Communicating

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Communicating Developing Professionals

• Peter A. Lachenbruch
• Oregon State University

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Disclaimer

• The ideas expressed here are not original with
  me, but have evolved over time.
• Some have resulted from frustration at meetings
  in which poor presentations have lost me.
• While we may observe many issues, we should be
  aware that we are not immune to errorrs.

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Duties of ASA President and President-Elect

• Preside at Board of Directors meetings and
  Executive Committee
• Serve ex officio on committees management,
  finance, executive
• Appoint committee members (2 or 3 per committee
  chairs as needed) about 150 appointments per
  year (as President-Elect)
• These are likely similar to duties in other
  professional organizations.

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Duties (2)

• 3 year term President-elect, President, Past
  President
• Presidential Address
• Formal ASA policy statements with BOD approval
• Member of COPSS Committee of Presidents of
  Statistical Societies

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Duties (3)

• Chair Strategic Planning committee
• Develop task forces for specific issues
• Work with Committee on Committees for committee
  needs what committee needs to be dropped, what
  reports need to be obtained, etc.
• Speak at Chapters number varies with President
• Other formal presentations

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Take Home Messages

• Know your audience and communicate in their terms
• Non-technical words/pictures for non-technical
  audience NO JARGON
• Use appropriate formats
• Slides augment presentation of results
• Equations and tables only in text (i.e. papers)

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Take Home Messages (2)

• Speak so you can be understood
• Slowly
• If your native language is not English, rehearse
  several times with a critic good also for
  native English speakers
• If your native language is English, and you are
  speaking to an international group, SLOW DOWN!
• Do not read your slides talk about them

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Take Home Message (3)

• Develop yourself professionally
• Technical skills may not be enough
• Statisticians must interact with others not in
  the statistical profession
• This is true for all professions just
  substitute your specialty for statistics
• Need business skills

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• Part I
• To whom should we communicate?

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Topics of Public Interest

• Policies needing our input (we need to have a
  seat at the table)
• Election audits
• Climate Change
• Criminal justice system
• Assessing hazards
• Environmental
• Terrorism

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Topics of Public Interest (2)

• Policies affecting our field and profession
• Federal Statistical System
• Census
• Bureau of Labor Statistics
• National Center for Health Statistics
• U. S. Department of Agriculture
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Clinical Trials
• National Institutes of Health
• Food and Drug Administration

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With Students

• Teaching statistics
• K-12 students
• Undergraduate students
• Non-majors
• Psychology, Sociology, Economics, Business
• Health Sciences - Biology, Pre-Med, Genetics,
  Public Health, Radiation Biology
• Graduate level service courses

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With Students (2)

• Teaching statistics to undergraduates
• In colleges
• Two-year colleges
• In universities
• Majors
• Non-majors - e.g. Psychology, Sociology, Biology,
  Economics, Mathematics, etc.
• International collaborations International
  Societies, UN, WHO, etc

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With our Profession

• Professional Communications
• Writing for professional communication
• Proper use of English
• Use of good graphics
• Presentations at meetings
• Use of graphics - color red on blue is bad
• Dont use equations unless absolutely necessary
• Proper font size

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With our Profession (2)

• With professionals whose native language is not
  English
• Need to ensure our message is received
• Need to ensure we receive their message!!!
• Can arise in U.S. or elsewhere

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With Clients

• Make work understandable to the public
• Limited use of formulas
• Lots of words, graphs careful about words with
  specific technical meanings (e.g., significant)
• Keep simple but correct
• Be concerned about naming variables
• Testimony potential clients
• Courts and other legal proceedings
• Local, State and Federal agencies
• Congress

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With Disadvantaged Groups

• Disabled hearing or visually impaired, access to
  meetings (wheelchair etc.), other?
• Minority groups - ASA is working to improve
• Important idea is to add diversity so that other
  views can be added to the discussion
• Providing information to public groups on issues
  relating to disadvantaged groups
• Salary disparity
• Access to facilities and information

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• Part II
• What Formats of Communication Do We Use?

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Writing

• Clarity is always important
• Articles in statistical journals
• Appropriate introduction, motivation, equations,
  proper use of precision, graphical displays
• Avoiding jargon and always indicate what acronyms
  and abbreviations mean
• Better still, dont use them

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Writing (2)

• Articles in subject matter journals
• Avoid jargon
• Use graphics
• Give estimates instead of p-values (or add the
  p-values to the estimates) provide confidence
  intervals
• Describe methods fully
• Give a glossary

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Writing (3)

• Texts, Monographs and Technical Reports
• Clarity is important
• Level of text makes a difference on how you
  present we can tell the difference between a
  well-written work and the other kind
• Monographs are important advanced level books
  with a more specialized audience
• Length of document issues

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Writing (4)

• Popular articles and news articles
• The audience for these will not be statisticians,
  so estimates and graphs should be used - no
  equations or p-values
• Working with a journalist - you need to help her
  do her job. Offer to explain, and be sure they
  understand. Confidence intervals and p-values
  are tricky stuff

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Speaking and Presenting

• Speaking
• Speak S_L_O_W_L_Y!
• If you have an accent, be particularly careful.
  You may understand your topic, but your accent
  can blunt your message
• When speaking to an international group, be aware
  that English facility may be limited

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Speaking and Presenting (2)

• Professional meetings
• Always have slides or well-done posters
• Slides have limited information content, so
  sometimes handouts are better than slides
• Get help - rehearse, check the internet for tips
• SLOW DOWN!!!

