An excellent article by writer Clive Thompson on how he researches a new subject

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Dan Russell’s SearchResearch blog on March 3, 2023 there is a post titled PSA: Read Clive Thompson’s article about how he does research. That article is at Medium on February 27, 2023 and is titled How I Research a New Subject. Clive discusses seven topics:

 

1]  Start by getting a 50,000-foot-in-the-air view

2]  Go deeper with scholarly and industry material

3]  Take tons of notes

4]  Look for experts and people with authority

5]  Follow up on ‘everything’

6]  Persist, persist, persist

7]  Seek ‘saturation’

 

His third paragraph under #1 says:

 

“So I start by doing what I think of as ‘50,000-foot-in-the-air’ reading. I’ll hunt down a couple dozen good articles on the subject from newspapers, magazines or white papers that are aimed at laypeople, and read them all. This stuff isn’t deep, but it’s broad. It orients me to the major concepts, jargon, controversies, and personalities in a field. Wikipedia can often be surprisingly good for this purpose.”

 

Clive doesn’t say where he finds those good newspaper and magazine articles. It might just be out in the open on the web. On February 23, 2020 I blogged about Finding speech topics and doing research. In that post I discussed an example of an obscure but useful magazine called Vital Speeches of the Day, and described how it could be read on the EBSCOhost database that can be accessed from the web site for my friendly, local public library.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a 2019 book by Clive titled Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World. That title points out a problem with getting started on a new subject - terminology can shift over time. When you look at Google's Ngram Viewer, as shown above, you will see that coders is a newer term. I learned about programming computers back in the 1960s at an Explorer post in Pittsburgh. Back then we called ourselves programmers, not coders.

 

In my 2020 blog post I referred to another post from February 4, 2019 titled Reliable places to find information for your speeches. In that post I suggested starting by interviewing a reference librarian at your friendly local public library. Ask him or her both about books, and which of their databases you can best use. You might get referred to a book in the For Dummies or Complete Idiot’s Guide to series. If you asked a librarian about Clive’s book, then they might look up Coders as a keyword in their Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). They could tell you to find Coders and similar books indexed by subject under Computer Programmers.  

 

Under #4 he mentions that since he’s a reporter he will keep track of the experts (and their categories), since they will be people he’ll call to interview. An older blog post of mine on July 8, 2010 is titled Web search: 10 strategies for various occasions. Number 8 is to Find Someone Who Cares. Look for an Expert on the topic, and then contact him or her by email, phone, or in person. When I looked at PubMed Central, I found an article by Megan Hienicke et al in the March 2022 issue of Behavior Analysis in Practice titled Improving behavior analysts’ public speaking: recommendations from expert interviews.

 

On April 25, 2021 I blogged about The Joy of Search, a 2019 book by Daniel M. Russell, is an extremely useful guide about how to do research both online and offline.

 

The silhouette of a man’s head came from Openclipart.

 

 

Job interview questions about soft skills also can be used for Table Topics questions at Toastmasters club meetings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table Topics is the impromptu speaking section of a Toastmasters club meeting. That is where members without roles in running the meeting participate by providing one-to-two-minute answers to questions. Table Topics is discussed in a brief article by Greg Lewis on pages 26 and 27 of the January 2022 Toastmaster Magazine titled The two sides of Table Topics.

 

Where can you find good ideas for questions to ask? One obvious way is to just Google the phrase “Table Topics Questions”, perhaps adding filetype:pdf. In a previous post on November 21, 2022 I discussed how Conversation Starters also can be used for Table Topics questions. And on November 12, 2022 I blogged about how Writing prompts can also be used for Table Topics questions.

 

Still another source is questions used for job interviews. In your local public library system you likely can find several books with questions and answers. Three examples are: Ronald W. Fry’s  2016 book, 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions, Matthew DeLuca’s 1997 book, Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions, and Peter Veruki’s 1999 book, The 250 Job Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked and the answers that will get you hired. Ten questions from Peter Veruki’s book are:

 

What’s your dream job?  

