02: Learning how to tell your story

Hi Guys,

It’s been a while since my last post but I just wanted to give you a quick update on a great networking and training event I got to be a part of. As part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie family I was given the opportunity to enter a contest to win a spot in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Satellite event on Communication skills in Toulouse, France. I was happy to submit my entry and lucky enough I won one of the 30 spots up for grabs! The idea behind this event was helping us to tell our stories.

This is just one of the great opportunities as part of this amazing network. The Event was held in the beautiful city of Toulouse over a weekend in June. I arrived on Friday just as France was winning their quarter-final match and was charging on their way to the championship. Being in the city when the game was on was quite an experience as you could feel the support for the team and excitement knowing their team was one step closer to the top.

After a few beers on Friday I got up for the training session on Saturday and was a part of an engaging training session by the @debatrix  team who were marvelous at enlightening us on presentation techniques and captivating an audience whilst getting your points across. As scientists we often struggle with this as it isn’t always easy to explain complicated math and science to someone who doesn't know it as you do, even though the subject could help them and make their lives better.

Our trainers were quick and witty identifying how we could relay our individual projects to people and I found this quite informative especially my group's tutor Lars Duursma who was fantastic and inspiring. Hopefully I can put these teachings to good use in my next series of posts ;) Below is one of the videos he showed us of a Ted talk where a comedian, Will Stephen literally spends the entire talk talking about 'nothing' but captivates the audience and leaves an impression with you highlighting the importance of how you communicate something through tone, expression and practicality. Take a look:

To me, two of the best pieces of advice we got were:

Firstly, it is really helpful if your presentation starts with something that makes the audience crave for an answer. They said that you should create the opening in such a way that should a fire alarm go off right after hearing the opening of your presentation the audience should get frustrated because they didn't get to hear the rest. As opposed to being relieved and thanking the fire alarm for allowing them to get out of hearing the rest of your speech! Basically you need to capture the audience's attention quickly.

Secondly, at the end of your presentation the audience should be able to draw something physically from what you said. This means they should literally be able to doodle something or sketch something in their head based on something you've said. If they can do this that means you’ve connected with them and they will remember something about what you said- which of course is what you want! Therefore your talk cannot be too abstract as it has to have something that connects the audience and be relatable in doing so.

Hopefully these two things can help you too at some point :) For my project the training got me thinking about relating how important it is to fix bad roads. If you think about it I'm sure you can imagine a road with some cracks on it or a pothole and how it frustrates you! My job is to help you visualize this and demonstrate how my work will help you and help reduce those cracks and holes that drives us all a bit insane! I need to paint this picture every time I engage an audience! I got to try out the skills in a series of small table talks in a speed dating style format and I think I am now better prepared to handle important stakeholders.

We were also briefed on the Marie Curie Alumni association (https://www.mariecuriealumni.eu/) which does a lot of work to help researchers in the network and helping the fellows get through our careers and it is something that I will definitely be utilising in the future.

It was really an awesome experience and got to interact with alot of brilliant MSCA fellows who are doing some truly amazing things in Science. Just to name a few - one girl is cloning skin! Another is researching giving robots empathy! And another is tackling the issues associated with autonomous vehicles.  A fellow is featured each week on the MSCA facebook page and you can find out a little more about these amazing people in academia. (Marie Curie Actions fb). There are some truly amazing people in the MSCA network! I also was lucky to meet up with one of the ESRs on our SMARTI ETN network : ESR 14 - Paulina (Check her blog out here - ESR 14 blog!).

Even with all the training we also got to see the Airbus facility in Toulouse and the Aerospace museum! All in all it was a great weekend! I’ll leave you with some pictures from Toulouse.

Talk to you soon with a post featuring the world of photogrammetry and my work so far on creating 3D models of those road distresses!

RR12