Oh! My legs are burning, my heart is pumping and my face is frozen into a smile of happiness; I just managed to have time for one run on the ski hill before the lifts closed. Why? Because speakers at the morning session of this `ski' meeting could not keep to their allotted times, that's why!
For those of you just joining us, après ski, we've been talking about talks, those things at meetings that come between meals and breaks. Talks, be they 10-minute teasers or hour-long keynotes, have two things in common: (1) they have set time lines, and (2) bad speakers always go over the set time limit.
We've covered three of the rules for giving good talks, which are: first, don't go over time (because everyone stops listening anyway); second, prepare (and if you want to know how to prepare, well, we already talked about this and you should have written it down); and third, one talk-one story. So now we're ready for...
Rule the Fourth: It's okay to talk about your work. There are good data, and there are bad data, and it hopefully goes without saying that you want to show more of the first sort than the second when you give a talk. But with respect to good data, there are two general categories that apply to talks – published and unpublished. Many investigators go with the former, which is safe. It's all published, so there is no risk of someone stealing it, and it's already vetted, so if someone says they don't think you've shown what you've hoped to, you can counter (wham, bam) that its published so you don't care (and stick out your tongue, which is always a nice touch).
Well, I have to say this about that. It's true that it's safe, and it's true that it's pre-approved, but it's just so boring. That is, if you're like me and take a bit of time to actually read the literature. If you don't, then sure, pretend that nobody does, which is to some extent true, and your talk will dazzle all those folks who don't know what's going on. Hey, those are the folks you really want to impress, yes?
Generally, when I go over my notes from a meeting, there are lots of places where I simply jot down `the penguin story' (if it's the published penguin story, or substitute the actual subject for `penguin') and then there are doodles and random thoughts on the page. And it's sort of nice to have a breather in which I don't have to think, or can fiddle with the bindings on my skis. Talking about the work you've published, if it's just published, is fine – consider it advertising to encourage folks to actually have a look – but reviewing your old stuff is generally just painful.
Some lucky few get to present unpublished data that are very interesting and in press – this is the golden hour when you get to relax because the work is safely accepted, but nobody except a very few reviewers know about it. This lasts a few days, and if you fall into this happy place, by all means present the complete in-press story and enjoy. Lucky you. Until next month, when it's all old news again.
But for the rest of us, most of the time, we can make a choice – present the safely in-press stuff, or present the work in progress that you know is really interesting but perhaps not quite there yet. Do you present this? Or do you protect it? If you do present it, you'll delight your audience, tantalize them with what might be true, and potentially strike up interesting and useful feedback and collaborations that can make the science better. But you might also prod your competition to get their project on the same thing completed, or worse, give them a clue as to the answer so that they can short cut all the hard searching around you did. Which is it?
I go through this all the time, essentially every time I give a talk. If I stick to the published stuff, I'm going to talk to folks outside of my field and tell them why what they didn't read previously (because it isn't in their purview) is actually interesting. Meanwhile, I'm boring the people I interact with most closely. Alternatively, if I give away the cool new stuff, there is always a bit of nervous anxiety that someone is going to take this and run away with it.
So what do I do? I present the new stuff anyway. First, it's the stuff I'm most excited about, and that comes through in my talk (hopefully). And secondly, hey, that's why we do science – we communicate the interesting things we've discovered. Finally, here's something that might help – I've often found that when I've put the word out that I'm working on something, if a journal gets a manuscript on the same thing (or close to it), the editors send it to me to look at (essentially prompting me to say, hey, we've got the same thing, only better). At least my friends won't accidentally scoop me because they didn't know I was doing it too.
But this is your call – old versus new, published versus unpublished, safe versus risky. It's your work. Just tell us why this is worth our time to listen to it.
Rule the Fifth: Slow down and summarize. This is very useful advice for giving a good talk. We have so much we have to say and so little time, I know. But perhaps you've forgotten that the audience, however keen, has so much to listen to, and we're distracted, tired and probably a bit confused (and just possibly hung over – not me, of course, but some).
In fact, summaries of the key points, written down and interspersed through the talk, do this very well. You've introduced the topic, you've shown us the data supporting your conclusions, and now, show us a bullet-point summary of what you've just said. And (here's a crucial thing) read it to us. That's right – it's all written on the summary slide and you're reading it to us, and we're reading it along with you. It slows you down, gives us a chance to catch up, and we all get an opportunity to bond.
Rule the Sixth: Jokes. Ah, jokes. Hey, I love jokes, and that's a really funny cartoon. But although one joke is fun (and can help to break the tension), multiple jokes (or worse, joke slides) take up time and, no matter how funny, there are probably things we might prefer to be doing. But there's another reason. Once I had a very funny bit I did at all my talks – a classic, if I say so myself – that was guaranteed to bring the house down. Then, after a particularly good performance, a student came up to me, wiping her eyes, and said, ``Mole, that was the funniest talk I ever heard. I don't even know what it was about, but my sides are splitting.” And I never did it again. Now I save most of the jokes for the bar.
Rule the Seventh: Nobody in the room is more interested in your work than you are. I saved the most important thing for last – write it down where you can see it every time you are preparing a talk. It's so important, I'll say it again, and in italics: nobody in the room is more interested in your work than you are. If you regard your own work as dull, why in the world should I listen to it? If you consider it mildly curious, maybe I'll raise an eyebrow. But if you seem to think that this is simply amazing, I'll pay a bit of attention in the off chance you're right.
When you give a talk, whether it is old published work or something hot and new, bring all of your focus, enthusiasm, attention, and, yes, interest to the presentation of the data. I know you've seen it before – but try to see it through my eyes, or even better, the way you'd like me to see it. If you do this, it is always possible that I won't think it's as interesting as you do. But if you don't, it is even more likely that I won't think it's interesting at all.
This is precisely why we limit the jokes, curtail the introduction, take time to summarize and present the data in a clear and informative way – because we think it's worth listening to and understanding. Show me. I'm all ears.
But no matter how interesting it is, stay on time. Which reminds me, it's après ski, and I believe it's your round. Do you know the one about Jimmy and the bear?
