YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → How to Speak

How to Speak — Transcript

by MIT OpenCourseWare · 9,086 words · 1,372 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00[Music]
0:19the uh uniform code of military
0:23Justice specifies Court marshal for any
0:25officer who sends a soldier into battle
0:28without a weapon
0:30there ought to be a similar protection
0:32for students because students shouldn't
0:33go out into life without an ability to
0:37communicate and that's because your
0:39success in life will be determined
0:40largely by your ability to speak your
0:43ability to write and the quality of your
0:46ideas in that
0:49order I know that I can be successful in
0:52this
0:53because the quality of
0:55communication your speaking your writing
0:58is largely determined by this
1:00formula it's a matter of how much
1:03knowledge you have how much you practice
1:06with that knowledge and you're inherent
1:08talent and notice that the tea is very
1:11small what really matters is what you
1:14know this point came to me U suddenly a
1:18few decades ago when I was skiing at Sun
1:21Valley I had heard that it was celebrity
1:24weekend and one of the celebrities was
1:28a was Mary L Reon famous Olympic gymnast
1:33perfect tens in the vault and I heard
1:35that she was an novice at skiing so when
1:38the opportune moment arrived I looked
1:40over on a novice slope and saw this
1:43young woman who when she became
1:45unbalanced went like that and I said
1:49that's got to be her that must be the
1:52gymnast but then it occurred to me I'm a
1:55much better skier than she is and she's
1:57an Olympic Athlete not only an ordinary
2:00Olympic Athlete an outstanding
2:02one and I was a better skier because I
2:04had the K and I had the p and all she
2:08had was the tea so you can get a lot
2:11better than people who may have inherent
2:13talents if you have the right amount of
2:16knowledge so that's what my objective is
2:18today and here's my promise today you
2:21will see
2:22some examples of what you can put in
2:25your
2:26armorium of speaking techniques
2:30and it will be the casee that someone of
2:34those examples some urtic some technique
2:37maybe only one will make will be the one
2:40that gets you the
2:41job and so this is a very nonlinear
2:44process you never know when it's going
2:46to happen but that is my promise by the
2:48end of the next 60 Minutes you'll been
2:52exposed to a lot of ideas some of which
2:55you'll incorporate into your own
2:57repertoire and they will ensure that you
3:00get the maximum
3:02opportunity to uh have your
3:05ideas uh valued and accepted by the
3:09people you speak with now in order to do
3:12that we have to have a rule of
3:15Engagement and that
3:18is no laptops no cell phones so if you
3:22could close those I'll start up as soon
3:25as you're
3:26done some people ask why that uh is a is
3:29a rule
3:30engagement and the answer is we humans
3:34only have one language processor and if
3:37your language processor is engage could
3:38you shut the laptop please if your
3:40language processor is engaged browsing
3:44the web or reading your email you're
3:46distracted and worse yet you distract
3:49all the people around you Studies have
3:51shown that and worse yet if I see a open
3:54laptop somewhere back there or up here
3:58it drives me nuts and I do a worse job
4:02and so that ensures that all of your
4:04friends who were who are paying
4:06attention uh don't get the performance
4:08that they came to
4:10have so that's it for Preamble let's get
4:15started first thing to talk about of
4:17course is how to
4:24start some people think the right thing
4:27to do is to start a talk
4:31a
4:38joke I don't recommend
4:42it and the reason is that in the
4:45beginning of a talk people are still
4:47putting their laptops away they're
4:49becoming adjusted to your speaking
4:51parameters to your vocal
4:55parameters and they're not ready for a
4:57joke so it doesn't work very well they
5:00usually fall
5:01flat what you want to do instead is
5:04start with empowerment
5:08promise you want to tell people what
5:10they're going to know at the end of the
5:13hour that they didn't know at the
5:15beginning of the hour it's an
5:16empowerment promise it's the reason for
5:18being
5:20here uh what would be an example oh I
5:23see at the end of this 60 Minutes you
5:28will know things about speaking you
5:29don't know now and something among those
5:32things you know will be make a
5:33difference in your life yeah that's an
5:34empowerment promise so that's the best
5:36way to
