# Remembering Jon Tennant

I wrote this message in Indonesian, because Jon is studying Indonesian. One time, he asked me to occasionally send messages in Indonesian so he could practice. I made this message readable in English by Jon's family and colleagues.

First, I want to express my condolences to my family and colleagues who know Jon. I cannot fully express how I feel. I'm sure there are many who feel the same way. In this story I will try hard to insert humor in the midst of sad feelings, because Jon will definitely do it.

I first knew Jon, not because of his activities in open science, but because of his research on dinosaurs. The crocodile family to be exact. I enjoyed blogging and at that time in 2013, I was in boredom and looking for blogger patrons in the field of geology.

I found Jon's personal blog (http://fossilsandshit.com/), after reading Jon's article several times on the EGU blog (https://blogs.egu.eu). The article that first caught my attention was about the uniqueness of dinosaurs (https://blogs.egu.eu/network/palaeoblog/2013/11/13/a-double-whammy-of-dinosaur-awesomeness-pun-totally-intended/ ).

I have a habit of storing articles or other online material that interests me. So the first time I knew Jon, was in 2013. It didn't take long, I became his Twitter follower (@protohedgehog). Indeed there was never anything normal with Jon. : D This is the first lesson from Jon that I don't seem to be able to adapt.

The first message from him about open science is here http://fossilsandshit.com/every-time-you-publish-behind-a-paywall-a-kitten-dies/. Even people who aren't fans of cats will read the article to the end when they find the title.

This is the second lesson, make an interesting title. : D

Long being a silent follower, in the end I started communication with him on Twitter. Here is my first tweet to Jon (https://twitter.com/dasaptaerwin/status/675462738051641345?s=20). I ask about how to display Altmetric data for our paper. I saw a list of papers on his blog displaying Altmetric data next to them. Since then my communication has flowed. The Twitter account that I have created since 2010 (twitter.com/dasaptaerwin), became active and found the topic. I tweeted about hydrogeology, geology, open science, and finally sketchnotes. Since then my friendship network has also increased. I didn't think that many academies used Twitter. There is a message here.

`Third lesson, use social media for academic purposes `.

Every day someone leaves Twitter account @protohedgehog. One day Jon sent an email to me. Nearly a year after we greeted each other on Twitter several times. The point is he wants to interview me about the condition of open science in Indonesia. At first I wasn't sure, because I'm a newbie. But there is not a single sentence from Jon that places me as a newbie. Long story short after several emails later, this article was published (https://blog.scienceopen.com/2016/09/dasapta-erwin-irawan-the-state-of-open-science-in-indonesia-and-how-to-drive-change-to-make-research-better-for-everyone/). I am not a native English speaker, of course I apologize for the misuse of words or sentence structure in each of my answers. But this is his answer.

>Hey Dasapta, This is awesome, thanks! I'll have a look today, and pending any major changes I'll try and get it posted today! And don't worry about your English, it looks great to me and much better than any of the other languages I 'speak'.. 😊. Best, Jon

`The fourth message is do not forget to always encourage others.`

From him I became more convinced that in order to progress, one must have the initiative and courage to start it.

`The fifth message is that being an initiator is definitely tiring.`

Jon gives many explicit examples ranging from initiatives to write joint documents (https://f1000research.com/articles/6-1151/v1) to move many people to create Open Science MOOC (https://opensciencemooc.eu/).

Here I learned, that the initiative holder must be willing to work for others, before eventually there will be other people participating.

I sometimes wonder where the energy comes from to do it all. But it all inspired me to write this article (https://jurnal.ugm.ac.id/bip/article/view/32920) and together with colleagues made Wibisana - Guided Insights Open Science. Unfortunately the Eliademy platform has stopped operating and we haven't had the chance to move the MOOC archive to another platform.

The last one.

`Message six: always helps, even if it's just an encouraging sentence.`

Just look at the answer to my question about Altmetric (https://twitter.com/Protohedgehog/status/675465257570197504?s=20).

That's all I can share with Jon's family and colleagues. That his presence is very meaningful and his absence will be greatly missed.

Goodbye Jon. You have given so much to so many people. Now when you are resting, a calmer path has been opened for you. Enjoy the trip. You deserve it.

@dasaptaerwin (twitter.com/dasaptaerwin)