Small Business Administration Innovation Research Program (SBIR)

SBIR funding is 2.5% of the total extramural research budgets of all federal agencies with extramural research budgets of more than of $100 million. These funds are reserved for research contracts or grants to small businesses. In 2010, that represented over $1 billion in research funds. Over half the awards were to firms with less than 25 people. One-third of the funds went to very small companies indeed, one with fewer than 10 employees. One-fifth of the funds went to minority- or women-owned businesses. One-quarter of the companies in fiscal year 20100 were first-time winners.

Information can be obtained from:
Small Business Innovation Research Program
United States Small Business Administration
Office of Technology
409 Third Street SW
Washington, DC 20416
202-205-6450
www.sba.gov/sbir or sba.gov/index.html
Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR)

STTR uses a similar approach to promote partnerships between small businesses and nonprofit U.S. research institutions. Funding currently totals 0.3% of the relevant agencies’ extramural research budgets. In the 2010 fiscal year, this amounted to over $100 Million.

The federal agencies involved are:

Each year, five federal departments and agencies are required by STTR to reserve a portion of their R&D funds for award to small business/nonprofit research institution partnerships.

• Department of Defense
• Department of Energy
• Department of Health and Human Services
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• National Science Foundation

Small businesses eligible for STTR must be American-owned and independently operated. The principal researcher need not be employed by small business. (Thus principal researchers can be academic researchers starting a company aimed at commercializing the results of their research). Company size limited to 500 employees

Upon reviewing the proposals, agencies make STTR awards based on small business/nonprofit research institution qualification, degree of innovation, and future market potential. Small businesses that receive awards then begin a three-phase program.

• Phase I is the startup phase. Awards of up to $100,000 for approximately one year fund the exploration of the scientific, technical, and commercial feasibility of an idea or technology.
• Phase II awards of up to $750,000, for as long as two years, expand Phase I results. During this period, the R&D work is performed and the developer begins to consider commercial potential. Only Phase I award winners are considered for Phase II.
• Phase III is the period during which Phase II innovation moves from the laboratory into the marketplace. No STTR funds support this phase. The small business must find funding in the private sector or other non-STTR federal agency funding.

To help small businesses deal with the complexities of working with the federal government, the SBA operates the Small Business Administration Answer Desk at 202-205-6600, extensions 296 and 287.

Other federal programs

Other units of the federal government also have programs to assist small businesses. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Small Business Ombudsman helps small businesses gain access to EPA funds. Ombudsmen may be reached through the EPA at www.epa.gov or by telephone (703-305-7777).

The Minority Business Development Agency is a unit of the U.S. Department of Commerce and collects and disseminates information about starting and operating minority-owned businesses. It may be reached online through www.doc.gov or by telephone at 202-482-4547.

The Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business is another Department of Commerce unit helping small businesses. It may be reached on-line at www.osec.doc.gov/osdbu or by telephone at 202- 482-1472.

The U.S. Department of Energy operates a similar program, the Minority Energy Information Clearinghouse focused on small energy-related businesses owned by members of minority groups. This program may be reached through www.hr.doe.gov/ed or by telephone at 202-586-5876.

The U.S. Department of Defense operates the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization for DoD. Information is available online at www.acq.osd.mil/sadbu or by telephone at 703- 545-6700.

The Department of Energy also provides information to small businesses through the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization for DoE. Its website address is www.doe.gov. The office can also be reached by telephone at 202- 586-7377.

NASA operates the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization for NASA. Information may be obtained online at www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codek and by telephone at 202-358-2088.
The Small Business Administration Development Center Program provides technical assistance and information on management techniques to small businesses at www.sba.gov or by telephone at 202- 205-6600, extensions 275 and 277.

John Borchardt is a chemist and freelance writer who has been an ACS career consultant for 15 years. He is the author of the ACS/Oxford University Press Book “Career Management for Scientists and Engineers.” He has had more than 1200 articles published in a variety of magazines, newspapers and encyclopedias. As an industrial chemist, he holds 30 U.S. and more than 125 international patents and is the author of more than 130 peer-reviewed papers.

