My father gave me these hints on speech-making: «Be sincere … be brief … be seated.» James Roosevelt During the past few days I have been thinking quite frequently about negative events of the past. And yeah, some of it is suppressed anger bubbling up into rants and bitching, like failed group projects. Not fun, but an opportunity to try to come up with possible solutions to annoying situations. And if they can be prevented in the future, it’s worth facing them. One such an event concerns speaking at scientific conferences. It happened to me, and I’ve frequently seen it happen to other speakers: There is a symposium with four or five speakers, and one or more of them go over the allotted time. Even worse, no-one stops them, even the moderator/time-keeper/chair is unable to enforce adherence to the time. The result is shortened talks of the later speakers, or going over the time for the entire symposium. Worst case last year was an aged female speaker. She visibly noticed the time-keeper signaling her that her time was up, but she kept on going … and going. Like a cliché academic, she was completely oblivious to the mood of the [...]
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