Notes on How To Speak

professional-growth
notes
My notes for Patrick Winston’s course on how to speak.
Author

Christian Mills

Published

December 16, 2021

Modified

September 12, 2024

Source Material:

Introduction

  • Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) analogy: Sending soldiers into battle without weapons is punishable under UCMJ.
    • Similar protection should exist for students entering life without communication skills.
  • Success Formula: Success is determined by speaking ability, writing ability, and quality of ideas (in that order).
    • Communication quality (speaking and writing) is determined by knowledge, practice (P), and inherent talent (t).
      • Knowledge is the most important factor.
      • Inherent talent is the least important factor.
  • Mary Lou Retton Analogy: Observing Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton’s novice skiing skills at Sun Valley highlighted the importance of K and P.
    • Despite Retton’s athletic talent, the speaker’s superior skiing skills stemmed from greater knowledge and practice.
  • Empowerment Promise: This lecture will provide speaking techniques that can significantly improve your ability to communicate and have your ideas valued.
  • Rule of Engagement: No laptops or cell phones allowed.
    • Rationale: Humans have a single language processor, and distractions hinder learning and speaker performance.

How to Start a Talk

  • Avoid Jokes: Jokes are ineffective at the beginning of a talk because the audience is not yet fully engaged.
  • Empowerment Promise: Start with an empowerment promise that tells the audience what they will gain from the talk.
    • Example: “At the end of this 60 minutes, you will know things about speaking you don’t know now, and something among those things you know will make a difference in your life.”

Sample Heuristics for Presentations

1. Cycling

  • Definition: Repeatedly circling back to the main subject throughout the presentation.
  • Rationale: Ensures that everyone grasps the core message, as some audience members may be temporarily disengaged at any given time.
  • Example: Repeating a key concept three times in different ways.

2. Building a Fence

  • Definition: Clearly defining and delimiting your idea to prevent confusion with other ideas.
  • Rationale: Helps the audience distinguish your unique contribution from existing work.
  • Example: Comparing your algorithm to a similar one while highlighting the key differences (e.g., linear vs. exponential complexity).

3. Verbal Punctuation

  • Definition: Using clear markers to signal transitions and create natural re-entry points for the audience.
  • Rationale: Helps listeners who have drifted off to easily rejoin the flow of the presentation.
  • Example: Providing an outline, using enumerations, or explicitly announcing transitions between sections.

4. Asking Questions

  • Definition: Posing questions to the audience to re-engage them and check for understanding.
  • Rationale: Encourages active listening and participation.
  • Guidelines:
    • Choose questions that are neither too obvious nor too difficult.
    • Allow sufficient wait time (up to 7 seconds) for audience responses.

Developing Your Personal Style

  • Observe and Analyze: Study effective speakers to identify the techniques they use and understand why they are successful.
  • Build Your Repertoire: Incorporate techniques that resonate with you and develop your own unique presentation style.

Time and Place

Time

  • Ideal Time: 11 a.m.
  • Rationale:
    • Most people are awake and alert.
    • Avoids post-meal fatigue.

Place

  • Well-Lit:
    • Rationale: Dim lighting signals sleepiness.
    • Counterargument: Slides are more visible in a dark room.
    • Rebuttal: “It’s extremely hard to see slides through closed eyelids.”
  • Cased:
    • Definition: Familiarize yourself with the venue beforehand to avoid surprises.
    • Rationale: Allows you to anticipate and address any potential challenges.
  • Reasonably Populated:
    • Rationale: Avoids the impression of a poorly attended or unimportant event.

Boards, Props, and Slides

Boards

  • Purpose: Informing and teaching.
  • Advantages:
    • Graphic Quality: Allows for easy incorporation of visuals.
    • Speed Property: Writing speed aligns with the audience’s information processing speed.
    • Target: Provides a natural outlet for hand gestures.
    • Example: Seymour Papert’s use of the board for constant pointing, even if unrelated to the content.

Props

  • Custodians of Knowledge: Playwrights understand the power of props.
  • Hedda Gabler Example: Ibsen’s use of a pot-bellied stove and a manuscript as props to build tension and foreshadow events.
  • Bicycle Wheel Example: Seymour Papert’s demonstration of how to determine the direction a spinning bicycle wheel will fall when torque is applied.
    • Lesson: Thinking about the problem in the right way (e.g., focusing on a small section of the wheel) leads to a clear solution.
  • Steel Ball Example: Alan Lazarus’s demonstration of conservation of energy using a pendulum in 8.01.
    • Caution: Do not try this at home due to the risk of pushing the ball instead of letting go.
  • Empathetic Mirroring: Physical props and blackboards engage mirror neurons in the audience’s brains, enhancing understanding and retention.

