Hacking Academia

🤯 A somewhat less cheerful but oh-so-important topic to cover in #HackingAcademia: dealing with Difficult Situations!I'm always happy when I'm learning, and as I've stepped up in leadership responsibilities these last few years especially, a natural consequence has been having to deal with an increased number of challenging professional situations.It's been a tough learning curve - much harder than technical research or giving a talk in many ways - with plenty of missteps along the way. But, as I reflected when writing some position statements recently, realized I feel much more comfortable in dealing with difficult situations compared to even a few years ago.This video outlines a few key concepts I think are important, and what I would have liked to have told my younger self say around 5 years ago...Key concepts covered include:💡 how much easier it is to navigate a difficult situation the SECOND and subsequent time - some expectation of what might be coming, and what you might do about it, makes a huuuuuuuuuugeeee difference. The first time often really just suuuuccccksss - not much getting around it, although you can compensate <somewhat> by borrowing from other's experience.💡 self-preservation: especially for extended affairs, you need to protect your health and psychological safety enough to sustain a reasonable response - you do no-one any favours if you burn out, and one rash decision or comment can unwind months of hard work in some situations.💡 perfect is the enemy of the good - and is often just not possible. You can't perfect dealing with bad situations: what you can aspire to is being effective in finding what is probably one of the better paths forward (you may be able to confirm, later, that you took the right path, but you may also just never know for sure).💡 support networks are amazing, come in multiple forms - but take time to build. If you invest in building your trusted relationships - including helping others in their crisis times, they will be so helpful in times of dealing with crisis yourself!💡 whilst I think some people get to a stage where they can reasonably say they perfected a certain skillset, I don't think (maybe crisis managers might say differently) you ever feel like you've perfected dealing with difficult situations. But if you can become broadly effective, without it completely derailing your sanity or mental health, that's a great capability asset for your career.YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gqRiaXRM

A slight twist on my normal Hacking Academia video intended audience: today's "On Expertise" video is targeted more at the myriad industry, government and other sector workers who are interested in getting expert advice and wonder how to find and assess it.It's not a comprehensive guide but covers a few concepts that I've observed to be particularly important to consider in your expertise-seeking journey:👉 what sort of expert do you need, and do you really need the world's leading expert (a relative claim) or do you just need an expert with a level of expertise sufficiently above your own to help you take that next step in understanding or strategizing?👉 ELOQUENCE DOES NOT INDICATE EXPERTISE. But experts (for most types of expert interactions) should be good communicators, especially in written, verbal and visual forms. Anyone bright and quick at picking up things can, especially in this ChatGPT age, pick up a topic quickly and sound good in a 30 minute keynote talk or a 45 minute panel. 👉 In fast moving / newish fields, you will encounter a lot of experts whose claim is based on expertise adjacency - they've switched from a different but related field / domain, and only picked up this particular expertise area relatively recently. A lot of the experiences from those other fields do usually transfer: the trick is to be aware for the gotchas: the concepts that definitively *do not* transfer and hence where they're starting fresh. Expertise adjacency is a necessary part of the game, because some of the new fields or domains have only been around for a few years rather than an entire career.👉 Expertise in the aggregate can make up for (or be more cost effective) than sourcing the "uber expert in all things you need": sometimes you will still get benefits from the uber expert because they will connect concepts that the committee or panel in aggregate may not👉 An expert can help you vet an expert: your pet expert doesn't need to be exactly in the same field to be useful in this manner👉 A simple test of deep expertise for many areas is a multi-hour, intensive discussion (pref with your pet expert in tow). You will quickly tell the difference between superficial knowledge and genuine deep knowledge and experience. Superficial experts will run out of reliance on superficial catch phrases like "garbage in = garbage out" - these are helpful at entry level but not so much in any deep discussion.👉 For the experts: aim to make yourself increasingly redundant: empower the people you're helping! It's really satisfying...YouTube: https://youtu.be/pFkikdTAZoM#HackingAcademia #expert #expertise

Do You Ever Sleep??? 😴 I periodically get variants of this question: "When do you sleep?", "Do you ever sleep", and the more constructive, "how the heck do you manage your time?"In today's #HackingAcademia video, I cover some key concepts and my experiences with the whole, "how many hours do you work" topic. Specifically:⌛ the difficulty in accurately estimating how many hours you work, with understimation and overestimation rampant, further confounded by the blurry boundaries for many researchers between "work" and what they are passionate about in their personal lives⌛ the fetishization of overworking and grind culture, and the tendency for this to creep into accurate and objective assessments of how hard people work in research and academic careers⌛ the insidious nature of how work can creep into days off, a call here, an impromptu zoom meeting there, and how that can result in underestimation⌛ coming to grips with the reality that you will be outworked by many: work smart, not hard, is good advice, and many work hard but ineffectively. That said, there are lots of people who are working both smart AND incredibly hard. Having the resolve to accept the differences in opportunity because of deliberate life choices to not work that hard is key.⌛ my work hours - often relatively normal but bursty around deadlines and horrendous when doing work travel⌛ the aftermath: a 40 hour week of one type of work can leave you refreshed and ready for fun and family: a 40 hour week of a different type of emotionally and personally draining work can leave you with plenty of "spare" hours but drained 🥱 ⌛ my situation - no surprises: work and lean heavily on amazing teams and collaborators, heavily leverage and lean on your "superpowers" - those few skills where you're very very fast⌛ skill hacks: capped time and energy budgets for activities, and have the discipline to keep to that budget regardless, and accurate, non-optimistic *or* pessimistic time estimation and subsequent planning and prioritisation🛡️ PROTECT your time and diary from non-time-effective tasks as much as possible: these are tasks where you are required to put in a fixed amount of time rather than achieve an outcome. This gets increasingly difficult to do the more senior you become - a large chunk of your week will unavoidably involve fairly fixed-time commitments.🤔 how many hours you work and how hard you work is entirely up to you - your ambition, your risk appetite, your life commitments, your need / interest for a life outside of work. What is important in my opinion is simply taking the time to be consciously aware of how hard you're working, and checking in occasionally that it matches your intentions (rather than something you've just slipped into doing by default).YouTube: https://youtu.be/wQpMtaycbVI#careers #worklifebalance #work #hours #working #jobs #academia #research #timemanagement

I have a massive backlog of #HackingAcademia videos to shoot: right at the top of the pile, prompted by a heap of conversations in recent months, is this one: the art of:Separating PROCESS from OUTCOMESThis is one of the most important but also most difficult skills to master in many professional careers.You can do everything right, and get a bunch of bad outcomes (the reverse also applies, but more rarely!).Some of those bad outcomes are real signal that you need to change things.BUTSome of those bad outcomes simply "come with the territory": they are unavoidable, *even if you're doing everything right*.Not differentiating between the two is going to make your professional life infinitely more challenging than it needs to be.Now, here's the difficult part - how do you know which situation applies?Well, that's what I cover in today's video:♣️ my past experience playing online poker, which is arguably the most important example of the need to separate process from outcome💰 three examples from academia and research grant, project and promotion applications covering "you're / your group is too successful", "this is too aligned with what you already do" and "you need to focus on these other areas" feedback🔍 two ways you can indeed find out which situation applies in any particular circumstance, and🫂 some reassurance around two ways this problem becomes more navigable as your career progresses!As per usual, you can also check this out on YouTube:🔗 YouTube link: https://youtu.be/FwrWJA9bW3g#careeradvice #feedback #grants #promotion #applications #university #professor #lecturer #academic #academia #fellowships #criticism #strategy #tactics 

🍕 Free leftover food in the kitchen – first come, first served!As a PhD student, those emails were great - I’d drop everything and sprint to the tea room. Free food - what's not to love!Two decades later, I still have that instinctive reaction - despite the circumstances (and need for) free food being very different.It’s a somewhat frivolous example, but it captures something that happens a lot in academia: we don't always consciously change our behaviour, activities and priorities when our circumstances change.In this Hacking Academia episode, I look at what happens when we forget to adapt – after a big win or during a tough stretch.Say you’ve just landed a major fellowship, a big promotion, or secured a long runway of funding. It’s easy to celebrate 🎉 (as you should), thank 🙏 your supporters and collaborators... but then often 𝐠𝐨 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐮𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥. But that 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, which is often your best shot to step back, reassess, and ask:💡 What *can* I do now that wasn’t possible before?💡 What should I be having a crack at that I didn't have the time, the resources or the career breathing space to do before? What risks should I be deliberately taking?💡 What should I be changing about my priorities and behaviour now, so when I look back at the end of this opportunity, I'm unlikely to 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐭 that 𝐈 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧'𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠?The same goes in reverse.When life gets difficult – illness, caregiving, personal upheaval – many people don't think to not keep going at full pace, not realising that hitting pause or slowing down on the non-critical work is okay. In fact, it’s often necessary.This is very understandable of course: sometimes there's legitimately a lot of pressure. But much of the time it's an unnecessarily-self-imposed pressure (high achievers being over-represented in certain careers...) that doesn't actually need to be there. Sometimes a gentle nudge from a colleague, supervisor or mentor - "hey you can drop that for a while" - is all that's needed. This video shares a few types of situations where this arises from my own career and from colleagues around the world. 👉 Watch the full video on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dwateatr#HackingAcademia #AcademicLife #CareerDevelopment #PhDLife #Promotion #ResearchCareers #LeadershipInAcademia #Adaptability #RegretMinimization #HigherEd #Mentoring

🎓 Did you know there are (at least) four ways to combine supervisors and PhD students for your regular meetings — and that each serves a different purpose?That's the topic of today’s 𝐇𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐚 video – and meeting type number three is a doozy: super useful and rarely done.👇 Here are the four types:1) 🧑‍🏫👩‍🎓 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐬 + 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭Your classic setup. Everyone's in the room, alignment is clear, but don’t overdo it. Alternate weeks works well - or try a 𝟑-𝟏 structure, with three solo (meeting type 2 below) meetings and one all-in meeting per month.2) 🧑‍🏫👩‍🎓 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫 + 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭Lets the less experienced supervisor lead solo. Builds confidence and gives them the space to grow as an independent mentor.3) 🧑‍🏫🤝🧑‍🏫 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫 + 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫 (𝐍𝐨 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭)The underrated gem. A private space to speak frankly, mentor behind the scenes, and stay aligned on how best to support the student.4) 👩‍🎓🧑‍🏫 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫 + 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 (𝐍𝐨 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫)Use sparingly and thoughtfully – but it has 𝐭𝐰𝐨 valuable modes:One is a circuit-breaker meeting to address specific issues or enable the student to confide in a safe space.The other is higher-level mentoring: sharing experience, career advice, and helping the student think longer-term about their trajectory.📌 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲:Get your meeting mix right, and everyone wins – the student, the supervisors, and the broader mentoring relationship.👉 Watch the full video on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dGgGbUJ5#HackingAcademia #PhDLife #PhDSupervision #AcademicMentoring #GradSchoolTips #ResearchCulture #HigherEd #AcademiaUnpacked #PhDChat

🎥 New #HackingAcademia episode just dropped – and it's a sensitive but hopefully somewhat cathartic one, perfect for a Friday afternoon:𝐅𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬, 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬🤯 “That guy sounds like a total fraud.”😠 “I have no idea how they got that role – they're a disaster.”🤔 “If they’re taking advice from her, they’re in real trouble.”We’ve probably all heard variations of these. Maybe even said them on occasion.My intent in today's video is to unpack the key issues and concepts that arise in these situations, and some suggestions on how to approach them.In trying to ⚽ play the ball, not the person, I'd emphasize almost everyone has lots to offer: this is about their portrayal, and other's portrayal of them, and the perceptions of others that sometimes arise that the portrayal is wildly inappropriate or fraudulent.Key points covered in the video:🎭 Most accused of fakery are actually good at something - but sometimes they just haven’t found the right niche yet. It's also not easy: there's a lot of work to keep up the charade!🪞 Bias about what an expert shoud "look like" and "sound like" are widespread and not helpful hereA two for one:1) 🔍 Experts often overestimate how much expertise a role really needs.AND2) 🧪 Decision-makers often underestimate the depth required - this can be CATASTROPHIC.💼 People need to earn a living, and those hustling outside the safety net of secure jobs often face somewhat unfair criticism from those in secure positions.😶 A BIG one: ELOQUENCE IS NOT EXPERTISE. OMG 🤯📉 But conversely, expertise without some semblance of communication ability limits its utility.👋 When complaining about someone in a role, remember sometimes they're the only person who put their hand up!!!🧠 It takes an expert to validate another expert.🌐 Professional careers run on relationships - trust is often extended more easily to people we know.🤝 many roles require expertise paired with networks, influence, to be effective👥 For every person you think is a fraud, there’s others who think they’re brilliant.🔁 Your opinions - and others of you - will likely will change over time, based on new experiences or context.⏳ "Truth will (mostly) out (eventually". Promises fail, tech doesn’t work, good or bad reputations are established. That doesn't mean some genuinely fraudulent individuals can't do a lot of damage in the meantime.🌱 A little 🧂 patience in judging can go a long way. Calling everything out, often wrongly, will burn you out, won't actually help, and you'll be miserable in the process.---👉 Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eOs2VgIrfI8#AcademicLife #ResearchCulture #Careers #Fraud #Fake #Misrepresentation #Trust #Expertise #communication #reputation #biases #ProfessionalDevelopment #Leadership #CareerAdvice

