This evening I gave a talk about my group’s research.
From a practical level the timing was completely absurd. Tomorrow morning I need to take a train to start a semester sabbatical at MIT, then two days after that I need to fly to the West Coast, and then to Chicago for the AAAS meeting a week after that, and of course I have a million things to do before leaving NY.
So why did I agree to give a talk just now?
I’ve come to realize that I did it precisely because all of these things. I needed to force myself to get up in front of a group of people and take stock, to take a risk during a time of transition, to show brand new demos of brand new research that I’ve never shown before.
You can stay in a little bubble and work on your stuff, and of course you’ll like whatever you’re doing. But in moments of change, it is important to get outside opinions.
In this case, what I learned from peoples’ reactions, from their questions, to which parts they liked or didn’t like, was worth its weight in gold.
In a very important way, giving a talk about your research is itself a kind of research.