Give an example of how you saw a project through, despite obstacles.

How do you regroup when things haven’t gone as planned?

What personal skill or life habit have you struggled to improve?

What’s the most creative or innovative project you’ve worked on?

Describe an improvement you personally initiated.

What’s your most productive or ideal work setting?

Do you prefer continuity in structure or frequent change in your daily work?

Tell me what you learned from a recent book.

What things impress you in colleagues?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How about Google searches? It is helpful to also add the jargon phrase, “soft skills.” That sounds like it might describe activities like pillow fights (shown above). But soft skills (also known as core or common skills) are those common to all professions – like public speaking, problem solving, teamwork, critical thinking, etc. There is a long post by Juste Semetaite at the Toggl blog on November 4, 2022 titled 100 Soft Skills Assessment and Interview Questions.

 

The job interview silhouettes came from Openclipart, and the pillow fight came from the Library of Congress.

Five things you need to be a highly effective public speaker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Authority Magazine (Medium) in February and March there is a series of 25 articles resulting from interviews with Fotis Georgiadis on the Five things you need to be a highly effective public speaker. Those five things are the main take-away. (The interviews also asked a long series of other questions). Here are the dates, interviewees, and their five things:

 

February 13, 2022

 

Julie Navickas [university communications instructor]:

Understand Your Audience

Engage Your Audience

Be Aware of Your Non-Verbal Communication

Use Humor Effectively

Practice

 

Natalie Sullivan of Vegas Improv Power:

Know what you know.

Know what you don’t know.

Care about what you are saying.

Comfort in discomfort

Connection.

 

February 16, 2022

 

Jennifer Best of AAE Speakers Bureau:

Your “why.”

Lots of practice.

A niche.

A compelling story.

A community.

 

Andrea Heuston of Artitudes:

Audience Research.

Location Research.

Practice. Practice. Practice

Hook them with an opening ‘heart’ story.

Pay attention to language and cadence.

 

Lynn Mason-Pattnosh of ConciergeQ Media:

Public speaking as performance.

Smile.

Breathe.

Audience.

Pressure is a privilege.

 

Dr. Angelia Registad [communication consultant and coach]:  

Be Authentic and Vulnerable

Tell a Story

Use Visuals

Be Organized and Prepared

Practice, Practice, Practice

 

February 20, 2022

 

Keenan Beavis of Longhouse Media:  

Understand that being nervous is completely normal.

Confidence in yourself.

Belief in what you’re saying.

Individuals, not a crowd.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

 

Kyle Bose of Kettering Fairmont High School:

Great body language.

Inflection of voice.

Pacing.

Knowledge.

Awareness.

 

LaQuita Cleare of Clear Communication Academy:

Ability to have a conversation

Storytelling skills

A powerful hook: first impressions matter

Dynamic delivery skills

A clear message

 

Maria Cormier of Emerging Leader Training:

Greet people at the door.

Get the audience involved.

Make it a conversation.

Know your topic.

Gain confidence through practicality.

 

Dan Faill of Faill Safe Solutions:

Your Mindset

Your Message

Your Story

Your Speaker Friends

Your Voice

 

Jonathan George of Unleash Your Rockstar Personal Branding Agency:

Clarity

Content.

Preparation.

Practice.

 

Tommy Hilcken [speaking coach]:  

You must be trained.

Be confident.

Be prepared.

Do the biz.

Love what you do.

 

Joseph McClendon III of the Neuroencoding Institute:

Identification.

Logic/Reason.

Attack and confess.

Solution.

Assume the action.

 

Simba Nyazika of Lenica Research Group:

Have a clear vision (why) for the presentation.

Clarify the one primary thing you want the audience to leave with or to do.

Use stories to engage and make your speech memorable.

Use your non-verbal behaviour to make your speech more impactful.

Make eye contact with sections of the audience, especially during key portions which you want them to remember.

