I can't imagine I'm the only person with this problem: I sit down at a seminar by a visiting scientist, or at a conference talk, and my mind drifts.
Who's that sitting in the third row? What's the name of that grad student I just met? How should I persuade my PI that my proposed Experiment X is higher priority than his proposed Experiment Y? What is Experiment X, anyhow? Also, dinner.
It isn't necessarily because of fatigue, though some days that plays a role; and it isn't only for boring speakers--it's just easier to retreat into Headworld than to stay focused on whatever's going on in Realworld. But I always feel ashamed fifteen minutes later when I turn my attention back to the seminar and find myself hopelessly lost. Back to musing on dinner.
Sure, it'd be nice if all speakers were so dynamic that they engaged us from the first slide, but the horrid truth is that there are some very smart scientists doing interesting research who speak in monotones, or use tiny fonts, or work outside your immediate area so they're just plain harder to follow. The challenge is, how to maintain attention even if they're not making it easy for you.
My new solution is this: Pretend I am the host (if at seminar series) or session leader (if at a conference). What's that person's job? To be ready to ask a question, any question, at the end of the talk if no one else in the audience has a hand up, to avoid the dreaded awkward no-questions silence.
The criteria aren't very stringent for my ready-to-ask question. I try to stay away from just "Have you tried that experiment under Condition Q?" unless there's a valid scientific reason to think that Condition Q might be relevant for the topic.
Ok questions, even if a bit anodyne, include things like:
"What's the behavioral outcome in that transgenic fly/mouse/worm?"
"Would your new technique be applicable to Issue Z?"
Better questions of course are more analytical, even if still pretty open-ended:
"Could that result be due to some developmental compensation?"
"Are there any other consequences to that manipulation?"
Obviously if I can manage to come up with a really good question, hey presto, I'll just ask it. But the point of this exercise is that if you are the person responsible for starting a discussion in the face of a quiescent audience, you just need to have something coherent ready to go. It needn't be fancy, but the speaker shouldn't have already answered it during the talk, either.
Simply setting this goal is usually enough to keep me focused and engaged with the talk, even in the face of poorly-designed slides or, heaven forbid, Comic Sans.
The downside being, I don't manage to figure out dinner.
15 years ago
8 comments:
Good for you. That does work, although in my case once I figure out a question, I tune out again...
although in my case once I figure out a question, I tune out again...same here... but I do try to have a question in the few seminars that I do attend.
Maybe it's because I only attend selected seminars, which reduces (only to some degree) the chances of tuning out..
Yes, I do the same thing. I decide to ask a question at the end, which makes me pay attention--to ensure it is not answered by the speaker during the talk. Not looking like an idiot in front of your colleagues is good motivation to pay attention and to formulate a reasonably intelligent question.
But, if the seminar turns out to be incredibly boring, poorly presented, etc., I will simply tune out and think of something productive (at least I don't waste an hour).
It's usually apparent within the first five minutes whether the talk is going to be good and worth paying close attention to (this five-minute rule works for movies, too).
Great strategy. Now that I'm a (sort of) real professor, I have no choice but to attend all seminars. Many (most?) are completely outside of my research interests, and some are just terrible presentations. For the latter, in order to keep my sanity I'll listen for a bit and then use the leftover 30 minutes or so to think about my own research, mentally prepare a to-do list, etc.
Happens to me all of the time. It's like my mind automatically drifts at the beginning, and by the time I remember to pay attention, the intro slides are finished and for me, it's all over. I, too, have played your game of paying attention to ask a question, but the problem I have then is that I often think of a question in the first portion of the talk, and then I drift for the rest of the talk. The simple fact of the matter is that I don't particularly care for seminars.
My problem is that I always tune out for about 30 seconds. Even in the most interesting talks. (Maybe even more so in the most interesting talks.) It's never enough that I'm lost, but it's usually enough that I'm not 100% sure that my question wasn't answered already.
Nice idea!
Coming up with a question is surely better than my trick for staying awake: count all of those dreaded powerpoint mistakes. Comic sans, unlabeled axes, horrid color combinations, too much data on one slide, obvious typos, slides with just irrelevant questions on them (like "So, what does this mean?"). It keeps me awake, but I am generally angry at the end!
PhD comics also has a great "seminar bingo" series on their website somewhere ....
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