Ask The Engineers: How Do You Unplug?
This week I’m on my (belated) honeymoon in Hawaii. As I’ve written about before (on my wedding day, no less!), my wife is a wonderful person to put up with my engineering ways. This time, I’m actually writing this post in advance, because I’m attempting to unplug and relax while I’m away. No, not completely. I’ll be in pretty much constant contact with the outside world if necessary, though the plan is to unplug as much as possible. Baby steps, y’know? However, my first big decision was not to take my laptop with me. While I’ll still have access to email and Twitter and the rest of those time-wasters out there, it will be on my phone. And you know what is much easier on my laptop than on my phone? Writing substantial emails and doing work. So I likely won’t do either. In essence, I’m just making it a little…
First Proposal Rejection
A few weeks ago, I had my first proposal rejection and it wasn’t pleasant. I definitely had to break out the scotch. This was a huge proposal with many universities involved and while I counted myself fortunate to be a part of the team, I’m still disappointed. My part was a supportive role for the overall proposal ideas, but it still would have been a significant chunk of money to jumpstart my academic career. The one thing that’s really disappointing, especially since this was my first proposal, is that the entity holding the purse strings is not one that gives you feedback but just says “thanks but no thanks”. When I started writing my first couple of proposals, I dreamed with delusions of grandeur (hitting my first 5 in row or something stupid like that) but I definitely feared striking out. My startup funds are available for the first two years so I basically…
Elevator Pitch
I happen to be in an area of the country that is really, really enthusiastic about entrepreneurship. Outside of Silicon Valley, Boston is as good as it gets (better, some say). I have always found the idea of starting a company fascinating – and in fact, my minor for my PhD is entrepreneurship. One of the things that all entrepreneurship classes teach you is how to do an elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a very short (length of an elevator ride, get it?), concise description of your idea, that coveys just enough information to get the person you are talking to excited to hear more. Normally it’s used when you are pitching your company idea to a potential investor. But it can also be used to describe your research. Think about it – when somebody asks, so what is your research? Or what is your job? They don’t want…