Biogen staffers offering visitors hot tips on Hub

Where does a biotechie go for a good time in Boston? As more than 20,000 biotech industry executives, researchers, and salespeople flock to town this weekend for the BIO International Convention, Biogen Idec is offering them some unique answers. The Cambridge company is distributing a guide to the area's best places to eat, drink, and have fun, based on recommendations from more than 300 Biogen Idec employees.

The 36-page glossy booklet, called Discover My Boston: An Insider's Guide to Boston , was designed for the convention, which officially starts Sunday and ends Wednes day. The idea is for local biotech workers to offer advice to industry types coming to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center from all over the world.

Besides tips about popular restaurants and clubs, the guide is packed with inside information about places to go and things to do that would take a visitor far longer than a week to uncover. For instance, it includes Jim's Deli in Brighton and Kelly's Diner in Somerville, a ride up the 11-mile Minuteman Bikeway to Lexington, and the unique skyline view from the Long Wharf-Charlestown water taxi. A favorite Massachusetts Institute of Technology hangout, Miracle of Science Bar & Grill, gets a mention as a good "dining alone" venue if you're talked-out at the end of a long day of shmoozing.

Ten Biogen Idec employees, ranging from process engineers to two senior vice presidents, are featured in full-page spreads talking about their favorite places. Many add a plug for working at Biogen Idec. "We were definitely thinking Discover My Boston would have some value in recruiting, and we also thought, if you're a conventioneer coming to Boston for BIO, this is a lot more useful than a Biogen Idec luggage tag or another mouse pad," said the company's public affairs director, Jose Juves , who supervised the project.

Biogen Idec is thinking ahead, too -- the company has already started canvassing its 400 employees in San Diego, where next year's BIO convention will be held, in advance of assembling a Discover My San Diego booklet.

The Boston area guide "was a fun little distraction to work on in the middle of the day," said Timna Onigman , a Biogen Idec research associate from Brighton who runs clinical trials for the company. She got to spend an hour in the photo studio hamming it up for photo that accompanies her recommendation for favorite rock music club, the Paradise , where Onigman goes to see performers like Addison Groove Project.

After years of anonymity toiling in a laboratory to work on treatments like the multiple-sclerosis drugs Avonex and Tysabri , Onigman is enjoying her turn in the spotlight for convention week.

"It's fun being a Biogen poster child," she said.

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.