Communicating in Presentations

It is easy to get up and start to lecture. President Obama was known for lecturing during his press conferences. But facts and opinions are not necessarily communicating.

It is easy to fall into thinking you have to tell everything during a presentation. All the details and history may bury uncomfortable facts, but is not communicating.

Communicating is thinking about your audience.

Who is going to be there?

What decision needs to be made? (Reason for meeting)

What information do they need to have to make their decision?

You communicate when you make it easy for the audience to learn, ask questions, discuss and decide.

Solid State Drives - Fast & Prices Have Come Down

Own 2 Early 2011 MacBook Pros. When my wife’s hard drive failed, Apple does not stock the old hard drives any more. Our machines are now “Vintage”. (I resemble that)

Investigating further, SSD have come down in price. We had 500 Gigabyte hard drives could be replaced for $50 - $60. Got a 500 GB solid state drive for $160 instead. When her last hard drive failed November 2015 the price of the same SSD was about $350. 

Why spend the money? SSD have no moving parts, are much more reliable in laptops, generate less heat, and vastly speed up your computer. My MacBook Pro takes several minutes to boot up. My wife’s take less than a minute. Hers browses the Internet faster too.

If you need more than 500 GB, the prices are still high. 1 TB is around $270 - $350. Would use standard hard drive for large backup due to price. Some manufacturers offer Hybrid drives, but the SSD part is usually too small. Operating systems like Windows and Mac take over 100 GB to operate.

Intend to replace my original 6 year old hard drive with a SSD. Already increased DDR3 to 16 GB. Seattle Laptop (Route 99 & 76^th Street near Green Lake) will install a Kingston SSD and clone my hard drive for $240 plus taxes. My wife’s cost more because of the failing hard drive $280 plus taxes. Note - data recovery cost much more depending on the failure. (If you go tell Dan & Mike I referred you)

New 13” MacBook Pros cost ~$1,999 for the same memory. Think will get 2 plus years on our Vintage units before buying new MacBooks. If you want a faster computer, an SSD may be a reasonable answer. Especially as prices fall.

You Are Not Alone

Whenever something bad happens to us, our normal reaction is “Why me?” Often we think we are the only one. It is not true. Even in the rare diseases there are people who have had your disease before.

Remember Drew Carey’s character talking “You hate work. There is a name for that. It is called ‘Everyone’. We meet in the bars.”

There are tons of painfully shy and awkward teenagers. God knows I was one of them. I understand and struggled to overcome that.

You have a weird family? Me too. Think we are part of that ‘Everyone’ group, with weird uncles. Oh wait, was I one of those too?

See this great video about putting people in boxes. Each group is in their uniform. But they ask questions where members of each group join in. My favorite part was a young man who admitted he was bisexual. He was alone. So everyone there supported him clapping for his bravely coming forward.

What Happens When We Stop Putting People in Boxes.

Credit Channel 2 Denmark

Go find others who are or have been through something similar to you. Ask them how they got through? Get support. Learn from their successes and failures. Go teach others what you learn.

You would not believe what WW2 vets I worked with taught me about living. The big lesson is we are more alike than different. No matter where we come from.

The Non Shortage of STEM Graduates

In the good old days of my father, you would join a company for life. Dad worked 30+ years for Eastman Kodak retiring with a golden handshake. He had a job for life and the company took care of raises, savings, investing, pension, medical and dental care.

Today you are working on projects. The automobile industry went to this model first. Every year you look for a project on the next model year to be delivered. The company no longer guaranteed you a job unless you found a project.

My work experience is in varied industries and seven states. Been on my current job for 7 years, working my 9^th and 10^th projects for the same program. One year had 3 different managers and 3 senior managers while working on the same project.

The Atlantic has a very good article “The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage”. Forget the dire predictions of a looming shortfall of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians.  https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/

If there were a shortage of Engineers and Software Programmers, you would see salaries going up. “Salaries for STEM jobs in Decline” CIO.com reports “Though STEM-focused jobs experienced a slowdown, growing only 1 percent year-over-year, they're still near the top for wage growth. Since 2006, jobs in STEM fields have experienced growth of around 10 percent, according to the PayScale Index” in 2015. 1 percent salary growth is not showing a labor shortage, but an abundance of potential employees.

http://www.cio.com/article/2915869/careers-staffing/salaries-for-stem-jobs-in-decline.html

This supposed shortage is why H1B visas are offered. Instead H1B have been used to get businesses lower price help. My wife got her Masters in Business Administration in Oklahoma, and went to work under a H1B for mortgage companies originally earning low $30’s in California in 1998. Businesses have always worked to keep expenses low. Offshoring and H1Bs gave business more tools to lower labor costs.

If you are going to enjoy a long career in STEM, my advice is the same for most careers:

1. You need technical knowledge, and you need to keep learning. Budget time and money to keep your skills up to date. Paid to learn Solidworks on my own when closing my business and getting back into engineering. Take at least 2 classes or seminars and read a dozen books every year.
2. People skills are as important as technical skills. Stop your distractions and focus on the people in front of you. Meetings go quicker and more gets done.
3. Presenting your ideas is key to your success. Toastmasters is an invaluable way to learn speaking & presenting. I can talk to groups of a few hundred, and teach 2-3 hour training classes keeping people engaged and involved in learning. No problem speaking up or facilitating a meeting.
4. Networking is an invaluable career skill. Learn to meet people, make them confortable, connect them with others, and get business done. Act like a host and you will never be out of place.

 This post is a wake up call to new scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians who like me, lacked these skills coming out of college. The work world is not easy, and truly never was. Your advantage is being humble enough to learn new lessons.