Every state in the U.S. is home to incubators designed to serve as homes for start-up companies and promote innovation. The website www.angelscorner.com/articles/incubators.htm provides a list of links to major U.S. incubators. Incubators became widespread with the explosion of start-up companies in information technology and computer fields in the late 1990s. Not all incubators include wet laboratories in their facilities but many do particularly due to the growth in numbers of biotechnology start-ups.

Some incubators are affiliated with universities. Others are operated by venture capitalists. Others are quasi-government operations.  For example, the Iowa State University Research Park has more than 50 start-up firms as tenants (http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DB2Wv7c-l0Ho). It enables entrepreneurs to link technology creation, business formation (including potential access to capital) and development assistance. Located on a major university campus, it is also near federal laboratories.

One of the three incubators in the SPARK Regional Incubator Network (SRIN), the Michigan Life Sciences Innovation Center in Plymouth, Michigan, offers entrepreneurs wet laboratory facilities. Besides laboratories, the 57,000 square incubator includes offices and conference rooms, a loading dock and ample parking. Lease rates are affordable for start-up companies.

Getting in

Gaining access to incubator facilities  is more than just renting space. The start-up company has to meet specific requirements. One has to apply for it. The start-up company’s business plan, management team, capitalization and time to commercialization are evaluated. Its operations must be compatible with the available incubator space including environmental permitting, major equipment and utilities requirements.

Once established as tenants, start-up companies cannot stay in incubators forever. Most incubators limit initial leases to no more than three years with the possibility of one- or two-year renewals.

Incubator services

Some incubators offer start-ups reduced rental rates with the rents gradually increased to the prevailing market level in the area. Incubators usually provide reception areas and meeting rooms, secretarial and postal services and office equipment such as photocopiers and projection equipment for meetings. Incubator tenants share these and other overhead costs.

Many offer services designed to facilitate the development and growth of start-up companies. Business incubators often provide courses in entrepreneurship and seminars on topics of interest to entrepreneurs such as intellectual property protection, access to capital. Business incubator managers also serve as facilitators connecting entrepreneurs to firms and individuals providing services they need such as local artisans such as glass blowers and electricians as well as consultants and advisory services.

A recent survey of National Business Incubator Association members indicated that 83% of incubators provide entrepreneurs with access to seed capital. Also, 76% provide assistance in obtaining federal grants. 74% assist entrepreneurs in preparing financial proposals.

Some incubators with wet labs offer tenants shared access to instruments that would be used by each only a fraction of the time and routine laboratory services. Some offer access to sophisticated laboratory services that are often outsourced in small established companies.

John Borchardt is a chemist and freelance writer who has been an ACS career consultant for 15 years. He is the author of the ACS/Oxford University Press Book “Career Management for Scientists and Engineers.” He has had more than 1200 articles published in a variety of magazines, newspapers and encyclopedias. As an industrial chemist, he holds 30 U.S. and more than 125 international patents and is the author of more than 130 peer-reviewed papers.

Divergence, Inc.

Divergence, Inc. chief executive officer (CEO) Derek Rapp described the history of his St. Louis start-up firm in a paper presented at the Revitalizing the Heartland’s Chemical Economy Symposium (part of the 2011 ACS Combined Midwest/Great Lakes Regional Meeting). Divergence began operations in 1999 as a genomics-based company looking to identify pathways to control and prevent parasitic infections of plants. Its goal was to develop a biogenetics means of controlling certain pests (nematodes) that eat crop plant roots thereby reducing productivity. After giving up on this approach, Divergence licensed technology from the CEO’s former employer, Monsanto, and developed it to the point of commercialization. In October 2011, Monsanto bought the company giving investors and Divergence employees a handsome profit and jobs with Monsanto.

