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PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri with guest Neil Thompson, Founder of Teach the Geek, author and podcaster of Teach the Geek to Speak, discuss helping STEM professionals develop their presentation skills to further their career development, the challenges engineers face when communicating to a non-technical audience, attributes of engaging and unengaging presentations and dealing with presentation fears.
PlastChicks – The Voices of Resin, is a plastics podcast hosted by Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri, talking about popular plastics topics and the people inspiring the industry! This podcast is supported by the Plastics Industry Association and sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.
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Mercedes Landazuri
If you've got a question, the voices of resin are here. Oh, PlastChicks.
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Lynzie Nebel
PlastChicks is an SPE-sponsored podcast. Happy Thursday!
00;00;20;05 - 00;00;22;10
Mercedes Landazuri
Happy COVID Thursday, everyone!
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Lynzie Nebel
Happy COVID Thursday. We're doing a special episode where Mercedes is COVID-riddled. She escaped it for all the years, and now here she is.
00;00;32;27 - 00;00;39;27
Mercedes Landazuri
Couple years, never had it. Yeah. And yeah. Now we're, I'm not going into the plant everyday anymore.
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Mercedes Landazuri
Finally got it somehow. But yeah, listeners will notice that my voice sounds a little bit different than usual. My background here, if you're watching the video, is my child's bedroom. So having a lot of fun over here by myself.
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Lynzie Nebel
You know what, I think really, is there any better way to celebrate COVID than recording a podcast? It feels very on brand with COVID.
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Mercedes Landazuri
It feels very on brand. It feels very on brand. Well, I am stricken Mercedes Landazuri.
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Lynzie Nebel
And I am Lynzie Nebel.
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Mercedes Landazuri
And with our powers combined, we are PlastChicks - the Voices of Resin.
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Lynzie Nebel
Yup. And COVID. So resin and COVID, so they know.
00;01;27;12 - 00;01;46;13
Lynzie Nebel
It's actually a little extra dash for you. So you can listen to our lovely COVID-free selves every, the first Friday of every month. I don’t know why I want to say every Friday.
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Mercedes Landazuri
I have the brain fog this episode. I guess you're allowed to have some brain fog, too.
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Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, we’ll share it.
00;01;54;24 - 00;02;12;09
Lynzie Nebel
And you can catch our podcast on all the podcast supplied areas like Spotify, Apple podcasts, all that, you know once you're done streaming Taylor Swift's Midnight's in sadness of not getting any tickets, then switch over to an episode of PlastChicks to cheer you up.
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Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, that's what I do. Yeah, yeah.
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Mercedes Landazuri
I didn't get any tickets either.
00;02;17;06 - 00;02;49;14
Lynzie Nebel
No, no, no one did. Just themsleves. And you can catch us on social media. This podcast goes up on YouTube and then also if you catch us on Instagram and Twitter @PlastChicks, but remember there is no “i” between the “Plast” and “Chicks” and one day on TikTok. We say it every episode and I think we're going on about a year saying it without actually doing a TikTok.
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Lynzie Nebel
We have the handle reserved.
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Mercedes Landazuri
We're very busy, we have our hands full. Yeah.
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Lynzie Nebel
Exactly. Whenever TikTok becomes incredibly uncool, we will start our TikTok channel. I think that's it. So enough of our brain foggy chaos. We have a kind of extra special guest today because this guest is also doing something in conjunction with SPE that we will get into in a minute.
00;03;18;27 - 00;03;28;19
Lynzie Nebel
So today we have Neil Thompson and I think my favorite title, he has like a million titles. So my favorite one is Teacher of Geeks. So welcome, Neil.
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Mercedes Landazuri
Thank you so much for joining us.
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Neil Thompson
Thank you.
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Lynzie Nebel
So, Neil, you are the founder/owner of Teach the Geek to Speak, which I have to vouch for is a really, a number one. Just the title is outstanding there. There is no better title for that. But number two is a really great program. Again, I'm really firing on all two cylinders tonight.
00;04;01;27 - 00;04;06;06
Mercedes Landazuri
Well, let’s let him tell us about it.
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Lynzie Nebel
So tell us about Teach the Geek.