 

February 23, 2022

 

Paul Krismer [keynote speaker]:

Genuinely have something to say.

Be in a business frame of mind.

Be a bit funny.

A good talk is filled with stories that leave an emotional impact.

Prioritize (individualize) your audience for every speech.

 

February 27, 2022

 

LeAnn Brazeal of Missouri State University:

Authenticity.

Conversational style.

Appropriate practice.

Passion for your topic.

Content you’re proud to share.

 

Kelly Charles-Collins [attorney and TEDx speaker]:

You must know what you are going to speak about, who you are going to speak to, what you are going to charge, who will pay you for what you are speaking about, what is the value you will provide.

Whatever your rate is, you must be able to say it and shut up.

Be authentically you.

You must have a depth of knowledge about your topic.

Who you say you are on social media, your website, marketing materials, etc. must be congruent with who shows up for a client.

 

Debra Jason of The Write Direction:

D is for dream.

A is for authenticity.

N is for nurture.

C is create connection.

E is for engagement.

 

March 1, 2022

 

Maria DiLorenzo of MFD Style:

Practice

Pay attention to your speech cadence

Get personal

Be emotive

Believe in yourself and your message

 

March 6

 

Jon Saunders [business leader]:

Practice! Practice! Practice!

Bring energy to the presentation.

Content. Balance between actual points you are trying to make and stories.

Deliver your presentation with a calm confidence.

If using a PowerPoint, remember that less is more.

 

Kyle Slaymaker of The Slaymaker Method:

Be your authentic self.

Be honest.

Be confident.

Place yourself behind others.

Learn from your audience.

 

March 8, 2022

 

Holly Dowling [keynote speaker]:

Lose your ego.

Find your “why.”

Throw out the script and stop memorizing!

Be relatable, be trustworthy, and be empathetic.

Start focusing on bringing your light to your message so you can shine a light on everyone else.

 

March 10, 2022

 

Matias Rodsevich of PR Lab:

Confidence brings credibility and authenticity.

Being yourself relates to your ability to keep it natural.

Relating to the audience also establishes a connection that helps convey what you are saying.

Keeping it short is vital.

Lastly, practicing your speech is a guarantee for having the natural flow needed.

 

March 13, 2022

 

Jackie Kallen of Bruce Merrin’s Celebrity Speakers Bureau:

Motivate.

Inspire.

Entertain.

Be creative.

Share your personality.

 

What words show up most in those lists of five things? They are: practice (10), confidence (6), story (6), audience (5), clarity (3), conversation (3), and why (3).

 

Dan Faill claimed that:

“In fact, nearly 77% of people have glossophobia, or fear of public speaking.”

 

But back on October 12, 2020 I blogged about Do 77% of Americans fear public speaking? No! That percentage described stage fright in Swedes who also had social anxiety disorder.

 

Chasing the truth by using interviews

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At my friendly, local, public library I just found the 2021 book by Jodi Cantor and Megan Twohey titled Chasing the Truth: A Young Journalist’s Guide to Investigative Reporting. Pages 232 to 241 outline their process, which involves use of interviews as follows:

 

Uncover abuses

Follow the facts

Be specific and precise

Find sources

Prepare for interviews

Research your sources

Establish the ground rules

Be up-front with your sources

Record your conversations

Document your findings

Show up

Double-check

Be fair

Go off topic

Move fast

Never let up

 

You can read the details at Amazon via their Look Inside preview for that book.

 

Before you interview you need to prepare by making a list of questions. Attorneys do this a lot, and prepare checklists for the types of cases they do. One type of legal interview in the discovery process before a civil trial is called a deposition. That is out-of-court testimony made under oath and recorded by an authorized officer for later use in court. For example, on March 11, 2021 Karen Koehler has an article titled Deposition of the Defendant Driver – basic checklist.

 

A cartoon from page 57 in a 1917 book titled F. Fox’s Funny Folk at the Internet Archive was modified and colored in.

