1. science

CONFIDENTIAL
The BDW Blog
A property of
BDW Biotechnologies LLC
Healthy animals through healthy scienceTM
Business Plan
Prepared February 2015
The Problem:
The challenges facing a sustainable society are numerous. Climate change, agricultural
practices, and energy policy are a few of the topics that often come up on the nightly
news. In many cases, the opinion of the public on such issues conflicts with the scientific
consensus (Fig. 1). . Sometimes this is relatively trivial, such as the recent trend to
exclude gluten from one’s diet. In many cases, however, it’s absolutely key that the
public understand where the scientific consensus is coming from. The United States, as a
democratic society, involves all citizens in much of its decision-making. For that reason,
we need a public educated on the facts surrounding controversial issues.
Fig. 1: It is clear that the public and experts don’t agree on many issues key to America’s
future.
Scientists need to do a better job conveying to non-scientists why they hold the
positions they do. Many people view scientists as ultra-liberal, politically-motivated and
financially-motivated to hold certain opinions. Trust of experts is at an all-time low.
Science is complicated stuff and it’s not necessarily easy to convey the complex
reasoning behind certain positions to someone who isn’t initiated in the topic. There is
opportunity in this: How can we make the facts behind popular scientific controversies
more accessible?
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The Proposed Solution:
A Blog. A blog which discusses science, technology, the environment, and health, but in
a way which is different from other sources of information on the internet: We will be:
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Independent of large corporate interests
Optimistic
Intelligent
Conversational
Simple
Community-connected
Recognizant that sustainable ag is more complicated than “Ban GMO”!
In the face of increasing politicization, most people have a strong confirmation bias.
That is, they will only read that which confirms what they believe themselves to already
know. This is a challenge for our enterprise. To overcome it, we will work with our
opponents (“reaching across the aisle,” so to speak) in order to help drive traffic to the
site. For instance, we will reach out to anti-nuclear power blogs to promote things we
write that confirm their opinions, just as we reach out to nuclear power proponents.
Encouraging traffic from such varied sources will, hopefully, open minds about the gray
areas of science that affect us all.
Another challenge is that science is a relatively unpopular topic for common readership.
In other words, many folks who desire to read about science already do so via Popular
Mechanics, Popular Science, or any number of science news websites on the internet.
Since we want to reach out to people who don’t necessarily have a scientific background
or a strong interest in learning about science, we will keep the writing style very
accessible. We don’t want lingo driving away potential readership.
Further, we will only display one post at a time. This way, visitors to our site do not feel
overwhelmed. Many places on the internet have dozens or even hundreds of links and
thousands of disconnected words on a single page. It only takes a split second to drive a
visitor away. A simple article, a clean interface, and an earth tone color palette welcome
visitors to our page.
As a community-connected platform, BDW is represented on social media. Through our
Facebook page and Twitter account (@BDW_Biotech, 306 followers as of 2/13/15), we
will promote and advance our content. We are also partnered with certain animal
shelters in the Twin Cities to use their image content on our site. In return, the images
we use of adoptable animals are linked to the adoption pages for those animals. Such
partnerships help us engage with a more general readership.
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Some planned topics we intend to discuss include:
Genetically-modified organisms: The central belief of BDW is that all of science,
including genetic engineering, is nothing more than a tool. And like all tools, the ethical
consequences associated with science are not intrinsic to the tool itself, but in how that
tool is used. One does not call a philosophy good or bad on the basis of whether it was
written with pen or pencil but on the basis of the ideas contained therein. In the same
way, the BDW Blog seeks to describe technologies on an individual level without a priori
bias. The GMO potato is evaluated on the data collected and on the changes made, not
on the way in which those changes were made. Through plain language and a scientific
bent, we hope to provide a truly neutral voice in the discussion on GMOs. This blog will
be written for a popular audience and will not overemphasize unimportant scientific
details at the expense of clarity. It is hoped that through this, we can educate people
better about biotechnology and perhaps change popular attitudes about GMOs.
Organic food: The topic of organic food is one that is deeply intertwined with GMOs.
Nevertheless, many products are non-GMO and also outside the official definition of
organic. This is why there has been an explosion in the recent popularity of the NonGMO Project, a certification program whose requirements are not as stringent as those
of the official Organic program. Organic food is expensive to raise and usually has
reduced yields relative to non-organic produce. Further, organic products often have
reduced shelf life. So what are the benefits to Organic certification? To what degree is
this food healthier?