They say you should see the forest for the trees 🌲🌳 - to understand the larger context rather than getting lost in the details without grasping this vital bigger picture 🧩That’s what today’s hashtag#HackingAcademia video is all about 🎥: the types of context-setting questions you can ask in early-stage discussions with an industry or government organization that has approached you about a working on a problem or opportunity they have🤝Context like financial 💰, historical 🕰️, or delivery-related 📦 information is critical to making sure that the detailed conversation that follows is actually productive. Without context, you risk wasting a huge amount of everyone’s time ⌛ going down paths that context would have immediately ruled out as viable.These questions also increase the chances that the organization finds a good solution, whether or not that includes you. The goal isn’t to win the project. The goal is to help them get a good outcome, and sometimes that means you’re part of it.So what kinds of questions help build this context? 🤔❓ Why are we sitting here? Why is this not already a solved problem, and how do you know that / how have you come to that conclusion?❓ Most problems aren’t unique. Others have tried, maybe solved, or abandoned similar issues. Why?❓ Is this a case of “more resources will fix it,” “we have a solution but want it cheaper,” or “we need major breakthroughs to make any progress”?❓ Is this a one-off problem or a recurring one? That affects the solution space and which partners might be relevant and commercially interested 🤖❓ Who cares, and who pays? Are people already throwing money at this out of self-interest, or is it more of a greater-good or government issue? 🏛️❓ Why aren’t startups all over this already proposing solutions? Are there big barriers, or is the perceived incentive just not strong enough?❓ Even if the core problem is solved, how will the solution be delivered reliably in a form the partner can use? Can the university do that entirely by themselves? Does an OEM or external provider need to be involved as well?❓ How much is currently being spent on this problem? Are they trying to reduce that spend or get more value for the same amount? A $100k per year problem is very different from a $100M one 💵❓ What assumptions or outdated beliefs are they operating under? In fast-moving tech spaces, (gently) making sure their understanding is current really matters 🔄💡As colleagues who lead industry engagement at QUT and who've been in thousands of these meetings, what other context-shaping questions would you add Deon de Saldanha, Ray Johnson, Holli Evans, Kate Taylor, Melissa Nikolic and Erin Rayment?🖥️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/sgf9_nRkRqQ#industry #government #startups #solutions #translationalresearch #commercialresearch #research #university #academia #technology #solutions #ideation #problemscoping

There's a laundry list of phrases that trigger me in #academia and related professions: one of the most frequent ones is "I don't have time" / "They don't have time."The reason it triggers me so often isn't so much that the statement doesn't reflect a stark reality: today's academic and research world has arguably never been more of a pressure cooker to perform, and with less and less resources to do so.My problem with the statement is what then usually happens: a deep dive into the metaphorical weeds of why that person doesn't have enough time , when usually it's two larger issues that are at play.Modern, professional careers never have enough time to do everything - "not enough time" is a truism at this stage. Careers are a constant balancing act of prioritization* What "I don't have enough time" often in fact boils down to is one or more of two issues:1) "I don't perceive enough value or return on investment on that activity in order to prioritise it highly enough to get done", and/or2) "I perceive too many barriers or obstacles in the way in order to be remotely feasible of fitting it into my hectic schedule"Neither reason 1 or 2 is explicitly about time (of course time is involved): they're about priorities and barriers. Any response by a manager or leader hoping to encourage said individuals into making time for an activity should take into account these very real possibilities, rather than just fixating on the pure time issue.There needs to be some give and take too: if you manage to show the value proposition (1) and remove some of the barriers (2), the individual may well prioritise the thing you're encouraging them to do. But they have finite time, so this shift in focus may come at the cost of some attention to some other existing activities. It's your job as leader or manager to be ready for and account for this: if at this stage you penalize them for a slight shift in focus, you'll undo all your good work and more...🖥️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/WPrSZbeRcA4* at least for those who go about their careers in deliberative ways: some people wing it and appear to go spectacularly well - but perhaps not recommended as an approach for all people #timemanagement #leadership #management #workload #working #planning #motivation #priorities #barriers #obstacles #careeradvice

When is having a good awareness of the "big picture" in a PhD or general research not helpful?When you need to focus in on the "little picture", to preserve your sanity, lower your sky high stress levels, and make some concrete, tangible progress forwards.When things get tough in research, researchers, including PhD students, can have a (natural) tendency to try to focus on trying to achieve too many things at once, with the natural result of achieving nothing at all, and getting ever more frustrated as a result.For research fields like robotics, computer vision and machine learning: yes the eventual aim of many PhDs is to create a new method or set of techniques that improves the state-of-the-art in some meaningful way, including demonstration across many datasets / domains / robots and in the case of "helper" pre-processing / post-processing techniques, potentially across many different techniques.But when you're struggling, trying to tick all those boxes simultaneously: that novelty box, that generality box - both for domains and for techniques - is completely overwhelming, and usually counterproductive to both your sanity and your progress.What I often do with students in these situations is reset: dial back the ambition, come up with a simple proof-of-concept of the proposed ideas, often using old statistical or ancient machine learning techniques, and demonstrate that it makes a meaningful difference on <just-one-dataset>.That won't in of itself be the research they need, the contributions they need, or enable them to publish (probably), but it will be a massive confidence booster and provide them with a rock solid, well understood foundation to build on, rather than floundering in a sea of too many conflicting goals.🖥️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dNZVQzDE#PhD #research #reset #careeradvice #academia #university

This week I had coffee with a new colleague and the conversation got onto the realities and challenges of recruiting, and retaining, the talent you want to work with and need to fulfill all those exciting research, industry and government projects you've got going. Especially in topical fields with lots of competition for talent, and sky high salaries... 💲💲💲 So late on this Friday afternoon and heading into yet another long weekend here in Brisbane, here's my newest #HackingAcademia video covering talent strategy, including recruiting and retention considerations, and some of the things you can do about it, both now and longer term.I cover:🎓 In a typical academic career, you'll run many research projects - fundamental, applied, with industry, government, or startups.🧑‍🔬 Much of the work is done by recruited talent: PhD students, postdocs, RAs, engineers - so your ability to attract and retain talent is critical.❤️ Some people are passion-driven - motivated by causes or purpose - and may be more tolerant of the inevitable imperfections in any role.💼 Others are interest-aligned but pragmatic - and will not take a role, or leave, if conditions aren't sufficiently attractive.🌐 Your field’s opportunity landscape matters - are there lots of alternatives or only a few?📣 Recruitment strategies vary. 🤝 Direct outreach and word-of-mouth can work in niche fields. 📢 For hot topics like AI, you may need (and benefit more from) broad, public exposure and a large network.👤 Your reputation, your group’s alumni outcomes, and the broader ecosystem (faculty, university, country) all influence your appeal.🌴 Culture and location can sometimes tip the balance, even if you can’t compete directly on salary.🧱 Culture takes years to build - early-career academics should consider this before joining a new institution.💰 Universities can’t match industry salaries - but be smart when writing grants. ✍️ Don’t under-budget salaries just to win the grant. ⚠️ Cutting salaries may create recruitment problems later.🎯 Pitch a mix of projects. 🧪 Some high-risk, high-reward ones needing top-tier talent. 🛠️ Some more achievable ones suited to a broader skill range.🌱 Avoid 100% “green fields” projects where neither you nor the student knows how to proceed when the going gets difficult.🔄 Consider autonomy required, and provided. 🏃‍♂️ Some projects and talent that can operate without constant supervision are essential as you scale up.🧮 Expand your recruitment pool. e.g. in a tech field: 🧑‍🏫 don’t only seek CS grads - consider rapidly upskilling engineers or mathematicians, who may come from (somewhat) less-in-demand talent pools.🔁 Retention is just as important as recruitment. 🧲 Keeping good people saves time and effort. 🧳 But some turnover is healthy and inevitable.🏡 Support retention by offering 🚀 growth pathways and professional development, and 🌏 a strong social and work environment - especially for newcomers.💡 When designing a project or grant, always ask: 👥 What kind of talent will it require? 🔍 Is the pool broad or narrow? 🧠 How competitive is this space?🖥️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/FcbQ9GpwJEU#recruiting #jobs #careers #PhDs #salary #retention #work #opportunities #academia #universities #robotics #computervision #computerscience #artificialintelligence #machinelearning #AI #automation #autonomy #industry #government #options #funding #strategy #careeradvice #careerstrategy #postdoc #researchfellow #softwareengineer #researchassistant #PhD #Masters #gradudatestudent #gradstudent

This meeting is driving me INSANE 😡🤯I regularly take requests for my #HackingAcademia series: today's request was one of many about how to deal with meetings where you're frustrated beyond belief, and want to tear your hair out.As someone who was driven nuts by this for much of my early career, but less often now, I have no easy solutions. I can however contribute a bunch of different perspectives that might help a little, as they did for me, when those wiser than me shared them.These include:✅ validating that many people feel this way regularly: it's a very normal feeling of frustration🧩 the meeting organizer / runner may well not have wanted the gig in the first place, or felt like they're not capable: they've nevertheless offered to step up when asked: this is a distinct and frequent occurrence that won't always be obvious to you as attendee💬 if the organizer is doing a noticeably horrendous job (goes for anything, not just meetings): they could just be having a really bad day: check that they're OK!🔄 the shoe has been on the other foot at some stage: whilst you'll be aware of others getting frustrated in some of the meetings you've run, I can guarantee there are other occasions where you didn't pick up on the frustration🧠 sanity preserving tip: whilst it's tempting (and true to some extent) to directly equate the 2 hours you spent in a meeting as wasted time you could have used to do other important things, if you do this too often and too much you'll go insane. Check out a little bit mentally!⚖️ whilst in theory being surrounded by super colleagues who are amazing and much better than you at everything sounds nice, it's also overwhelming, and often demoralizing - how can you contribute? So when someone isn't that good at something, remind yourself it's an inevitable byproduct of being somewhere where you can provide real value and contribution.📢 provide tactful and polite feedback and suggestions to improve processes, but don't break yourself, especially as an early career individual, to completely transform an organization's entire process culture overnight (unless you're in the executive!)🎯 meeting frustration is partly a byproduct of the perspective and role you bring to a meeting: senior mentors and leaders are often more likely to see fumbled meetings and missteps as an essential development opportunity for the individual: learning often has a bit of "collateral damage" - you in the meeting - obviously getting the balance right is key.🎈 for yourself, aim for "good enough" engagement rather than excelling, to depressurize the situation and lower your expectation bar🗣️ once you've cooled off, talk to the more experienced meeting-goers for a second perspective!💻 YouTube link: https://youtu.be/y6l4UxhLvo8#meetings #organization #frustration #stress #timemanagement #leadership #collegiality #communication #careeradvice

