I just wrote a post to the Constraints Google Group that managed shamelessly to plug both this blog and the constraints Resources website in one short post. Which reminded me that one of my “mentoring” topics, that I haven’t posted on here yet is “marketing”.

The head of a company that I was trying to interest in funding my lab once wrote to me: “You’re very unusual, you’re not only a good researcher, you’re a good marketer.” I took that as a compliment. In my youth, I suppose I might have taken it as an insult: “we ivory-tower academics are above such things as marketing our wares”. But in fact there is nothing wrong with marketing. You do great work; you don’t want the world to be deprived of it because you “hide your light under a bushel”. Of course, you don’t want to be a shameless self promoter either, but sitting in a corner expecting the world to come to you might be a form of hubris as well.

Ben Schneiderman is one of the founding fathers of the field of human-computer interaction, and also wise in the ways of human-human interaction in the scientific community. Here is an example of what I would call a “marketing tip” from his book The New ABCs of Research: Achieving Breakthrough Collaborations:

10.7 Send Five and Thrive
When completing a research paper, one approach to gaining attention from relevant researchers is to extract five key authors from the list of references.  Then, send them an email that has a fact-based introduction, such as “Dear Dr. Rockstar, I’m a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, working with Prof. Ben Shneiderman, who sends his regards.” Then, the heart of the message has two points: “(1) Your work was an inspiration for this paper, so I wanted to check with you to see if we have been fair in citing your papers, and (2) know if you have published any more recent work on this topic.”  While young researchers may be daunted by the idea of writing to senior researchers, such emails usually produce helpful responses quickly.  Even senior researchers are pleased to know that their work inspired new efforts, thereby validating their contributions. 

This “Send Five and Thrive” idea has additional benefits, such as compelling authors to consider whether they have cited the key previous papers and encouraging them to think about whether they have given fair and positive descriptions of previous work.  For example, shifting from a negative comment such as “previous work by Rockstar failed to. . .” to positive ones such as “the pioneering work by Rockstar can be extended by . . .” increases the likelihood of making a favorable impression.

The New ABCs of Research: Achieving Breakthrough Collaborations

So, of course, right after I post this, I’m going to send it to Ben and ask if I’ve been fair in citing him.

When I first gave a talk on how to give a talk, I actually called it “How Not to Give a Talk”. This was back in the days before Powerpoint, when talks were prepared on acetate transparencies placed on overhead projectors, and I started my talk with the most awful initial transparency I could conjure up. It was crammed with tiny writing, it started with the dictionary definition of “talk”, … And to top it off, I began by placing the slide on the projector upside down and backwards. When I finally got the placement right, I proceeded to turn my back on the audience and read the contents of the slide off the screen, in a low monotone. Eventually I took pity on the audience and explained that this was an example of how not to give a talk.

There was a time when I was often attending talks by aspirants seeking a position as a new assistant professor. This was again before Powerpoint slide decks, when candidates came with their stacks of physical acetate sheets to use with an overhead projector. My reaction to their talks was generally that they would have done better to turn their stack of sheets upside down before starting. In particular, they might end their talk with an example, when I thought they should start with one.

I realize people have different learning styles. Some of you may approach a new subject better if first provided with some mathematical notation, and then a set of abstract definitions, followed by a very general theorem … and then eventually a concrete example. Despite having a very respectable undergraduate degree in mathematics from a very respectable institution, my mind does not work that way. I find it easier to approach a new subject by way of a simple, concrete example. I do think I’m in the majority. 🙂

It is easy to say “start with a simple, concrete example”. It is much harder to do it.

If I critique a student talk by suggesting they start with an example, they may nod and come back with an example moved up to the middle of the talk. My response would be “no, start with an example”. They may then come back with an example close to the beginning. My response would be “no, I really mean start with an example”.

I go through a similar process with my own talks. I get part way through a first draft of the talk and I realize I’ve broken my own rule: I haven’t started with an example. So I begin to negotiate with myself: “I could insert an example, near the beginning, but I really need/want to start by …”. Ultimately I capitulate and find a way to place an example at the very start. Which makes for a much better talk.

I went through a similar process with this blog post. Part way through writing it I thought “well, I should really treat this like a short talk and start with an example”. The best I could do was … well you just read it.

It is also difficult to come up with a concrete example. Not “this method is good for scheduling problems”, or for “nurse scheduling” problems; but here is the method applied to this nurse scheduling problem. And finally, it is very difficult to come up with a sufficiently simple example. Not “I used this to schedule the 563 nurses at our National Hospital” — that’s fine for demonstrating later how effective your method was in practice — but “suppose we have 3 nurses, need 2 for this shift, and these two refuse to work with each other”. Ok, that’s too simple. What we need is a “Goldilocks” example, not so easy that it doesn’t illustrate your contribution, not so hard that it doesn’t allow your listeners to understand your contribution, but “just right”. The trick is to come up with the simplest possible example that can still make your point. That in itself is very difficult.

