I had the privilege of taking Winston's communications/AI seminar class in college.
It was an odd format. The class outwardly presented itself as a seminar class where you just read and discuss AI papers. Several of the papers involved doing mean things to ferrets. But really it was a writing/communication class with Winston giving you life advice. I remember one of his teachings was how to build and maintain your network (email them ~twice a year). And also before a big lecture you can warm up your voice by making a barking noise. He also brought donuts to most every class. I miss you professor Winston.
I never met Winston when he was still alive, sadly, but I first encountered his work when I was still in high school, learning CommonLISP from his AI book.
Every time I am sitting in the audience of a talk where someone uses overcrowded PowerPoint slides with small fonts and goes through tables of numbers that no-one in the audience can read, mumbling quietly or rushing nervously through their material, long having lost most of the audience, I feel like sending the presenters the link to this timeless masterpiece (happens at least a few dozen times per year).
It has also made me a better teacher in the lecture hall, and appreciate using chalk more, and slides less.
This clip is worth watching again every couple of years, which I do, out of enjoyment and to refresh my memory (reminds me I still need to procure some cool props for my upcoming AI1 lecture in October...).
I watched this years ago and really enjoyed it. One of the main lessons I took from it is basically, have almost 0 text on your slides. You should not be reading your slides, the audience should not have to read your slides. The slides should supplement what you are speaking about, not vice versa.
Any time I see a wall of text on a presentation, I know I can probably tune out and not miss much.
If you're analyzing a code snippet, sure, makes sense. But have bullet points of long sentences is just serving to distract the audience from what you're saying.
Famous communications lecturer at most prestigious school on earth beats grad student from public college at teaching. Wow wa we wa high praise indeed.
I initially didn’t remember but as soon as he started writing I remembered him. He is the reason I write in all caps on the paper.
I watched his AI course like 10 years ago or so and learned a lot!
I thought he looked familiar but just because I initially thought this is a different type of course I just didn’t think of that AI course.
I read in the comments that he is passed away, god bless him.
It's quite rare that I start a 1 hr long youtube video and watch it all the way through at 1x speed without getting distracted. The ideas in this talk sell themselves.
I like how his talk involves lots of "nesting". (Not sure the correct word for it.) Like, he sets something up then pays it off 5 minutes later. He makes me think of a watchmaker.
I can't really bring myself to watch recordings of speeches. I feel like, when you're making an actual speech or lecture, you benefit from slower pace because the audience can't rewind in case they miss something, probably they have lots of distractions, not to mention being physically uncomfortable in a slight but annoying manner for one reason or another. Meanwhile when making video content or even a podcast, it's better to be fast-paced, because there's a decent chance you have the audience's full undivided attention in a place where they feel most comfortable with zero distractions (sofa at night with maximum brightness TV), and even if they miss something, they can rewind, or pause, or whatever.
Patrick Winston also wrote a book about presentation and communication: Make It Clear: Speak and Write to Persuade and Inform. It was published a year after he passed away.
33 comments
[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 88.1 ms ] threadIt was an odd format. The class outwardly presented itself as a seminar class where you just read and discuss AI papers. Several of the papers involved doing mean things to ferrets. But really it was a writing/communication class with Winston giving you life advice. I remember one of his teachings was how to build and maintain your network (email them ~twice a year). And also before a big lecture you can warm up your voice by making a barking noise. He also brought donuts to most every class. I miss you professor Winston.
Every time I am sitting in the audience of a talk where someone uses overcrowded PowerPoint slides with small fonts and goes through tables of numbers that no-one in the audience can read, mumbling quietly or rushing nervously through their material, long having lost most of the audience, I feel like sending the presenters the link to this timeless masterpiece (happens at least a few dozen times per year).
It has also made me a better teacher in the lecture hall, and appreciate using chalk more, and slides less.
This clip is worth watching again every couple of years, which I do, out of enjoyment and to refresh my memory (reminds me I still need to procure some cool props for my upcoming AI1 lecture in October...).
Phenomenal talk.
How to Speak [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39670484 - March 2024 (2 comments)
How to Speak - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31489765 - May 2022 (2 comments)
How to Speak (MIT OCW) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30046076 - Jan 2022 (1 comment)
How to speak (2018) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23878328 - July 2020 (5 comments)
How to Speak by Patrick Winston - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570443 - June 2020 (1 comment)
How to Speak (2018) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22848034 - April 2020 (43 comments)
Also related:
Patrick Winston has died - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20482768 - July 2019 (81 comments)
https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/index.html - The supplementary reading list for this class looks interesting.
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Clear-Speak-Persuade-Inform/dp/0... - Patrick co-authored a book on communication based on said class.
Ah, the good old days.
Any time I see a wall of text on a presentation, I know I can probably tune out and not miss much.
I don't think this is good advice. What you should actually do is not just read out the slide. The slide isn't your autocue.
It's fine to have text on a slide if you are talking about that text. For example you might be analysing some code, or writing techniques or whatever.
Honestly it's really obvious if you've ever watched any presentations in your life... but people still do it because it feels a lot easier.
i thought the standard (mba presentation) format was something like:
tell em what youre goin to tell em (intro)
tell em what you said youll tell em (body)
tell em what you told em (outro)
I read in the comments that he is passed away, god bless him.
Thankful I could learn a bit more about him here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220707071624/https://www.memor...
And a couple more pearls from Prof. Winston here as well. https://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/search?q=winston
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Clear-Speak-Persuade-Inform/dp/0...