🤔 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐌𝐞? 🤷‍♂️ 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐌𝐞?In your career, you’ll regularly hit moments where your confidence doesn’t match everyone else’s.🤔 “Why Me?” Someone suggests nominating you for an award - and you think, “No way I’m worthy of that!”🤷‍♂️ “Why Not Me?”You’re convinced you’re ready for a promotion - so you’re shocked when those involved say you’re not quite there.In today's #HackingAcademia video, I dive into these two situations, particularly focusing on a few key points:🛠️ That you won’t always be able to “solve” the situation: nevertheless, how you act is important.🌐 That you don’t always have the big picture: the person putting you up for something (the Why Me? situation) may know stuff that you don’t; likewise, when knocked back for something you were sure of (the Why Not Me? situation), the individuals involved may know much more of the broader context than you do.🗣️ The importance of (as calmly as possible in the Why Not Me? situation) explaining that you’re surprised, that you’d been expecting to be suitable because of X, Y, and Z, and asking for feedback as to why they assess the situation differently to you—often this information is best processed later on at leisure, rather than on the spot in the heat of the moment.🏆 the reassurance that that imposter syndrome / I'm not worthy feeling often exists even after people win the award! It's very normal...🚫 The need (in the Why Not Me? situation) to avoid outright threats and shouting matches at all costs: these are often near-irretrievable outcomes from which all parties involved will struggle to recover.🧩 That the “Why Not Me?” situation will sometimes have an overarching reason for the outcome: when going through the individual details it may feel like none of those in isolation is enough reason or you have a response to, but often it’s about the aggregate.In a professional workplace there will, on occasion, be situations where someone is very clearly being screwed over (talk to an external objective expert for a second opinion if you suspect this is the case): the vast majority of situations though will be less explicit and often more fuzzy.If you can keep the process as professional as possible, find out as much as possible, explain your viewpoint as clearly and objectively as possible, you'll be in a much better situation to (sometimes) resolve the situation directly, but more generally be better prepared (and better informed, both you and the other parties) for the next time it comes up.💻 YouTube link: https://youtu.be/4jPXsNYRWms#careeradvice #confidence #promotion #awards #fellowships #jobs #feedback #criticism #evaluation #judgement #critical #growth #learning #advice #advising #mentoring

Time for an update on #ArtificialIntelligence, from my personal perspective in a professional context: my continued exploration of its intense usage in a day-to-day career (2 and a bit years and counting).Key concepts include:🧠 Force Multiplying Experts More Than BeginnersIn my experience, these AI tools are helping experts more than anyone else. If three things come together:🔹 an expert who knows very well how to do the task entirely themselves🔹 someone experienced at giving detailed, nuanced, and error-robust instructions to achieve an overall goal and sub-goals🔹 someone who can effortlessly glance at output and judge whether it’s correct (again, they need to be an expert in the task they're using AI to assist with)✨ Then these tools are like adding a superpower – but their benefit diminishes if even one of those components is missing.🛠️ There’s a good and bad way to integrate AI into your workflow: forcing it through a rigid list of steps is risky. The best results come from flexibly exploring where it can help most and adapting around its shortcomings.⚡ They’re great at helping maintain momentum when you’re tired, sick, unmotivated, or just not feeling it. It takes a lot less to “get over the hump” with AI assistance than when it’s all on you.🔄 I can iterate and work with these tools guilt-free – no etiquette, no need to provide fulfilling work like I would with a colleague. That freedom to rapidly try and discard half-baked ideas without wasting someone’s time is huge. (Yes, I know some would say that’s already how some profs treat students, but I hope that’s the exception, not the rule.)🚧 Key challenges that remain:🧩 Knowing how much to pre-prepare and modularize a task – especially as newer tools reduce that need 🧪 Knowing whether repeated failures are from bad prompting or fundamental limitations of the tool 🛑 Knowing when to go manual-only – particularly at the polishing stage – and accepting that this varies project to project🔮 I also share some thoughts on where I see all this heading, based on 2.5 years in a post-ChatGPT world.💻 YouTube link: https://youtu.be/39Sz5ipFoqg #artificialintelligence #AI #technology #disruption #prediction #chatgpt #OpenAI #Anthropic #MidJourney #AdobeFirefly #Firefly #Suno

😩 Are you regularly stressed out, feel like you're in over your head, and wondering how you ended up working at 2 am on a Monday morning to meet a project deadline?You're not alone: I, and much of academia and research, have regularly found ourselves in this position. It's usually not because of a lack of talent, capability or passion - but often because we don't practice good, effective and pragmatic project management.The good news: there are lots of simple, straightforward things you can do about it (and some that take a bit more work). This is the topic of today's #HackingAcademia video:🔥 𝐑𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧I cover:📌 Why effective project management is so critical in a career - especially when it becomes impractical (and undesirable) to just work yourself ragged to meet a deadline🧮 How specifying sufficient resources (funding, salaries, equipment) and realistic stakeholder expectation management before the project gets going (or is even proposed) can save you so much stress later on🗺️ That Plan Bs, Cs and Ds are important to consider - but not to excessively investigate them before you know they're even going to be in play🎯 The "killing two birds with one stone" fallacy: don’t confound all the things you want to do and achieve with what *this specific project* requires. A constrained, stress-free project done well will help those other aims more than trying to cram everything into the project itself. 🔧 Not realizing that the setbacks you've experienced on previous projects are NORMAL, not exceptions. Talent being leaving or becoming unavailable (for myriad reasons), equipment breaking, methods not working - this is normality, NOT the exception🕒 Being realistic and accurate about timelines: initially you can cope by just being pessimistic - but you can't just pad everything out blindly: ultimately you want to be realistic: some things are quick, some things *always* blow out.📈 A good project fulfills all its milestones: it does not (generally) overachieve in one area and completely fail to deliver in others🧠 Identifying, recognizing and dealing with problems early is crucial. This is enabled by nurturing a team environment where:🚨 potential issues are called out🙅 no-one feels the need to get defensive🤝 everyone moves to working together on a solution👉 Easier said than done - but awesome when you get there.Over 2 decades into my career, I’d say I’m reasonably competent at a number of things - but being an effective project manager is one where there is always so much to learn!🎙 Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2191455/episodes/16998729🖥️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/VrTPkMcJ8-M#projectmanagement #projects #leadership #management #deadlines #stress #worklifebalance #planning #gaantcharts #milestones #fulfillment #grants #fellowships #contracts #tenders #academia #research #university #industry #government

🥣 𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐫, 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 🥄 OR💼 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲!I thought a little bit about sending the wrong messaging with this image thumbnail (referencing Oliver Twist) about power dynamics, any possible symbolism about lack of funding in academia and all that... but given just as often I'm the one begging for funding as deciding it, and that I love Dickens, I'm sticking with it. And I also learnt something new today about the quote -see my note* below!)In today's Hacking Academia video, I talk about some of the ways in which you can make your requests for funding - whether for a conference trip, a piece of equipment - whatever - more concise, less likely to be misinterpreted, less of a cognitive and time demand on the decision maker you're approaching, and in all likelihood more effective in getting a result on average - whether immediately or later on. All good things for all involved!I cover:🧠 checking your assumptions about the decison maker's world view and perspective: going in with incorrect assumptions can make your request dead on arrival📌 concise and up front with <what>, <why good / what enables>, <how much>: with details, context and nuances later on. Decision makers are typically time-starved, often cognitively overloaded: make it easier on them.🚫 do not drip feed incremental "surprise" funding requests 🚫. When making the specific request, give the decision maker a best guess idea of what they're likely to see from you over say the next 12 months📎 provide context and explain, explicitly, what it will enable and why that is a "good thing" 📎 The decision-maker isn't immersed in it like you are.🎌 flag the importance to you, especially relative to your other funding requests. There's usually not enough funding to do everything, fully: make the priorities clear🎯 capture the likelihood of success or partial success 🎯: some activities are all or nothing, for others partial success is still valuable🍰 is partial funding useful? Yes, if it gets you meaningfully started on a goal: no if it's an all or nothing affair like a specific trip (unless you can find the remaining money elsewhere)Getting effective at asking for funding is a valuable skill that many careers will lean on heavily: it also has onflow benefits in research and academia in pitching for grants, projects or fellowships, making your "ask" as compelling as possible.🖥️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dU35M77e#grants #funding #money #resources #requests #pitching #university #industry #government #fellowships #projects #support #travel #equipment #research #careeradvice* the first Oliver movie I saw was the 1948 one starring Alec Guiness, and I, like most of the internet, had always thought the quote was:"Please sir, can I have some more"It is in fact:"Please sir, I want some more" 🤔

The Goldilocks Zone is the just-right distance from a star 🌞 where a planet can sustain liquid water 💧 - not too hot, not too cold, but ideal conditions for the possibility of life to exist 🌱.The Goldilocks zone is also one of three "confidence zones" that I use to describe confidence levels, which are ever so important for so many things in your personal and professional lives, including applying for jobs, promotions, prizes, and general promotion of your work. The three zones are:🔵 The unconfident zone, where your levels of confidence are underselling your actual capabilities.🟢 The "Goldilocks" zone, where confidence is roughly in step with actual ability - a zone where you should, IMHO, spend a significant chunk (but not all) of your time.🟠 The over-confident zone, which splits further into two:🟡 The slightly overconfident zone: you've just had a bumper run of successes in a row and are feeling invincible - a very natural breeding ground for a bit of over-confidence.🔴 The Dunning-Kruger effect: where a high level of confidence in ability is totally out of touch with reality, but unrealized by the individual.In this Hacking Academia video, I dive into the concept of confidence in a professional career with an academic research lens. I cover:🧠 The need to deliberately think about and be aware of your levels of confidence.🙋‍♂️ The very common scenario of people underselling themselves (usually not their fault, but a product of the system we come up in).🚀 The need to be slightly over-confident on occasion (selectively).🪞 That getting feedback that you're doing well but are perhaps slightly over-confident, while sometimes a little awkward, is also a signal that you're pitching at just about the right level - you don't want people to miss what you're proposing is your value proposition!🔁 That confidence is one of those things where you're particularly reliant on the perspective and feedback of others - you can't fully assess whether you're at about the right level yourself.⚠️ Not covered in the video, but there’s also the situation where someone (unknowingly) has completely misplaced confidence that’s likely to get them into serious trouble. 🤝 There are good, gentle ways to try and help them - supportive conversations, mentoring, or prompting reflection. 🚫 There are also toxic ways to go about it - attacks, shaming, ridicule, or exclusion - that should be avoided at all costs.So, which zone do spend most of your time hanging out in? I try to spend most of my time in the Goldilocks zone, but occasionally foray into the "over-confident" zone (sometimes deliberately, sometimes unwittingly 😅), and despite my best intentions, occasionally lapse into the "unconfident" zone.🖥️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/xu18cIonyv4#CareerAdvice #research #university #jobs #grants #promotions #funding #careersuccess #confidence #selfbelief

What would I tell my younger self at the point I was starting my leadership journey? 🤔👣That's the topic of today's Hacking Academia video 🎥 – I like to do the more philosophical ones on a Friday afternoon! 🧘‍♂️🌤️I, like most people, am a "leader in learning" 📚 – it never stops. That said, it's been a pretty packed 15 years of learnings, mistakes, insights and tips from others 💡, and this is a small fraction of what I think I would tell my younger self about what I've learnt about leadership... so far.Things like:🔥 that it's simultaneously one of the most fulfilling but also most challenging things you can do📅 it's not just about enacting the "grand visions" – a lot of leadership is about turning up, even at those toughest times🧭 that, perhaps moreso than most other things, it's a continuous learning journey: what you learnt as an individual contributor only has limited transferability to leading a group, and then as that group grows in scale, you need to learn lots more at each stage🤝 interdependence – you will increasingly rely on those around you, as they will on you – anything where you're the critical cog for everything is not a recipe for successful leadership🪟 transparency and consultation – both are important, but are constrained due to realities in many situations. I've grown to particularly be a fan of transparency – not everyone will agree, but everyone should understand the grounds under which decisions were made💔 self-care and empathy "limits": you cannot afford to completely and utterly dedicate your emotional self to every challenge going on – you will break – and you serve no-one if you're a wreck yourself. This can be especially difficult transition for small group leaders who are used to completely pitching in to the utmost extent to look after their (very small) number of members⚠️ beware the "always right" trope, but you do need to be mostly right, as often as possible. If you're continuously screwing up, it's possibly a sign that you're out of your depth and need to step back and pick up some more skills and experience🛠️ authentic technical experience: no experience at all, or a deep tech expert in the area you're leading? I'm in the middle on this one: you want to have, or deliberately acquire, at least some deep technical knowledge in the area⚖️ bad management negates good leadership – and often you don't have the luxury of separating the two🌬️ the increasing role and importance of soft influence👟 "take a step in their shoes": leading is a great way to generate understanding of and empathy for those who lead you🌈 the tricky balancing act between optimism and realityHope you enjoy it – feel free to share what you would tell your younger self about leadership! 😊💻 YouTube link: https://youtu.be/EVcck_ouEsQThanks to Sean Di Lizio for the candid photo! 📸#Leadership #HackingAcademia #management #softskills