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Neil Thompson
Sure. Well, Teach the Geek started with my own struggles, giving presentations in front of people. It was my second job out of school. I was working as a product development engineer at a medical device company, and a few months into the job, my boss told me I was going to be a project lead. I didn't know what a project lead was, so I asked him.
00;04;26;19 - 00;04;50;23
Neil Thompson
And apparently the company was too cheap to hire project managers, so they pushed that responsibility on to the product development engineers, one of which was giving presentations on a monthly basis in front of senior management. So we're talking to CEO, CTO, CMO, C-fill-in-the-blank-O, all the Cs and they're all in this room and they, all the engineers pretty much had to get up in front of them and tell them about their projects and any status updates.
00;04;51;06 - 00;05;11;08
Neil Thompson
And those first few presentations that I gave were absolutely horrendous. I did not know it was possible to sweat that profusely in front of, from one's body, but there it was. But I eventually got the message that this is something that I need to get better at because my project was canceled and this was over, this is about 15 years ago now.
00;05;11;08 - 00;05;34;09
Neil Thompson
And I still believe that perhaps if I was just better at relaying the information to these people in a way that they could really take it and understand, maybe I could’ve saved the project. I suppose we'll never know. But that at least was the wakeup call that I needed to get better, at getting at, just being better and more prepared, more proficient, giving presentations in front of others, especially non-technical audiences.
00;05;34;09 - 00;05;54;02
Neil Thompson
When I had to give these technical-type presentations, and I basically turned everything that I learned in my journey to become better at giving presentations into an online course. And I called it Teach the Geek to Speak. But then I decided maybe a couple of years after I started the course that I wanted to offer a membership as well, as opposed to just a one-off course.
00;05;54;02 - 00;06;08;14
Neil Thompson
So that's where the whole membership idea came from. And what I've been doing with SPE for the last few months, which is in addition to having access to the course, you also get an online, an online portal where people could talk to each other, ask questions, and then there's these monthly calls.
00;06;10;11 - 00;06;36;12
Mercedes Landazuri
Yeah. And I was and, you know, it's such a it's such a common thing, right? Where people are, you know, and as we as we move up in our in in our roles, we reach our own level of incompetence, right? So this is something to get past that hurdle, right? So an engineer, regardless of maybe someone who comes from this background, who OK, maybe I’m focused on this task. I’m focused on solving this problem, but they’re getting better and better at it.
00;06;36;12 - 00;06;55;11
Mercedes Landazuri
Now it's their job to present their work to others and where they maybe never received any formal training for it. It also it's a fantastic program you have. So can you tell us a little bit more about your specific background in engineering? How did it, how did you come to do, you know, so Lynzie, for example, always knew she wanted to be an engineer here.
00;06;55;28 - 00;06;58;28
Mercedes Landazuri
I had no idea I wanted to get into this industry. What about you?
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Neil Thompson
Oh, no. I became an engineer because my father told me to. And I used to lie about that reason. The reason because I was embarrassed by it, because, like maybe most people are like Lynzie, they always knew they wanted to be an engineer. Maybe they played with Legos as a child. Maybe they were in robotics club when they were in school.
00;07;17;01 - 00;07;32;08
Neil Thompson
There was no robotics club at my high school, and I don't even remember playing with Legos all that much. I became an engineer because my father said to become an engineer, and I had, I didn't really have any ideas other than that. So I just said Engineering school it is. So that's what I did.
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Lynzie Nebel
I love it.
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Mercedes Landazuri
And which school did you go to?
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Neil Thompson
Well, I've been to a few. I went to a few, so I'm originally from Canada. So the first school I went to was the University of Toronto, and then I went to Clemson University to do a masters because my father said, Do a masters. And then I went to Columbia University to do a PhD, but I dropped out after a year.
00;07;53;25 - 00;08;09;01
Neil Thompson
By that time I was about 25 years old. I, I had done what he told me to do up until that time, but now I had to live for years. Now, I decided I was going to live for myself and do what I wanted to do, because ultimately you have to live for what you want as opposed to what other people want for you.
00;08;10;10 - 00;08;16;23
Mercedes Landazuri
Absolutely. I totally rebelled against my dad by not getting a Ph.D. also. Yes, yes.
00;08;16;23 - 00;08;17;04
Lynzie Nebel
Yes.
