraser University Department of Computing Science

[emreerhan]

@baraaorabi as far as I know, it's not very formal at all. This is the description from the team leader app survey:

Mentorship is ideal for individuals who are unable to attend the entire hackathon or if a potential team leader's project is not selected for the hackathon. You would be responsible for floating around the hackathon to help give advice to groups working on genomics problems.

[emreerhan]

Update: I've contacted Ben Busby from the NIH. It seems like they may send someone out to lead a team. They're also going to help advertise for us.

@ababaian I think you're on vacation now, but when you have time can you change the deadline for team leader apps to June 21 on our website?

[baraaorabi]

I tried updating the deadline on the website, but it is hosted on Github.io, and only these users have write access to it: https://github.com/hackseq/hs18/graphs/contributors

I have created a pull request with the deadline update. Need @ababaian to merge it.

[ababaian]

Checking in quickly, I'll be back June 13th.

Added you all to have write access to the website too, sorry about hte oversight!

Super stoked how much progress you've all been making =D It's coming together!

[emreerhan]

Hi all,

When you have time, please sign up for one or more interviews at this link. Once the applications are finalized June 21, we will contact the corresponding team leaders and interview them to confirm their projects.

[baraaorabi]

I signed up for one for now. If we still need more interviewers, I'll sign up for a second.

Baraa

On Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 7:26 PM Emre Erhan notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi all,

When you have time, please sign up for one or more interviews at this link https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ufwg3ZZ5KMtk9Go5BWHPxGLgydqXvr31Ql3WxXZJY9Q/edit?usp=sharing. Once the applications are finalized June 21, we will contact the corresponding team leaders and interview them to confirm their projects.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/hackseq/hackseq18/issues/13#issuecomment-397926950, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AF_gOY7NtOj-Mai1MDYOZEOTLjXF_ABuks5t9w_ZgaJpZM4TlQt_ .

--

Baraa Orabi Simon Fraser University Department of Computing Science

[emreerhan]

Some updates:

I have confirmed that Allissa Dillman from the NIH will be leading a team, but she will not be able to submit an application any time soon due to having just undergone labor!

For more discussion on the specifics of the project selection process organizers please refer to the private repo issue

[klgray25]

Hi guys. Sorry for disappearing for a while! Was busy at a conference all last week. I'm happy to sign up for one of the interviews, but am away for the rest of June and parts of July. So, the interview I participate in would be very dependent on timing. When approximately do we want to be doing these? Is there a way I can just be involved with one that lines up with my schedule (and not sign up based on the individual being interviewed)?

[emreerhan]

The latest news is: We have 9 team leader applicants. We will be conducting interviews with each of the potential team leaders via Skype/Hangouts to finalize the details of their project, and ensure that they can make the dates. Ideally there'll be two of us per interview. The scheduling is the responsibility of the interviewees, so that should be convenient for you @klgray25 .

Of the 9 applicants, Dr. Allissa Dillman has not submitted an application, as I mentioned above.

[abaghela]

Hello, I sent you guys an email a couple days ago about submitting a Team Lead Application on behalf of ECOSCOPE. Would this still be possible?

Arjun

[ababaian]

I think we can make it work 2c