Michigan life sciences start-ups

Michigan life sciences start-up firms provide interesting examples of start-ups that received support from the large firm that gave rise to them. In 2003, Pfizer closed its Kalamazoo, Michigan laboratory, the former site of UpJohn’s research center. About 1,000 employees lost their jobs. To prevent the departure of all of these professionals, the state and city provided seed money for aspiring entrepreneurs to start businesses. The more than two dozen start-ups that arose were primarily pharmaceutical service companies rather than companies relying directly on Pfizer technology. Most were born at the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center, which opened in July 2003 at the Western Michigan University Business Technology Research Park in Kalamazoo.

As of 2011 most of these service companies have graduated from business incubators to become fully operational. At least some have become profitable. Together they offer a broad range of services from drug discovery through early stage clinical trials with associated manufacture of the drugs needed for these trials. They employ a number of former Pfizer and Upjohn scientists. In at least some cases, Pfizer has provided these firms with contract research business.

An example is Jasper Clinical Research & Development, which offers early-phase clinical studies. Jasper has received a facility and equipment from Pfizer plus three-year contracts for contract research business Pifzer estimates total as much as $20 million.

Another start-up, CeeTox, Inc., provides in vitro toxicity screening of drug candidates, received equipment and technology from Pfizer and a recent $25 million dollar contract from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The founders of contract research organization Kalexsyn, Inc., Robert Gadwood and David Zimmerman, based their 2003 start-up company on what they had learned about CROs while working for Pfizer and its predecessor companies in Kalamazoo. Former Kalamazoo employees initially formed the core of Kalexsyn’s workforce. As the firm grew to 23 employees, Kalexsyn outgrew its original 7,000 square foot site in the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center. Kalexsyn built its own $4.5 million, 20,000 square foot facility in the Business Technology and Research Park on the Western Michigan University Parkview campus. The building includes both laboratory and office space.

A mixed record of success

Most but not all the post-Pfizer start-up firms have succeeded. For example, contract research organization firm ADMETRx, Inc. also was founded in 2003 in the wake of Pfizer’s laboratory closure. In May 2010, ADMETRx shut down with CeeTox acquiring some of its assets.

John Borchardt is a chemist and freelance writer who has been an ACS career consultant for 15 years. He is the author of the ACS/Oxford University Press Book “Career Management for Scientists and Engineers.” He has had more than 1200 articles published in a variety of magazines, newspapers and encyclopedias. As an industrial chemist, he holds 30 U.S. and more than 125 international patents and is the author of more than 130 peer-reviewed papers.

What meeting facilitators do

Meetings occur because they are an effective means to share information, set goals, and both analyze problems and develop possible solutions (brainstorming). However, these types of collaborative decision making can be a complex process. Meetings often involve complex interpersonal interactions. There may be disagreements over goals and how to achieve them. Meetings may dissolve into several simultaneous discussions rather than remaining focused.  Even with an agenda it can be difficult to keep a meeting moving smoothly on schedule.
Meeting facilitators  can play a role in solving or, better yet, preventing these problems. This often begins with the facilitator working with the person presiding over the meeting to prepare an agenda that will assist in accomplishing the goals of the meeting and keeping it focused. Each item on the agenda should have a clear reason for being there and a specific time allotted to discuss it.

During the meeting the meeting facilitator observes and, as needed, directs the discussion – and disruptive individuals – back to the matter at under discussion. This enables the person running to the meeting to remain focused on the agenda and accomplishing the meeting goals rather than getting sidetracked by behavioral issues.

Meeting facilitator skills

Meeting facilitators need to be diplomatic individuals who remain quietly observing most of the time but insert themselves into the meeting to take action as needed. To do this effectively, they should be someone the meeting attendees will respect.

The facilitator should work with the meeting organizer to set the agenda. The topic, opportunity or problem should be clearly defined. Each agenda item should be important and have a clear reason for being included in the agenda.

Facilitators shouldn’t take the meeting over from the meeting organizer. However, during the meeting they may need to invite comments from the meeting participants and encourage them to remain focused on meeting goals, and record and display key comments and conclusions. Despite this last comment, facilitators should not be responsible for taking notes and writing the meeting minutes. Doing so would take their attention from the dynamics of the meeting. In doing this, the vacillator is guiding the pacing of the meeting.