Probiotic, antibiotics, and other bacterial health issues: Bacteria have always been an
important part of our lives, for good or for ill. For most of our existence, we were
unaware that bacteria existed, instead attributing illnesses to any manner of other
causes. When we discovered antibiotics, we began to use them with reckless abandon,
and have now done to the point where they are losing effectiveness. We have altered
the global bacterial population to our detriment. Further, we exclude bacteria from our
lives as much as possible, painting with a broad brush when the response must be more
nuanced if we are to survive. Though the negative effects of bacteria have long been
known, the myriad positives of certain strains are just coming to light. There is good
evidence which indicates that some probiotics, bacteria which confer a benefit when
consumed, can be extraordinarily beneficial to the host. Why do we need probiotics,
when we’ve never needed them before? The “sterilization” of our food supply, while
having major positive effects on global health, has resulted in a major reduction in the
variety of bacteria which are consumed. The latest science strongly implies that regular
consumption of key bacterial strains can impact things like weight gain, emotional
health, and digestive health. How can we best balance antibiotics, probiotics, and other
human tools to best ensure a sustainable bacterial ecosystem?
Energy policy: What’s the best way to provide the world with electricity? This should be
a straightforward question, but every single method has significant benefits---and
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significant drawbacks. Coal is cheap but polluting. Wind has no emissions, but is
expensive and can have a significant impact on bird populations. Solar also has no
emissions, but requires vast tracts of land to operate properly and may be unsustainable
due to the extremely caustic pollutants used in panel manufacture and the limited
supply of rare earth elements. There are also political issues involved, since by far the
largest supplier of such elements is China. Nuclear is cheap and non-emitting, but
evokes significant public fear and may only be suitable for geologically-stable regions.
Which way do we go?
Vaccines: Vaccine opponents are among the most recalcitrant of folks out there.
Nevertheless, we hope to reiterate some of the correct information out there to
counteract the volume of misinformation, and to change a few minds.
There are many other issues which are relevant and will be discussed, but these
examples are some of those which are closest to us as a team and impact society the
most and are listed exclusively for the sake of brevity. It is hoped that the controversial
and relevant nature of the topics we cover will help encourage readership. We also
intend to address major scientific topics in the news that fall outside the scope of these
areas.
Competition:
Of course, the general idea of a scientifically-focused blog or news site is nothing new.
Some competing sites include:
Food Babe (www.foodbabe.com): Vani Hari is one of the most read bloggers on the
internet for her opinions and research into food and food safety. She tends to use scare
tactics and misinformation to promote her work, which includes her website as well as a
few books. She is neither a food expert nor a scientist of any kind. This likely adds to her
appeal for some, but much of what she writes is patent nonsense, such as her dislike for
thiomersal, a mercury-containing compound found in some vaccines
(http://foodbabe.com/tag/mercury/). The amount of mercury in such vaccines is less
than in the average serving of fish, but you’d never know it from Vani.
The BDW Difference: Our topic range is broader than Ms. Hari’s. Also, we’re not out to
scare people, and we’re not selling books of lies. We’re scientists who are passionate
about science and scientific policy, but we’re just regular people. We can be just as
approachable as the food babe about controversial topics without resorting to invention.
Though I think we’ll have to work a bit on the sex appeal.
Genetic Literacy Project (http://geneticliteracyproject.org/): These guys have the right
idea. Their goal is scientific literacy, just as ours is. However, their website is fantastically
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busy! They have literally dozens and dozens of links on the front page. It’s a great site to
go to if you want to just read a thousand different articles about GMOs.
The BDW Difference: Simplicity! We’re not proposing to set up a vast link aggregator,
and again, we want to touch on more topics than just genetic engineering. We’d love to
partner with the GLP, however, and will approach them when we have the content to
do so.
Nuclear Information and Resource Service (http://www.nirs.org/home.htm): These are
dudes on a mission against nuclear power. They’re not necessarily seeking to educate
from a neutral platform.
The BDW Difference: Our agenda is scientific literacy about important issues. Just like
the NIRS, we’ll address the negatives of nuclear power, but it’s also very important that
we discuss the positives, considering that the scientific consensus holds that nuclear is
the most viable option for the US today
(http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/03/climate-scientists-supportnuclear-power). There are many advocacy sites like this one for everything from banning
GMOs to solar power. BDW is only on the side of scientific consensus. Of course, being
different doesn’t mean that we don’t want to work with our competitors. In the end, we
all want to make the world a better place. Our goal is not to destroy our opposition, but
to work to share information and links.
