Notes on "How To Speak" by Prof. Patrick Winston

how-to-speak.md

How To Speak by Prof. Patrick Winston

MIT 2018 talk

How to start

• Suggests not starting with a joke.
  • Audience isn't necessarily attuned to your mode of speaking.
• Start with an empowerment promise; what will the audience get from the talk.
• Audience should be focused on the speaker; no laptops or mobile phones.
  • People have one language processor; if that's distracted, makes it be more difficult to focus on the talk.
  • Distracts others around the person using the laptop/phone.
  • Distracts the speaker.

Conveying ideas

• Cycle ideas several times.
  • Gives people chance to pick up the idea
• Fence off your ideas.
  • Distinguish from other people's ideas.
• Verbally punctuate points where people can pick up if they've stopped paying attention.
• Ask questions.
  • Not too difficult as no-one will answer, but not too simple.

Time and place

• Mid-morning, e.g. 11 AM, is a good time to have lectures.
  • People aren't tired.
  • It's not right after a meal.
• Room should be brightly lit.
  • Avoid people wanting to go to sleep.
• You should check the room out before speaking.
• Don't want an empty room; use a smaller room if necessary.
  • Makes people wonder why they are there.

Boards and props

• Chalk and boards are good for teaching.
  • Can use graphics easily.
  • Speed is similar to that at which people can absorb ideas.
  • Provides a target to direct your hands.
    • Avoid putting hands in pockets or behind your back.
• Props can be very effective; as in theatre.
• Prof. Winston thought the use of boards and props was also effective due to empathetic mirroring. Can "feel" yourself writing or interacting with props.

Slides

• Slides are good for exposing ideas.
• But use with care.
• Don't read the slides.
• Don't stand far away from the slides; it means people have to continually switch where they look.
• Don't use silly clipart.
  • Pictures are good, but use simple to understand images that convey your ideas.
• Don't use background patterns; they make the slides harder to read.
• Laser pointers are bad.
  • Looking away from the audience and lose connection.
  • If you need to direct attention, use an arrow on the slide.

Simplify slides

• Remove the need for the audience to not focus on the slides:
  • Remove most of the words.
  • Minimum font size needs to be large to be legible.
    • This also makes you remove more words.
  • Remove any logos.
  • Remove the title; can convey the title.
  • Remove any clutter, e.g. even bullet points.
• Can print out slides on paper and look at them to see if there's enough space to them.
• Hapax legomenon: something that only appears once.
  • Can have a complex slide, but only do that once in a presentation.

Informing people

Inspiration

• For younger people, inspiration might be conveyed through a belief of the speaker that the audience can achieve something.
• For more experienced people, inspiration might be conveyed by a passion of the speaker about what they are doing.

Promise

• Provide a promise upfront about what the audience will get out of the talk.

Teaching people how to think

• Prof. Winston believes that storytelling teaches people how to think, in an educational context.
• Provide people with:
  • Stories they need to know.
  • Questions they need to ask about those stories.
  • Mechanisms for analysing those stories.
  • Ways of putting stories together.
  • Ways of evaluating how reliable a story is.

Persuading people

Exams

• People often fail verbal exams due to:
  • Not situating; not giving the context for their work fully.
  • Not practicing.
    • Need to practice with an audience that aren't experts in your work, and are unafraid to give you criticism.

Job talks

• Demonstrate vision.
  • The problem is one that the audience cares about.
  • There is something new in your approach.
• Demonstrate that you've done something.
  • List the steps needed to achieve the solution to the problem.
• You don't have long to demonstrate these: maybe five minutes.
• Contributions: demonstrate what you've added to the field.

Getting "famous"

• You want to use these techniques to present your ideas so that they are recognised.
• Symbol, slogan, surprise, salient (one idea), story (tell how it works).

How to stop

Final slide

• Put collaborators at the start, not the end.
  • It can diminish your role.
• Don't use "conclusions", "questions?", "thank you", a web address etc.
• Contributions is perhaps better.

Final words

• Telling people you've finished speaking.
• A joke can be a good way to conclude.
• "Thank you" is not; it implies the audience has stayed out of politeness.
• Examples from political speeches: finish with a call to action.
• Can "salute" the audience: express how much you value your time at a place.