Oh dear, has it really been a week since I last posted? Oops. On Monday I submitted my NIH challenge grant to the university sponsored research office, and they uploaded it to grants.gov later that day. We got the confirmation and it was declared a "perfect submission," no errors. Hooray! I doubt the reviewers will have the same response...
I am now at a conference in a beachy place (too bad I don't really like the beach). The conference is on a rather specialized, interdisciplinary topic - one that I have recently gotten involved in and so it was suggested that I come to this conference. I don't know anyone here and much of the subject matter (the neuro stuff, in particular) is beyond me. I'm not presenting (although I intend to next year) so that further limits my ability to meet people. And finally, I'm not staying at the conference hotel. That's a big pile of disadvantages.
In general, I'm not very good at meeting people. If there was someone whose work I knew, or whose talk was something I could approach them about, I would force myself to get over my nervousness and go talk to them... but so far I haven't even had that as an opening. I did manage to talk to a few people at the poster session this morning. Tomorrow morning there will be a session on a topic I do understand, so I intend to make an effort to socialize with those speakers. Also there is one person here that I have communicated with before, but I haven't seen that person yet. This person's poster is tomorrow so I will finally be able to track him/her down and meet them in person, so that will be good.
So far I have not succeeded at networking at this conference. (But then again, I always suck at networking, even when I'm at a conference full of people whose work I know and when I'm there with friends.) But I HAVE learned a lot of interesting things and gotten some great information about obtaining funding.
Tomorrow will be better. But in the meantime... I'm watching the entire first season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta on iTunes and eating pizza. I've also gotten a surprising amount of work done for being at a conference, so I guess it's not all bad.
Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes (Mounds Cupcakes)
23 hours ago
4 comments:
The one simple key to networking in all contexts is that people love when other people are interested in them and are asked about themselves and are listened to attentively as they talk about themselves. The rest is details.
PhysioProf is EXACTLY right!
But I do have to say that I am so very surprised to hear that you are nervous about talking to people. That does not at all come across in the way you blog, you've always seemed so superconfident and more than capable of being brazen, if not actually a hussy. :)
In any case, glad to hear that you seem to have done just fine so far and that tomorrow should be even better. Hope you get oodles of great stuff from being there and that you have a smooth trip home.
I hear you, I suck at networking, too. I always try to be interested and can't come up with anything.
But I just wanted to say how much I LOVE your blog title. Seriously, I laugh every single time I see it, often it's the thing making my day. The picture of the bird just makes it.
I read your blog regularly, but don't think I've ever commented here, but now, I have to. Earlier this year I had to go to my first conference where I knew almost no one (except the person who had invited me to be in his symposium). I made a valiant effort to chat during events where people were around, like poster sessions, but the first day did not manage to wrangle dinner plans or anything like it. What did I do? I also got pizza and watched the Real Housewives (except, I believe it was Orange County). I heartily approve of your plan!
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