 

Public speaking shouldn’t be your greatest weakness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above, during a job interview you might be asked about your greatest weakness. It shouldn’t be public speaking. If so, then you should get help and learn to get better. Consider joining Toastmasters International.

 

The August 13, 2021 Savage Chickens cartoon titled Friday the 13th: Part XXIX shows Jason Vorhees in a hockey goalie’s mask. (Jason appears in the Friday the 13th film franchise of a dozen slasher films with high body counts). Another cartoon from October 21, 2016 titled The Best Interview has a surprising answer for Why do you want to work here?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An article by Rolf Bax at Resume.io on August 10, 2021 is titled The worst job interview questions, revealed. He reports results from a survey of 2,000 Americans, As shown above in two bar charts, What is your greatest weakness? is the eighth most commonly asked question, and the fifth hardest question to answer. The article also discusses how to answer those worst (hardest to answer) questions.   

 

The low point for my first job interview trip

It’s spring, and the time when university students go out on job interview trips. I can’t forget a story about one trip with a very low point over four decades ago. That was back in 1977 when I was a Ph.D. student at Carnegie -Mellon University. I had flown to a large city in Oklahoma (perhaps Tulsa, or maybe Oklahoma City) and then was told to take the mid-afternoon 10-passenger company shuttle plane to a small northern city (like Bartlesville or Ponca City) for an interview at a medium-sized oil company. The Iranian-American manager of their materials and corrosion engineering group took me to dinner, and left me at a motel. Early the next morning he took me to headquarters, and I got to meet and talk with several of his engineers.

It seemed they were just going through the motions. One Egyptian engineer who’d graduated from a well-known US university clearly had been hired very recently. (Later I found out that he had filled the position which I interviewed for. Perhaps HR was just burning up their annual recruiting budget.) Right after an early, large lunch in their company cafeteria, someone drove me to the airport and I headed back on the company shuttle. The shuttle flight was relatively bumpy. After I landed I started walking across the asphalt back to the main terminal entrance in direct sunlight. But the combination of a hot day and a queasy stomach were too much for me. I wound up clutching a chain link fence while vomiting up my lunch, and still want to barf whenever I see that company’s logo. (On March 20, 2018 at Forbes there was an article titled The moment I realized my interview was fake – because they already hired someone).

Some advertised jobs aren’t real - they might be called phantoms; some real jobs never are advertised because they get filled via networking. My first job in Ann Arbor came via networking done by the Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science department head. Robert Sekerka had been talking on the phone about an alumni matter with a manager of the Climax Molybdenum Company lab, William C. Hagel. Then he asked if they had any openings, and was told they were looking for someone to work on sulfide stress cracking (SSC) of alloy steels. Sekerka said, well Garber’s been stinking up the halls with his SSC tests, so you should talk with him. He did, I interviewed, and got the job.

But in between there were two other curious interviews. At Youngstown Sheet & Tube the HR guy was more hostile than a Marine Corps drill sergeant, since he’d been ordered to look for a research guy while they were laying off other operating personnel. Timken research in Canton, Ohio interviewed me too. I was impressed by the facilities, except that all but very senior engineers had their desks in an a huge open ‘bullpen.’ Later I found out that Timken almost never hired fresh PhDs – they preferred instead to send employees hired with less education to Case Western Reserve University part time for their PhDs.                

10 Dumb, 10 Smart, and 10 Celebrity CEO Interview Questions

At the Forbes web site on March 4, 2018 there was an article by Liz Ryan titled Ten Smart Interview Questions – and Ten Painfully Dumb Ones. Here are Liz’s dumb ones:

 

D01] Why do you want to work here?

D02] What’s your greatest weakness?

D03] Where do you see yourself in five years?

D04] What would your last manager say about you?

D05] What are three words you would use to describe yourself?

D06] If you were a can of soup, what kind of soup would you be?

D07] What do you bring to our team?

D08] Why should we hire you?

D09] Tell me about a time when you overcame a challenge.

D10] How badly do you want the job?