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Mercedes Landazuri
That’s fantastic. So, and then you, and then you, and then you became a product development engineer. And so what types of projects did you get to work on?
00;08;27;15 - 00;08;48;01
Neil Thompson
Well, the companies I worked or worked with were mostly orthopedic implants, more specifically spinal implants, and more specifically even than that orthobiologics. When I was in that, I talk about orthobiologics. Most people don't know what that is. But essentially, spinal implants can be made out of a number of materials, metals or ceramics, but they can also be made out of human cadaver bone.
00;08;48;10 - 00;08;54;22
Neil Thompson
So I used to work in the group that made or designed these implants, these spinal implants out of human cadaver bone.
00;08;55;29 - 00;09;03;00
Lynzie Nebel
Wow, fun times. Was your house always the best house for Halloween?
00;09;03;00 - 00;09;26;00
Neil Thompson
Well, it certainly wouldn't be if I just came from the tissue bank. If you've ever been to a tissue bank, it's a smell that you'll never forget. And it gets into your clothes, and then you go home. And then now your whole house smells like it. It's. It just. It stays in your nostrils. It's a nasty smell. It's because what we're getting is people's donated organs and their donated bones.
00;09;26;00 - 00;09;36;11
Neil Thompson
And when you cut into them, you get all the all the fat that comes off of them, especially if you’ve got the obese people. There's a whole lot of fat you got to get rid of. It's not pleasant.
00;09;37;19 - 00;09;40;00
Mercedes Landazuri
Oh, man. And I thought burning PVC smelled bad.
00;09;40;00 - 00;09;48;28
Lynzie Nebel
I was going to say, I've done like medical implants, but they've all been plastic. So I'm just going to be very, very grateful for that.
00;09;50;20 - 00;09;51;09
Neil Thompson
I think you should.
00;09;52;00 - 00;09;54;28
Lynzie Nebel
God bless plastic.
00;09;54;28 - 00;09;59;26
Mercedes Landazuri
So you did, so were you happy with the field that you ended up going into?
00;09;59;26 - 00;10;09;23
Lynzie Nebel
That’s what I was going to ask, did you like, did you find happiness within engineering or was it at just some point you're like, all right, I tried this for long enough.
00;10;10;11 - 00;10;29;00
Neil Thompson
Luckily it worked out pretty well, but it certainly could have gone the other way because I was just doing what someone else told me to do. And now when I talk to people about going into fields, I'm very adamant about telling them this needs to be something that you're willing to do and something that you're willing to work at, because if not, then you'll leave.
00;10;30;05 - 00;10;56;09
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I know there's that. Even, like, freshman class. I don't know what the dropout rate was in your classes, but I know we had probably a class of originally maybe 40 and about five people dropped within the first semester. Just, their parents said you should go to school for engineering. They got there. They're like, nope, just did a big old 180 and bowed out of there.
00;10;57;01 - 00;11;23;08
Lynzie Nebel
I don't know what happened to any of them, so I don't know. So, you know, you're taught. So Teach the Geek is really, as we mentioned, like handling one of the major flaws, I'm going to say with air quotes for those listening audio only, of most engineers, if you go stereotypical engineer, they're not going to be a good speaker.
00;11;24;04 - 00;11;54;03
Lynzie Nebel
And, you know, I think most engineers, again going stereotypical are going to be looking at themselves to develop in whatever their field is, looking at taking courses on, you know, learning more about injection molding because it's the bestest molding, learning about materials, you know, they're picking up stuff like that, learning from college, all the technical knowledge, what, do you have to come to that aha moment?
00;11;54;03 - 00;12;04;00
Lynzie Nebel
Like you had to really start like realizing that some of these soft skills are going to be just as beneficial as some of these technical, if not more.
00;12;04;00 - 00;12;07;23
Mercedes Landazuri
You have to fail first, you have to fall on your face first or can you. Yeah.
00;12;07;23 - 00;12;13;08
Lynzie Nebel
Or can you find or can you come to that realization without having a whole face in the pie moment?