🎲 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 🎲I've been wanting to do this video for a while now, and thanks to Maceon Knopke's lovely 3D printed dice, here it is!This is also my 50th 🎂 Hacking Academia video 🎉🎉🎉 !!!A lot of academic research career coaching I do revolves around basic concepts of probability and variance in an academic career: for awareness, and for how your strategy can be shaped to mitigate these challenges.One of the key examples of this is funding pipelines: an integral part of most researchers' lives whereby they regularly apply for funding to do the research they want to do.Rolling dice* is such a lovely way to visually capture some of the key concepts and considerations, as shown in this video: rolling a "1" is considered a successful grant outcome, and any other number is considered a rejection.The key concepts illustrated in this video include:🎲 the variation in outcome possible when you're putting in a single application at a time, perhaps on a yearly basis🎲 the effect of improving repeated applications (seen in switching from a 6-sided die to a 4-sided die, representing increased odds of 25% up from 16.7%) - but still the lack of any guarantee that even a vastly improved application will be successful in any specific time frame🎲 that for low acceptance rate schemes - those tough single digit acceptance rate, or even notorious alleged zero percent acceptance rate schemes (😡), it's basically a lottery where many highly qualified applicants will strike out. It took 31 attempts to roll a successful grant in a simulated scheme with 8.3% acceptance rate (this was an unusual but not impossible outcome, and has actual odds of happening 6.7% of the time - so 1 in 15 people would apply 30 times and not be successful 🤯🎲 that, of course, having multiple applications in consideration at any time drastically increases your chances, and that having some diversity in those applications: diversity in whether fundamental or applied, whether large or small, and whether low chance or high chance of success, can helpThis information can be presented in graphical, or textual form, but sometimes visual (with satisfying dice clinking sounds as well) can be the best way to illustrate concepts like this!💻 YouTube link: https://lnkd.in/d99vY8By* I will never not need to mentally check, is it "dice" or "die" for plural / singular#HackingAcademia #AcademicLife #AcademicCareers #PhDLife #PostdocLife #ResearchStrategy #TenureTrack #EarlyCareerResearcher #GrantWriting #ResearchFunding #FundingPipeline #GrantStrategy #AcademicGrants #FundingSuccess #GrantTips #Rejection #FundingRates #RollingTheDice #RiskAndReward #AcademicYouTube #Podcast #ExplainerVideo #VisualLearning #ResearchExplained

LiDaR versus CamerasThe recent "Can You Fool A Self Driving Car?" video by YouTuber Mark Rober has 17.5 million views [1], is generating a lot of buzz, and is already the subject of a number of counter- and critique videos [2].I've been asked by quite a few people what I think of it or to even post a video - so here it is.I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who:📡 first added an (single plane) "LiDaR" sensor to their camera-based autonomy stack back in 2004, and was amazed by the benefits it gave, especially over sonar🚙 as someone who has worked on a number of research and commercial projects in both on- and off-road autonomous vehicles, where we used both cameras and LiDaR extensively, and🌿 as someone who is interested in nature-inspired AI examples (the whole "humans primarily drive using vision" thing).Key points: 👁️ Humans do indeed provide a proof-of-concept that reliable driving can be done using primarily vision - but one aspiration for AVs is to exceed human capabilities, and in the short term we should indeed "cheat" as outrageously as possible to improve safety and reliability. Cheating includes using every sensing modality possible, and training using prodigious quantities of data and simulation, where it helps. It's not exactly "the way people learn to drive" and that's fine.📡 LiDaR and other range sensors are active sensors - they emit energy into the environment to measure range to objects. Standard cameras are passive, and infer ranges using AI. Camera-based range estimation has improved radically, but it's still a non-explicit process. There are pointy AV challenges - like high speed merging onto, or crossing of, highways, where you likely need long range vehicle detection, recognition, range estimation and velocity estimation (using for example Doppler LiDaR).🌧️ It's not just cameras and LiDaR - both these sensors can degrade or fail in foggy, snowing, and raining conditions - enter other range sensors like Radar that work better in these adverse conditions.💸 A decade ago, people seemed very fixated on the (then) very high cost price of LiDaR, and cameras as a cheaper option. Although I'm sure capital cost will remain a key consideration as companies like Waymo continue to scale, I don't see (or haven't heard) any cost-driven proposals to drop LiDaR in the near future. LiDaR costs have also dropped and their capabilities have improved as well.🧠 Finally, it's important to remember it's not just the sensing hardware - human vision does not have the capability to detect every hazard at night, in the rain, whilst driving - so prior context, knowledge, and assumptions are key here - and hard to recreate in an autonomous system. Any sensor debate shouldn't occur in a vacuum but rather in the context of how AI driving systems ingest and make decisions using that data.🖥️ YouTube video: https://youtu.be/AGFxczr2-Yk[1] Original video: https://youtu.be/IQJL3htsDyQ[2] Example critique (for balance): https://teslanorth.com/2025/03/16/busted-mark-robers-misleading-tesla-test-sparks-outrage/ #Tesla #AutonomousVehicles #LiDaR #camera #ArtificialIntelligence #transport #robotics #driving #mobility #perception #safety

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦: 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦The Australian Research Ecosystem is the subject of at least two major reviews, that could result in the biggest change to how things like grants are assessed and enacted.In my opinion, there are a handful of super important concepts that should shape this review. Some can't be said "officially". That's what this video is about, these key issues!🔍 My sector health check indicator: the likelihood that a talented, driven and hard working early career individual will make it: not guaranteed, and not even super high, but high enough that people feel like they have a real chance. Also relevant to grant funding scheme acceptance rates.😓 How tightly squeezed the sector is - very few if any "freeloaders". Almost everyone is working hard, hustling hard, and periodically or always stressed by their prospects. Any reform should not revolve around further squeezing!🕰️ The impossibility of performing at a world class research level in academia whilst teaching, doing service, and all within a theoretical working week's formal hours. At least for the vast majority of people, and especially for those doing things like trying to raise a young family and be a present parent. And how this is both a problem and not a problem: many researchers love their job and happily do research outside of normal hours, but at the same time this is in tension with the much-needed moves to formalize workloads and protect workers...🤔 Disagreement and confusion over the role and responsibilities of universities, and of research bodies. As represented by examples like the angst over Associate Professors getting DECRA fellowships - the appropriateness of which really depends on what you think these fellowships are for.🎯 How implicit and explicit optimization (and some gaming) will result from any reform - so reform that is aware of how this will unfold, and minimizes vulnerability to egregious gaming, is important.🎲 High risk fundamental research and "having your cake and eating it too". High risk research is essential, and whilst it will always generate some sort of output, in many cases it will largely be a bust. For the aggregate system, this isn't a problem. But how we treat, assess and support the individual, given volatility of outcome, is challenging and vital.🌱 Decoupling being research-active with research KPIs and performance. Academics should at least dabble in a little (cheap) research for interest and to inform teaching, but their enthusiasm is often killed by unreachable KPIs. I think there's a viable system where most at least dabble and remain enthused about research.🖥️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dB3rpyefDISCLAIMER: the views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.#research #reform #academia #Australia #grants

🚖 200,000 paid robotaxi rides per week! 🤖 Humanoid robots starting to roll out in larger-scale customer trials!The surge in excitement, interest, and investment in humanoid as well as general AI + robot plays is reaching fever pitch - very reminiscent of the peak days of autonomous vehicles (AVs) only a few years ago.After a bunch of recent interesting and informative conversations with technical and commercial experts from around the world, I wanted to provide a (consolidated) update from those conversations on my perspective on the state of, and likely next few years, of humanoid robots - including lessons learned from AVs.I provide a bit of a snapshot update - there are things that are unambiguously happening in these areas, including:🚖 The AV ride stats 🤖 The rapidly growing interest, investment in (including surging valuations), and manufacture of humanoid robots, as well as some hardware cost drops 🧠 An increasing gravitation of talent towards humanoid and "robot + large model AI" startups, both from within the tech ecosystem but also from the uni research sector...I particularly compare and contrast what has and hasn't happened in autonomous vehicles with humanoid robots - there's lots to learn from both the similarities and notable differences. For example, humanoid robots can likely be deployed in some application areas even if somewhat imperfect, with improvements coming over time.In contrast, it has always been hard to widely deploy autonomous vehicles that are far from perfect on public streets because of the challenges in safeguards like reliable supervision and intervention at the (very justifiably) required 99.99…% safety level (which somewhat perversely can in some ways get harder to implement as the technology gets better due to well-researched challenges like long-term supervisor vigilance).🖥️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dN8e-HBt#HumanoidAI #HumanoidRobots #AIandAutomation #CommercialRobotics #RoboticsDeployment #RobotTesting #RealWorldAI #AITranslation #TechViability #ScalingAI #RobotTrials #FutureOfAutomation #AIinIndustry #NextGenRobots #HumanRobotInteraction #StartupScaling #AICommercialization #AutonomousSystems #AIAdoption #IndustrialAutomation

Friday afternoon story time 🎉🍷🤔One of the most pivotal stages of my early professional (and for the financial and other benefits, personal) life was writing my first maths "textbook", Not a C Minus, at age 18, and establishing my first educational publishing business. It was an unplanned, somewhat chaotic, and wonderfully enjoyable learning experience.In brief, the book became a runaway hit, sold around 6000 physical copies, and spawned my lifelong love of educational and entrepreneurial initiatives, that branched out into more books, online, edutainment, tech topics, for all age ranges from pre-school kids to older adults.At the time it was an incredible, almost entirely on-the-fly learning and "flying by the seat of my pants" experience - including learning how to:🖨️ Create print-ready complex technical manuscripts (in Microsoft Word, you LaTeX snobs 🤣)📚 Work with and negotiate with commercial printers🚢 Including eventually doing overseas print productions and learning things you'd never normally learn, like that you need to insure marine freight at 110%📞 Cold calling and approaching vendors like bookstores, negotiating terms, and keeping them in stock📝 Write press releases and later, copywrite for ads💰 Budgeting, tax reporting, and later starting a Pty Ltd company🌐 Early online sales and marketing: a website, sales fulfilment, optimising freight and parcel deliveryand so much more.This whole experience profoundly shaped my life, and I thought I'd relate the story here and the key lessons I learned, trying very hard to not fall into the trap of only analysing it in hindsight, but remembering back to what was known, felt and thought *at the time* as an 18 year old!I hope you find it interesting! And have a good weekend.YouTube link: https://youtu.be/Hha1_jYAKWk#sidegigs #entrepreneur #business #income #education #stem #math #mathematics #students #school #company #entrepreneurial

I've long maintained a webpage [1] that details what a #PhD is really like on a day to day basis in #robotics or related fields and in the Australian PhD system, but a lot of potential students we interact with like to hear us talk it through verbally.So today, taking advantage of both the #WFH mandate and the much-delayed landfall of #CycloneAlfred, I shot a #HackingAcademia video in my garden. Or at least starting in my garden, then transitioning undercover when it started raining!This informal video (the first 15 minutes is in this post, for full video go to YouTube) lays out:💠 the milestones and timeline💠 forming your research question and subquestions💠 submitting and publishing academic research conference or journal papers💠 working with supervisors, meeting regularly, and having more than one for redundancy and extra support and perspectives💠 getting involved in the culture and activities of the research group and larger institution you're within💠 opportunities for conference and internship travel💠 leveraging existing skillsets and experience where possible, given the relatively short nature of an Australian PhD💠 the paradox that for many a PhD is simultaneously the largest project they've yet taken on, but also much narrower, and more focused, then they initially envisaged  💠 dealing with setbacks and support for Plan Bs especially from your supervisory team💠 the "bursty" nature of a PhD, especially around publication deadlines...and many other key aspects of the PhD process - focusing mainly on the process after you've commenced (other videos cover the application stage: see https://michaelmilford.com/hacking-academia-tutorial-series/).Again, this is specific to the Australian context - most notably the relatively short duration compared to the United States for example - and to topic areas like robotics and related fields. It will also of course still vary from lab to lab.💻 YouTube: https://youtu.be/S3T7oqUCqiQ[1] https://michaelmilford.com/what-a-phd-in-robotics-is-like/#PhD #graduate #studentlife #university #research #robotics #computervision #machinelearning #artificialintelligence #degree #learning #career #careeradvice #careerdevelopment #perception #manipulation #grasping #navigation #localization #SLAM #mapping #positioning #reinforcementlearning #robot #robots #autonomousvehicles #selfdriving #agriculture #construction #mining #medicine #health #upskilling