Over the years I’ve been asked many of them. The best answer I’d heard given to D03] (Where do you see yourself in five years?) reportedly came from someone who was being interviewed for Vice President of Research at a materials company (a position from which no further promotion was possible). He simply replied:

 “retired and living in the south of France.”

For D06] (If you were a can of soup, what kind of soup would you be?) I’d be tempted to say condensed Cream of Mutant Soup or Cream of Zombie Soup.

For D10] (How badly do you want the job?) I once almost blurted out that I didn’t want that job nearly as badly as you thought I did. That interviewer incorrectly had assumed that I must be desperate to immediately find another position. Then he told me a story about a previous candidate who hadn’t been worth hiring (D08]), and made me a lowball starting salary offer. But I wasn’t desperate – just insulted. I walked away since I had six months more unemployment coming in, that more than covered all my living expenses.

Here are Liz’s smart questions:

S01] What have you learned about our company so far?

S02] Here’s a quick description of the role. How do you think this job will be similar to other jobs you’ve had?

S03] Here’s what we’re dealing with in the department. (Explain) What are your thoughts about our 2018 challenges and opportunities?

S04] What can I tell you about the role, the team, the company or the industry that will help you understand what the job is all about?

S05] Here’s a typical day on the job. (Explain) What parts of the position sound like they’d be the most challenging? How would you overcome those challenges?

S06] Here’s the biggest project you’d take on in this role in the first few months. (Explain) How would you approach that project?

S07] I’d love to hear a story from one of your past jobs that illustrates how you show up at work. Tell me a story about a situation where you were in your glory, doing what you love to do and making a positive difference.

S08] How does this job move your career forward? What does it give you that you don’t already have?

S09] What do you imagine will be the highest priorities for the person in this job, in their first few months?

S10] If you were offered and accepted this position, how would you step into the role? What would your ‘attack plan’ be?

There was another set of ten in an article titled Celebrity CEOs: What they ask in interviews that had appeared on March 1, 2018 in the biweekly Managing People at Work newsletter:

C01] Tell me something that’s true, that almost nobody agrees with you on.

C02] If you were able to sit yourself down 10 years ago, what advice would you give your younger self?

C03] On your very best day at work, what did you do that day?

C04] What would someone who doesn’t like you say about you?

C05] Are you the smartest person you know?

C06] What didn’t you get the chance to include on your resume?

C07] What do you want to be when you grow up?

C08] Can you tell me about four people whose careers you have improved?

C09] How would you describe yourself in one word?

C10] On a scale from 1 to 10, how weird are you?

The person who asked C05] (Are you the smartest person you know?) wanted to hear a YES. But if you suggested another person, then he would try to hire them. My wife said that question was missing the critical context phrase “for this job.” If she was asked it in an interview for an accounting job, she might say I was. But I know nothing about accounting, and thus would be worthless.

The Savage Chickens cartoon from February 22, 2018 was titled Didn’t Get the Job.

  

An unintentionally hilarious video from a TV interview

In my last post I showed a very professional TEDMED video of Randy Olson. The video shown above is less professional. It seems to be an unofficial recording of an interview (or maybe a rehearsal) at  the KXAN TV studio on narrative training for scientists.  He was in Austin, Texas to speak on Storytelling skills: Now mandatory for a career in science at the opening plenary session of the 2014 meeting for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. Randy’s content is very interesting, but the recording has a significant problem.

Watch as the camera repeatedly drifts (or pans) left, off both Randy and his interviewer, and then returns to them. Starting at 0:25 we can see the hood on the front of TV camera #1. At 0:55 we get to see that whole camera and their green screen. Finally, at 1:55 we get to see three TV cameras, that green screen, and the studio wall with soundproofing and storage shelves. Was the cameraperson sitting on a swivel chair?

Back in March 2011 Nick Morgan interviewed Geoff Birmingham about How to Produce a Great Speaker Video. Most of Randy Olson’s interview could be salvaged by editing, but we got to see the raw version.