Learning from other fields and cross-training

As I get older, I feel like scientists aren't really good at anything except science. Not that this is entirely surprising or that we should expect scientists to be amazing writers, speakers, etc. But if you're a scientist, you spend all your time immersed in the scientific community, thinking that the quality of writing or presentations that you see there are really the way things should be... well, you should go look at essays in the New Yorker or The Atlantic, or watch TED speakers or theatre performers or standup comics. The professionals of every field tend to have their strengths and weaknesses. If you want to shore up your weaknesses, go look for a field where that particular weakness is a strength, learn from those people, and use them as your inspiration. If you look outside your field, I think you'll have a huge leg up over others.

In sports, we call this cross-training. Athletes have no problem taking up yoga to help their hockey goaltending skills, for instance.

Thought of the day: Presentations are a form of writing

I've come to realize that presentations are just another form of writing. The critical thinking skills you use in writing words on a page are the same ones you use when you "write" your presentation slides. You need to map out what you're going to say, come up with a logical flow, provide supporting evidence/data for your points, etc. The main difference is that presentations are written to be performed. In that sense, they are similar to plays, movies, and television. A presentation can be a very personal work because you are both the sole writer and sole performer. Since I've started watching television with a critical eye, I want to write a post explaining how you can use ideas from TV writing to improve your presentations. If you are a good writer, you are probably a good presenter and vice versa.

Link of the day: Scott McCloud on understanding comics

While watching a different TED talk, I came across a talk by Scott McCloud called "Understanding Comics." McCloud is an advocate of comics as a legitimate art form. The first part of the talk connects his experiences growing up with a blind father and the idea of creative vision.

According to McCloud, the principles of creative vision are

• Learn from everyone
  
• Follow no one
  
• Watch for patterns
  
• Work like hell

In the world of art, he divides creative approach roughly into

• Formalist (thinking, form)
  
• Classicist (sensation, beauty)
  
• Animist (intuition, content)
  
• Iconoclast (feeling, truth)

The second half focuses on comics in the past and future. McCloud doesn't bother talking about comics in the present, assuming that the audience is already familiar with it. The presentation makes the first and second halves feel disconnected; maybe he was cramming too much into the short time frame. The brevity of the talk (17 minutes) made it difficult for him to delve deeply into his topic. I need to go read McCloud's book, also called Understanding Comics.

Color blind friendly presentations

Today, at group meeting, the presenter showed a plot in red, green, and yellow. Apparently, this combination of colors has the most contrast for normal people. But color-blind people, like the postdoc I work with, really struggle with a plot like that.

I searched for some information about presentations for color blind people and found a great article by two Japanese researchers who are themselves color blind.

Here are some interesting points:

• If you have a red-green color plot, change the red to magenta. Magenta is a combination of blue and red, so color blind people will be able to see the blue part.
  
• It is easier for color blind people to see green laser pointers than red laser pointers (same is true for normal people, too!)
  
• Fig 16 of the article shows a good color palette that is clear to people of all color-seeing types (whether normal, red color blind, green color blind, etc).
  

The article is available for download in PDF and Powerpoint.

The unconference

Michael Nielsen has recently become interested in "unconferences" and has posted a list of resources related to planning and attending unconferences.

I was completely unaware of this new trend. Instead of falling asleep through other people's talks and killing yourself preparing your own talk, you participate in moderated discussion groups.

Complete notes on Fisher Files, Sequence II

I finally got around to finishing my notes on all twelve episodes of the Fisher Files, Sequence II. Here are links to the notes to each episode.

• Episode 1: Imposter! - Some perspective on why you shouldn't be so hard on yourself.
  
• Episode 2: Screwed! - How to resolve conflicts with colleagues.
  
• Episode 3: Your thesis - How to plan and write your thesis.
  
• Episode 4: Postdoc - How to get a postdoc and how to be a postdoc.
  
• Episode 5: Travel - The cost of travel and how to make travel easier on yourself.
  
• Episode 6: Junior faculty positions - How to look for junior faculty positions and put together your application, how to manage your interview and visit, and how to negotiate offers.
  
• Episode 7: Giving a talk on your work - Some general advice about giving good talks and some specific advice about how to give different types of talks in academia.
  