Rejection *always* sucks... but how it sucks evolves...After a brutal start to the year in terms of rejection after rejection, I wanted to post a Hacking Academia video on the nature of rejection, and how it can evolve, in a professional academic and research career. In the video, I cover the transition from rejection feeling very personal early in your career, to rejection generating concern over the wellfare and reactions of those in your team involved in the rejected initiative, especially junior and early career researchers and academics.I cover how rejection, to a certain extent, is a sign that you're setting your sights and aspirations at about the right level.I touch on the broader perspective you gain later in your career, where you have enough data points to know that something you're confident is good value work has a good chance of *eventually* getting over the line, but that the short-term volatility can be brutal. Of course, knowing that rationally, and feeling fine about it emotively, is a whole different matter...Finally I cover what can be a somewhat confronting concept - that sustained rejection can be a useful signal that you are no longer competitive in a certain area that formed your core identity earlier in your career - confronting, but by no means career ending: just a signal that can help you continue to evolve your career over time. This situation can occur for a wide variety of ways: most typically simply that what you were 110% dedicated to early on is now just a part-time component of your role, especially in ultra-competitive fields where you can't really part-time it.And yes - that's a clear clickbait thumbnail for the video - am experimenting, I'm sure some people will hate it, but let's see what the various algorithms do... 🖥️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/GqK9cTFNPlg#rejection #HackingAcademia #careers #research #university #PhD #papers #publishing #conference #journal #writing #grants #fellowships #applications #proposal #funding #careeradvice #mentoring

A #PhD can be an amazing journey for many, but it's also inevitably a time of significant struggle(s). What that struggle is can take a near-infinite variety of forms, from health issues to relationship breakups, and from home sickness to mental health.But beyond these relatively well known challenges, there are other types of struggles that affect a significant proportion of PhD candidates, at least in my experience supervising dozens of students and informally advising many hundreds more - these are the topic of today's #HackingAcademia video, "Struggling During Your PhD".For those who come to a PhD early in their life, it is often the largest and most substantive professional project they have embarked on. Grasping the scale can be challenging to get your head around, especially when previous projects - like a final year undergraduate project - have been completed in just 6 or 12 months, and only part-time.Related to the scale challenge is the lack of structure problem: moving from a structured course with timestamped milestones and definitive assessment to an unstructured research environment, where the outcomes are uncertain and unknown, can be be quite confronting.Whether you come to a PhD as a fresh grad, or after a successful professional career (just two of many potential pathways in life to a PhD), starting back at a level where you're fumbling around and not very good at many things can be humbling. Before embarking on this journey, you need to "prepare to suck, for a bit" and have the humility and patience with yourself to get better. This can be especially challenging when you're transitioning from a former role where you were highly accomplished.How can you step up to these challenges successfully? Good due diligence before you start the PhD, both by yourself and in terms of briefing by your prospective supervisor, can help prepare you.But beyond yourself, probably the most important element will be the people around you.These fall into three main categories:1) your cheerleaders (often family, friends, partner), who are unwaveringly positive, 2) the compatriots, your fellow PhD student living similar experiences with whom you can vent and learn, and3) your supervisory team, who are there to support and guide you, but also to nudge you in the right direction every now and then with constructive criticism as appropriate.A PhD can be a wonderful part of your career, but having a clear eyed understanding of the potential challenges before you embark on one, and appropriate support mechanisms in place to better deal with them along the way, will radically improve the chances of a happy and successful journey.💻 YouTube link: https://lnkd.in/ejuqBSCb#careeradvice #PhD #gradstudent #graduatestudies #research #university #academia #careers #advice #mentoring #stress #challenges #struggles #struggling #support #network #supportnetwork #humility

It's Friday afternoon, #CVPR2025 rebuttals are almost done thanks to amazing colleagues, and I have a massive backlog of #HackingAcademia topics to get to, both requested and from my own list.So the first 2025 Hacking Academia video (and the 44th overall) is on:The Importance of Timing ⏱️ ‼️ "Timing is everything" they say, and timing and cycles can play a key role in professional university research careers, from the individual to the organizational to the global.In this video I go through some common examples across the spectrum, what impact they may have, and some ways to find out where in the timing cycle you are and what you can do (or not do) about it.Some examples I go over include:💠 Confused about the polar opposite responses of two colleagues to an invitation to collaborate on a grant proposal, one enthusiastic, one cynical and uninterested? You may have struck them at different stages of the ebb and flow of career success and grant applications.💠 Proposing a grant in an application domain that is widely perceived to be on the downturn and dying as a sector? You may want to reconsider your timing, or topic. And timing also applies to whether the momentum is currently in the university research sector or in the startup and industry sector...💠 Enquiring about a faculty job at a specific university? Your prospects will be vastly different "out of round" versus at the start of a major hiring initiative (positions can be created ad hoc but it's typically much rarer)💠 Wondering why your university is specializing in a narrow number of topics whilst the one just down the road is expanding and generalizing? Sometimes it's not that either uni is inherently different to the other, but rather that they're just at a different point in the cycles that dominate academia... 💠 Looking for funding support from your organisation? Your chances may go up substantially if it's near the end of their financial year and they've unexpectedly got unspent funds (and you have a compelling suggestion!)💠 Or seeking funding from the government, for an exciting initiative? Your prospects may change drastically depending on whether they're at the beginning or end of their term, or in caretaker mode leading up to an election.💠 And finally, I talk about how deliberately proceeding even when the timing is bad can be worthwhile: to get your name, ideas and interest out there, so that when in future the timing "turns good", you're the first person that comes to mind...The first 15 minutes of the video is in this post, but you can see the full video on YouTube, and listen to the full audio on the podcast:💻 Video: https://lnkd.in/d7WMMnAQ#academia #academic #university #career #careeradvice #cycles #strategy #tactics #jobs #promotion #grants #fellowships #funding #government #politics #research #disciplines #fields #sectors #domains #downturn #boom

All #PhD recruitment approaches vary by professor, but there are some common themes that are fairly typical throughout.In my newest #HackingAcademia video I shed some light on the #PhD candidate shortlisting and interview process we currently use, in the hope to demystify it for potential PhD candidates.Some key points I cover include:⭐ that what we're looking for is just as much about fit and match to research in our group as it is to the particular individual involved, and we're always appreciative of the time candidates put in⭐ the huge number of applications we (and any lab with an international profile) get per year, and the practical necessities that forces upon us to be able to effectively manage them and shortlist - we do look at and consider just about every single applicant⭐ what CVs etc... look like to us at a 30,000 ft view, and the irony that increasing professionalism means it's harder to distinguish the best fit candidates from CVs alone (not that you should ever do that anyway!)⭐ our two stage interview process for shortlisted candidates (including the occasional referee check, not mentioned in the video), consisting of⭐ interview 1: "getting to know you" - tell us a bit about your background, what drew you to considering a PhD, what motivated you to apply to our lab specifically, what you understand the PhD process to be, and any questions you have about PhD life, and then ⭐ interview 2: technical knowledge and understanding, covering aspects of coding, computer vision, data structures, mathematics, combined with a "first year of your PhD crammed into 20 mins" mini-research study (in our topic area of Visual Place Recognition)⭐ in the tech interview, you're not expected to know everything, we provide extra support and scaffolding as needed (our aim is not to stress you out).⭐ we're particularly interested in you communicating what you're thinking as you work through some of the questions and challenges, even if you don't get it out at the end - in part, because this mimicks the whole student-supervisor dynamic in a PhD, which is so important⭐ practicalities: interview processes are just as much about risk mitigation (in both directions) - not just about finding the absolute best candidate, although that's also the aim - just not the sole one.⭐ practicalities: we know good talent will likely apply to lots of labs, and have multiple optionsAs mentioned in the video, we're constantly tinkering at our shortlisting and interview process - this is some of what we do currently, but it's a continually evolving process.Thanks especially to Tobias Fischer and Janet Danaher - we've tag teamed developing and refining the whole shortlisting and interview process.Apologies for the jerky selfie cam - I'd been meaning to shoot this for months but there's no time like the present.🖥️ YouTube video link: https://youtu.be/_IWrpSu3hIE#academic #research #jobs #phds #graduate #hiring #jobinterview #careers #careeradvice #university #undergraduate #HDR

Last week at the 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (#IROS2024) in Abu Dhabi, Cyrill Stachniss and I were invited to give a tutorial on "Writing Papers People Love to Read" by Julie Stephany Berrio Perez on behalf of the IEEE Young Professionals.Now, to give a proper, comprehensive treatment of all the ins and outs of paper writing really requires something more like a full day workshop, and it's something that researchers in our teams get exposed to gradually over a period of years.On this occasion, Cyrill and I had around 20-25 minutes each, so we focused on some of the key concepts, techniques, tips, tricks and pitfalls, followed by some great discussion and Q&A with a great turnout for the final formal event on day 2 of the conference.Cyrill went first, providing a bunch of tips and suggestions on paper structures, what should go into each part of the paper, nailing your contributions, grabbing and keeping the reader engaged and general todos and not to dos. You can check out Cyrill's talk here: https://lnkd.in/dywR5rjpI then followed up with a tutorial on how to think about the art of paper writing, with a number of high level concepts - including the "must dos" and the "field and audience-specific factors", explicit ways to think about and categorize your paper in order to enhance your writing, presentation and a paper writing superpower - multi-step anticipation - where you repeatedly anticipate and pre-emptively respond to the likely questions or thoughts what will occur to your reader (again, best done with an experienced writer and researcher).Common to both of our talks was the incredible value of "pair writing" early in your career with an experienced writer, where you sit side by side and write (type) together - the learning rate is phenomenal when you get this right, far far better than at-arms-length feedback via "marked up draft" or general comments in an e-mail or slack channel.In Cyrill's case, with Wolfram Burgard, and in my case, with Gordon Wyeth. As well as the general theme of respecting your reader's precious and sometimes not-entirely-focused time and energy, and all the things you can do to maximize their enjoyment and clarity whilst reading your paper, and minimize their confusion and aggravation.Again, these are high level tastings of what are a bunch of concepts that can go much deeper and into more detail.Thanks to Julie Stephany Berrio Perez for very nicely filming and editing this together.🖥️ YouTube link to my full talk here: https://lnkd.in/dPSvjjUs#paperwriting #robotics #research #conference #academic #publishing #papers #communication #writing #comms #university #PhD #postdoc #academia #IROS

In academic and research careers, so much can feel so far out of your control.But there's one way I've found very useful, both for myself and those I mentor, to pull back a little bit more control of your fate, and that is the concept of:𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞 And that's the topic of today's Hacking Academia video and podcast - the 40th in the series!!! 🎉🎉🎉When you apply for a grant, fellowship, project, award, job or promotion, you face a number of choices that are mostly within your control:❓ how closely should I pitch this project to the work I'm already doing?❓ how grand or narrow in scope a project should I propose?❓ how incremental or impossibly blue sky should the proposed research be?❓ how strongly should I make the claims about contributions relating to a prize or promotion application?❓ where on the underselling to overselling spectrum do I want to pitch this research?Your answers to these questions are shaped of course by the guidelines of the scheme you're engaged in - for example some grant schemes being risk averse, whilst others are deliberately "blue sky" (risky fundamental basic research).But they're also shaped by something within your control - your ability to significant bias *how* your application would be rejected - if it is at all.So why would you do this?Because it has the beneficial effect of 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥.It also has the beneficial effect of making you deliberately think about how you want to pitch whatever it is you're submitting - which can also improve the overall clarity and quality of the submission.🖥️ Youtube link: https://lnkd.in/dHJqfg9U