00;12;14;02 - 00;12;48;19
Neil Thompson
Well, I would hope so. But it's certainly, I think the case where many people come to that conclusion kind of like I did, something had to happen for them to finally see the benefit of it, one of which could very well be seeing somebody you think shouldn't have gotten the promotion and the pay raise that you thought you deserved get it because they were just more networked than you. They're better presenting than you. They're better at just connecting with others and building relationships than you were. And you thought you could just rely on your technical skills and do your job and keep your head down and everything would work out. But that's just not the case in most instances.
00;12;49;17 - 00;12;54;22
Lynzie Nebel
You got to be smart and pretty, pretty at soft skills.
00;12;54;22 - 00;13;12;03
Mercedes Landazuri
I mean, it goes to show you that it is, that there are I think, you know, as engineers sometimes we tend to think in black and white. Right. And check the boxes. And really those intangibles are things that aren't really in our, in the forefront of our minds.
00;13;12;03 - 00;13;43;27
Mercedes Landazuri
Right. But you mentioned, you know, that in your, in your job, you know, when you were working as an engineer and then as a project lead that you were sometimes asked to present to non-engineers and non-technical people and having to convey this technical data to non-technical people. Why do you think so many engineers struggle doing that when we all start from the same place, right?
00;13;43;27 - 00;13;47;06
Mercedes Landazuri
We all start from, with the same basic knowledge.
00;13;48;00 - 00;14;06;21
Neil Thompson
Yeah. I think one of the big issues we have is there's a lot of technical jargon that we may use among each other, and we don't really give all that much credence to perhaps we shouldn't use all that technical jargon when talking to non-technical audiences, because they're not going to understand what you're talking about. I mentioned that the first two presentations I gave were horrendous.
00;14;07;14 - 00;14;21;09
Neil Thompson
One of the reasons they were so bad is because after the presentation I would get questions that I thought I had answered during the presentation, but because I didn't put things in the way that people could understand, I was already a sweaty mess. Now I'm really a sweaty mess trying to answer all these questions.
00;14;21;09 - 00;14;22;13
Neil Thompson
It just was.
00;14;22;13 - 00;14;41;06
Neil Thompson
Just we, I don't think we put enough thought into putting the information, this technical information, into a way that people that don't have our level of expertise would understand. And it's such a shame, especially if we were just to think about it for a minute. I mean, we weren't always engineers. We, what we know we didn't always know.
00;14;41;12 - 00;14;54;06
Neil Thompson
So we should really should have that grace and empathy for the people in the audience that need to listen to what we have to say, to think, well, they don't know what we know now. So what can we do to make it so that they can really take in what we have to say?
00;14;54;27 - 00;15;08;25
Mercedes Landazuri
I, I love that, Neil, that coming at it from a place of empathy and of grace rather than here's what I know and here's how I'm going to impress you with my knowledge. It's really like trying to empathize with your listeners. That's such a great point.
00;15;08;25 - 00;15;15;08
Lynzie Nebel
But yeah, I think I'm looking at that the same way.
00;15;15;08 - 00;15;39;00
Lynzie Nebel
Like, is there a litmus test or like a quick test you have? You know, if you get done with the presentation and you have, say, five questions that you thought your already answered, if there are a certain number of those questions that you get that you're like, okay, I'm really outside the box. Or you can, or you can blame the other person, but...
00;15;39;00 - 00;15;42;14
Mercedes Landazuri
I'm not asking for a friend.
00;15;42;14 - 00;15;43;02
Neil Thompson
Well, I mean.
00;15;43;20 - 00;15;44;02
Lynzie Nebel
I should.
00;15;44;28 - 00;16;09;00
Neil Thompson
Based on the questions I used to have to give, I mean, if you're getting the question, what does orthobiologics mean, that might be a problem. So yeah, oftentimes it comes down to the words that you think are commonplace because you use them all the time. But this audience doesn't necessarily know those words when I was, especially because that second job, the orthobiologics group, was a new group within the company.
00;16;09;00 - 00;16;22;06
Neil Thompson
I was maybe the third employee that was hired into that group. So no one else in the company knew anything really about orthobiologics. So it was even more important for me to use terms that these people could understand. And I just I didn't get it at first.
00;16;23;20 - 00;16;29;14
Mercedes Landazuri
What? I have a question, so I have a question. This podcast is basically all us asking questions.
00;16;29;14 - 00;16;31;23
Lynzie Nebel
But go ahead and try it out.