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Speaking and Presenting (3)

• Talking about statistical ideas to the public
• Speak in simple terms, use pictures, graphs
• Testimony
• Keep it simple, but have justification for
  everything
• Never stretch the truth
• Simple concepts told clearly

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What media?

• Print - journals, press releases - get help!
  Most organizations have press offices to guide
  you
• Radio interviews - be sure to answer the question
  and not go farther than asked - dont embellish
• Video - Fairly rare, although some courses are
  given. May be involved in presenting new results
  with clients
• Video conferences similar to professional
  conferences
• Webinars (seminars on the web with telephone
  interface) becoming popular

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Media (2)

• Slide presentations
• Large Font - at least 20 point, prefer larger
• 28 point 24 point 20 point 16 point
• At most 8 -10 lines per slide
• Almost no equations - unless the audience is
  composed of specialists, no one will follow or
  read them
• Have handouts for detailed information such as
  tables, equations, etc.
• Be organized

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A Bad Example

• Statement 0f Candidate
• As with all statisticians who have been asked to
  be a candidate for ASA President, I am greatly
  honored to be considered for this office. What
  main issue would be of great importance to
  statisticians that I could focus on during my
  tenure? In my years of teaching, collaborating,
  and supervising a major problem we have is
  communicating among ourselves, our students, our
  clients, and with the public. Several recent
  Presidential candidates have stressed variants of
  this theme. Not only do we need to make the
  results of our thinking understood, we must
  understand the questions we are asked.
• We must communicate when we are students, when we
  teach, to our professional colleagues, to our
  collaborators in various sciences, and to the
  public. We also must understand what our
  clients/collaborators are asking for. Too many
  statisticians have poor communications skills.
  Some clients get upset when we write an equation
  or use a symbol. Part of this is the issue of
  our not reaching out very far to explain. We can
  do better.
• Our sections on statistical education and
  journals on teaching address these issues. Are
  there areas where we are lagging? In my
  experience, some students dont relate their
  ideas clearly, nor do they understand the
  questions being asked of them, and dont
  understand the context of the problem. In the
  consulting room, this can be a disaster. After
  graduation, this becomes a problem for their
  employers.
• We have poorly written papers, posters that dont
  communicate ideas and statisticians who cannot
  make an effective oral presentation. Despite
  considerable efforts by all statistical
  associations, the lessons havent reached their
  target and the people most in need dont attend
  the courses. Statistical graphics have made
  great strides in recent years we need to use
  these tools more.
• In order to be effective collaborators, we must
  understand the application. We may not ask the
  right questions, or enough of them to get the
  information we need to design and analyze the
  studies. Its all right to ask the naïve
  question of a client to ensure we have proper
  understanding of the problem.
• Id like to work with sections and chapters and
  continuing education to develop ways to improve
  our communications skills. Here are some
  options Each section offer awards for best
  poster and best contributed paper and best
  written contribution. Have sessions in which no
  equations or tables may be displayed (graphs OK).
  
• We could offer workshops on presentation methods
  for members who want it, particularly our newest
  members. Encourage graduate programs to have
  training in technical writing, presentation, and
  graphical display perhaps not a full course,
  but surely how to make a slide show, write a
  paper, organize and teach a class. This could be
  in conjunction with a consulting course. An ASA
  workshop could be devoted to speaking to a
  non-statistical audience emphasizing important
  points, helping the press understand the message.
  We can teach the use of electronic communication
  for data interchange and technical communication
  among groups and internationally.

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Applying Theoretical Results

• Explaining results to clients, public, government
  (e.g., regulators), policy makers
• E.g., use of Bayesian ideas
• Equations turn people off!
• Implementing results
• Dont get used unless available in major
  statistical programs R, Splus, SAS, Stata, SPSS,
  Minitab

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Special Subgroups

• Identify professionals with skills and interest
  in improving communications
• Older or retired
• Younger (those just starting out)
• Especially graduate students and non-Ph.D.
• Minority group members
• In statistics, we have many Asian members
• Special subgroups - disabled

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Improving Communications

• Awards for posters and presentations
• Awards for texts and monographs
• Separate for text and monographs
• National teaching awards

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Professional Development

• Short courses on communicating with others in our
  profession
• Poster Presentations
• Slide presentations
• Writing skills
• Speaking skills
• Ethical issues - see ASA website
• What is significant?

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Professional Development (2)

• Professional meetings
• Always have slides or well-done posters
  (sometimes forego slides)
• Get help - rehearse, check the internet for tips
• SLOW DOWN!!!

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Professional Development (3)

• Business skills
• Developing budgets for projects, companies
• Interviewing job candidates (all areas!)
• Hiring need to know legal requirements
• Negotiating with potential clients and employees
• Insurance needs (Errors and Omissions)
• Contracts
• Setting fees

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Professional Development (4)

• Communicating clearly see first parts of talk
• Time management - process material only once if
  possible
• Making decisions who, when, input needed
• Motivating people
• Managing meetings and teams
• Minimizing stress

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Activities

• ASA website www.amstat.org
• K-16 programs
• Wall Street Journal Online statistical articles
  www.wsj.com/numbersguy

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More Activities

• Teacher Enhancement
• INSPIRE first time high school statistics
  teachers
• USCOTS U.S. Conference on Teaching Statistics
• TEAMS conference improving education in
  secondary schools, administration, colleges

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Son of More Activities

• Films of Famous Statisticians
• Strategic Initiatives
• Check with committees and chapters for activities
  of interest and send the message to the world

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Thank You