• Episode 8: Getting tenure - How to go about getting tenure.
  
• Episode 9: Teaching - How to prepare for your first course, how to manage the logistics of the course, and some general advice about good teaching.
  
• Episode 10: Vacation - Why you should take a vacation, what counts as a vacation, and how to plan for one.
  
• Episode 11: What to work on - How to get funding, how to work with collaborations and students, and how to use your department/university as a resource.
  
• Episode 12: Summary - Main points of Sequence II.
  

Notes on Fisher Files, Sequence II, Episode 8 - Getting Tenure

Here are my notes on the Fisher Files episode entitled "Getting tenure."

• Tenure is a big step because
  
  • It is a permanent position
    
  • Rejection is devastating since the people evaluating you are the people you've been working with for the last 5-7 years
    
  • Don't joke about tenure or the tenure process as it is a very sensitive topic
• Differences among universities
  
  • Some universities try to intervene early by mentoring and guiding young faculty
    
  • A few universities (not many) exert quality control at the hiring stage, so that tenure is a formality
• Thing to be clear on
  
  • As you get closer to the tenure decision date, prepare yourself for rejection
    
  • Know the rules and the procedure
    
  • Before you even accept the position, you should have found out
    
    • Is the process fair/unfair?
      
    • Who has input, who doesn't?
      
    • When does the review take place?
  • Formal rules set by American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
    
    • Professors must be evaluated for tenure by their 8th year (this is to prevent universities from stringing junior faculty along)
  • At MIT:
    
    • After 4 years, there is a review for promotion from assistant to associate professor without tenure
      
    • After 6 years, there is a review for promotion to associate professor with tenure
      
    • Leaves the 7th year for finding a new job if you are rejected
• How to get tenure
  
  • Don't consciously think about getting tenure
    
  • Keep a list of people you meet in a text file so that you can use them for references later on
    
  • Have self-respect
    
  • Be your own person and decide what you want to do
    
  • Assess the university as much as it assesses you
    
  • Use your time to do what you are excited about and build up your research group
    
  • Live your dream!!!
• Duplicity is bad and backfires
  
  • Don't choose research directions or collaborations for the sole purpose of getting tenure (people can tell and won't like it)
    
  • Don't try to solicit offers from other institutions in an effort to game the system (people will figure out what you are doing and get mad)
• Tenure criteria
  
  • Mainly based on research excellence
    
  • Show that you are a leader in your field by getting your name out
    
  • Giving review talks or writing review articles
    
  • Giving conference talks or seminars
    
  • To a lesser extent (depending on university), based on community service and teaching
    
  • In terms of teaching, people are really thinking about whether you respect the students as opposed to the quality of your teaching
    
    • Respecting students means keeping appointments, not making students feel unimportant, and grading honestly/fairly
  • Emotionally, people are thinking:
    
    • Is this a person I want to have in my department for the rest of my life?
      
    • Is this person competent in administration and will s/he pitch in?
      
    • Is this person going to choose good research topics and be a pioneer as opposed to just following the pack?
  • No shortcuts or magic formula to getting tenure (the faculty don't use a checklist)
• Community service
  
  • There are lots of jobs/committees and they (for the most part) are not fun
    
  • Find your niche: choose a job, take it over, and do it well
    
  • If you do the same job for a long time, it will get easier and take less time
    
  • If you want to make yourself stick out, choose a job that is unpopular like colloquium/seminar organization or graduate admissions
• Giving talks
  
  • Most seminar organizers are lazy and have a hard time finding speakers so take advantage of that
    
  • In July, email organizers and volunteer to give talks at good universities
    
  • Advantages of seminars over conference talks
    
    • At a conference, you are typically giving a 10-20 minute talk in a 2 hour session -- you can easily be missed
      
    • But you have a whole day at an institution for a seminar - 1 hour for the talk, dinner and appointments
  • Colloquium tenure talk
    
    • Typically you will be asked to give a colloquium on your work in preparation for the faculty voting on you
      
    • Make sure this colloquium is *really* accessible since it will be attended by faculty outside your field
      
    • Communicate clearly what you did and why it was important
      
    • Communicate clearly what students were involved and how you are connected to them (show your mentoring skills)
• As tenure review date approaches, know your time scales and options
  
  • Some people try to look for other offers at this time
    
  • Only consider offers you are serious about
    
  • Let your university know what you are doing

Notes on Fisher Files, Sequence II, Episode 7 - Giving a talk on your work

Here are my notes on the Fisher Files episode entitled "Giving a talk on your work."

