Engagements & Resources

I’m fascinated by the television show Shark Tank, where professional investors listen to a brief pitch from aspiring entrepreneurs, ask a few questions, then make a decision on the spot to invest (or not invest) up to millions of dollars in an idea. Similarly, if you’ve ever pitched project ideas to someone who has been doing research for a significant amount of time, they can often tell you very quickly whether they think your idea has promise

When you look ahead on your career path, do you see nothing but open road to be traveled, or is there a big brick wall in your way that feels insurmountable? Do you feel like you’re skipping along, or like you’re struggling to make any progress because of the heavy weight you’re dragging? Do you even know what path you want to be on, or are you still working to discover what direction you want to travel?

What do you do with your ideas? If you’ve been following along, we’ve worked through how to generate research ideas, why you need to have lots of ideas (and be willing to have bad ideas!), and how to figure out which ideas are the best ideas. It’s easy for this to sound like a linear process that you walk through for each idea, but of course the reality is much more complex. You might have an idea that is initially not that great, but after months of thinking and refining, becomes something you are excited about. Or, you might have two ideas that on their own don’t go far, but become amazing when merged together.

I have a lot of bad ideas. Literally thousands of them. Not just bad, but terrible ideas. And, they are the secret to my success in this job.

As researchers, ideas are arguably our most valuable form of currency, and generating new ideas is a requirement for becoming an independent scientist. However, relatively few resources are available to offer guidance on this process.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that you’re in the science business. What you might not realize is that this is also a people business, and that the relationships you build within (and outside of) the scientific community are not only essential for your career progression, but can also be fun and meaningful.

t’s conference season! That means travel to new places, listening to great talks, free beer at poster sessions, and…networking! Last month, I talked about why you need a network and who needs to be in your network, and the fact that despite the importance of this activity, it’s one that we often dread.

A professional network is an essential part of success in nearly all career paths. Even Walter White in Breaking Bad needed a professional network to get his job done! Yet, for many young scientists I meet, networking falls solidly into the category of “things I know I should be doing, but really dread.

I’ve had a great year for running – since last spring, I’ve set a personal record in every race I’ve entered. Much of that success has come from hard work and strategic training. But, as I alluded to in my last blog post, while hard work and training are very important, they aren’t everything.

In my last post, I used the analogy of personal training to think about what motivates us and how we can harness that to consider career options and push through the rough patches that we’ll inevitably encounter in our career trajectories. I’m going to continue with the sports analogy for a bit longer, thinking about how we can apply the training habits of athletes to our work life.