On my desk, right in front of the computer screen, lies a pile of paper. This pile gives me headaches, keeps me awake at night, and is a source of frustration on sunny weekends. It is the pile of unfinished manuscripts, gathered and carried along from earlier positions as a postdoc. Every paper has a story attached to it. Some papers are only in their first version, hardly more than a collection of raw data. Others have seen many revisions, have passed the eyes of multiple co-authors, and have got stuck just before submission, because something just is not quite right. There are papers of PhD students, co-workers, and of myself as leading author. Some contain data taken two years ago.

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Social networks are everywhere. Personally I like Facebook to keep track of old friends and add new ones. These friends are mostly of nonscientific background. Until recently I had never realized the importance of social networks in science. When you do your PhD and perhaps some postdoc projects here and there, it is hard to think about what it takes to become a successful scientist other than doing brilliant science. Although scientific skills are undoubtedly important, I believe that one of the key ingredients which can make or break a scientific career is a good network of friends.

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My example presentation
When discussing quality of presentations it helps a lot to discuss on the basis of example presentations. An example presentation is exactly what this post is about. Although I do not expect all the readers of this blog to be interested in the content of my talk, it would probably not harm to sketch the context of this speech. About a year ago I gave a 25minute presentation for an audience of about 75 physics PhD students. That day was organized by the Dutch science-supporting agency FOM especially for the students. The program included workshops on presentations, on writing papers and on career planning. I was the last, plenary,  speaker, just before the good-bye drink. My task was to give them a flavor, possibly with some humor, of what it means to pursue an academic career.

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