00;16;31;23 - 00;16;48;20
Mercedes Landazuri
Great, Mercedes, good job. So when, you know, I feel like a lot of times after a presentation it can be difficult to get constructive feedback. What are some what are some good questions to maybe solicit better feedback?
00;16;48;20 - 00;17;12;19
Mercedes Landazuri
Because, you know, people will oftentimes tell you, especially sometimes that they have no idea what you're talking about. Oh, yeah, no, you sounded great. You knew what you were talking about. Great. Right. And you do. Right. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you did a great job presenting the material to an audience who didn't understand it. Right. So what are some, what are some kind of, kind of like barometer questions?
00;17;12;19 - 00;17;21;15
Mercedes Landazuri
What are some questions we can ask ourselves to figure out, okay, how did my audience receive this? And what is it that I need to be focused on?
00;17;22;12 - 00;17;40;28
Neil Thompson
Well, typically, if you're preparing a presentation, you want there to be some sort of call to action. When I was giving presentations in front of you senior management, the call to action often was, we need a resource. Maybe we need more time, we need some, you know, there's something that is needed. And I tried my best to make that known throughout the presentation.
00;17;41;04 - 00;17;56;22
Neil Thompson
So if you're soliciting feedback, at least in that instance, you could very well ask somebody in the audience, what do you think the call to action was? And if they can't answer it, well, maybe you didn't do the best job of conveying the information. Maybe you weren't interesting enough with you, with how you presented the information for them to pay attention.
00;17;56;22 - 00;18;12;20
Neil Thompson
And then, then you, then you can go back to the drawing board and think to yourself, Well, what do I need to do to get better at making sure that everyone, or at least the majority of people, the decision makers, the really important people, know what that call to action actually was.
00;18;12;20 - 00;18;14;15
Mercedes Landazuri
Great. Love that.
00;18;14;15 - 00;18;37;01
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, I think, I think that's good. I know like I mentioned earlier, I've been participating in the membership with Teach the Geek and I had a presentation a couple months ago and I had the opportunity to go through it with Neil and at the end he goes, So what's your call to action? And I was like, Oh, good point.
00;18;37;14 - 00;19;05;11
Lynzie Nebel
This just kind of leaves it all out there, and I walk away and I think that call to action made all the difference in the impact of it because, you know, it's all, here's all the content and we all get content all day long. I have a million things of content. I can content away, but once I have an actual list of something to actively do as the listener, like it is a game changer.
00;19;06;09 - 00;19;21;12
Lynzie Nebel
So I thought it was very helpful. So you're, you know, you're in the business of speakers. We;ve got to know what are some of the worst speeches you've ever seen or worst speakers.
00;19;21;28 - 00;19;23;20
Mercedes Landazuri
Without naming names?
00;19;23;20 - 00;19;27;22
Lynzie Nebel
You don't have to name names. But if you want to name names and we know them even better.
00;19;28;15 - 00;19;48;03
Neil Thompson
Well, you definitely wouldn't know any of these people, though. The worst the worst presentations I've ever seen have been at conferences, actually. So when I used to work as an engineer, I used to have to go to these conferences. And a lot of them that I went to were very academic based. So a lot of the people who were giving presentations were grad students, post-docs and professors.
00;19;48;13 - 00;20;12;29
Neil Thompson
And if you want, if you were sleepy going into one of these, going to one of these conference talks, you better bring some coffee because it's going to be a problem staying awake, especially if you sit down. The issue that you have with these presenters, unfortunately, is that if you're in academia doing a great job of giving a presentation isn't a metric that you're judged on when it comes to moving up.
00;20;13;11 - 00;20;39;16
Neil Thompson
You're becoming a tenured professor or moving into, moving to a postdoc from a grad student or a grad student position is really the fact that you actually just gave the talk at that conference. So the big problem is that oftentimes they have a whole lot of text on the slides and they just read the slides. But the problem with that is it's really difficult to engage an audience when you're not looking at them because you're looking at the slides because you get, you have to read them.
