NESCC Dinner Meeting Visit
On Thursday I visited the New England SCC chapter and did a talk on how a cosmetic chemist can use the internet to become a better formulator. It was a great visit.
I flew into Boston in the morning from Chicago. It was uneventful but was certainly more bumpy than most flights I’m used to. I don’t know if that was the weather or just a natural bumpiness on that air path. Whenever I fly, I always imagine what would happen if the thing crashed. It doesn’t exactly worry me because the probability of a crash is low but that doesn’t stop my brain from thinking about it.
The talk was held in one of the suburbs of Boston in a steak house. We had a large room off to the side which was packed. I was very impressed that they needed to bring in extra chairs because more people kept showing up.
My presentation went off without a hitch although I have to do a little more investigating on how to use PowerPoint. I’ve been using OpenOffice and LibreOffice for so long that I’ve forgotten most of the PowerPoint shortcuts. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to adjust the screen size so my slides didn’t show up perfectly.
No matter. When giving a presentation you want the focus to be on you not your slides. You should be able to do any talk even if your slides don’t show up. This is a good habit to get into because it frequently happens when you are giving presentations that something can go wrong. There have been a couple of times when my slides practically didn’t show up at all. Also, always bring a zip drive to hold your slides just in case you need to use someone else’s computer.
After the talk I had an enjoyable discussion with some new people at the dinner table. I thoroughly enjoy meeting new people. It’s really one of my favorite things about being involved with the Society of Cosmetic Chemists and with this website.
This is my last real meeting of the year but I’ve already got a speaking engagement at the mid-year meeting next year. Unfortunately, I’m going to miss the New York National meeting this year. Hopefully, I’ll be back there next year.
