conferences Archives - Page 3 of 3

11/10/201305/04/2019

Big is better!

Reflections on geeking it up at Intecol 2013 by Jane Stout

Having not been to a 2000+ delegate, multi-session, international conference for several years, I was a bit nervous in the run up to INTECOL2013 “Into the next 100 years: advancing ecology and making it count” – would it be possible to see all the talks, read all the posters and meet all the people I planned to? (Answer: no). Would I remember everyone and would anyone remember me from past meetings? (Answer: some yes, some no – thank goodness for name tags). Could I follow in the footsteps of Katie Taylor, the last girl from Bray to take the stage at the London ExCeL Arena, and take the Olympic gold? (Answer: no; note to self: must try harder). But I needn’t have worried – INTECOL 2013 was excellent: it was well organised, the quality of the science was top-notch, the sun shone, and the whole thing was very inspiring and humbling. Continue reading “Big is better!”

08/05/201318/02/2019

Technically speaking…

Following the excellent Botany/Zoology postgraduate symposium in TCD a couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion in NERD club about giving scientific presentations – what makes a good one, what makes a bad one and which were the best in the symposium? Actually, we didn’t do the last bit, and scarily I could remember very few talks a week after the event (“do you remember so and so’s slide about x y and z?” NO!!). So, either I am becoming old and forgetful (likely), or I wonder whether it’s some form of desensitisation? Every conference is full of short talks I listen to and think “that was interesting” and then immediately forget. How can we give presentations that won’t be forgotten, or at least will be remembered for all the right reasons? Below are some of the points we discussed as a group – not an exhaustive list, but the random ramblings of a few academics, postdocs and postgrads.

What are the things to avoid – what makes a bad talk?

Speaker running over time (both their own fault for putting too much in, and the chair’s fault for not keeping time properly).
Too much text on slides – undergrads love it if there’s plenty for them to copy down as the lecturer is speaking (or to learn off by heart from the powerpoint slides just before the exam), but telling a story without the distraction of a load of text is much better for a scientific talk.
Too much content – need to stick to one (or two) key take-home messages, particularly if the talk is just one of many people will hear during the course of a conference.
Too many graphs – especially ones that are too small to see properly, or that are irrelevant – if a speaker needs to say “ignore all the graphs on the slide except the one in the top right” then they haven’t done their job of tailoring their talk to their audience and just presenting the one on the top right.
Jargon – even in a room full of eco-evo people, abbreviations and technical terms should be avoided (as should giving the name of a gene or biochemical pathway in the talk title – but we may be biased on this one!)
Not knowing what is coming up on the next slide – comes from a lack of practice
Colour-blind insensitive colour schemes – avoid red on green and other such indistinguishable schemes
Reading out the acknowledgements – this led to a discussion of whether the acknowledgements should come at the beginning or the end of a talk. The problem with having them at the end is the audience is left looking at a list of funders, collaborators and helpers, rather than the key take home message. The problem with having them at the beginning is the audience wants the speaker to get on and talk about something interesting. We ended up deciding that for short conference style presentations, having them at the end was best, but perhaps not covering a whole slide so that the key message/awesome graph can still be on the last slide to give the audience something to think about whilst clapping. But for seminars or longer talks, acknowledging that the work was a group effort at the beginning was a nice thing to do. And funding agencies could just be acknowledged with a logo on the title slide.
Bad chairing – ok, so that one’s not the speaker’s fault, but it is very annoying

And what makes a good talk?

A good story or narrative – a good talk tells the story in such a way that you are drawn in, the approach is logical (and seemingly obvious and you’re left thinking “why has no-one done this before?”) and the findings interesting and digestable
Targeting the scope and contents of the talk to the time slot – putting enough in, but not trying to include too much. Getting the balance right.
Leading the audience through the presentation so that they don’t get lost – clear ideas and questions as slide titles rather than introduction/methods/results/conclusions.
Being confident (but not cocky). Being enthusiastic. Being yourself, or doing a really good job at acting confident and enthusiastic.
Making eye contact or scanning the room – not picking on one person to talk to as this can be intimidating for that member of the audience. If actually making eye contact can be distracting, then looking at people’s foreheads or just over their heads, so it looks like you are making eye contact.
Spend time explaining graphs/figures – the audience gets lost if the graphs just flash up with no explanation – point out the trends or important parts, explain axes and colours if necessary (but don’t go on too long). Try not to just pull figures from papers/your thesis, redraw graphs to simplify them and make them clear so that they aid the audience in following your story, and don’t make things more complicated.
Know your audience and target your talk to them.
Humour – use with caution.
Have the ability to give your talk without any powerpoint slides/prezi – there may be a power-cut and you just have to carry on.
Practice your talk – practice the slide transitions so that you know what’s coming up next and how you’re going to link the slides.

There are heaps of resources out there which say more or less the same thing – I really like Jane Wilton et al.’s BES Bulletin article

And here’s Michael Alley’s “The craft of scientific presentations”

And here are some more (from a VERY brief google search)…

http://matt.might.net/articles/academic-presentation-tips/

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/agu/scientific_talk.html

http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/Hany_Farid/Tutorials/Entries/2011/6/2_How_to_give_a_good_talk.html

http://oikosjournal.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/talk-and-stats-tips.pdf

Author

Jane Stout: stoutj@tcd.ie

Photo credit

http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/if-facebook-comments-are-gold-here%E2%80%99s-how-to-dig-for-more/attachment/audience-happy-2/

http://muratak.com/2011/11/24/5-ways-to-improve-your-pitches/

08/04/201308/04/2013

Top tips for science networking!