00;20;39;24 - 00;21;06;28
Neil Thompson
And another reason why it's a bad idea is the people that are actually in the audience, they're going to read the slides, too. And it's really difficult to read slides and listen to somebody at the same time. So that's another reason why it would be rather boring just reading slides. And again, you're already tired because this person is droning on over something and it's just it's just, it's a, it's a problem and a way to get around it is to just minimize the amount of text on the slides.
00;21;06;28 - 00;21;30;02
Neil Thompson
So the presenter then doesn't have that ability to read the slides. Now they have to know their material well enough to say it off, you know, from their, from their mind. And then also they can look at the audience. And not only that, but it eliminates the ability for the audience to read your slides. Now they either have to listen to you or they ignore you, and hopefully you do a good enough of a job that they actually listen to what you have to say.
00;21;31;05 - 00;21;47;26
Lynzie Nebel
And that kind of reminds me, know what you were saying earlier, Mercedes, like as engineers we’re just checking that box. And if you're in academia and you're looking to, you know, you're just looking to check that box, like, yep, I gave that presentation, I did this study, now move me out and.
00;21;47;26 - 00;21;57;19
Mercedes Landazuri
Right, yeah. I remember actually seeing, seeing Erin Keaney present once, the first time I did so and I went up to her afterwards.
00;21;57;19 - 00;22;14;07
Mercedes Landazuri
You know, I'd known her for a year, year and a half, maybe at that point. And I went up to her, I was like, you know, your presentation was incredible the way you presented. She said, you know, it's something that I, I really worked on a lot. And she, you know, she has her own business, right? So she had to get really good at that.
00;22;14;07 - 00;22;35;25
Mercedes Landazuri
And she took classes and it was really, she worked on, and it was night and day, you know, regardless of anybody else who was up on that stage that they had experience or knowledge or skill set. And she really stood out because she had worked on this specific skill set of presenting that was just so, so necessary.
00;22;35;26 - 00;22;37;27
Mercedes Landazuri
We all need to do it.
00;22;37;27 - 00;22;57;19
Lynzie Nebel
And that's it. And so that's one of the things like learning how to speak in front of people, you know, seems like such a very basic skill and it almost seems like something that like, oh yeah, like I know how to speak in front of people, but it's, it's really not has as much of a talent as it is a skill.
00;22;58;09 - 00;23;25;15
Lynzie Nebel
And so it's, you know, it comes down to fairly simple principles, you know, when you list it all out or look at it in a, on that perspective. But then when some people get up on stage or are like, actually go to do this presentation, it all goes out the window like, why? Why do you think that is? Especially, you know, we're not talking about like just your every day dummy.
00;23;25;15 - 00;23;38;07
Lynzie Nebel
We're talking about some really intelligent people not being able to hold all these really smart things along with the ability to talk. You know what?
00;23;38;07 - 00;23;40;08
Mercedes Landazuri
Yeah, what's behind that?
00;23;40;08 - 00;24;02;14
Neil Thompson
I think a big issue is making sure that you convey all the information that you want to convey. And I think people can sometimes get tripped up if perhaps they don't present the information in the way that they thought they were going to. And if that happens, then they get kind of discombobulated. And then the whole presentation goes to, goes to hell in a handbasket pretty quickly.
00;24;02;23 - 00;24;27;25
Neil Thompson
And I think also another issue that people have with presentations is just be a fear of them looking incompetent in front of people, especially people that they need to impress or decision makers. For instance, the presentations I used to have to give, I really didn't want the CEO to think that I was a bozo. I really, that's why I really, I got the message that getting better at giving these presentations was something that I should do.
00;24;28;03 - 00;24;51;06
Neil Thompson
And it's made all the difference, really. If you, once you, once you overcome that, that that fear of being or looking incompetent, it makes all the difference. And another thing when it comes to that, other people, I mean, everyone feels that way. So even if you're in the audience and you're the presenter and you're feeling this way, just know that people in the audience have felt this way, too.
00;24;51;06 - 00;25;13;20
Neil Thompson
So you're kind of in this together, especially if you, if you think of it as the people in the audience actually want to see you do well, then they're not really rooting against you because at some point they may be the ones giving the presentation and they certainly don't want the audience rooting against them. So you just visualized yourself actually giving these presentations and seeing things go well and and not telling yourself that you're a bad presenter.