The BDW Blog isn’t the only part of BDW Biotechnologies. We originally envisioned it as
something of a marketing activity, using continual new content to drive traffic to the site
for our other activities (animal probiotics, not yet launched). However, we realized that
that we also wanted to write about other subjects of import. As scientists, we are very
passionate about how science impacts society. However, every day we see dangerous
falsehoods and complicated issues that are promoted as simple truth.
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Fig. 2: Is Organic food the best agricultural policy moving forward? Maybe not, but you’d
never know it from the branding. Just like with vaccines and global warming, there’s a
lot of mixed messages out there.
It became clear the Blog was going to grow beyond our original ideas for how it would
function. Instead of commercial SEO, we realized we wanted to discuss a lot of different
ideas and found that the degree of exclusivity that our original concept required would
be confining. The Blog might generate a profit, but more importantly, we hope it
generates change.
Business model:
The Blog will not earn money for its first half year to year of operations. Traction must
be secured before any attempt at monetization is made. Otherwise, it will be difficult to
encourage growth, since monetization strategies usually involve some degree of
inconvenience to the user. Whether it’s with paid posts, ads, or membership programs,
earning money can detract from the user experience.
When exponential growth slows, the BDW Blog will begin to run Google AdSense in
order to sustain the operation of the website. With only one full-time partner in the
endeavor to begin, and part-time partners delivering content in their spare time,
overhead will be low. AdSense can be expected to deliver about $5/1000 visits.
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FoodBabe.com, a blog with a similar subject area but different angle, gets about 500000
unique visitors a month, leading to optimistic projections of $2500/month if properly
maintained. Of course, we realize that that readership goal is difficult to achieve, and
really only need to cover operational costs.
As an internet platform, scaling will be straightforward. If content demand exceeds the
available pipeline, the hosting solution and website design have been chosen with
growth in mind.
Pilot Description:
The pilot is presently active at BDWbio.com.
Fig. 3: A screenshot of the pilot Blog page
As of 2/14/15, we have placed only one entry on the Blog. This entry was designed as a
technical test for the website and appears to be working successfully. We will keep the
Blog at one post until Thomas, our resident computer scientist and IT guy extraordinaire,
is satisfied that everything is working as it should. We anticipate that this will take
between one week and two weeks, at which point we will begin adding additional, more
meaningful content.
After we have at least ten posts (or a readership of 1000 unique visitors/week,
whichever occurs first), we will attempt to begin coordination with other sites on the
internet, such as Cracked.com. Providing them with an article that they agree to publish
can net a hundred thousand pageviews or more, as they send traffic directly to the
author’s pages. We will submit articles to Digg.com and Reddit, link aggregators which
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also have high traffic. By reaching out to authors of similar content, we can benefit each
other mutually through references to each other’s articles.
If traffic doesn’t grow as anticipated, we will vary the content to see what topics draw
the most hits. We can then focus on these topics for a period of time.
Cost summary:
We need approximately six months of operating expenses. This includes $25/mo for
website hosting and $100/mo for relevant software licenses. We would like access to
stock photography libraries as well which is valued at $199/mo (shutterstock.com). This
equates to about $2000.
Team:
The BDW team is a group of scientists and educators committed to sharing ideas
responsibly. Our backgrounds are diverse but our mission is the same: to change minds
with truthful writing by experts, and through this, to change how people regard science
in the United States.
There are six individuals on the team. Adam Woodruff, BS in physics and 2013 MS in
chemical engineering from the U of M, has extensive experience with science and
technology, and published several papers in the field of synthetic biology. Further, he
has moonlit as a science tutor (biology, chemistry, math, and physics) for seven years.
Yogesh Dhande is a doctoral candidate in chemical engineering at the University,
focusing on genetic editing. Joshua Magnuson is an MBA student at Carlson and has a
decade of experience with medical devices and FDA regulations. Joanna Mooney is a
2014 MS grad of the U of M in biochemistry and is now teaching at George Washington
University. Chris Hartlage earned his undergraduate degree in biology from the
University of Kentucky and is now pursuing an MBA with a focus on marketing from the
University of Notre Dame. Thomas Harris is an IT specialist at Marathon Petroleum and
has extensive website development experience.
By leveraging our collective technical, business, and educational experience, the BDW
team is well-equipped to provide accurate information in an accessible way and market
it effectively. It’s a small step, but every effort counts when you’re talking about the
titanic effort involved in changing popular attitudes on critically important subjects. In
time, we will make a difference.
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