Slides

  • Purpose: Exposing ideas (e.g., job talks, conference talks).
  • Common Crimes:
    • Too Many Slides: Overwhelms the audience.
    • Too Many Words: Distracts from the speaker and hinders information processing.
    • Reading Slides: Annoys the audience, who can read themselves.
    • Small Font Size: Makes slides difficult to read.
    • Distant Speaker: Creates a disconnect between the speaker and the slides.
    • Laser Pointer Abuse: Distracting and disrupts eye contact.
    • Too Heavy: Dense slides with minimal white space are overwhelming.
  • Rules for Slide Preparation:
    • Eliminate Background Junk: Remove unnecessary distractions.
    • Reduce Words: Use slides as visual aids, not as text dumps.
    • Remove Logos: Unless essential for branding.
    • Remove Titles: State the title verbally.
    • Eliminate Clutter: Use white space effectively.
  • Minimum Font Size: 40-50 points recommended.
  • Alternative to Laser Pointers: Use arrows or other visual cues to highlight specific elements on the slide.
  • Hapax Legomenon: A slide that is so complex or unusual that it can only be used once in a presentation.
    • Example: A diagram illustrating the complexities of governance in Afghanistan.

Special Cases

Informing/Inspiring

  • Promise: Start with a clear empowerment promise.
  • Inspiration Techniques:
    • Expressing Passion: Share your enthusiasm for the subject.
    • Highlighting Coolness: Emphasize the fascinating aspects of your work.
    • Demonstrating Impact: Show how your ideas can solve significant problems.
    • Example: Resource allocation lecture demonstrating a dramatic speedup in a coloring problem.

Teaching How to Think

  • Storytelling Animals: Humans are inherently storytellers, and thinking involves understanding and manipulating stories.
  • Teaching Methods:
    • Provide relevant stories.
    • Encourage critical questioning of stories.
    • Teach mechanisms for story analysis and synthesis.
    • Develop methods for evaluating story reliability.

Persuading

Oral Exams

  • Challenges:
    • Failure to Situate: Not placing research in context.
    • Failure to Practice: Insufficient rehearsal with a critical audience.
  • Effective Strategies:
    • Situate Research: Explain the problem’s significance, historical context, and potential impact.
    • Practice Extensively: Rehearse with individuals unfamiliar with your work to get honest feedback.
  • Examining Committees: Older examiners tend to be less harsh than younger ones.

Job Talks

  • Key Objectives (5-minute Rule):
    • Vision: Articulate a compelling research vision.
    • Accomplishment: Demonstrate significant achievements.
  • Expressing Vision:
    • Problem: Identify a problem that is important and unsolved.
    • Approach: Present a novel or unique approach to address the problem.
    • Example: Research on human intelligence focusing on the symbolic nature of human thought.
  • Demonstrating Accomplishment:
    • Enumerate Steps: List the key steps required to achieve the vision, highlighting your contributions.
    • Example: Specifying behavior, enumerating constraints, implementing a system, and demonstrating results.
  • Job Talk Structure:
    • Vision: Introduce the problem and your approach (5 minutes).
    • Body: Explain your methods, results, and contributions.
    • Conclusion: Summarize your contributions and highlight future directions.

Getting Famous

  • Importance:
    • Ensuring your ideas are recognized and valued.
    • “You never get used to being ignored.”
  • Winston Star (Techniques for Memorability):
    • Symbol: Associate a memorable visual with your work (e.g., the arch).
    • Slogan: Create a catchy phrase that captures the essence of your idea (e.g., “one-shot learning”).
    • Surprise: Highlight an unexpected or counterintuitive aspect of your work.
    • Salient Idea: Focus on a single key idea that stands out.
    • Story: Tell a compelling narrative about your research process and its implications.

How to Stop

Final Slide

  • Avoid:
    • Long Lists of Collaborators: Diminishes the perceived individual contribution.
    • Thank You Slides: Wastes valuable space and is a weak ending.
    • Blank Slides: Wastes an opportunity to reinforce your message.
    • Questions? Slides: Unnecessary and wastes space.
    • Conclusions Slides: Focuses on conclusions rather than contributions.
  • Recommended: Contributions Slide:
    • Purpose: Reinforces your key contributions while the audience asks questions and departs.
    • Example: A slide summarizing the key achievements and insights of your work.

Final Words

  • Acceptable: Telling a joke (audience is now warmed up).
  • Avoid: Saying “Thank You”:
    • Implies the audience stayed out of obligation rather than genuine interest.
  • Alternatives:
    • Benediction Ending: “God bless you, and God bless [institution/country].” (e.g., Governor Christie, Bill Clinton)
    • Saluting the Audience: Expressing appreciation for their engagement and the opportunity to speak. (e.g., “It’s been a great fun being here…”)
    • Using Established Conventions: Mimicking culturally accepted signals for the end of an event (e.g., “Ite, missa est” in the Latin Mass).

Conclusion

  • Importance of Presentation Skills: Acknowledging the value of effective communication in conveying ideas.
  • Call to Action: Encouraging continued learning and application of the presented techniques.
About Me:

I’m Christian Mills, a deep learning consultant specializing in practical AI implementations. I help clients leverage cutting-edge AI technologies to solve real-world problems.

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