00;25;13;20 - 00;25;24;05
Neil Thompson
Just tell yourself that you're someone who's improving. Because we are. We manifest our thoughts pretty much. And if you, if you think that you suck, you will. But if you think you're improving, you will.
00;25;25;20 - 00;25;50;29
Mercedes Landazuri
I like and everybody has their horror stories. I remember Barb when she gave a presentation at ANTEC. I think it was part of her dissertation actually when she was getting her Ph.D. and asked her how she did afterwards, she said, I gave it with my fly open the whole time, I found out afterwards, you know, even the most impressive people have even more impressive horror stories of being on the podium.
00;25;51;10 - 00;26;03;01
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, I think there's like a graph, like how smart you are. You have to fail this hard at least one speech before you can progress to the next level.
00;26;03;01 - 00;26;08;21
Mercedes Landazuri
So what do you think is harder dealing with medical device regulations or speaking in front of an audience.
00;26;09;04 - 00;26;10;19
Neil Thompson
Speaking in front of an audience.
00;26;11;03 - 00;26;11;14
Mercedes Landazuri
Really.
00;26;11;17 - 00;26;22;00
Neil Thompson
Oh, yeah. When it comes to regulation, you can push that off to the regulatory affairs people. That ain’t my job, I figured that out.
00;26;22;00 - 00;26;41;19
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah. Those that I have dealt with, some medical device, you know, stuff like that. And yeah, I think, I think you're right. I think you could at least follow the rules for medical device stuff. You know, with the, with speaking in front of an audience there, you're going with a dynamic situation.
00;26;41;19 - 00;26;50;05
Mercedes Landazuri
Yeah. And it's right there. It has to happen right now. With medical device regulations then you can just keep pushing it back and pushing it back, right?
00;26;50;15 - 00;27;02;17
Neil Thompson
Yeah. I mean, I worked in product development for a reason. We get to do the fun stuff, we get to develop things and be creative. And that was, and that was fun, but regulatory and quality -- they’re like Dr. No, everything's no to them.
00;27;05;22 - 00;27;22;27
Lynzie Nebel
I watched this one TikTok of a guy who he, his thing is he is in the legal department at a big company. And every he just answers it and he's like, Hey, this is the legal department. No. And then he hangs up. Like that actually would be kind of fun.
00;27;22;27 - 00;27;29;22
Mercedes Landazuri
Like the IT department, turn it off and on again.
00;27;29;22 - 00;27;31;10
Lynzie Nebel
You are the issue.
00;27;32;23 - 00;27;45;19
Lynzie Nebel
So I know in your, you know, even just for me on LinkedIn, there's, you have more titles than just Teacher of Geek. Can you tell us a little bit about some of your other projects you have? Because I know there are a lot.
00;27;46;03 - 00;28;11;22
Neil Thompson
Sure. Well, there's patents. So I became a patent agent about ten years ago and actually became a patent agent because the boss that I had at the time said that I should become a patent agent. I don't know if you see a pattern here. My father told me go into engineering, my boss told me to become a patent agent. Apparently I don't make decisions for myself, but I did become a patent agent and funny enough, he asked me to become one so he wouldn't have to outsource patent drafting to outside counsel.
00;28;11;29 - 00;28;33;15
Neil Thompson
And once I became a pattern agent, he outside, he outsourced everything to outside counsel. So for a number of years I didn't have anything to patent. But then maybe a couple of years ago I started doing some contract work with a firm here in San Diego where I live, and I work mainly on medical device patents, drafting them, and then basically arguing with the patent office to get them approved.
00;28;34;03 - 00;28;56;24
Neil Thompson
So there's that with a couple of former coworkers from my medical device engineering days, we do consulting with typically smaller medical device companies on their packaging because oftentimes these companies are thinking mostly about the product and not necessarily the packaging that it has to go into. And there's all kinds of regulations regarding the packaging as well. So I do that.
00;28;57;01 - 00;29;16;25
Neil Thompson
And then there's also my children's book, and it's called Ask Uncle Neil, Why is my hair curly? It's about my nephew asking me why his hair is the way it is, and I use science to answer the question. The goal of the book is to encourage curiosity in children so that they become the problem solvers that we want them to be.
00;29;16;25 - 00;29;21;01
Neil Thompson
Because ultimately the question askers of today are the problem solvers of tomorrow.
