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How to survive a conference

The following was written by Brian McE- naney, a professor in the School of Ma- terials Science, Bath University, U.K. His valuable advice was made available to the attendees of COPS-IV and is reproduced with his permission.

"How To Survive a Conference" Brian McEnaney

Most scientists are like most ath- letes - - very few athletes have the physical prowess of an Olympic gold medalist and very few scientists have the intellectual gifts of a Nobel Laure- ate. Yet in science, unlike athletics, it is

often necessary for scientists who are hardly up to club standard to perform in the same event as the international star. That event is the scientific con- ference and, to survive it, the mediocre or merely competent scientist must develop skills which would be redun- dant to a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Naive scientists often think that the object of conferences is to report their latest results and so make a contribu- tion to the development of their sub- ject. This is quite wrong. Conferences are not science - - they are theatre. The object is not to exchange ideas and knowledge, but to dazzle your audience during your presentation and amuse them afterwards by outwit- ting your questioners. Brilliant scien- tists do this with lordly ease, but, to survive in such company, the me- diocre scientist must resort to less noble stratagems.

The tactic most likely to ensure sur- vival is the brazen delivery. Even if you

have secret doubts about the validity of your results and your own com- petence, you must present your work with an air of impregnable confidence. A scientific audience is like a pack of wild animals - - they can smell fear at a hundred yards - - and once they sense nervousness or uncertainty, they show no mercy. Recognising this, you must become a lion tamer. Adopt a loud, confident delivery, perhaps even with a hint of menace. Your audi- ence will be suitably cowed and reluc- tant to press you with searching ques- tions. Also, as a brazen author, you should never apologise or make ex- cuses for the few results and the Mic- key Mouse analysis that you are presenting. Your audience are not in- terested in your problems and ex- cuses - - they have problems of their own. Perhaps the Board of Directors are considering closure of the Re- search Department, or the Minister of Education has refused them a pay rise, or they are going through an ex- pensive divorce. Compared to all this, your six-month wait for samples that turned out to be the wrong material is very small beer.

An alternative to the brazen strategy is the disarming approach. A favourite device of disarmers is to present their work as preliminary re- sults. In this way they hope that they will not be subject to such searching scrutiny as would be the case if they were presenting a finished piece of work. There are many experienced scientists who employ this tactic, even though they have been working on the same topic for up to 20 years. If you remain incurably nervous and du-

applied catalysis A: General Volume 150 No. 2 - - 13 March 1997

bious about your results, remember, in this age of scientific specialisation, the chances are that there are only two other people in the audience who are competent to judge your work; these are your co-authors and it is clearly not in their interests to give the game away.

Many scientist are less nervous of presenting their work than of answer- ing questions in the following dis- cussion. Provided that a few of the disarmers' stratagems are mastered, this need not be atraumatic business. A favourite tactic is to ask the chairman to rearrange the session so that your paper is last. Most session chairmen are unable to keep to the schedule, so with luck and overruns, there will be no time to discuss your paper before the coffee break. However, if you must answer questions, do not become ag- gressive. If some old duffer points out that your approach merely duplicates his classic work with Waffle and Word- mincer in 1952, except that they came to exactly the opposite conclusion, it is completely the wrong response to leap offthe podium and wrestle him to the floor.

A useful rejoinder is to ask your inquisitor to repeat the question asyou are slightly deaf. This has two benefits: it gains the sympathy of the rest of the audience and gives you time to think of a reply. A good all-purpose re- sponse to comments of this type is: 'That is the traditional view of this sub- ject, but more recent work points in a completely different direction.' Notice that you have not actually contra- dicted him, but you have managed to imply that he has not read the literature

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for 30 years. Would-be disarmers should note that the sympathy card must be played with discretion. Wear- ing dark glasses and having the session chairman lead you to the po- dium with crutches is probably going slightly over the top.

A common problem at con- ferences is the persistent questioner. If the session chairman will not shut him up, then it is up to you. A good way is to say: 'Well that is a rather detailed and complex question, which we might better discuss over coffee.' Of course, when coffee time comes, you make yourself scarce. Another difficult type of comment is along these lines: '1 am surprised that you used polycry- stalline samples. Watter, Rott and Song showed in 1956 that polycrystal- line samples give irreproducible re- sults and all work since then, except yours, has used annealed single crys- tals.' With an inexperienced author this type of comment often produces an awkward pause. Butthe practised dis- armer will immediately reply: 'l am sorry there are matters of commercial confidence associated with this work which I am unable to talk about at present.' Not only does this stop the line of questioning dead, it worries the opposition in case you are on to something they have missed.

With a judicious combination of such tactics, the mediocre scientist can not only survive the conference, but also enhance his reputation. But, if your object is merely to survive, be- ware of overdoing it. If you give too good a performance, you will be in- vited to give a plenary lecture at next year's conference.

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Brian, it is assumed, was providing his advice 'tongue-in-cheek.' However, some version of it is utilized all too frequently. Shortly after the methanol-to-gasoline pro- cess had received widespread publicity, a 'nameless researcher' made a presenta- tion at a prestigious meeting. During the question period, the investigator was asked a particularly difficult question con- cerning a Russian paper. The speaker paused for a long time and then asked, in apparent embarrassment, "But do you know of anyone who has been able to

repeat that work?" This observer (and be- cause of the lack of additional questions or comments on this topic, presumably the others in the audience) reached the con- clusion that the Russian work was invalid. During the coffee break, I was talking to the speaker when another employee of the same lab joined us. The speaker immedi- ately asked, "What Russian paper was he asking about?"

B.H. Davis

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applied catalysis A: General Volume 150 No. 2 - - 13 March 1997