It's Friday, and, given my life currently, it's a great time to talk about pushing to, and beyond, your limits, and managing as best you can the associated risk of burnout.For a while now, and likely for a while into the future, my professional career has been largely focused on two amazing, potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunities: one in the strategic research space, and one in the global impact tech translation space. So if it appears I've been slacking off and not doing much, I haven't! It's just that the majority of what I've been focusing on for a while now hasn't been in the public domain much, if at all. In my new Hacking Academia video, I talk about:✨ those periods in your life when you deliberately and consciously choose to go all in on an amazing opportunity, that has a statistically very low likelihood of coming off - and all the pschological, time and energy burden that entails, both for you and your collaborators / team members. This is a different situation to the ad-hoc challenges that life and careers periodically throw up.✨ the conditions under which this is even feasible, professionally and personally: a relatively stable situation in both, supportive and understanding professional peers and family and friends, ability to delegate and offload to some extent. And the need to be aware that if any of that changes you may need to stop.✨ that some risk mitigation and burnout risk management can and should be done, but ultimately, growth is pushing beyond your boundaries and with that comes risk, highs and lows, and unpredictability.✨ unless you're all in, the tension and compromise involved in maintaining some of your core activities and having some sort of fallback position✨ the exhilaration of chasing something really amazing, and the joy of getting "into the zone" and becoming incredibly prolific ✨ the analogy to peaking in sporting endeavours: as a planned, deliberate activity, it's possible to peak for a sustained, but not indefinite, period of time✨ the downsides: hyperfocus can make context-switching difficult, especially for those more "mundane" everyday activities; switching from grand ambitions and visions to nuanced and delicate personal interactions (e.g. in any leadership role) can be challenging; and the increased risk of missing things or bad decision making, which can be remedied by sanity checks with peers✨ the recommendation to watch out for these opportunities - they're incredibly exciting, exhausting, and amazing learning and growth experiences. #HackingAcademia #ProfessionalGrowth #Burnout#CareerJourney #InnovationLeadership #TechTranslation #StrategicResearch #PeakPerformance #RiskManagement #WorkLifeBalance #GrowthMindset #LeadershipChallenges #CareerOpportunities #ProfessionalDevelopment #Resilience #Ambition #Focus #LifeBalance #Risk #CareerSuccess #PersonalGrowth #CareerAdvice #Academia #Research #Technology #University #Startup #Leadership #Teams

It's late on a Friday afternoon here in Brisbane, so it's time for a fun story about a prank my PhD labmates played on me two decades ago, and how it unexpectedly led to my most highly cited and awarded research work. 📚🤓At the time, I was working on our #RatSLAM system - a neurally-inspired robot mapping and navigation system that performed SLAM - Simultaneous Localization And Mapping. 🤖🗺️SLAM is the process of a robot exploring and mapping a new environment while keeping track of its location. It's a big topic in robotics and computer vision. 🔍🚀One day, my labmates put tape over the camera on our Pioneer 3-DX mobile robot, blinding it, and waited for it to fail. 🎥🙈 EXCEPT, the RatSLAM system continued to work, and I didn't initially notice any change. 😲A SLAM system needs motion information and a way to recognize places it has visited before. The tape destroyed the camera's detail perception, but it still registered an "average brightness" of the scene, becoming a single pixel light intensity meter. 💡📷In our stable office environment, the SLAM system continued to work because the light intensity readings were consistent and varied distinctively across locations. 🏢🔆Years later, this discovery informed our #SeqSLAM system and our "How Low Can You Go" research, pushing the boundaries on low resolution and robust visual localization in specific use cases like path-like environments. The work won awards, led to millions in funded research & projects, and much follow on work. 🏆💡📈So, while I’m not encouraging pranks, remember that when something goes wrong, it might lead to a breakthrough. You never know what you might discover! 🌟🤖🔬📖 SeqSLAM: https://lnkd.in/drCN5B8s📖 How low can you go? https://lnkd.in/dJhmzWj9📖 Follow on work: https://lnkd.in/dKwWYRPn #ResearchStory #PhDLife #Robotics #SLAM #RatSLAM #SeqSLAM #RoboticsResearch #InnovativeDiscoveries #AcademicJourney #PranksInTheLab #RoboticsMapping #NeuralInspired #ComputerVision #ScientificDiscovery #Brisbane #RoboticsLab #BestPaperAward #ResearchBreakthrough #FridayFun #UnexpectedInsights #AI #MachineLearning #ResearchImpact 

𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐚!!! 👀📚The concept of success rates (and by extension, rejection rates) is something that comes up a lot in research and academia. 🎓Grant schemes and publication venues have typical success rates that you can easily find online, but these numbers can obscure how success rates can play out at an individual level. 📉📈 Likewise, social media is disproportionately filled with tales of success, as well as epic stories of people succeeding after unusually long streaks of rejection. 🌟💔And other activities, like landing tech jobs 🖥️👔, or collaborating with industry 🏭🤝, don't always have clear success rate statistics associated with them. 📊❓Today's video is an attempt to address that - I go through the approximate (estimated) success rates I've had in my career in publishing, grant funding, collaboration and job opportunity endeavours. 🎥🔍The full half hour vid can be watched on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JnD01tA7HdoI also recount some particular anecdotes:💠 a number of schemes where I still (yay) have a zero percent success rate (even now as a well established academic),💠 a horrendous ICRA2015 where we got 1 out of 7 (14%!!!) of papers accepted,💠 a paper (SeqSLAM) that was utterly slammed and destroyed by the computer vision community that, unchanged, won best vision paper awards and nominations in the robotics community, and now has over 1000 citations 🚫🏆🤖, and💠 that rare, rare situation where you submit a proposal that you are 100% happy with. 🎉I'd never claim that these numbers are "typical" - I've worked hard, but much of this is luck, having good people around you, survivorship bias, and the privilege of having the opportunity in the first place.Nevertheless, with appropriate context, I think there is value to a) talking about them b) showing the huge variation in numbers even well into your career c) and showing the value of persistence (sometimes) if you're in a situation to keep trying. 💬📊✨And finally a note about rejection: some people have a tendency to mythologize repeated rejection and eventual success: the challenging reality is, of course, that repeated rejection isn't always abuse - sometimes there's valuable signal in it: experience, and the advice of experienced others, is how you help differentiate between the two situations. 🧭👥.There are lots of ways you can be successful, contribute, and leave an impact - sometimes rejection is a useful data point in determining what is best for you, rather than a challenge to overcome at all costs. 🌟🔍💡#Academia #SuccessRates #ResearchLife #AcademicChallenges #Persistence #Publishing #GrantFunding #CareerDevelopment #AcademicJourney #SocialMediaReality

Of all the advice that is dispensed in academia, one of the most varied is about whether you should focus narrowly and deeply, or diversify and broaden your repertoire.The reason for this variety of suggested approach is of course, circumstance and the individual: the ecosystem you find yourself in, and your personal aspirations, risk appetite and other factors determine what is "best for you".So this video is definitely not to suggest what you should do: rather to raise awareness of some key factors that might affect your approach.Some of these factors include:💎 the combination of latency and low acceptance rates in many core activities - in academia being applying for grants and submitting publications - leading to volatility: one of the "management" strategies here is to do a lot more than you actually expect to get...💎 your capacity for learning and improvement and hitting potential plateaus if focussing narrowly on just one thing - where you learn especially quickly but may eventually hit capacity / capability limits, versus doing a range of activities where you're continually learning and seeing good improvements because you're in an earlier part of the expertise spectrum💎 having refuge activities to switch to if one of your activities is going badly, allowing you to recharge and come back to it later refreshed. Even if you work super hard and do everything right focusing on just-one-thing, it can go bad for all sorts of reasons beyond your control...💎 the expectations of those who fund or resource you - sometimes they won't be keen for you to hyperspecialize, preferring a range of contributory activities (e.g. a typical academics' teaching, research and service split)💎 personal preferences and attention span / comfort focusing deeply on one narrow thing versus lots of things💎 diversity of activities, especially including *new* activities, provides you with the opportunity to discover new things that you are passionate about, and good at (ideally both together!)💎 110% effort opportunities where, as long as you go in with eyes open, you commit fully to just one thing, in order to maximize chances of success - perhaps leaving academia to do a startupCheck out the podcast here, or the video version here: https://youtu.be/53J0dcI03gk

Tips for Writing Compelling Grants

I'm excited to release my first Hacking Academia video and podcast for 2024, "Flying Close to the Sun... and Why it Can Be Exhausting!".The basic premise is that if you're pushing hard in your career, you're going to inevitably land some opportunities and responsibilities that stretch or are even outside your capability and capacity... cue a bunch of on-the-job learning and hard-won experience.There's nothing wrong with this - but the learning-and-adapting-to-the-new thing can be an exhausting process, so the key is to be deliberative about how and when you go for something a little beyond your current limits, and balance it with bread-and-butter activity that you can do with your eyes closed, so to speak.As well as re-evaluate where you're pushing when one of those things does indeed come through (or conversely, is unsuccessful). Uncertainty and long lead times is the enemy in career planning in fields like academia, so when you know an outcome, you should replan...Due to time commitments this year, I'm going to experiment with more off-the-cuff, completely ad libbed videos this year and see how we go, and work with the backlog of annotation, chapter headings etc... in batches later on.

📌 (0:00) Opening Scene📌 (0:09) Introduction to Lifestyle Crafting Work Activities 📌 (0:43) For People Who Want to Be a Bit More Deliberative 📌 (1:07) A Process for "Just Say No"📌 (1:21) Career Relevance and Applicable Scenarios📌 (1:43) Check Your Assumptions📌 (1:55) Don't Pursue Assumed Requirements Irrationally📌 (2:25) Don't Take On Obviously Risky Endeavours📌 (2:49) Introducing Key Factors for Lifestyle Crafting📌 (3:14) Asessing the Distribution of Factors📌 (3:36) Key Factor: Interest, Excitement, Passion📌 (4:17) Key Factor: Talent Requirements & Rarity📌 (4:51) Good and Bad Talent Examples📌 (5:55) Key Factor: Technical Difficulty For You📌 (6:28) Don't Combine Technical Difficulty With Other Challenges📌 (7:00) Key Factor: Project Plan Robustness📌 (7:54) Key Factor: Team Dynamic📌 (8:21) Key Factor: Resourcing Margin📌 (8:50) Good and Bad Resourcing Margin Examples📌 (9:47) But Won't Asking for More Risk the Project?📌 (10:08) Key Factor: Project Financial Situation📌 (10:27) Three Typical Project Charging Rates and Their Impact📌 (11:50) Financial and Resource Viability Isn't Just About the Total Dollar Figure📌 (12:16) The Benefits of a Lifestyle Crafting Approach

 For those who travel for work, one of the challenges they must grapple with is how to balance the work that they would normally be doing back at home, with the activities associated with the trip. Here I highlight some of the key concepts, tips and tricks to pull it off, and highlight some of the pitfalls to be careful of. 🕒 Timestamps are as follows:📌 (0:00) Introduction to Working Whilst Travelling📌 (0:54) A Generally Compromised Experience📌 (1:34) Travel-Associated Work is the Priority📌 (2:19) Exceptions📌 (2:33) Not Getting Sucked Back In📌 (2:58) Being Deliberate In What You Do and When📌 (3:09) Example: Internet Access as a Deciding Factor📌 (3:47) Matching Activities to Travel Mode📌 (4:39) What Not to Do With Poor Internet📌 (5:13) eSims Are Great📌 (5:28) Consider Best Security Practice📌 (6:01) Minimize Work With Complex Workspace Requirements📌 (6:27) Preparation and Out of Office Messaging📌 (7:01) Prioritise Activities In The Lead Up to Travel📌 (7:29) Emotional Energy Management📌 (8:20) Picking the Best Time To Deal With An Issue📌 (8:51) Over Compensate and Over Communicate📌 (9:21) A Good Foundation With Your Team Is Vital📌 (9:48) Leverage the Change of Routine📌 (10:26) The Pros and Cons of Time Zone Differences📌 (11:13) Minimizing Unnecessary Back and Forth📌 (12:20) Peak Fatigue Can Occur After The Trip📌 (13:06) RecapWebpage with full notes and video: https://michaelmilford.com/working-while-travelling/

It's conference paper writing season for #roboticists!With the 2024 #IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (#ICRA #ICRA2024) deadline just around the corner, I recently ran through a walkthrough of the typical structure and components of a robotics conference paper with our research group.The Title, Abstract, Introduction, Background, Approach, Experimental Setup, Results, Discussion, References, and a bunch of key tips for how to approach each one, like the critical FPF - First Page Figure, tone in setting up the gap, and flagging to the reader what is a claimed new contribution versus what is included for the purpose of being self-contained.Here is that walkthrough in video format complete with paper schematic highlighting, as my newest #HackingAcademia podcast and video.

