Connection
Resources
Talk about your own work
- Question: Is brainstorming a daily process?
Hamming: Once that was a very popular thing, but it
seems not to have paid off. For myself I find it desirable to
talk to other people; but a session of brainstorming is seldom
worthwhile. I do go in to strictly talk to somebody and say,
``Look, I think there has to be something here. Here's what I
think I see ...'' and then begin talking back and forth. But you
want to pick capable people. To use another analogy, you know
the idea called the `critical mass.' If you have enough stuff
you have critical mass. I talk to people and ask questions when
I think they can answer me and give me clues that I do not know
about. I go out and look! Yes, I find it necessary to talk to
people. I think people with closed doors fail to do this so they
fail to get their ideas sharpened, such as ``Did you ever notice
something over here?'' I never knew anything about it - I can go
over and look.
There is also the idea I used to call `sound absorbers'. When
you get too many sound absorbers, you give out an idea and they
merely say, ``Yes, yes, yes.'' What you want to do is get that
critical mass in action; ``Yes, that reminds me of so and so,''
or, ``Have you thought about that or this?'' When you talk to
other people, you want to get rid of those sound absorbers who
are nice people but merely say, ``Oh yes,'' and to find those
who will stimulate you right back. I picked my people carefully
with whom I did or whom I didn't brainstorm because the sound
absorbers are a curse. They are just nice guys; they fill the
whole space and they contribute nothing except they absorb ideas
and the new ideas just die away instead of echoing on.
- To be successful at research, it is essential that you learn
to cope with criticism, and even that you actively seek it out.
Learn to listen to valid, constructive criticism and to ignore
destructive, pointless criticism (after finding any pearls of
wisdom that may be buried in it).
In order to get feedback, you have to present your ideas.
Hang out. Talk to people. Tell them what you're up to and ask
what they're doing. (If you're shy about talking to other
students about your ideas, say because you feel you haven't got
any, then try talking to them about the really good-or
unbelievably foolish-stuff you've been reading. This leads
naturally into the topic of what one might do next.)
Write up what you're working on, even if you're not ready to
write a full conference or journal paper, and show it to people.
Even for pre-publishable papers, write carefully and clearly, to
maximize your chances of getting useful comments (and of having
people read what you wrote at all). Most people don't read most
of the papers they're given, so don't take it personally when
only a few of the copies you distribute come back with comments
on them.
Give presentations at seminar series at your university, at
conferences, and at other universities and research labs when
you get the chance. Your advisor should help you find
appropriate forums to present your work and ideas. Many fields
have informal workshops that are ideal for presenting work in
progress.
Attend conferences and talk about your research. When you
meet someone new and they ask you what you're working on, seize
the opportunity. Don't just say ``I'm doing my thesis on foobar
applications of whatsis algorithms'' -- tell them as much as
they're willing to listen to. You should have 30-second,
2-minute, 5-minute and 10-minute summaries of your thesis ready
at a moment's notice (but not memorized word-for-word; nobody
wants to listen to a canned speech).
- The more different people you can get connected with, the better.
Try to swap papers with people from different research groups,
different AI labs, different academic fields. Make yourself the bridge
between two groups of interesting people working on related problems
who aren't talking to each other and suddenly reams of interesting
papers will flow across your desk.
Talk about fresh idea
- Hamming: Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the
following facts about people who work with the door open or the
door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office
closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are
more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't
quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard
work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works
with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also
occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might
be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence
because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed
mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good
correlation between those who work with the doors open and those
who ultimately do important things, although people who work
with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work
on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they
miss fame.
- There's a bunch of electronic mailing lists that discuss AI
subfields like connectionism or vision. Get yourself on the ones
that seem interesting.
- The lab has a number of on-going informal paper discussion
groups on various subfields. These meet every week or two to
discuss a paper that everyone has read.
Conference
- If you interact with outsiders much-giving demos or going to
conferences-get a business card. Make it easy to remember your
name.
Introducing yourself to people whose presentations you found
interesting, and asking a relevant question or describing
related research you're doing, is also a good way to meet
people.
You should talk about your research interests every chance
you get. (But be sure to spend some time listening, too: you'll
learn more this way, and people will feel that your
conversations are a two-way street.) Have summaries of your work
of various lengths and levels of detail mentally prepared, so
that you can answer the inevitable ``So what are you working
on?'' intelligently and clearly. If someone expresses an
interest in your work, follow up! Send them e-mail talking about
new ideas or asking questions; send them drafts of papers; ask
them for drafts of their papers and send them comments. (If you
do this, they'll be sure to remember you!) Bring business cards
with your e-mail address to conferences to help new
acquaintances jog their memory.
Maintain the relationships you form via e-mail, and by
re-establishing contact at each workshop or conference you
attend. If you work at it, and use your initial acquaintances to
meet new people, you'll find that your ``network'' grows
rapidly.
Sometimes these contacts will grow into opportunities to do
collaborative research. Seize these opportunities: you will meet
more people, often become exposed to new methods of doing
research or new subfields within your research area, and the
responsibility you feel towards your collaborator may give you
more of an incentive to stay motivated and keep accomplishing
something.
Intern
- Get summer jobs away at other labs. This gives you a whole
new pool of people to get connected with who probably have a
different way of looking at things. One good way to get summer
jobs at other labs is to ask senior grad students how. They're
likely to have been places that you'd want to go and can
probably help you make the right connections.
Other professional activities
Other professional activities can bring you into the research
network as well: volunteer for program committees, send your
resume to a book review editor, offer to give seminars at other
universities, write conference and workshop papers and send them
to people you've met or would like to meet, or organize a
workshop on your subfield at a larger conference. Mentoring
junior graduate students and undergraduates is a good investment
in the long run (besides providing them a valuable service and
making you feel useful and knowledgeable).
Interpersonal skill
Cultivating interpersonal relationships is mostly about
treating people with respect and determining their different
working styles. Give credit where credit is due. Acknowledge and
thank them for their help. Return favors. Respect their
expertise, advice and time. Apologize if you are at fault.
Realize that different people work in different ways and are
motivated by different things -- the more you understand this
diversity, the better you will be able to interact and motivate
them to help you. For certain people, offering to buy them
dinner or giving them free basketball tickets can work wonders.
A true example: at one point in my research, I needed to make
significant modifications to some low-level code in the graphics
computer called "Pixel Planes 5." Doing this required expertise
that I did not have, but another graduate student named
Marc Olano did. How
should I tap into Marc's expertise and get my necessary changes
done?
The wrong way is to go up to Marc, explain the problem, and
get him to make the changes. Marc doesn't need the changes done;
I do. Therefore, I should do most of the work. Expecting him to
do the work shows disrespect of his time.
What I actually did was to explain the problem to Marc and he
sketched out a possible solution. Then I ran off and worked on
my own for a few days, trying to implement the solution. I got
part of it working, but ended up getting stuck on another part.
Only at that point did I go back to Marc and ask him for help.
By doing this, I showed that I respected his time and wanted to
minimize his burden, thus making him more willing to help me.
Months later, when he and
Jon Cohen needed my
help in setting up a system to demonstrate some of their
software, I was more than happy to return the favor.
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