Who is this symposium for anyway?

Yesterday I attended a cancer research symposium at a major medical school. There were about 100 scientists in attendance; probably 85-90 young scientists (post docs, graduate students, etc.) and about 10-15 senior faculty. 85-90% of the questions and interactions came from those 10-15 senior faculty. Certainly some of this was shyness, but the opacity of the talks also contributed. Only scientists who had followed these fields for a long time could follow the talks. The speakers made no effort to tailor the talk to the bulk of the audience.

Not only is this a comment on presentation quality, it is also a comment on the lack of planning and foresight typical of many biomedical research symposia. Did the conference planners expect that most of the attendees would be young scientists? Is that what they wanted to happen? If so, did they inform the speakers? If so, did the speakers tailor their talks to the expected audience? Probably none of this occurred.

Now getting young scientists to speak up when more senior scientists are in the room is a tough problem, but if young scientists are the audience, leaders need to work on this problem. Otherwise why have a conference if it doesn't meet the needs of the audience? Beside, if you can "break the ice" early, virtually everyone will feel more comfortable and engaged. How about demanding senior faculty attend the poster sessions and pose questions to the young scientists? How about having a series of 5 minute "blitz briefings"by the young scientists, getting as many on the stage as possible.? How about breakout sessions where young scientists are pre-assigned major roles?

There may be many better ideas, but the key point when planning a conference is to figure out who it is for and then structure the conference to best inform that audience. This may take some additional work and some creativity, but without making that investment, we are wasting a lost of time for a lot of people.

Try to engage the audience

A central purpose of a presentation is to get comments from the audience. This benefits the speaker in two ways: 1) it may help in your research, and 2) it may help you in future presentations.

A great outcome is when audience members can make comments that get you thinking, bring in facts from new disciplines, etc. Audience participation can enhance your future research. Additionally, audience comments will give you insight about what they are following, what they've learned from the presentation, and where they are confused. This is valuable input for the next time you give the presentation. Every presentation should get better each time you give it.

The problem is that most audiences have gotten accustomed to sitting by silently and deferring questions until the very end of the talk (by which time most questions are forgotten or are no longer relevant). As a speaker you need to shake them out of this stupor early in the talk. Pose questions, ask them about their familiarity with the subject at the beginning of the talk, find out about the distribution of expertise in the audience, etc. Another thing you can do is conspire with a friend or two and have them pose a question or two during your talk. Once someone breaks the ice, a lively discussion is possible. David Stern of the Howard Hughes Institute has even suggested mixing in a few blank slides just to shake up the audience and tell them this is a time for interaction. I've never done it, but it is worth a try!