Hi everybody,
today we had a fruitful discussion about the seminar. Some outcomes:
-- we will try and have a series of seminar on one topic, namely FPT. It will start next week by Martin Koutecký, who will given an intro to the area, motivation, etc. Then we will have two talks (Pavel D. and Pavel V.) about some particular FPT results. -- Peter Korcsok's talk will be switched with Martin's -- the rest of the semester will likely be individual papers. Next semester we can possibly have two series, we will see how well it goes.
Further thoughts -- as audience, we (all) should try harder to listen to the speaker -- and if needed, interrupt him with clarifying questions, stupid questions, etc. Just strive to avoid shutting down and doing something else. For starters, it is not that nice to the speaker. Also, listening carefully, even to new topics, is a good skill to build.
-- as speakers: of course you want to give a great talk (and everybody want to listen to such). But the process of trying to give such talk (by learning something new, trying to filter out unimportant details, etc.) is just as important. So one shouldn't be tempted to give a talk about something too easy/too familiar. Or at least not all the time ...
Best wishes,
Robert
-- Robert Šámal IÚUK MFF UK -- CSI of Charles University in Prague