Edison Thomaz

When you attend an academic presentation at a conference, are you inclined to ask questions when Q&A begins? Or are you the type who prefers to sit back and take it all in, including the Q&A session itself? One of the things I noted at the Ubicomp conference in Pittsburgh last month was that while some of the presentations generated lots of discussions, with many people stepping up to the microphones to ask questions, others didn’t. Why is that the case?

My advisor, Gregory Abowd, is one of the senior members of the community and always likes to ask questions after presentations. In fact, he is known as someone who asks great questions. Right after the conference, a discussion within the steering committee ensued about how other senior members of the community should follow Gregory’s lead and ask questions as well. Gregory was encouraged to comment on his “secret” for asking good questions and having the attitude to do so. I reproduce here what he wrote, with his permission.

I am reminded of a comment that was sent to me secondhand after the HUC 2K conference in Bristol. A student commented to a student of mine that I had an unfair advantage at these conferences because I had already read all of the papers in advance as part of the program committee and had formulated my questions for the author well in advance. Interesting perspective, and amusing for me to think that I had enough time in my life to read all of these papers and generate questions.

As you should know, I can’t stand when there is no discussion after a paper, so if nobody else has a question, I always want to jump up and ask something. But James’ observation is not so much about whether questions are asked but the form and content of those questions and how they may or may not provoke deeper discussion. I appreciate that he feels I have value added in asking the kinds of questions I ask. I am sure not everyone shares James’ opinion on how I conduct myself at these conferences, but to the extent that people want to do some of the things I do, I will respond to his request.

What’s my secret? Let me ponder that in this response. This is stream of consciousness and in no particular order.

1) I pay attention to the presentations. How many people are at these conferences with their laptops/phones/tablets open doing other things? I am not saying that having the technology there is a bad thing. In fact, I love having the proceedings available in digital format, because I often find myself coming up with a question and wanting to see how that is addressed in the paper itself (so that I don’t have to ask). But first and foremost, I don’t think you can engage in a discussion or ask a reasonable question if you are not paying attention. Ubicomp is one of the few meetings I go to where I actually get anxious during the breaks if my conversation with people in the halls is preventing me from seeing a paper presentation. Networking with others at Ubicomp is not nearly as important to me as hearing the presentations and thinking about them.

2) A good paper presentation makes someone want to read the paper, but we don’t all have time to read everything, so the presentation discussion time is the best time to get information that you might get from reading the paper but know you won’t ever do. Q&A helps me form an opinion about the potential impact of someone’s work. I really enjoyed the discussion of a particular best paper nominee at the conference because it revealed to me that the paper was not nearly as impactful as it might have appeared from first reading (the questions were not offered by me, but they were spot on to the crux of the paper and the presenter gave very honest answers that helped us to understand limitations of the work that might not have been obvious from the presentation). So, when you are listening to a presentation, think to yourself why would you or anyone else want to build off of this work and what would be the concerns or limitations or advantages.

3) Papers are not presented in a vacuum. Don’t think about the paper presentation just on its own, but on how it relates to anything else we already know. I often think of related work during a talk and quickly scan the list of references for the paper to see if the authors mentioned it. If not, then it is the basis for a question. But also, the program chairs often spend a lot of time putting papers together in a session that have some common link. Use the Q&A to help draw out those commonalities, or contrasts. There was a great example of that this year in a session that had three papers that were very human-centric and application driven relating to kitchens and closets and a closing paper that was strictly about using RGB-D cameras to detect actions, with the example being cooking. What a wonderful opportunity for us to explore the gap between the application driven research and the technology driven research. I was so energized by that contrast that I whipped out my laptop and started sketching some ideas for a paper on how we are to advance as a community by bringing together these contrasting views on the same application space (the kitchen) and understand what the gap is between what technology can deliver today and what it needs to deliver tomorrow. I am interested in how we can systematically address that gap, but at a minimum we can have discussions about the gap when it is presented to us in the same session at a conference.

4) We are a community and the more we get to know each other, the more we should begin to behave like caring friends and family. By that I mean we should be able to speak frankly and constructively with each other in an attempt to make each of us better at what we do. I am often brutally honest with my collaborators at Georgia Tech, and the excuse I use is that I would much rather they be beaten down within the family of Georgia Tech, and then built up so that when they are outside GT they have a much better way to present and defend their work. But the key there is that you have to help someone build back up ideas that you might shoot down. I often am very good at shooting down and not so good at helping to build back up. If we could develop more of a feeling within Ubicomp that we are not competitors as much as we are collaborators seeking some common goals, and that someone else’s success is somehow our own success, then I think you would see more people trying to make others’ work better through discussion. That’s easy to say, and hard to follow.

5) Don’t be afraid to be wrong. I will bet that half of the questions I ask contain some evidence of me not understanding something or just plain being incorrect in my assessment. That’s OK. When I ask a question, it’s not about having someone else think I am smart. It is about trying to make me smarter about something I might not completely understand. Then again, there are times when I am pretty sure I am right and I am trying to point out some other way to consider the work that has been presented. When I ask a question or make a comment, I should be prepared to defend my position or my question, as much as I am putting the presenter on the spot.

6) Why do we assume that during a Q&A session, the questions come from the audience and the presenter is the only one who can answer? Let’s treat the setting more as a discussion. If you were at the paper I presented, it was wonderful to have so many people step up to comment and question my statements. But the problem was, in my opinion, I felt obliged to respond to every single comment and question, which meant that I spoke too often. I like it when the audience discusses among themselves, privately or publicly. So I often turn to the audience to make my statement or question, or direct my question not to the speaker but to someone else.

7) How to formulate a question? I think there are lots of people in the audience who have great questions and understanding of the presentations, but for some reason they don’t share their thoughts. There are lots of reasons for this, but if everyone keeps their thoughts and questions to themselves, then we are left with situations that James described. How can we encourage more ways to generate interesting questions and discussions, during and after a talk. Well, social media seems like an obvious approach, and I am sure it is already happening a lot. Can we bring the social media up front during the discussion phase of a paper, or perhaps even at the end of the day?