I have been been granted the opportunity to convince a pretty high level group to continue funding for research work that I am leading on the cold conditioning of strawberry. The time slot to do so however is ten minutes.
The subject of cold conditioning in strawberry is a complex one, and one which I and just a super group of people have developed a lot of really good data about. Think not just physiological response of the plant, but also fruit yield, fruit quality, plant response and on and on and so it has been straining my imagination to think how so much of this could be jammed into the seemingly small window of ten minutes time.
But then as a check on my pessimism, I read the quote below in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. This was a response during an interview of Ruth Porat, the Chief Investment Officer for Alphabet, (the parent company of Google) if she can tell if someone really knows what they are talking about. In other words how finely tuned is her B.S. detector.
Her answer is something we extensionists and educators should take note of and probably take to heart (bold type mine for emphasis):
"My father, who was a physicist, said if someone can't define a quark in less than 30 seconds, they don't know what they are talking about. Throughout my career, I have used the quark test. If you think something adds value, at Alphabet, or at Morgan Stanley, and you can't tell me why in a compelling way in less than 30 seconds, then you don't know what you are talking about."
So there you have it. Clearly, the challenge is set before me, and I can do better.