Even large companies seldom need to have people working full-time as facilitators. Meeting facilitators who are full-time employees often have other duties in addition to facilitating meetings. Because meeting facilitators are seldom needed fulltime, companies may wish to bring in consultants as meeting facilitators. Using accomplished retirees as meeting facilitators can solve the respect issue.

When meetings involve individuals from different organizations, they often pose challenges for meeting organizers and meeting facilitators. The attendees are not unified by a single workplace culture and may not have fully bought into the meeting goals. The same is true for volunteers working for membership societies such as the ACS.

John Borchardt is a chemist and freelance writer who has been an ACS career consultant for 15 years. He is the author of the ACS/Oxford University Press Book “Career Management for Scientists and Engineers.” He has had more than 1200 articles published in a variety of magazines, newspapers and encyclopedias. As an industrial chemist, he holds 30 U.S. and more than 125 international patents and is the author of more than 130 peer-reviewed papers.

While some may believe decision making is completely innate or only gained through long years of management experience, it is also a skill that can be learned and perfected. Management strategies and tactics can aid effective decision-making. These include scenario planning, cutting your losses, individual decision making, and group decision making.

Scenarios can aid decision making

Wise decision making can be facilitated by following scenarios developed long before decisions must be made. Shell Oil made the use of scenario planning famous (Fortune Magazine). Company planners had developed various scenarios of future crude oil prices in event of a shut-off of crude oil supplies from the Middle East. They developed plans for how the company should respond to each scenario. Before the 1973 Arab oil embargo effectively doubled crude oil prices for its oil refineries, Shell already had plans in place and calmly moved to execute one. In a sense, no decisions had to be made. They were already planned when the scenarios were developed.

Today many firms in many industries use scenario planning to help guide their decision making.

Cutting your losses

A common decision making error is not to cut one’s losses soon enough. Early in my first industrial research job, I was fortunate enough to learn (in hindsight) an important decision-making lesson from observing the mistakes of others. A research project had continued for several years progressing to the point where a 50,000 pound per year pilot plant was built. Two problems became apparent when operating the pilot plant. The first was that the properties of the polymer produced in the plant were inferior to those produced in the lab. The second was that the product was too expensive to achieve the targeted sales volumes, particularly if the properties could not be improved. For three years the program was continued in a fruitless effort to solve these problems.

It became apparent that the company was throwing good money after bad. Millions of dollars were involved. The laboratory manager could not be persuaded to give up on the project and direct resources elsewhere. Finally the lab manager was replaced.

The new lab manager quickly killed the project and shut down the pilot plant. Some staff members and the former lab manager lost their jobs. Interestingly, the chemist who had originally developed product and process had moved onto another research program a couple of years earlier. By avoiding involvement in the bad decisions, he kept his job while others lost theirs.

Individual decision making

Some decisions are made on the individual level. Many individuals do not examine every possible alternative but rely on experience and rules of thumb to make decisions. This can lead to cognitive biases – systematic mistakes when making choices between options. In the case of the example above, it may have been a systematic bias towards optimism that resulted in the research program being funded year after year without the critical problems being solved.

Another non-quantitative, non-analytical tool used in decision making is intuition. More than just gut instinct; intuition often is the result of pattern recognition capability. Well honed, it can be a powerful decision-making tool and is often involved in making breakthrough decisions resulting in development of a revolutionary new product or process.

Group decision making

Decisions are often made by teams. Are teams smarter and capable of making better decisions than individuals? The answer can be yes if an important pitfall, “group think,” can be avoided. Group think can occur when the group discussing decision options is pressured, often subtly, into conforming to the view of a powerful individual.

Another problem is if there is little synergy between team members. This results in each team member making a decision independently rather than reaching a consensus together. One sign of this occurring is if the group tries to come to a decision by voting on options with little discussion.

John Borchardt is a chemist and freelance writer who has been an ACS career consultant for 15 years. He is the author of the ACS/Oxford University Press Book “Career Management for Scientists and Engineers.” He has had more than 1200 articles published in a variety of magazines, newspapers and encyclopedias. As an industrial chemist, he holds 30 U.S. and more than 125 international patents and is the author of more than 130 peer-reviewed papers.

