Become famous—but not for your verbal tics.
On “How I Met Your Mother” the character Robin, anchor of an early-morning talk show, thinks her show is doing really well because a lot of people watch it, including students of her friend Ted. In actuality…
College kids: “We watch it for the drinking game. You have to drink every time she says But, um…“
I never thought verbal tics and filler words could be the subject of sitcom tv, but they do a pretty good job with it. Link to episode; start watching around the 9-minute mark. [Update: the link might no longer work.]
(My filler word is like but I’ve gotten better at using it less, thanks to the Ah-Counter at our toastmasters meetings pointing out how often I’m using it.)
This is amazing. Use it.
Go here to see a slideshow on “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience.” Then try to incorporate some of those tips the next time you give a presentation, especially if its a powerpoint.
(H/T Harman.)
How I paid 62 cents for a brand new hardcover bestseller.
I went to Borders tonight because I had $15 in Borders Bucks that needed to be spent this month before they expired.
Retail price of book: $25.95
-Apply 40% off coupon-
Subtotal: $15.57
-Apply Borders Bucks-
Subtotal: $0.57
TN 9.25% Sales Tax: $0.05
Total: $0.62
Saving money is one of my interests, but what does it have to do with nanotechnology research? Read more…
What makes you indispensable?
Grad student scientists want to become their advisor’s go-to investigator. This position makes you privy to the advisor’s more closely held thoughts and often spares you from working on trivial/crappy projects. (Within reason: you don’t want to be so trusted that they end up overburdening you with every task they deem important—since we know profs believe everything they work on is of the utmost importance.) A post on Keith Ferrazzi’s blog lists ten tips for becoming indispensable at work. Some of his ideas strongly resonated with me, in the context of doing research.
1. Get out in front and analyze cutting-edge trends and opportunities.
I want to get better at this practice. As grad students we become occupied with our particular project and how to get it done. But the big-time scientists out there seemingly predict what next year’s Nature-level hyped topic will be, and get to work on it this year. I don’t have a ready idea for what to try on this topic, because the “cutting edge” of science that you read is something that was submitted up to 12 months prior to publication. Read more…
Send this man to Toastmasters!
Poor guy. Seriously, though, this is a FAIL on the part of the team’s media relations director for allowing the player to end up in this situation.
What is Toastmasters? Find out here.
One Plus One Equals Three
I visited one of my scientific mentors last week and she gave me this advice: Become an expert in two areas. We did not pursue the topic further, discussing particular areas of materials research, for example, but her words remained in my thoughts after the visit.
Being knowledgeable in two areas certainly gives me more options when selecting research projects, but the real power of knowing two areas is the potential to combine them and discover something worthwhile in a third area. One of my favorite books, The Medici Effect, calls this phenomenon “being in the Intersection.” The book relates the tales of a diverse collection of innovators, past and present (examples: Charles Darwin, Richard Branson, and the guy who invented the card game Magic The Gathering) and how they connected concepts from two seemingly unrelated wells of knowledge to make an astounding discovery and/or a huge pile of money. The book is a great read, and I’m glad my mentor’s words reminded me of it, because I know I should spend more time brainstorming intersectional ideas along with directional ideas (ones that seem to naturally evolve from a previous finding).
In my still-evolving scientific career, I have been fortunate to experience the Intersection once already. By combining electrophoretic deposition—an efficient technique for depositing nanoparticles into solid films from a suspension—with the use of a sacrificial layer—a concept from MEMS fabrication that allows thin sections of material to be suspended freely—we invented a new technique for creating standalone nanoparticle films. Our lab was already using electrophoretic deposition, but because I had previously studied MEMS and done some microfabrication work, I was able to draw from this second well of knowledge. This experience shows the value of collaborating with scientists outside of my field and even taking steps to branch out on my own from the confines of what I’m already comfortable with studying.
In any creative work, most of the ideas put forward end up unused or turn out to be ho-hum. The Medici Effect even points out that past success in finding an Intersection is no guarantee that someone will find it again. So the conclusion here would be: never stop thinking, never stop visiting new places and soaking up new concepts, and never stop trying out new (and seemingly crazy) ideas.