• Why are you giving this talk?
  
  • Affects how you prepare
    
  • Affects what visuals you use
• What messages are you trying to convey?
  
  • Is it a job talk, conference talk, colloquium, or popular talk?
• Don't automatically just give any talk that any old person asks you to do. Like travel, there is a major time commitment.
  
• General advice about talks
  
  • Most important tips
    
    • Talk needs to be interesting!!!
      
    • Talk needs to be informative
      
    • Have a conscious idea of what your message is
      
    • If you don't have a conscious idea of what your message is, you don't have a clear idea of what will come out of your talk
  • Logistics
    
    • Don't go over time or rush at the end
      
    • Target 50 min talk for 1 hour time slot
      
    • If you have a movie, make sure it works on the actual projector. The lighting could be bad, the projector might not be compatible with the movie.
      
    • Bring hard copy of the talk
      
    • Setup computer a minimum of 15 minutes before the talk
      
    • Don't use transparencies that were obviously written on the plane (that insults the audience)
      
    • Have a PDF of your PowerPoint/Keynote presentation as backup
  • Message/scope
    
    • The number of big ideas should match the amount of time you have
  • Structure of talk
    
    • Find a way to make your talk interesting
      
    • Make sure you talk about things you are interested in
      
    • Don't just give a cookie cutter talk
      
    • Audiences can tell if you are truly interested in your talk
  • Style of talk
    
    • Use more pictures/graphs and less diagrams, bullet points, and equations. It makes research more physical, gives deeper sense of complexity.
      
    • Charts and graphs are better than tables and bullet points
      
    • Face audience
      
    • Don't use bullet points, just use keywords and talk about them
      
    • Don't just read off the slide
      
    • Don't feel compelled to explain every detail (most of them are boring anyways)
      
    • Emphasize the details you find interesting (make the talk about you)
      
    • Don't forget to give credit: just mention everyone you worked with. Be generous with credit since it's not good to make enemies and besides it's honest.
• Different types of talks
  
  • Thesis defense
    
    • Demonstrate that you have mastered your field
  • Job talks
    
    • Show how you fit in the department
      
    • Show your analysis skills
      
    • Show how capable you are
      
    • Illustrate deep thinking about physics
      
    • Don't just expand a conference talk
  • Conference talks
    
    • If you are going to give a 10 minute talk, only have one idea
      
    • You have less scope for making it interesting
      
    • OK to use lots of words and put in lots of results that you don't address in your talk because likely your talk will be publicly available
      
    • Proceedings (if there are any) should be an accurate representation of your talk; any ideas that occur after the talk should be footnoted
  • Seminar
    
    • For a seminar (approximately one hour), use one theme and 5 sub themes
      
    • Prepare a 50 minute talk for a one hour slot
      
    • Encourage audience to ask questions during the seminar and not afterwards
      
    • Don't need to show what you did as opposed to what other people did (unlike job talk)
      
    • Can assume audience is well-grounded in your field
      
    • Be a little conservative in assuming what everyone knows (use a few introductory slides)
      
    • Introduce yourself: name, who you are, level, where you are from, and who you work with
      
    • Don't use a cookie cutter structure
      
    • Start generally and narrow focus in first 10% of talk (first 5-8 slides)
      
    • At end of talk (last 10% or 5-7 slides), open up the focus again
      
    • Don't just stop after showing your result, explain why the result is important in the larger context
      
    • Bring closure to talk
  • Colloquium
    
    • Important to know your audience
      
    • Similar to seminar: start broad, focus in and then focus out, *but* do all this more slowly
      
    • Could be a job talk for a senior position (in this case, an assessment of how well you communicate)
      
    • Much less detail than a seminar
      
    • More about what you do, than how you do it
      
    • More pictures, less equations
      
    • Stories helpful (e.g. how the discovery took place, who the people were)
      
    • Need to work much harder in colloquium to engage the audience than in a seminar
      