It is very easy, however, to overestimate your audience’s ability to follow the example. I often encounter a talk that presents an example early on and think “kudos to you, speaker”, only to quickly find that the example becomes too complex for me to fully follow. You have been working with the material for months or even years. What seems obvious to you, will not seem obvious to your listeners. It is difficult, but you must try to put yourself in their place.

You may fear that if you make the example too simple, people won’t understand what a difficult, deep, wonderful contribution you have made. Don’t fear. It won’t seem that simple to your audience, and anyway the best ideas are often “beautifully simple” at heart. Plus you’ll have plenty of time later in the talk to demonstrate how really complicated what you’ve done is, and how clever you had to be to come up with it. Ideally you can use your example as a running example, adding to it as you proceed to flesh out your talk. And if your listeners are like me, they’ll appreciate how really clever you had to be to come up with that initial, simple, introductory example.

The fastest way to put your audience to sleep is to speak in a monotone. The second fastest is to modulate your speaking, but only in a persistent, repetitive pattern.

(Actually, I lied, the really fastest way to put your audience to sleep is to read your talk. There are three people in the world who can do that successfully, all actors of whom everyone says “I would pay to see them read the phone book”. I’m assuming they aren’t reading my blog.)

You must modulate your voice. You can speak faster and s l o w e r. LOUDER and softer. (Sometime speaking more softly even serves better for emphasis than speaking more loudly.) You can pitch your voice ^higher and _lower. You can — pause — for emphasis. Can you ask rhetorical questions? Yes, you can.

You can even have fun with your voice. I once gave a talk in which I (briefly) imitated the Queen in Alice in Wonderland. (“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”) In a high, squeaky voice. If anyone remembers anything from that talk, I guarantee you that it is my imitation of the Queen.

The secret of an effective presentation can be revealed in one word: enthusiasm!

How can your audience be enthusiastic about your talk if you aren’t? The funny thing is you almost certainly are, but, like me, you may have difficulty showing it. I’ve recorded practice videos (a good idea by the way!) in which I felt that I was emoting energetically, and when I’ve played the videos back I looked like I was auditioning for a part in a zombie movie. The last time I gave a talk on how to give a talk a nice young fellow asked me afterwards why, when I was discussing enthusiasm, I didn’t appear more enthusiastic! Think how deadly it would be if I wasn’t at least trying to convey my enthusiasm! I’m sure most of you can do even better.

You may feel that a scientific presentation must be very serious. Not so. You may worry about overdoing the enthusism and appearing undignified. The fact is that it is almost impossible to overdo your enthusiasm. If you are a young person, older audience members are delighted to see an enthusiastic young person working in their field. If you are an older person, younger audience members are pleased to see an older colleague who still retains enthusiasm for their work.

You may be worrying so much about what you are saying that it gets in the way of a natural, enthusiastic presentation. Let me tell you a dirty little secret: most of what you say your audience will soon forget. Quick, how many details can you remember from the last talk you heard? You’ll be lucky if your audience remembers anything that you say, especially at a conference where they are going from one talk to another. Being enthusiastic can help with that!

You also may simply be nervous when public speaking. There are ways to address this, which I plan to discuss in a separate post; in fact, getting in touch with the enthusiasm you have for your work could help with this too.

Of course, extroverts have an advantage here. But Carl Jung said that there is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert, that such a person would be in a lunatic asylum. So use your inner extrovert!

Many people seem to believe that it is important to fit as much of the content of a conference paper into the conference talk as possible. In order to do so, they speakveryfast. This is rather like believing that the purpose of a movie trailer is to show as much of the movie as possible, and so running the trailer at double speed.

The dirty little secret is that no one in the audience is likely to remember more than the key idea of your talk a week after the conference (or perhaps even an hour after the talk), and if you try to fit too much in, they may miss that key idea. Be honest now, what do recall of the third talk in the fifth session that you attended at your last conference? However, if you get that key idea across effectively enough, your audience just might be motivated to go and read your paper.

People who speed up their talks to fit more in, and use very small fonts to squeeze as much as possible onto each slide, generally are too busy preparing all that material to stop and time their talk before presenting it. As a result they express surprise and bewilderment on the day when told that they have only 2 minutes left, with 20 slides — oh my gosh, my most important slides — left to go. At this point they begin speaking very fast. And when told that their time is up, since they are still not through their slides, they feel impelled to keep on going. At the very least they must present their conclusion. After all, the audience has to hear this.

The members of the audience, who gave up chasing after the speaker and squinting at the slides about 90 seconds in to the talk, but who have been waiting politely to clap at the end, upon realizing that the talk isn’t going to end, are likely to be so busy swearing under their breath that the speaker could give away the secret of life at that point and it would not be noticed.

So remember, less is more. If you can just convince your audience that your paper is worth reading, your talk will have been a great success.