I've spent much of my adult career in roles where I was on the younger side what is "typical": this has led to a range of interesting experiences, learnings and insights.In this Hacking Academia video, I run through four key concepts relating to the experience of being relatively young for your career stage:✳ Systems and work culture are not set up for people who are substantially younger than expected✳ The need to develop an appropriate attitude towards early age success✳ Burning bright but not burning out✳ You can’t genuinely fast track cumulative life experienceCheck it out on YouTube, or via this podcast.Please reshare if useful 🙏🕒 Timestamps are as follows:📌 (0:00) Introduction to Ideation in a Research Context📌 (0:53) Research Ideation is an Ongoing Process📌 (1:27) Ideas Can Pop Up at Anytime📌 (1:51) Jotting Down Ideas For Later Consideration📌 (2:39) Consider a More Detailed Ideas Log As Well📌 (2:51) What Makes For a Good Idea?📌 (3:02) The Need for Some Type of Benefit📌 (3:11) Three Benefit Examples in a Computer Science Context📌 (3:49) Separate Benefit Articulation from Chance of Success📌 (4:05) Benefit Can Be Immediate and Stand Alone or Long Term and Integrative📌 (4:18) Being Able to Articulate the Potential Benefit is Key📌 (4:35) Specificity Can Help Refine Your Ideas📌 (5:07) Specificity Example: Computational Advantage📌 (6:23) Benefits are Very Rarely Evenly Spread📌 (6:45) Ideas and Novelty📌 (7:14) Not Everything Has to be Novel!📌 (7:26) When Learning to Ideate, Don’t Obsess Over Novelty📌 (8:08) Ideation Stimuli: Approach Versus End-User Problem📌 (8:24) Research Approach Example: A New Machine Learning Technique📌 (8:35) End-User Example Problem📌 (8:54) Choosing Between an Approach versus Problem Perspective📌 (9:12) Sharing Ideas with Peers: Pros and Cons📌 (9:38) Ideation in Your Area of Expertise is Usually More Efficient📌 (10:22) Ideation Driven by Areas of Interest📌 (10:40) Remember Interest and Capability Don’t Overlap Exactly📌 (10:55) Ideation with a Specific Outcome in Mind📌 (11:13) Balancing Opportunity with Your Capability Fit📌 (11:50) Ideation is Useful for Many Career Types and Stages📌 (12:19) Having Some Ideas Helps Generate More Ideas!📌 (12:34) The Joy and Excitement of Ideation

In any research career where you are responsible for conducting or leading a program of innovative research, your success will depend on your ability to generate good research ideas – a process known as ‘ideation’. In your career, you may have already met or worked with researchers who seem to have a near infinite source of exciting ideas for research projects, or can come up with endless new ideas on the spot. But behind those impressive feats is typically a well developed skillset in research ideation. In this video I dive into the ins and outs of becoming effective at research ideation, and the benefits it can have for your career.I touch on key concepts, like the fact that much ideation is actually a continuous, spontaneous process, where ideas can pop up at any time, and where having a system to note and later follow up on those ideas is crucial. I talk about the various ways in which you can think about whether an early stage idea you have is potentially a good one – including aspects like potential benefit, specificity of benefit, and some meaningful additional contribution over what has already been done in the field. I give examples of ideation in a computer science context, and talk about the different stimuli you can use to drive ideation, from research methodology to end user problems. When ideation is done with a specific purpose in mind – for example for an academic paper or grant submission – there are extra factors to consider, like topicality, fit for your profile and interest level. Finally I highlight how being good at ideation is a universally useful skill, across a number of research-orientated career types, and for both early and late in your career.Check it out, via this Podcast, on YouTube, or via podcast.Please reshare if useful  Timestamps are as follows: (0:00) Introduction to Ideation in a Research Context (0:53) Research Ideation is an Ongoing Process (1:27) Ideas Can Pop Up at Anytime (1:51) Jotting Down Ideas For Later Consideration (2:39) Consider a More Detailed Ideas Log As Well (2:51) What Makes For a Good Idea? (3:02) The Need for Some Type of Benefit (3:11) Three Benefit Examples in a Computer Science Context (3:49) Separate Benefit Articulation from Chance of Success (4:05) Benefit Can Be Immediate and Stand Alone or Long Term and Integrative (4:18) Being Able to Articulate the Potential Benefit is Key (4:35) Specificity Can Help Refine Your Ideas (5:07) Specificity Example: Computational Advantage (6:23) Benefits are Very Rarely Evenly Spread (6:45) Ideas and Novelty (7:14) Not Everything Has to be Novel! (7:26) When Learning to Ideate, Don’t Obsess Over Novelty (8:08) Ideation Stimuli: Approach Versus End-User Problem (8:24) Research Approach Example: A New Machine Learning Technique (8:35) End-User Example Problem (8:54) Choosing Between an Approach versus Problem Perspective (9:12) Sharing Ideas with Peers: Pros and Cons (9:38) Ideation in Your Area of Expertise is Usually More Efficient (10:22) Ideation Driven by Areas of Interest (10:40) Remember Interest and Capability Don’t Overlap Exactly (10:55) Ideation with a Specific Outcome in Mind (11:13) Balancing Opportunity with Your Capability Fit (11:50) Ideation is Useful for Many Career Types and Stages (12:19) Having Some Ideas Helps Generate More Ideas! (12:34) The Joy and Excitement of Ideation

Leadership...In my newest video, "Leadership Principles and Pitfalls", I delve deep into the core concepts, misconceptions, challenges and pitfalls of leadership. I cover misconceptions around leaders being the most eloquent or best at the activity they're leading and the whole nature versus nurture issue; the relationship between leadership and its less glorious partner management; the challenge of getting the right mix of empowerment, guidance, and inclusive decision making, and the critical role that transparency can play through all of this, as well as regular communication. I talk about the impact of leadership on *you*, how being selfless sometimes involves being "selfish", and the phenomenon that leadership never ends up quite being what you envisaged ahead of time...Check it out, in this post, on YouTube, or via podcast:🔗 YouTube link: https://lnkd.in/g3pBQxM4🎙 Podcast link: https://lnkd.in/geTZafUN🔗 Full page and notes: https://lnkd.in/g83uWxMA⌚ Podcast Topic Timestamps:📌 (0:00) Introduction to Leadership📌 (0:16) You Learn About Leadership By Doing It and Observing Others📌 (0:49) Leadership Learning is an Ongoing Process📌 (1:00) This Video: Key Concepts and Considerations📌 (1:09) There Are Many Forms of Leadership 📌 (1:23) Everyone Has Their Own Take on Leadership📌 (1:31) Listen Widely And Take Onboard What Resonates With You📌 (1:43) A Working Definition of Leadership📌 (2:15) Unhelpful Misconceptions About Leadership📌 (2:20) Loud, Eloquent Speakers Aren't Necessarily Good Leaders📌 (2:48) Much Leadership Occurs Quietly, In The Background📌 (2:58) Manage Meetings to Facilitate Input From Quiet Leaders📌 (3:12) Leadership is Primarily About Serving Others📌 (3:35) The Reluctant Leader Trope📌 (3:55) An Enthusiasm for Leadership is Also Great, But Beware...📌 (4:11) Leaders Don't Have to Be the Best at the Activity They're Leading📌 (4:28) Relevant Experience Can Be Helpful📌 (4:42) If New to the Domain, Lots of Learning is Required📌 (4:57) Leaders are Made, Not Born📌 (5:13) Learning Curves Will Vary for Different Individuals📌 (5:35) Leadership and Management Go Hand in Hand📌 (5:56) Visionary Leadership is Undermined by Poor Management 📌 (6:10) Good Management Without Leadership is Directionless📌 (6:19) A Little of Both is Often Better than a Big Imbalance📌 (6:28) Balancing Empowerment and Guidance📌 (6:41) Trust People to Try Things and Learn from Mistakes📌 (6:48) Consider Guardrails To Stop Catastrophic Mistakes📌 (7:03) Don't Leave Your Team Without Any Guidance📌 (7:13) An Introduction to Inclusive Decision Making📌 (7:29) Practical Limits to Inclusive Decision Making📌 (7:49) If You Ask for Input, Listen!📌 (8:07) Transparency Is Also Important for Inclusive Decision Making📌 (8:21) The Vital Importance of Transparency📌 (8:32) Example of the Positive Impact of Transparency📌 (9:38) Be as Transparent as Circumstances Allow You To Be📌 (9:53) A Leader's Job Isn't to Become Friends with Everyone📌 (10:25) The Importance of Regular Communication📌 (10:36) Regular Communication Helps Discover Issues📌 (10:45) Problems Get Worse Without Communication📌 (10:53) Earlier Conversations Are Almost Always Easier📌 (11:10) Don't Oversimplify Issues for Your Team📌 (11:33) Thinking About Leadership and its Impact on You📌 (11:38) Being Selfless Sometimes Involves Being "Selfish"📌 (12:24) If You Burn Out, You're Not Helping Anyone📌 (12:39) Final Thoughts: Leadership is Often Different to What You Expect📌 (12:52) In Leading You Can Learn Unexpected Things About Yourself📌 (13:00) Leadership is an Enriching Experience - Give it a Go!

Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door???Just because you do great work, doesn't mean that work will have the impact and achieve the benefits it could.The chances of your contributions having the impact you desire will often also depend on your profile, and who knows what you're doing.In my latest video and podcast, "Public Profile Building: Why, Why Not, and Your Options for How", I delve into the why, the why not, and the how of public profile building.Please reshare if useful 🙏🔗 Full page and notes: https://michaelmilford.com/public-profile-building-why-why-not-and-your-options-for-how/🔗 Complete series covering topics including #negotiation, #writing #papers that get accepted, managing #rejection, #worklifebalance, finding and applying for a great #PhD and many more: https://lnkd.in/gwhjXa9G🔗 Complete YouTube playlist: https://lnkd.in/ghdpeTfJ⌚ Topic Timestamps:📌 (0:00) Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door 📌 (0:17) What is Profile Building?📌 (0:43) Profile Building is Optional📌 (0:58) The Case for at Least Considering Profile Building📌 (1:18) Video Overview: Why, Why Not, and How📌 (1:45) The Why of Profile Building📌 (2:28) Why: To Increase the Chance that Good Work has Impact📌 (3:19) Profile Building for a Cause📌 (3:28) Other Benefits: Opportunity Generation📌 (3:41) Profile Building Develops Many Useful Skills📌 (3:55) Why Not? Four Key Considerations📌 (4:08) Enjoying Profile Building📌 (4:40) Becoming Proficient at Profile Building📌 (5:23) Dealing with Harassment and Abuse📌 (6:06) Even When Going Well It Can Be Exhausting📌 (6:56) Broad Principles for the How of Profile Building📌 (7:12) Professional Versus Personal Identity📌 (8:12) Your Appetite for Self-Promotion📌 (8:31) Profile Building Example: Politely Offering to Talk📌 (9:09) Assessing Your Efforts Requires a Sustained Commitment📌 (9:34) Make Some Attempt to Measure the Impact📌 (10:01) Choosing the Ways in Which You Do Profile Building📌 (10:18) Remember Platforms Are Always Changing📌 (10:27) Social Media Platforms📌 (10:53) Check the Personal versus Professional Flavour of the Platform📌 (11:06) Many Ways to Engage in Person📌 (11:24) You Don't Always Have to be the Star of the Show📌 (11:39) Tips for Becoming Proficient📌 (11:53) Collaboration Can Be Helpful📌 (12:24) High Quality Modifiable Collateral📌 (12:52) Automation and Assistive Tools📌 (13:35) Profile Building Enhances What is Already There📌 (13:55) Not Doing It, And Taking Breaks📌 (14:17) Summary and Final Words

