Beyond Your Technical Skills - The Power of Words
From Anita Borg Institute Wiki
Contents |
Foreword
We may take academic or industry path to our careers. You have to use language skills in addition to technical skills in either path. Technical and language skills go hand in hand. Written and presentation language skills are very important
Lara Deek (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Technical versus social language skills in technical settings.
Technical Language skills - prepare for the major area exam for a PhD student. The rule is that the topics are sufficient and that each one necessary. The language skill is to transition from one topic to another smoothly, talk how they are related. Look at previous work section in papers from good conferences and find good conferences.
Social Language skills - networking. Communicating with organizers, advertising panel session. Skills: identify tasks and options, be brief but respectful when communicating with people that are likely very busy, e.g.: Professors. Be clear when organizing information for presentation such as a flier.
Recommendation: discuss issues, communicate, stay in touch, understand your strengths and weaknesses, do not be afraid to make mistakes and learn from them.
Message: Language in technical context is not only technology but also a technical skill.
Nalini Vasudevan (Columbia University)
Selling yourself.
Make a web page, take up internships, apply for grants and fellowships, if only for the process of applying and learning about yourself, volunteer to teach, join department committees. Go to conferences. Many conferences have travel grants, submit posters to present at the very least, participate in sturdy competitions, take writing and presentation classes. Most importantly, do not underestimate yourself, everybody can do it, so just go for it.
Lamia Yousseff (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
While you are in graduate school you get to do a lot if experiments, analyzing data, critiquing other people’s work. What is the most critical communication skill that helped me in my career? Establishing professional network, communicating my ideas, the elevator speech. In September 2008 my adviser told me that I am ready to graduate. The recession happened in October. I applied for 70 jobs and was invited for 5. Thinking back now I was lucky to get those 5. Still, there were 10-15 applicants invited for the first phone interview for each posision. That is when communication skill is crucial, it can either make it or break it for you.
Suggestion: be confident. I read in some books that dressing up in a professional attire for a phone interview affects your tone of voice and found it helpful. When interviewing, start with a tasteful positive note or a compliment to the interviewer. Build your communication tool box. Smile while talking on the phone. Make sure everyone is engaged. This is harder to achieve over the phone as you cannot receive the body language feedback as in a face-to-face interview. Make sure to ask if they are following you, if they have concerns or need further clarification. Make sure to take a small pause before answering a question, it allows you to compose and organize your thoughts. Be smart and courteous. Present yourself in a way you want to be perceived.
Challenge: when in your career was communication he biggest challenge?
Janet Kayfetz (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Linguist Approach.
Speaking and writing are very different and very important channels. Both have shared characteristics: the story is the most important one. How to tell a long complex story in a short amount of space and time, for example, presenting years of research work in 20 minutes or 8 pages? How do you know that what you chose to present is clear to others? Ask others to read and give feedback on content clarity. Editing is an important process - edit for readability to reduce cognitive load on the reader. Ask someone else to find out if it makes sense. Take the feedback to heart, cherish people that take time to give you that feedback. When we present the data in visuals it doesn't say anything unless the writer gives it a voice, a proper story. When you take time to present the ideas you promise the audience that this will be the time that they will learn something, take something useful away from it, that you will be respectful of the audience and deliver on that promise to give a clear and concise presentation. When writing it is important to position your work within the grand scheme - in the introduction you want to start win the general field and narrow it down to where exactly your work fits in. When presenting your data, make sure to properly comment on it - not only what you have found but also what should not be concluded about it or taken away from it. When presenting, be watchful of the timing, and interact with the audience.
- Rhetorical positioning
- Expression
- Audience
- Data commentary
- Editing
- Readability
- Story
- Story
- Timing
- Organization
- Rehearsal
- Interaction
- Expression
- Slides
Martha Kim (Columbia University)
In academia you go on many interviews where you often need to give a talk followed by a one-on-one interview. In any face-to-face communication you benefit from repetition and get to polish your story. My advice is to build on your past experiences.
When composing a correspondence know your goal - am I selling my ideas, am I redirecting, am I giving feedback. Positive feedback is easy to write, critical not so much. Start out with “here is what I think had happened”, “what is the result”, “what needs to be done in the future to fix things”.
Read like mad: it helps develop your taste, find good prose, good scientific prose (which is hard to find).
Practice like mad both writing and speaking. It helps to generate and frame ideas. Write a lot and be prepared to throw away 4 out of 5 paragraphs.
Get feedback early and often.
Manage yourself: know what works for u and what doesn't, e.g: I work well in the morning hours and then it goes downhill, so I do critical work in the morning.
"Good engineers ship" - don't critique your performance while you are still working on it or you will never finish.
