Asking a question is not the same thing as giving a speech.
The set of things you find interesting is not necessarily coterminous with the set of things relevant to the topic under discussion.
The longer a meeting continues, the less value any question can add; as a corollary: past a certain point in a meeting the only thing of value anyone can say is, “Move to adjourn.”
If you want people who hold stupid ideas to agree with your nonstupid ideas, there are better ways to start than calling their stupid ideas stupid.
22 comments
June 9, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Cala
Asking a question is not the same thing as giving a speech.
So, so guilty of this at talks. In my defense, it’s because when I ask questions without a speech, the speaker blows me off and then answers the question of the tenured professor who gave the speech and asked the same question; when I started adding speeches, even if the speaker blew me off the audience would say ‘that was a good question.’
I’m really working hard on streamlining it, though.
June 9, 2008 at 4:19 pm
ben wolfson
If you want people who hold stupid ideas to agree with your nonstupid ideas, there are better ways to start than calling their stupid ideas stupid.
Is posting roundabout advice on your blog a nonstupid way to get people to abandon their stupid ideas in favor of your nonstupid ideas about getting people to abandon their stupid ideas?
June 9, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Brad
I would add, pointing out that something might be a problem is not very useful even if you think it makes you look smart.
Pointing out a potential solution to a problem is very useful, and actually does make you look smart.
June 9, 2008 at 4:33 pm
eric
I merely offer my own observations.
June 9, 2008 at 5:06 pm
SEK
I merely offer my own observations…
…because I can. Because I have tenure. Suck on it!
June 9, 2008 at 5:10 pm
urbino
Or, you know, observe it.
June 9, 2008 at 5:22 pm
andrew
I have a comment and a question. Or maybe it’s a question that’s more of a comment.
I have a two-part question. Or maybe it’s two questions, I’m not sure.
I’ll try to be brief.
I want to go back a moment to your earlier response to my earlier question.
June 9, 2008 at 5:23 pm
The Modesto Kid
If you want people who hold stupid ideas to agree with your nonstupid ideas, there are better ways to start than calling their stupid ideas stupid.
Mutatis mutandis, a similar (if not precisely parallel) rule holds when you are trying to convince holders of non-stupid ideas to agree with your stupid ideas.
June 9, 2008 at 5:51 pm
ac
The set of things you find interesting is not necessarily coterminous with the set of things relevant to the topic under discussion.
Eric, I was drunk when I brought up the whistlepig incident. Can we please both move on?
June 9, 2008 at 5:54 pm
PorJ
A professional scholar does not automatically retain license to pontificate on everything.
[Or to phrase it in another - less delicate - way: "You are not as brilliant as you think you are."]
June 9, 2008 at 5:55 pm
matt w
Asking a question is not the same thing as giving a speech.
That reminds me of a long rambling story, which I will link to and also quote:
A couple of us were chatting in the break before the discussion period; I raised some point (which I’ve forgotten) and John asked me if I was planning to ask is as a question. I said, “No, I’m planning to say some long thing with no question marks in it at all.”
When I was called on in the question period, I said:
After I finished speaking, Matt Shockey whispered to me, “You should have had them chase the Riddler. That way what you said would’ve had question marks in it.”
June 9, 2008 at 6:16 pm
The Modesto Kid
But they would have been the wrong kind of question marks.
June 9, 2008 at 6:20 pm
eric
Can we please both move on?
I will nevermore mention it.
June 9, 2008 at 6:21 pm
eric
And matt w, that story is all kinds of awesome. Somehow I feel that if we had long rambling questions like that one at history talks, I wouldn’t mind so much.
June 9, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Levi Stahl
From the non-academic world, or the semi-academic world:
A meeting does not run itself.
June 9, 2008 at 7:29 pm
eric
Amen. One of these days I’m going to do a “this day” about Henry Martyn Robert, God bless him.
June 9, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Ben Alpers
Does a useful intervention need a question mark in it? Haven’t we all given talks and received comments–not questions–that advance the discussion in useful ways? And aren’t there pithy questions that are also, well, stupid?
(Incidentally, eric’s list needs to include “Your audience will not consider your utter disregard for the stated time limit as indicative of your extraordinary brilliance.”)
June 10, 2008 at 5:44 am
silbey
“That was an interesting paper. Now let me outline my own research, which is unrelated, and then ask you to comment on it.”
–
Meeting Rule #736: Every meeting has 20 minutes of actual business to conduct. This is true no matter how long the meeting lasts.
June 10, 2008 at 6:43 am
matt w
I was in fact harshly criticized for mixing DC and Marvel. (Not by the speaker, and not at the time.)
June 10, 2008 at 6:56 am
John Emerson
If you want people who hold stupid ideas to agree with your nonstupid ideas, there are better ways to start than calling their stupid ideas stupid.
That’s just plain stupid, Eric.
June 12, 2008 at 10:32 am
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June 16, 2008 at 11:32 pm
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