Science is a business like any other, and it’s hard to get things done if you don’t know anyone outside of your own department. Other scientists will review your papers and grants, invite you to give talks and hopefully employ you in the future. So the more people you know, the easier it gets. Conference season is just around the corner so I thought I’d continue my hints and tips series by talking about networking at conferences.

Step 1: Finding someone to network with…

Find someone you know and get them to introduce you to everyone they know. This person may be your supervisor, but postdocs and other PhD students can be just as helpful. Make sure you return the favour then everyone will know plenty of people! If you know several people, spend time with each of them meeting all their friends and maximizing the number of new people you meet.

It’s pretty rare to go to conference where you don’t know anyone beforehand. This is much harder than option 1 because you constantly have to make the effort to talk to new people which is pretty exhausting. In these situations try asking your supervisor beforehand if they can remotely introduce you to at least one person there. Then follow them around until you make new friends!

Go to conferences with easily achievable networking goals, for example choose one big name in your field and make sure you have a conversation with them, even if it’s short. However, don’t be that person who goes to conferences with a list of “important” people they want to meet and spends the whole time pestering the big names and ignoring everyone else. The people with the time and energy to start exciting new collaborations are usually students or postdocs, and these are also the people you’ll be meeting at conferences for the rest of your career. So make sure you network with them too!

At huge conferences like ESA it’s often hard to casually network because everyone has already scheduled meetings for every lunch break and evening before they arrive. If you really want to meet with someone drop them an email beforehand and see if you can arrange a quick meeting. Make sure you’re really specific about the meeting place, and don’t be too upset if they don’t show up, they were probably intercepted on the way!

Use social media! Twitter is a great way to arrange tweetups at conferences, and some societies also have Facebook pages where events are advertised. I haven’t tried this yet but I’m very excited about trying it at Evolution and ESEB this year.

Go to all the drinks receptions you can, but skip the conference dinner. This is just my opinion, but I’ve never done any good networking at a conference dinner. They can be fun, but usually they are at the end of the conference so everyone is hanging out with their friends and not really in the mood to talk about work. They are also expensive and the food is often awful. I usually go for dinner with some friends instead and we usually meet other people who aren’t at the conference dinner so we get to make new friends that way!

Step 2: OK so I’m chatting to a new person, what do I say?

I think you should always aim to have a person walk away from a conversation knowing the following pieces of information: your name, your institution and roughly what you work on. Aim to do the same with everyone you meet. If you meet someone particularly relevant to your research interests make a note of this before you forget.

Before going to a conference make sure you have a series of “elevator pitches” prepared. These should be the 1, 5 and 10 minute versions of what you’re currently interested in or working on. If you’re looking for jobs you should also prepare a quick outline of what you’d like to do in the future and the ideal place you’d like to work.

Be interested and interesting. Being interested just involves asking the other person about their work. Everyone likes to talk about their current pet project, and in general these are interesting so you don’t have to fake it! Ask questions where appropriate and be enthusiastic even if you couldn’t care less. If appropriate refer back to their talk/poster or recent papers. Being interesting is harder but again being enthusiastic helps. Talk about your work or the talks you’ve enjoyed at the conference or current areas in science that fascinate you. Hopefully after a somewhat artificial start to a conversation you’ll find yourself in a real and enjoyable chat.

Provided you get in a tiny bit of information about what you’re working on, you don’t have to talk about your work the whole time. Feel free to bemoan peer review, or the funding crisis or the bizarre nature of your structured PhD program. These are great conversational topics as everyone has an opinion and they affect all scientists. Also don’t worry about talking about normal topics – family, hobbies etc. Even the big names have lives outside of academia.

Step 3: Damage control (or OMG I can’t believe I just said that…)

One or two beers are your friends! Alcohol is a great way to reduce inhibitions and help you to chat to people you’d be too terrified to approach when sober. Three or more beers (depending on your alcohol tolerance) are not your friends. If your inhibitions are reduced to the point of dancing on the table people may not remember what you work on. Though they will remember your name…

To be fair, conferences often do involve a lot of drinking and it’s naïve to think you can avoid this entirely. People come to conferences to see old friends and enjoy themselves as well as for work so this should be respected. I think the rule of thumb for alcohol at conferences is to try and hang around with people at the same level of inebriation. Don’t be the drunk group in the quiet bar surrounded by sober people. Also remember that you need to get up the next day and go to lots of talks, so being hungover is not a good idea. Know your limits and never feel pressured into drinking if you don’t want to.

Don’t worry about making a fool of yourself. I’m the champion of this and somehow I still got a job. My classics (all while completely sober) include (1) being put in charge of cake at a meeting in London Zoo and promptly falling over and throwing all the cakes on the floor in front of the director; (2) missing my mouth while talking to a big name at Evolution and pouring coffee all down myself; (3) accidentally wearing a dress you could see my underwear through when meeting the Duke of Edinburgh; (4) complaining that an eminent scientist who published a lot of similar papers would probably publish their shopping list if they could – then realizing the person I was talking to was the scientist’s co-author; (5) insisting that ducks weren’t birds in front of an ornithologist (there’s a logical reasoning behind this but they didn’t stay to hear it); (6) trying to tap someone on the shoulder and accidentally stroking them instead etc. Most of these incidents are not remembered by anyone but my colleagues, and I don’t think they have influenced my career. So if you do say or do something ridiculous, don’t let it scare you away from talking to people in the future!

Those are my top tips; I hope some of them are helpful! I should point out that I don’t actually follow most of them, but I do try my best! Feel free to add more tips in the comments!

Author

Natalie Cooper

nhcooper123

ncooper[at]tcd.ie

Photo credit

wikimedia commons