Conference Talks, Great Success!

'Tis the Season for stitching up the last year of your life, making a few key graphics, and tossing them into a (presumably) 30-minute talk to inform and entertain your colleagues. That's right, Summer Seminar Vacation!

But wait - will your message come through? Will I, as an informed audience member, walk out of the auditorium singing your praises, or desperately fighting off Morpheus?

I'd rather watch this grow all day than listen to certain speakers again...

Without further ado, I'd like to capture some honest feedback, both given and received, that I'll call the "Summer Talk Axioms." Certainly, nothing is new under the sun: I tread in tracks left by Derek, Chemjobber, Fabian, ChemBark, and many other sage counselors. I question only that, given these many posts (and more sure to come), how has the message has not percolated into the community faster? 

Anyway, to the meat of it:

• Help me learn: What are the big takeaways? Why did you do them, and how? If you were forced to deliver this same talk in 2 minutes, could you do it, while maintaining understanding in your listener? That's a tough benchmark!

• Timing: For the love of all that is holy, please do not attempt to deliver a 50-minute "pre-fab" slide deck inside of 30 minutes. Ditto a 30-minute deck inside a 15-minute lightning talk. If you are switching slides every 20 seconds, it's nigh impossible for your poor audience to keep up...

• Engagement: Stop every few minutes to look someone in the eye. Tell a joke. Modulate your voice. Take a drink of water to let a point sink in. Presentation skills belong to that witches' brew of soft skills and social norms blended with (some) content. Often, we listeners engage more with the person and their body language in place of the content.

• Tell a story. One. Not multiple vignettes of seemingly unrelated threads. Present a logical whole.

• Don't repeat "this is exciting!" If you have to reinforce this, your content almost surely isn't.

• Know your time, and practice delivery. As a hint, you're probably over time when the audience begins to check their phones. Or mutters. Leaves for cigarette and bathroom breaks. A good talk has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and has distinct landmarks for major points and applause / recognition. Know yours.

• Proofread. Ask someone who loves you to proofread. Ask someone who hates you to proofread. Proofread. Proofread. Especially embarrassing - misspelled titles!

• The four "Thank-Yous" - Thank your host for introducing you. Thank the organizers / school / company for the opportunity to visit. Thank your group, coworkers, or boss for their collegiality. And thank the audience for listening. This goes a very, very long way.

• Answer questions succinctly. Two or three sentences, and a promise to follow up after the talk, should be sufficient. Anything more holds the other 99% of your audience captive, while you dig through back-up slides and comment about long-departed group members. 

Your talk was nice. Very nice. Great success!

Readers, I'm sure I've missed some, and welcome any input in the comments. 

Happy Summer!

Chemical Nostalgia: Being the Mark

If you haven't read it yet, Paul's written a really great reminiscence about his first chemistry conference over at ChemBark. It's funny how reading someone else's account causes you to immediately flash back to your own "first time," especially since mine didn't go quite so smoothly...

I'll never forget my first pharma internship during the summer of my sophomore year. It was my dream job: smart people in pressed slacks, automated fraction collectors, a communal coffee pot, and (gasp) top-shelf Pentium II computers at work stations, equipped with (dial-up) SciFinder!

My boss wanted a coworker and I to present a poster at the big ACS meeting that summer. We would be one of about 400 posters on the floor, but I didn't care, I was going to go talk science with scientists. We stayed up late the night before, changing the poster layout* and gluing the backings down for each image; this was before cost-effective full-poster printing. I bought a new shirt and tie, and got a haircut. When the session came, I arrived an hour early to tack up my opus, and eagerly awaited the flood of potential listeners.

If you're familiar with poker, you know the expression "If you don't know who the mark is, you're the mark." That means someone's always at a disadvantage, and will likely lose all their money in fast order. Worse yet, the senior players know you're the mark, and take you down accordingly. With hindsight, it's clear to me: someone needed to present, but none of the staff scientists wanted to go, so they sent me.

I was the mark. And I got eaten alive.

"What's the platform?" "Umm..." "Any targeting groups?" "Maybe." "Tell me more about [pathway X]" "I think it has to do with cancer...?" "What's the SAR around that site?" "Lots of compounds."

My colleague was nowhere to be seen. I was on my own for most of those hours.

I'll never forget my intense embarrassment and nervous, hesitant answers. When the session ended, I just grabbed the poster and ran out of the room. Didn't go to any talks, didn't go back the next day. I'm sure my poster still sits at the company, buried under a pile of old journals.

*Fast forward a few years: my second poster had everything: color-printed on one rolled-out sheet, copies of abstracts and company contacts to give out to listeners, coached one-liners for questions, the works. That one went worlds better.