    • Don't expand a seminar into a colloquium talk; it's easy for the audience to sense (then the audience becomes bored)
      
    • Colloquium much more formal, typically questions are reserved for the end
      
    • Opportunity to reach out to people outside your field and inform them
      
    • Pare down your ideas
      
    • Only communicate the simplest ones, rather than trying to conveying the deep elegance that only a few people understand
      
    • Don't rush
  • Plenary talks
    
    • Broad in scope
      
    • Even more important to give credit
  • Popular talks
    
    • Even more emphasis on explaining clearly, using pictures, and finishing on time
      
    • Important to practice, maybe even video tape yourself

Elevator pitches

I've been thinking that I should develop an "elevator pitch" for my research. Even though elevator pitches are traditionally associated with business, science is also an exercise in selling (getting grants) and public relations. Recently, I was interviewed for a tutoring position where I was asked to describe my research. I ended up rambling and including too many complications. One of these days, I'll write an elevator pitch. This article seems like a good guide.

Ira Glass on storytelling, Part 1

Mike Kaspari of Getting Things Done in Academia introduced me to some cool videos in which Ira Glass explains the art of storytelling. Good storytelling is a skill that can be applied to many areas of life, including (for academics, in particular) lecturing and teaching.

I'll summarize Part 1 of the Glass series. There are two building blocks in a story. First, the anecdote -- a sequence of events. The amazing power of the anecdote is that it has momentum and can make even the most boring topic interesting. As a storyteller, you want to raise questions and answer them along the way. The second building block is the moment of reflection. Why am I telling you this story?

I liked the following quote by Glass (transcription not accurate since I was in a hurry):

You have the two parts of the structure: you have the anecdote and you've got the moment of reflection. Often you'll have an anecdote which just kills; it's just so interesting. This thing happens and it leads to this next thing, it's so surprising, you meet all these great characters... and it means absolutely nothing. It's completely predictable; it doesn't tell you anything new. So that's one huge problem. The other huge problem is you have this boring set of thoughts or boring story and someone actually has something interesting to say about it. A lot of us when we're beginning, we have the problem that we know we have something here, we know we have something compelling, but it just doesn't seem to be coming together. And often it's your job to be ruthless and understand that either you don't have a sequence of actions so you don't have a story that works or you don't have a moment of reflection that works.

Thoughts from March Meeting

I returned yesterday from the March Meeting extravaganza in Denver. It was my first experience, so I thought I'd record a few thoughts and reflections.

In most of the talks, I was completely lost, sometimes because I just didn't know the topic, other times because I had no idea what the motivation was (being exhausted didn't really help). It was cool to see how many interesting things were going on. My new resolution is to read as much as I can, so I can enjoy the talks more next year. I was also overwhelmed by how popular my research topic was... (gah) 15 hours of superconducting qubit talks!

I was very fortunate to be placed at the beginning of a packed session. It helps when you have cool results and your supervisors are famous. :) I feel like I really nailed my talk (all the practice paid off). My slides were beautiful; I was fluent and didn't forget anything. I will have to work on coming across as more charismatic and less anxious, but that is just a minor issue. Unfortunately, in stark contrast to the success of my delivery, the question and answer session was a complete disaster. I finished right on time (10 minutes), so people had (ugh) plenty of time to ask me questions I couldn't answer. Yet another thing to work on.

My favorite part about March Meeting was hanging out with friends (both people in my own group and friends in other corners of the country). During the day, I was running from talk to talk and panicking about my own presentation, but in the evening, I drank beer with friends. It was so much fun that I tried to call all my different groups of friends and find a continuous stream of drinking buddies into the night.

A special bonus treat was getting to see my advisor give a prize talk and seeing my name appear on the third (?) slide. I wasn't even born when my advisor did his prize-winning work, so I was flattered that he thought of me. I guess you can die happy when you've done fantastic research, that research has been recognized in the community, and you're surrounded by your loving spouse, friends, and students/postdocs. My advisor was so happy to the point of getting choked up; may we all hope for such a dream to be realized.

Fonts for computer presentations

I prefer sans-serif fonts for presentations and I've been looking around for alternatives to the ubiquitous Arial. Here are two I like: Verdana (standard on most computers) and MgOpen Moderna (description, download).

