Blogs and Academia

There was recently an international science bloggers convention in London (yes, everything has its own convention these days, I am sure there will be a convention for CEOs who wear pink bunny slippers to work any day now). Pretty much all the attendants agreed that science communication from academics to the public is in general pretty abyssmal. But one thing in particular struck me as interesting and which made me change this blog a bit. It was pointed out that many academics run their blogs anonymously because many senior academics (aka department chairs and the like) view blogging as a waste of time and letting it be known to one's superiors that one blogs can negatively impact your career if you are a young academic. While I see definite value in this (otherwise I wouldn't be doing it, see the greetings post), I would one day like to have a real job. Therefore, I have made this blog anonymous until I can sort out what this means to my own career. If you have any comments, suggestions, or other views on the matter, please comment as I would like to know other people's opinions on the matter.