Notes from the MIT talk by Prof. Winston titled ”How to Speak”

Contents

1. Success in life
2. Quality of Communication
3. Speeches/Talks
4. Slides
5. Informing Talk
6. Persuading
7. Job Talks
8. Getting Famous
9. How to Stop

Success in life

Success in life depends on Ability to Speak, Ability to Write and the Quality of your ideas — IN THAT ORDER.

Quality of Communication

Quality of Communication depends on your Knowledge, Practice with that Knowledge and Talent — IN THAT ORDER.

Speeches/Talks

• Don’t start with joke, start with empowerment promise
• People will fog out. Say it once, twice, thrice. Circle around idea again and again
• Build a fence around the idea. It might seem similar…except…
• Verbal punctuation: first we will talk about, then we will discuss; enumerate…
• Ask a question - upto 7s pause OK; carefully choose question — not too obvious, not too hard.
• Watch speeches that inspire you, and build up a personal repertoire.
• Time & Place: 11 AM, lights full-up, check the place beforehand, right size space so it’s reasonably populated

Slides

• Slides are good for exposing ideas, not for teaching ideas
• 40 point font-size is about right
• NO laser pointers
• Print out, lay on a table, see where it’s too heavy, balance it out
• hapax legaomenon: a complex slide can be used only once in an entire talk!

Informing Talk

• Empowerment promise, express how cool stuff is
• Show and then tell
• Inspiration
• Expression of passion makes a difference

Persuading

• Situate: there hasn’t been progress in XX years, it will impact, situate in time, place, field.
• Practice: show to people you don’t share office with, someone who doesn’t have context and won’t hallucinate.

Before asking for feedback:

If you can’t make me cry, I won’t value you as a friend anymore

Job Talks

In 5 minutes people want to hear about your vision expressed through:

• Problem that somebody cares about
• What’s new in your approach?

How do you show that you have “done something”?

• Series of steps to be taken to realize vision, “here’s what needs to be done…in order”
• Clearly enumerate your contributions

Getting Famous

Ensuring your work is remembered & recognized:

• Add symbol associated with work
• Slogan that provides a handle on the work, catch-phrase — “one-shot learning”
• Surprise — “you don’t need a million samples to learn something”
• Salient idea. Not important idea, but an idea that sticks out. “notion of a near miss”
• Story - how you did it? how it works? why it’s important

How to Stop

• Don’t show list of collaborators at end, do it on the first slide.
• No “Questions?” slide. Squanders real estate.
• No “For details see”. Wastes opportunity
• No “Thank you”. Weak move.
• No “End”
• End with Contributions slide. Show what YOU have done. What I talk about a lot, what I typically demonstrate, what we get out of it.
• Final words - telling a joke is OK. People will think they had fun the whole time.
• Classic benediction ending. “God bless you, God bless America”
• Salute the audience. “It’s been great fun here. I feel stimulated by questions. I look forward to coming back…”