Link of the day: "When is a Googol not enough?"

Wati Taylor (an MIT string theorist) gave an awesome talk at Google about why there may be as many as 10^1000 possible solutions to describe the physical universe and how it might be possible to narrow down the possibilities using search algorithms. I really like how his talk is straightforward, clear, and concise. It's neat how string theory, cosmology, and algorithms come together in this problem.

David Mermin on talks

Here's a quote for today:

The most important question to ask yourself in preparing your talk is why on earth any physicist might be interested. This is dangerous: There is always the risk you will find no answer. But that is not necessarily a cause for alarm. Often when working on a problem for a long time, one does indeed forget what first led one into that line of endeavor, so if at first you can find no answer, think some more. What is there in the subject to capture the imagination of one lacking your highly specialized skills? Give yourself a week. If you still can find no reason why anyone not directly involved in the work should find it anything but tediously obscure, then you should find something else to talk about. Indeed you might then seriously consider finding another area of research.

It's taken from a Physics Today article called "What's wrong with these talks?" by David Mermin.

Tom Brokaw's commencement speech

My sister mentioned Tom Brokaw's commencement speech at Stanford. So I decided to have a look.

It's basically a call for young people to embrace tradition and to steer away from seductive on-demand entertainment world of music, internet, and video.

There are some major problems with Brokaw's speech. Parents expect their children to matriculate at great universities (like Stanford) and more importantly, they expect a return on their investment. A college education is damn expensive and you can't exactly go galloping off to Africa to help poor people if your parents paid $120,000 for college. What is the ratio of parents who desire their children to become lawyers and doctors versus the parents who want their children to work in a relief organization? Brokaw himself (ironically) states that today's grandfathers had their college education funded by the GI Bill.

I also find insulting Brokaw's insinuation that the majority of young people walk around oblivious to the world -- constantly wired to a virtual world. I'm just a few years older than the class of 2006 and I don't feel corrupted. There is certainly an infatuation period with new technology but it doesn't last for long. Young people have always spent their time in ways that disappoint their elders.

And I find it arrogant that Brokaw spends all his time discussing examples of public service that are related to going abroad. What about raising good children, building a community at the workplace, or just giving your best? The "small stuff" is just as important, maybe more so. Personally, I find it really dissatisfying to run any large operation with an iffy purpose. I'd rather accomplish minor, focused objectives and do them well. I think it's better to start a small-scale operation, to improve yourself and those around you first.

Conversational terrorism

Here is an amusing article on combative conversation. Perhaps this is useful when you have to answer questions from some obnoxious, socially-inept physicist in the audience...

A commencement speech for artists and graphic designers

Spotted on Ian Ybarra's blog, a commencement speech for artists and graphic designers.

It's a pretty good speech and voices an unusual opinion -- that the future belongs to right-brained people. My favorite part is the three step process in a new job.

Peggy Noonan, who wrote speeches for President Reagan, said she had a three-stage reaction to working in the White House.

Stage One: I hope nobody figures out how stupid I am.

Stage Two, after few months in the White House: Hey, I'm as smart as everyone else.

Then a few months later came Stage Three: Oh my God, we're in charge?

Steve Jobs's commencement speech

Since I'm collecting commencement speeches, check out a nice one delivered by Steve Jobs at Stanford's 2005 graduation.

People seem to really like it. I've gotten it from two folks already.

My favorite commencement speech so far

Everywhere across America, college seniors have graduated this May and June. My own graduation ceremony two years ago was mercifully short and it didn't rain!

In honor of this occasion, I wanted to post a link to my favorite commencement speech, given by (then) Dean Brodhead of Yale College. The speech was touching, relevant, and down-to-earth. I have to say, most commencement speeches suck. They are either irreverent like the Car Talk guys or grandiose (no need to give examples) and almost always useless. Well done, Dr. Brodhead (who, by the way, is now the president of Duke).

Link of the day: cochlear implants

There's a great video of a Fermilab colloquium about cochlear implants. The talk was given by Ian Shipsey, who uses a cochlear implant himself.

It's really cool that Fermilab tapes all their colloquium talks. I wish other universities would do the same. Sure, there are books and papers out there, but nothing beats the experience of listening to another human being tell you something!