In professional careers we tend to focus a lot on what we're do at work - but what we do *outside* of work can be just as important. This is a well known phenomenon in other endeavours in life - for example in athletic endeavours it's not just the training, but the quality and quantity of recovery and sleep you get that's just as important.Taking breaks, both short and long, is a key component of a maintaining a healthy and sustainable work life balance. Perhaps counter-intuitively, breaks can also help directly with your work as well, in multiple ways.But the huge benefits of taking a break is wasted if you don't think about and plan for how you take a break.In my latest Hacking Academia video and podcast, I delve into the why and how of taking breaks from your professional career.Please reshare if useful 🙏🔗 Full page and notes: https://michaelmilford.com/the-importance-of-and-art-of-taking-a-break-from-work/🔗 Complete series covering topics including #negotiation, #writing #papers that get accepted, managing #rejection, #worklifebalance, finding and applying for a great #PhD and many more: https://lnkd.in/gwhjXa9G🔗 Complete YouTube playlist: https://lnkd.in/ghdpeTfJ⌚ Topic Timestamps:📌 (0:00) Introduction to Taking Breaks 📌 (0:34) Taking Effective Breaks is a Skill📌 (1:30) Breaks Are Vital Even if You Don't Think You Need Them📌 (1:51) The Obvious Personal Benefits of Taking Breaks📌 (2:13) Taking Breaks Benefits Your Work 📌 (2:34) Distance From Work Generates New Insights 📌 (3:07) Breaks Give You a Better Work Reset Opportunity📌 (3:32) Good Break Planning and Execution is Vital📌 (3:48) Taking Good Breaks Means Letting Go📌 (4:12) Focus on the Bigger Picture Benefits of a Break📌 (4:45) Thinking About Good Work News is Still Thinking About Work! 📌 (5:53) Provide Alternative 📌 (Agreed Upon) Points of Contact📌 (6:13) Alert People Before Your Break 📌 (6:26) Alternative Points of Contact Reduce But Don't Remove Missed Opportunities 📌 (6:37) Example: Dealing with a Speaking Opportunity Invitation 📌 (7:18) Nominate Multiple Appropriate Points of Contact 📌 (7:21) Delegation Can Provide Others with Development Opportunities📌 (7:31) Confirm Points of Contact Are Willing to Do So and Give Them Clear Instructions  📌 (7:38) Points of Contact Are Not Full Replacements For You📌 (7:56) Approaches to Managing Crises While You're Away 📌 (8:30) Make Sure People Know You're Away 📌 (8:37) Notify All Communication Channels📌 (8:55) Disconnecting Fully From Work📌 (9:07) Fully Quarantining Your Work Communications📌 (9:57) Choosing Between Zero and Highly Limited Work Check Ins📌 (10:15) Objectively Assessing the Actual Need for Check Ins📌 (10:48) Minimizing the Intrusion of Work Check Ins📌 (11:21) Be Aware Of and Minimize Work Check In Creep📌 (11:51) Work-Disconnected Mechanisms For Noting Ideas📌 (12:31) Short Versus Long Breaks📌 (13:20) Develop Your Own Break Taking Philosophy

Do you manage the discretionary budget for a large research group or centre? If yes, then you know budgeting can be a challenging yet crucial aspect of your work. ⠀My most recent Hacking Academia release walks through the theory and practical aspects of budget management for research entities like a centre. In Part 1, we dive into key concepts that shape how you manage a budget, explore how funding amounts, time spans, and restrictions can affect your decision-making, and discuss ways to respond to unexpected costs. We also delve into the nuances of over and under spending, and the importance of indexing and leveraging your funds. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or new to managing large budgets, this video will provide valuable insights and possibly overturn some budgeting wisdom you may have learned as a child.Stay tuned for Part 2, where I’ll discuss potential spending categories you might consider allocating to a center budget.As always, I appreciate your engagement and look forward to your comments, questions, and experiences.Please reshare if useful Timestamps are as follows: (0:00) Introduction to Budgeting for Centres (0:08) Introduction to Discretionary Funding (0:30) Discretionary Budgets Enable Many Opportunities (0:41) Managing Larger Budgets Can be Daunting (0:44) Many People Receive Little Formal Budget Training (0:55) These Videos Cover Concepts and Budget Examples (1:11) Many Budget Concepts Are Common to Most Contexts (1:26) This Video Covers Key Budget Concepts and Issues (1:35) Key Factor: Budget Size (2:03) Small Budgets Necessitate Co-Funding (2:24) Larger Budgets Can Enable Staffing (2:40) Large Events and Equipment Purchases (2:57) Key Concept: Budget Timeline and Uncertainty (3:27) Prioritising Amidst Uncertainty (3:54) Ability to Make Future Co-Funding Commitments (4:06) The Vital Importance of Indexing (4:28) Indexing Example (5:03) Volatility in Expenses (5:08) Salaries Are Relatively Predictable (5:14) More Volatile Expense Categories (5:20) Examples: Travel and GPU Costs (5:42) Lots of Factors Can Drive Price Volatility (5:53) Things Can Get Cheaper Too! (6:01) Expenditure Restrictions (6:18) Examples of Expenditure Restrictions (6:37) Key Concept: Underspending and Overspending (6:46) Some People Have Learnt a Tendency to Save and Underspend (6:59) Underspending Can Be Counterproductive (7:13) Large Overspends Are Of Course Bad (7:21) Be Wary of Excessive Hoarding of Funds – They May Disappear (7:33) Funding Roll Over Is Not Always Possible (7:45) Co-Funding Can Stretch Limited Budgets Further (8:03) Example: Partial Funding of Work Travel (8:22) Make Sure Funding Schemes Don’t Exacerbate Inequities (8:33) Leverage Both External and Internal Co-Funding (8:40) Internal Co-Funding Examples: Grants and Equipment (8:49) Reality Often Doesn’t Match Budget Plans (8:57) The Timing of When Expenses Hit Your Accounts (9:10) Example: Equipment Charge Delays (9:32) Large Expenses Missing Their Planned Year (9:41) Expenses Can Sometimes Be Routed Via Other Accounts (10:06) Completely Unexpected Charges (10:24) Retaining a Strategic Reserve (10:36) Example: Unexpected Strategic Opportunities (10:52) A Strategic Reserve Needs Rollover (11:04) Recap: Discretionary Budgets Enable Lots of Opportunities (11:20) A Steep But Worthwhile Learning Curve (11:29) Video Recap and Preview of Part 2

I’ve been meaning to get my thoughts on the recent developments and likely disruptive impacts of #Artificialntelligence into a video, and to do this free of any constraining context, as most of my keynotes, workshops etc. over the coming year will be specific to certain contexts or domains (e.g. #education, #tech etc.).So here it is: a free form video where I discuss why I think recent #AI developments are most definitely not “business” as normal, and the key reasons why.My key points are:⭐ my perspective is shaped by both a deep tech research background and from spending a substantial fraction of the last few years advising and learning from a very wide range of stakeholders about the effects of transformative tech; from big tech to local community advocate groups, and from pre-school children to retirees, both internationally and within Australia⭐ that the likely depth and breadth of impact on what so many of us do on a day to day basis is unprecedented – past AI tech innovations have primarily had shallow impacts on many people or very deep impacts on a small subset of people.⭐ that the “barriers” to access that have so commonly both hindered enthusiastic early adopters, and comforted a lack of action by reluctant organisations, are no longer there – the capabilities of these systems are stark and immediately, viscerally graspable by anyone within minutes of interacting with them⭐ that, again unlike past AI tech disruptions, the likely disruption doesn’t require one or more multiple “miracles” of further improvements: the status quo is enough even given their substantial flaws, and⭐ that nevertheless any reasonable projection of future development would suggest that at least some of their known shortcomings will be mitigated, further scaling their impactFinally, whilst needing a treatment in of themselves, I talk about:⭐ why I am cautiously optimistic that the misuse and abuse of these systems will be successfully countered and moderated, and, to the primary point of the video, that⭐ I think their immediate huge disruptive potential is in no way reliant on this tech getting close to #artificialgeneralintelligence (#AGI) – a whole other debateWith this video I hope to provoke discussion and welcome your thoughts and comments!🙏 Pls reshare as you see fit!#research #technology #robotics #science #AI #artificialintelligence #tech #chatgpt #chatgpt4 #bard #google #meta

🤔 “It’s what wasn’t said that’s most interesting…”My new video covers the significance of implied messaging in settings such as job interviews, grant rejoinders, job referee reports and more.I highlight the importance of recognizing underlying messages in communication, and effectively using implicit messaging in your own comms.Check out the tutorial now in the video! 👉Please reshare if useful 🙏🕒 Timestamps are as follows:📌 (0:00) Introduction to Implicit Messaging📌 (0:23) Implicit Messaging Can Be Both Intentional and Unintentional📌 (0:27) Present in Both Outgoing and Incoming Communication📌 (0:34) Explicit Messaging Working Definition📌 (0:44) Implicit Messaging Working Definition📌 (0:54) It’s What Isn’t Said That is Interesting📌 (1:02) Example: Layoffs at a Startup Company📌 (1:34) Understanding and Using Implicit Messaging is a Powerful Skill📌 (1:41) Two Reasons It’s an Advanced Skill📌 (1:46) Only Useful If the Basics Are Strong📌 (1:57) Implicit Messaging Won’t Save Poor Explicit Messaging📌 (2:20) Implicit Messaging Adds Significant Cognitive Load📌 (3:05) Examples and Case Studies📌 (3:22) Example: Giving Experience Examples in a Job Interview📌 (3:56) Implied Messages Can Be Pivotal Even if They’re Incorrect📌 (4:15) Awareness of Possible Implicit Messages Can Help You Rephrase📌 (4:24) Modified Response To Remove Unwanted Implied Message📌 (4:52) Example: Implicit Messaging in Grant Rejoinders📌 (5:06) Where You Respond Can Send an Implied Message📌 (5:29) Awareness of All Implied Messages is Key📌 (5:41) There Can Be Multiple Implied Messages📌 (6:07) If You Don’t Like the Implied Message, Change It!📌 (6:14) Example: Talking to Referees for a Job Candidate📌 (6:39) Implicit Messages Can Prompt Further Investigation📌 (7:00) Implicit Messaging Can Be Present in All Communication Forms📌 (7:15) Being Direct and Explicit Isn’t Always Possible📌 (7:30) Circumstances Can Limit Direct Messaging📌 (7:38) It’s Not Always Appropriate to Probe for Explicit Details📌 (7:47) In Non-Interactive Communication, Probing May Not Be Possible📌 (7:56) Understanding and Recognising Implicit Messaging is Important📌 (8:03) Recognise and Use Implicit Messaging to Your Advantage

Are you one of those people who get excited when a new robot or autonomous tech demo goes viral? 🌐 Me too!But did you know that not all videos are created equal? It’s crucial to understand the varying motivations behind them and what you can (and can’t) infer from them, and why.In this video, I break it down into some key points:1) The motivation behind releasing a demo video 🎯2) The variations in what you can infer from the video, and why 🔍Some videos are released purely out of excitement or in association with academic research papers, while others have financial motives or even aim to de-hype certain technologies. It’s essential to understand the context before drawing conclusions. 📚Tech demo videos can also fall into different categories: staged, composited, or representing a (theoretically) mature technology stage. Knowing which category the video falls under can help you understand its reliability and significance. 🤔The bottom line: Tech demo videos are a fantastic way to showcase the capabilities of new technologies, but it’s important to approach them with a discerning eye. 🧐Please reshare if useful 🙏🕒 Timestamps are as follows:📌 (0:00) Tech Demo Videos Are Everywhere!📌 (0:07) They Get a Wide Range of Reactions📌 (0:17) Demo Videos Are Impactful and Reach a Wide Audience📌 (0:37) Videos Can Be Misinterpreted with Consequences📌 (0:52) Helping People Interpret Videos is Important📌 (1:09) The Why and What of Tech Demo Videos📌 (1:24) Two Common Motivations for Video Demos📌 (1:32) Excitement-Driven and Academic Videos📌 (2:14) Commercially Motivated Videos📌 (2:27) Financial Incentives Affect the Context📌 (2:38) Many Videos Have a Combination of Motivations📌 (2:46) A Third Type: De-Hyping Videos📌 (2:51) De-Hyping Videos Can Help Ground the Discussion📌 (3:20) De-Hyping Videos Should Also Be Viewed Critically📌 (3:42) Three Primary Types of Demo Video📌 (3:47) Highly Staged Demo Videos📌 (4:01) Context Sometimes Dictates Staging📌 (4:29) Composited Demo Videos📌 (4:47) Disclosure is Important📌 (5:06) Research Maturity Informs Interpretation📌 (5:14) Example: Walking Robots📌 (5:42) Videos of Deployed Robot Technology📌 (6:08) A Critical Viewing is Still Required📌 (6:17) You’re Seeing a Tiny Fraction of What’s Happening📌 (6:44) Reliability is Much Harder Than Doing it Once📌 (7:00) Tech Failure Case Video Segments📌 (7:11) Failure Authenticity Can Vary a Lot📌 (7:41) Videos Should Be Interpreted in the Application Context📌 (7:55) Imperfect Reliability is Sometimes Acceptable📌 (8:28) Some Applications Require Near Perfect Reliability📌 (8:38) Short Videos Present Insufficient Evidence📌 (8:50) Autonomous Vehicle Example📌 (9:21) Hypothetical: Two Videos From Different Companies📌 (9:48) More Information Beyond the Video is Needed📌 (9:57) Weight Expert Advice Appropriately📌 (10:51) The Great Reason Why Demos Sometimes Go Backwards📌 (11:16) Example: Drones With and Without External Localization Systems📌 (12:16) Less Impressive Demos Can Be Very Important📌 (12:28) Other Scenarios: Less Sensing, Compute and More Learning📌 (12:53) Good Videos Will Explain the Context📌 (13:02) Tech Demo Videos are Important But Need Careful Interpretation