00;29;22;09 - 00;29;22;26
Lynzie Nebel
I love that.
00;29;22;26 - 00;29;28;18
Mercedes Landazuri
Amazing, amazing. And where is your book -- on Amazon? Where can we find your book?
00;29;28;18 - 00;29;31;16
Neil Thompson
I know you can go, yeah, you can go to AskUncleNeilBooks.com.
00;29;32;03 - 00;29;36;01
Mercedes Landazuri
Ask Uncle Neil books dot com and that's N-e-i-l correct.
00;29;36;07 - 00;29;36;21
Neil Thompson
That's right.
00;29;37;27 - 00;29;51;11
Mercedes Landazuri
Wonderful. And we're, I think we've about run out of time today. If people are not SPE members or if they are, how can they find you? How can they get enrolled in one of your teaching programs?
00;29;52;01 - 00;30;10;14
Neil Thompson
Well, there's a if you are an SPE member there’s, there's the website or there's a, there's a page on the SPE website. I can't remember what the URL is at the, off the top of my head. But if you want to learn more about Teach the Geek, you can go to TeachTheGeek.com. You can always email me at hello at teach the geek dot com and also check out my YouTube channel and podcast.
00;30;10;14 - 00;30;37;24
Neil Thompson
So I also have a podcast and YouTube channel where I interview, typically people from the technical fields on their public speaking journeys. It's been really interesting to learn about people basically getting better at giving presentations. And you mentioned Erin Keeney. She was actually a guest on my podcast, so she's very interesting to talk to. But one of the, one of the guests that I've had that was the most interesting that I always mention her, is Christine Vartanian.
00;30;38;01 - 00;31;01;14
Neil Thompson
She started off as a civil engineering grad, never worked as a civil engineer, though. Then she went to law school, worked as a lawyer for about four years. Then she was a stay at home mom for ten years, and now she works as a personal stylist. This is someone I never would have come in contact, just in my regular travels, but just hearing that progression civil engineering to law, to mom to stylist is just stories that you don’t hear every day.
00;31;01;14 - 00;31;23;25
Lynzie Nebel
I think my favorite episode I listened to of yours was the woman who is the burnout coach and like just how she framed it. And I think you even ask like, don't we all feel burnout? And she's like, no, it's very scientific. She, like, listed it and I was like, Oh, yeah, like she really, like knew her stuff.
00;31;23;25 - 00;31;26;05
Lynzie Nebel
Like, I really enjoyed that episode.
00;31;26;21 - 00;31;27;23
Neil Thompson
But yeah, that was Cait Donovan.
00;31;28;03 - 00;31;31;09
Lynzie Nebel
Yes. Saying it, I remember the name.
00;31;31;09 - 00;31;37;13
Mercedes Landazuri
I will be definitely checking out that podcast and subscribing to that as well. Checking out the YouTube.
00;31;37;25 - 00;31;45;19
Neil Thompson
Oh yeah. I forgot to say the URL. So for YouTube, it's YouTube.TeachTheGeek.com. And for the podcast it's podcast.TeachTheGeek.com.
00;31;46;00 - 00;31;55;06
Mercedes Landazuri
Perfect. Wonderful. Well, Neil Thompson, thank you so much. This geek feels like she's learned quite a bit this evening.
00;31;55;06 - 00;32;03;05
Lynzie Nebel
You will be, you will be...I was going to say teach the geek. And then I realized that wasn't really a good pun, so I'm just going to stop here.
00;32;04;10 - 00;32;05;12
Neil Thompson
Thank you both for having me.
00;32;05;18 - 00;32;06;03
Lynzie Nebel
Thanks Neil.
00;32;06;03 - 00;32;08;14
Mercedes Landazuri
Thanks so much for joining us.
00;32;08;14 - 00;32;36;27
Lynzie Nebel
Hey, thanks so much for listening to PlastChicks. New episodes appear on the first Friday of every month, so either follow or subscribe to get those new episodes ASAP. PlastChicks - The Voices of Resin is a plastics podcast sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. If you want to find out more about SPE, please visit 4, like the number, SPE dot org.
00;32;36;27 - 00;32;39;21
Mercedes Landazuri
Oh, PlastChicks.