Figure 1 indicates over it takes an average of 1,050 users of a major job board such as Monster.com or Careerbuilder.com to result in one hire. One reason for this is jobs on big job boards often remain posted after positions are filled. Smaller, specialized job boards such as the jobs board on the ACS website and ScienceJobs.com were not included in the Jobs2web study but reportedly are more effective than the big job boards.

Social media are twice as effective as the big job boards; it takes 785 visitors to a site such as LinkedIn to result one hire. Another popular method is for job hunters to type a description of they want into an Internet search engine. This results in one hire from an average of 465 job hunters conducting searches. 

To make one hire from the candidates who visited their own website, companies look at an average of 337 candidates. Clearly job hunters contacting companies through their websites are self-selecting to some degree with a larger fraction of the most appropriately qualified candidates applying for a position.

The numbers look better for people using a search engine to find for a specific type of job opening or who consult a company’s website. These job hunters are self-selecting to some degree and have more relevant experience than all job hunters overall.

Applicants

If one considers only those Internet users who apply for a job by filling out application forms and/or submitting a résumé, the relative effectiveness of the different Internet strategies is similar. However, the numbers look better because, after reading job descriptions, many Internet users opt out and do not apply for a particular position.

According to the analysis, companies look through about 219 applications per job from job seekers who discovered the posting on a major board, such as Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com, before finding someone to hire. In contrast, companies screen an average of 33 applications from job hunters who find the job opening on the company’s own career site to make one hire. Describing the job you want and using a search engine is about equally effective. Companies make an average of one hire from 32 applicants who find jobs openings this way. Social media sites fall in the middle of the rankings with companies hiring one applicant from an average of 116 people who used social media sites to discover a job opening.

Again, it should be noted that these numbers are fro job hunters in general and not chemists specifically. Still, the trends are interesting.

Internet job search strategies

Just because one strategy of online job searching is more effective than another doesn’t mean you should exclusively focus on that one strategy. Instead use the findings of the Jobs2web study to prioritize the methods you use and devote your greatest efforts on the most promising ones: company web sites and Internet search engine results. For example, the major job boards are crowded with applicants so companies have to sift through a large number of respondents to their job postings. However, according to a 2011 CareerXroads study, about one-quarter of company hires do come through applications submitted through major job boards.

Going beyond the Internet

Remember that there are other effective job search techniques besides using the Internet. For instance, networking can be quite effective in identifying job leads. Many companies like to hire new employees from among people recommended by their current employees. An average of ten such recommendations results in one hire.

The key to effective job hunting is to use a variety of techniques to identify job openings for which you are qualified. Don’t rely exclusively on just one or two. 

John Borchardt is a chemist and freelance writer who has been an ACS career consultant for 15 years. He is the author of the ACS/Oxford University Press Book “Career Management for Scientists and Engineers.” He has had more than 1200 articles published in a variety of magazines, newspapers and encyclopedias. As an industrial chemist, he holds 30 U.S. and more than 125 international patents and is the author of more than 130 peer-reviewed papers.

The ground buddy is told that their job is to watch the walker, warn them about what’s coming up next, encourage them, and most importantly to never take their eyes off the walker until they are safely back on the ground.   The walker is so focused on the details – where to put their foot next, how to reach the next handhold – that they can’t see what’s coming up next, or the bigger picture of how far they have come. 

I have a great photo of one of the kids, 35’ in the air on that thin rope, with nothing but tree tops all around him, and have used this image many times in my career development talks.  I think we all need a ground buddy for our career – someone who can see the bigger picture, can tell us what to reach for next, points out how far we have come, and encourages us to take the next step. 

Do you have someone like this in your life, and especially in your career?  If you do, good for you!  Take that person out to lunch every few months, and talk about what’s new or different in your home and personal life, and how that affects your personal career trajectory.

