Based on a comment to my first post, I thought I’d talk a little about the differences and similarities of the worlds of business and chemistry research.

In both business and chemistry, you quickly find out what works and what doesn’t–at least in the marketing work that I do. Then you tweak or completely change your method until you find something that does–or, in chemistry, you do it until you find something that works even better. The problem-solving aspect of chemistry is something that I’ve applied over and over to my work for Barry.

The most fundamental difference between chemistry and business–especially marketing–is the lack or need of people skills. In order to be a research chemist, you need to be able to communicate your ideas and your projects, but most of that is done in papers with the occasional supplemental seminar (and, if you’re a grad student, oral and written defenses of your doctoral project). However, these research papers and seminars are very technical–even as an undergraduate I had a hard time understanding some of the seminars, especially if the material was something that was fairly specialized. Although chemists can talk chemistry to each other, they will have a difficult time communicating their idea to a biologist who has only a rudimentary background in chemistry. Even if both participants in the conversation have a strong chemistry background, they may have specialized in different areas, and they may still have difficulty understanding one another (example: a chemical biologist–a division of organic chemistry–talking to someone in proteomics–a division of analytical [instrumental] chemistry). Chemistry is just one of those subjects that is difficult to water down for someone who isn’t familiar with it. Even when I’ve thought that something was clear, it wasn’t. Occasionally I’d get a phone call while in the research lab.

"I can’t talk right now, I’m collecting fractions."

"You’re WHAT?"

"I’m running a column."

"A what?"

"It’s a purification technique where I have this big glass thing called a column and it’s filled with this stuff called silica gel and I dissolved my product in solvent and now I’m running it through the column and then my product separates and while it’s doing that…do you understand what I’m saying?"

"Um…you’re doing chemistry?"

"Yeah I’m in lab, I’ll call you back later."

In business, if you don’t have people skills–if you can’t  talk to people and communicate your ideas verbally, no matter what they are–then you won’t get very far. You have to be able to quickly condense ideas into an easily understood form that someone can understand and relate to instantly. If they have to ask too many questions, or listen to a too long response, you lose their attention. Eventually my phone conversations went like this:

"Where are you?"

"I’m in lab."

"Oh, I’ll talk to you later." Click.

Although, to be fair, I have met some scientists who have excellent people skills.

~Katherine