In the course of promoting next year's Science Blogging Conference, Coturnix writes:

Jean-Claude Bradley is the pioneer in the use of blogs in science in the way that too many of us are still too scared to do - posting on a daily basis the ideas, methods and data from the lab.

Not all of us are scared. I have colleagues with legitimate claims on all of the work I am doing at the moment, and none of them are willing to go to open-notebook. I anticipate even having trouble with my refusal to deal with Elsevier and my intention to publish only in open-access journals.

I've been in this lab a year, so everything I'm doing is directly based on someone else's data and ideas -- that is, to such an extent that I do not feel I can insist on an open notebook. Recently, though, I applied for funding to start an entirely new project. This will not mean that I can suddenly ignore my colleagues' wishes, but it will put me in a stronger position to say, "well, this is my project, and I want to do it this way".

I think of it as just another experiment. If I'm right, open science is a better way to work, and the benefits of choosing a better model will become apparent to my colleagues, and so open science will spread from early adopters like Jean-Claude (and, soon, I hope, me). If I'm wrong, I'll fail -- but I'll fail on my own terms, and I can live with that.