If not, do you try to do some of this yourself? Do you step back on a regular basis and take stock of where you are, and where your current career trajectory is taking you?  Do you seek out advice from people who’ve been where you are now? 

If no one comes immediately to mind, you have some thinking to do.  Who in your network might have valuable life experience to share with you?  Is there someone you admire who is further along in the career you want to have, and might they be willing to share some of their experiences with you?  Most people are more than willing to help, and are flattered to be asked about their own career. 

You may have more than one person, who share different aspects of your professional life.  For example, I have some people I go to for help with technical documentation questions, but others for running a business questions.  Everyone has different areas of expertise – and you may even be able to offer answers on another subject to those who are answering questions for you.  

And that’s a good point – while you’re thinking about who can help you, don’t forget to think about who you can help.  While unsolicited advice is not always appreciated, do you make yourself approachable by those early in their careers? We all know that the best way to really learn something is to teach it to someone else, and sometimes explaining to someone else how and why you did things can make you stop and think about why you really did it that way.  You just might learn something about yourself in the process. 

 This article was written by Lisa M. Balbes, Ph.D. of Balbes Consultants LLC.  Lisa is a technical writer/editor and author of: “Nontraditional Careers for Chemists,” published by Oxford University Press.

Basically, when you invent a new widget (drug, product, etc.), you can apply to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a patent.  If granted, this gives you the right to “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted.”  The USPTO patent examiner reviews your application to ensure that the invention is novel, useful, and non-obvious to one skilled in the art.  They also check to make sure that the idea has not been previously disclosed publically.  Because of the large backlog, it currently takes about 3 years to get a ruling. 

One of the consequences of this system is that companies become very concerned about information security.  If anyone at the company discloses information about the invention before the patent is filed, this can result in the application being denied.  In addition, it requires industrial chemists to maintain meticulous laboratory notebooks, regularly witnessed by others who understand, but are not part of, the work being patented.

One of the most significant changes in this Act was to change the United States from a “First to Invent” system to a “First Inventor to File” system.  This means that instead of proving when you came up with the idea, you only have to prove that you came up with it (that you are an inventor) and then be the first to file an application with the USPTO.  This is much easier to prove, and hopefully will reduce litigation over inventorship priority.  It also puts the United States in line with the rest of the world, most of which already use First to File systems. 

Another issue being addressed is that of fees.  Currently fees collected by the USPTO are redirected into the Treasury department’s general fund, from which Congress appropriates money to the USPTO. The fees collected by the USPTO were meant to cover the operating expenses of the agency.  However, with Uncle Sam taking a cut off the top, USPTO plans for expansion in response to increasing backlogs have been put on hold.  The new act will release these funds back to the USPTO. While the details have not yet been worked out, it is hoped that this release of revenues will allow the USPTO to hire many more examiners, and possibly open satellite offices, thus reducing the backlog of patent applications and allowing careers in patent examination for scientists who live outside of Washington DC.  

While changes in patent law may not affect the daily life of the bench chemist, shifts in philosophy over time will have an impact on companies intellectual property strategies, which will affect how chemists work. 

For more information, see Chemical and Engineering News, 2011 Oct 10, pages 36-37, and  What Every Chemist Should Know About Patents.  

This article was written by Lisa M. Balbes, Ph.D. of Balbes Consultants LLC.  Lisa is a technical writer/editor and author of: “Nontraditional Careers for Chemists,” published by Oxford University Press.

She told me about her son, who had gone off to school to be a veterinarian.  All went well for the first couple years of his study, and even through the first semester of practical work.  However, when they moved to practical work on large animals, he learned (much to his dismay), that he was severely allergic to them, and couldn’t be around them for any extended period of time.  That put a quick end to his dreams of being a country veterinarian, and he is now re-positioning himself for a career as a medical doctor.  (Hopefully he won’t turn out to be allergic to people!). 

Her story reminded me of a scientist who came to me for career consulting a number of years ago.  He had received a generous severance package from a pharmaceutical company, and decided to use it to train himself to be a high school science teacher.  After two years of additional education, he got his first hands-on experience as a student teacher in an classroom with actual teenagers.  He quickly realized that reality was nothing like what he had expected, and this was not the right career path for him.  Now he was looking for help finding a new direction, and trying not to feel like he’d wasted two years and a significant amount of money. 

