Workshop expansion - Presentation techniques

Last week, the Research Education Committee (responsible for all questions concerning the education of PhD students) at my department decided to (financially) support me and my good friend and colleague, Tom Staveley, with our workshop in Communication, Feedback and Presentation Techniques, that we successfully hosted last semester.

To be honest, it was never certain we would host the workshop again, due to both of us having more than enough on our hands with our own projects, so we basically agreed that we wouldn't host it again unless someone specifically asked (read begged) us to.
Based on participant evaluations we already knew where we could improve and also had a clear picture in what direction we wanted to steer any future development, so that part of any future organisation plan was already set.
So one day the Director of Studies called out for suggestions to new PhD courses and workshops to be hosted, either internal or external (if a subject is of broader scientific interest it could possibly be hosted by the BioResearch School instead). Almost immediately I got an e-mail from the Public Relations Manager stating that me and Tom's workshop should definitely be up for discussion. That was the cue we needed and after some discussion and phone calls it landed on the agenda of the Research Education Committee.

The main differences from last time is that we will now have more allocated time for the entire workshop spread over two weeks, there will be more emphasis on presentation techniques and we will get departmental funding to invite external speakers where my own and Tom's expertise is lacking. Of course it will also mean that there will be some more time to dig deeper into communication and feedback, which I would argue is equally, if not even more, important in research than presentation techniques.
Practically, we are aiming to move the student presentations within the workshop to our large lecture halls, for everyone to have a chance at proper practice with feedback before the day of dissertation (where most PhD candidates tend to use our grand lecture hall).

The workshop is currently scheduled for spring, 2018, and if you're a PhD student or master student currently enrolled in a project at the Dept. of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Myself (right), on one of the obstacle courses used for team-building purposes at Dalslands Aktiviteter, more than five years ago. A lot has happened since. Photo credit: Robert Karlsson.

I celebrated this decision in the most fitting way, by taking on the role of team-building instructor (together with two other instructors) for a mid-size private company, at my previous full-time employer, Dalslands Aktiviteter, again. I was thrilled to be back in those shoes, and I spent half the weekend putting the participants through difficult group exercises followed up by debriefings, often concerning (but definitely not limited to) resource management, synergy, communication, feedback, project planning, honesty and work relations. I'm happy to say that it went really well and I'm looking forward to more of those commissions.