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In 2019, MIT professor Patrick Winston gave a legendary 1-hour lecture called “How to Speak.” It has 18M+ views for a reason. His frameworks: • Your ideas are like your children • The 5-minute rule for job talks • Why jokes fail at the start 15 lessons on communication:
1. Your success is determined by speaking, writing, then ideas in that order "There ought to be a protection for students because they shouldn't go out into life without the ability to communicate." "Your success in life will be determined largely by your ability to speak, your ability to write, and the quality of your ideas in that order."
2. Knowledge and practice matter far more than talent "I was skiing at Sun Valley. Mary Lou Retton Olympic gymnast, perfect 10s was a novice at skiing." "I was a better skier than she was. And she's an outstanding Olympic athlete." "I had the knowledge and the practice. All she had was the talent. You can get a lot better than people with inherent talents if you have the right knowledge."
3. Start with an empowerment promise, not a joke "Some people think you should start with a joke. I don't recommend it." "In the beginning, people are still adjusting to your vocal parameters. They're not ready for a joke. It usually falls flat." "What you want to do instead is start with an empowerment promise. Tell people what they're going to know at the end that they didn't know at the beginning."
4. Cycle on the subject because 20% are always fogged out "At any given moment, about 20% of you will be fogged out no matter what the lecture is." "If you want to ensure the probability that everybody gets it is high, you need to say it three times." "Go around it. Go round it again. Go round it again."
5. Build a fence around your idea "In explaining my idea, I want to build a fence around it so that it's not confused with somebody else's idea." "My algorithm might seem similar to Jones's algorithm except his is exponential and mine's linear." "That's putting a fence around your idea so people can distinguish it from something else."
6. You can wait seven seconds for an answer "How much dead air can there be? How long can I pause?" "I counted seven seconds. It seemed like an eternity but that's the standard amount of time you can wait for an answer." "The question has to be carefully chosen. Not too obvious people will be embarrassed to answer. Not too hard nobody will have anything to say."
7. 11 AM is the best time for a lecture "Most people at MIT are awake by then. Hardly anyone has gone back to sleep. It's not right after a meal." "The most important thing about the place is that it be well lit." "Whenever the lights go down, it signals that we should go to sleep. Keep the lights full up."
8. Case the place like you're robbing a bank "If you're robbing a bank, you'd go to the bank on some occasions before to see what it's like so there are no surprises." "Whenever I go somewhere to speak, the first thing I ask is to be taken to the place where I'll be speaking." "When I came here this morning, I imagined all the seats filled with disinterested farm animals. That way, no matter how bad it was, it wouldn't be as bad as that."
9. Blackboards are for informing slides are for exposing "When you use the board, you have a graphic quality. You can easily exploit graphics in your presentation." "The speed with which you write on the blackboard is approximately the speed at which people can absorb ideas." "If you go flipping through a bunch of slides, nobody can go that fast."
10. Props are what people remember "The custodians of knowledge about props are the playwrights." "I saw Hedda Gabler decades ago. There was a potbellied stove. As tension mounted, the fire got bigger and hotter. You just knew that manuscript was going to go into that fire." "This memorable thing is what I remember about the play. Props tend to be the things that are remembered."
11. There are always too many slides and too many words "Someone at the airport said, 'I'm on my way to Europe to give a job talk. Would you mind critiquing my slides?'" "I said, 'You have too many slides, and they have too many words.'" "'How did you know?' he said. My reply was because it's always true."
12. We only have one language processor "We can either use it to read stuff or to listen to the speaker." "A student taught some subjects programming. Half was on slides, he said the other half. What did they remember best? What they read on the slide." "In the after-action report, one subject said: 'I wish you hadn't talked so much. It was distracting.'"
13. You have five minutes to show vision and prove you've done something "I asked two colleagues: what do you look for in a faculty candidate?" "'They have to show us they've got some kind of vision.' 'They have to show us they've done something.'" "How long does a candidate have to establish these two things? Five minutes. If you haven't done it in five minutes, you've already lost."
14. Winston's Star: How to be remembered "If you want your ideas to be remembered, you need five things all starting with S." "Symbol something visual associated with your work. Slogan a phrase that provides a handle. Surprise something unexpected. Salient idea one idea that sticks out. Story how you did it, how it works, why it matters."
15. Don't end with "thank you" it's a weak move "When you say thank you, it suggests everybody stayed out of politeness and had a profound desire to be somewhere else." "You will not go to hell if you say thank you. But it's a weak move." "Once wild applause has started, you can mouth a thank you. But the last thing you do should not be saying thank you."
Patrick Winston on communication: "Your ideas are like your children. You don't want them to go into the world in rags." His frameworks: • Knowledge + Practice >> Talent • Start with an empowerment promise • There are always too many slides and too many words • You have five minutes to prove vision + done something "How you package your ideas is an important thing."
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