What is the common thread in both of these stories?  In both cases, the individual thought they knew what they wanted to do, and was willing to spend years preparing and studying to do that.  But in each case, they have had never really tried doing it.  They did not have any actual experience in the field, or even in something close.  When they finally got close enough to experience the real thing, it was not what they thought it was going to be after all.

I’m sure the same thing has happened to you.  Hopefully not this drastically, but we’ve all experienced something that turned out to be different from what we were expecting.  How do you avoid the kind of dramatic surprises that caught these two people unaware?

First, learn as much as you can about your goal.  Talk to multiple people who have the job you think you want, not just about how they got it, but also about what they do on a daily basis.  Ask if you can shadow them for a day or two, to see if what they really do is what they said they do.  Talk to multiple people at multiple companies, as each one is going to give you a different perspective on the career. Talk to people at different stages of the career, to see how their perceptions change over time. 

But ever better than talking about it, do it!  Find a way to try out the job.  Can you take on additional responsibility in your current job that is related to where you want to go?  Is there a volunteer opportunity (or can you create one) that would let you experience part of this new career?  Actually doing it yourself is best, because you not only learn whether or not you like doing it, but you also gain valuable experience that you can put on your resume.  A potential employer wants to know that you can do the job, and the best way is to show them that you already have done it (or something very similar).

So once you know where you want to go, do some research and make sure the destination is really what you think it’s going to be – and you won’t be allergic to it when you get there. 
 

This article was written by Lisa M. Balbes, Ph.D. of Balbes Consultants LLC.  Lisa is a technical writer/editor and author of: “Nontraditional Careers for Chemists,” published by Oxford University Press.

Probably the most important part of your email message is the subject line. This is what people see first, and this is what makes them decide if they’re going to open it or not. Subject lines need to be short – they may only see the first few words, so those words need to really count.

My father would often send me emails where the entire message was in the subject line, and he would end with ( standing for “End of Message”). As soon as I looked in my inbox I knew exactly what he wanted, and I would often answer right away because I knew exactly what he wanted. Today you might do the same thing with a text message – if you know the other person has a phone that is capable of texting – or a tweet ( a 140 character message on twitter).

If you’re not going to be able to fit your entire message in the subject line, then you need to include enough information so that the reader wants to open the message and read the rest (just like with your cover letter, where you want to intrigue them enough to read your resume). Leave out any unnecessary words, and if there is a deadline including that can help spur the reader to action.

If you want to use an abbreviation or acronym, make sure your reader knows what it means – and that it means the same thing to them as to you. ACS means one thing to me, and probably most readers of this blog, but it means something completely different to volunteer for the American Cancer Society, or members of the American College of Surgeons.

For example, here’s a subject line from an email I received recently:

Subject: Workshop

Even when I looked at who the sender was, I had no idea if it was a question about a workshop I had presented there several months ago, or if it was a more urgent request for another workshop presentation in the next two months (which is what it turned out to be).

Here’s a great subject line from an email I received recently:

Subject: ASBMB 2012 Speaker Action Instructions

Right away I knew this email was going to tell me what I had to do as an invited speaker for an upcoming conference. The word “Action” let me know there was something I had to do, and sure enough it included a list of deadlines and details that I needed to take care of for this meeting.

If you need practice writing short and to the point, check out Twitter. Tweets (posts) can only be 140 characters, so it’s a great exercise in creative writing, and writing something useful in that few characters is a great way to force yourself to determine the real essence your message.

Everyone agrees that effective communication is one of the most important skills to succeed in business. If you want to be heard, you need to be able to communicate your ideas and expectations in a way that others can understand – and that includes making it fit into the space available.

This article was written by Lisa M. Balbes, Ph.D. of Balbes Consultants LLC. Lisa is a technical writer/editor and author of: “Nontraditional Careers for Chemists,” published by Oxford University Press.