06.19.08
Impromptu Presentation
I had a very interesting experience the other day. I arrived at work thinking that it would be a typically day. But when I received a phone call around the middle of the day, things turned out to be a little bit different. The individual who called me is a program support person for the class of research grants that I am funded through. We had a very senior DoD official who was at our base, and received a briefing on the basic research projects and took a singular interest in my work. So the program support person contacted me to give a brief to this person with no indication of why they were interested in the research, and lots of questions regarding my security clearance. A very strange conversion to start the process.
So, I gathered a few presentation materials, and went to this meeting. All of the top researchers at our base were dressed in formal attire, and I walked in with jeans and a non t-shirt, but not a button down shirt. I was instructed to just start talking about my research. No clue what level of detail or area of my research was of interest, just that he had requested a briefing. Several questions later, and about 10 mins of briefing, he indicated that he had heard enough, and thanked me for my time. The whole event left me a little shell shocked.
Could anything have prepared me for this situation, most likely not. But then again you should always have an elevator speech at the ready, and of course my adviser also sent out this week a book how to conduct Presentation: by Steve Kosslyn, called Clear and to the Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling Power Point Presentations (Oxford University Press, 2007). So, next time, I will be ready. Even if I have no idea what they want to hear.