5:37start so now that I've talked a little
5:40bit about how to start what I want to do
5:42is give you some samples of tics that
5:44are always on my mind when I give a
5:48talk and first of these
5:50tics is that it's a good idea to cycle
5:53on the
5:55subject go around it go around it again
5:59go around
6:00again some people say tell them what you
6:03want to tell
6:04them tell them again and then tell them
6:07a third time as if
6:10people weren't intelligent but the point
6:12is the reason is well there are many
6:15reasons one of which is at any given
6:17moment about 20% of you will be fogged
6:19out no matter what the lecture is so if
6:22you want to ensure that the probability
6:23that everybody gets it is high you need
6:25to say it three
6:28times so cycling is one of the things
6:30that I always think about when I give a
6:32talk another thing I think about is in
6:36explaining my idea I want to build a
6:38fence around
6:43it so that it's not confused with
6:45somebody else's idea so if you were from
6:49Mars and I was teaching you about what
6:51an arch is I might say to you well
6:53that's an arch and that's not to be
6:56confused with some other things that
6:57other people might think is an AR this
6:59is not an AR
7:01Arch that's not an arch I'm building a
7:04fence around my idea so that it can be
7:06distinguished from somebody else's idea
7:09so in a more technical sense I might say
7:11well my algorithm might similar might
7:14seem similar to Jones's algorithm except
7:15his is exponential and mine's linear
7:18that's putting a fence around your idea
7:19so that people can not be confused about
7:22how it might relate to something
7:25else the third thing on this list of
7:28samples
7:30is the idea of verbal
7:43punctuation and the idea here is that
7:47because people will uh occasionally fog
7:50out and need to get back on the bus you
7:52need to provide some Landmark places
7:55where you're announcing that it's a good
7:58time to get back on
8:00so I might in this talk say something
8:02about this being my
8:04outline the first thing we're going to
8:06do is talk about how to start then we're
8:09going to deal with these four samples
8:11and among these four samples I've talked
8:14about the first idea that's cycling the
8:16second idea building a and now the third
8:18idea is build is verbal
8:20punctuation so I'm enumerating I'm
8:23providing numbers I'm giving you a sense
8:26that there's a seam in the talk and you
8:28can get back back on
8:32okay so now we're on a
8:34roll uh and since we're on a
8:37roll can you uh guess what fourth idea
8:41might be here an idea that helps people
8:43get back on the
8:50bus yes ask question ask a question yes
8:55thank
8:57you so ask a question
9:05and so I will ask a question how how
9:07much dead air can there be how long can
9:09I pause uh I counted 7 Seconds it seems
9:13like an eternity to me to wait and not
9:15say anything for 10 for 7 seconds but
9:17that's the the standard amount of time
9:19you can wait for an answer and of course
9:21the question has to be carefully chosen
9:23it can't be too obvious because then
9:25people will be embarrassed to say what
9:27the answer is can't be too hard because
9:29nobody will have anything to
9:31say so here are some sample eristics you
9:34can put in your armorium and build up
9:37your your repertoire of uh ideas about
9:42presentation and now if this persuades
9:46you that there is something to know that
9:50there there is knowledge then I've
9:52already succeeded because what I want to
9:55convince you of is if you watch the
9:57speakers you admire and feel are
9:59effective and ask yourselves why they're
10:01successful then you can build up your
10:04own personal repertoire and develop your
10:06own personal style and that's that's my
10:08fundamental
10:09objective and the rest of this talk is
10:12about some of the things that are in my
10:13arm inventorium that I think are
10:16effective so next thing on our agenda as
10:20we start to discuss these other things
10:22is a discussion of time and place so
10:25what do you think is a good time to have
10:26a lecture
10:3011:00 a.m.
10:37yeah and the reason
10:41is most people at MIT are awake by then
10:44and hardly anyone is going back to
10:47sleep it's not right after a meal people
10:50aren't fatigued from this or that it's a
10:52great time to have a
10:53lecture so that brings me next to the
10:56question of what about the place and the
10:58most important thing about the place is
11:01that it be well
11:08lit this room is well
11:11lit problem with the other kinds of
11:13rooms is that we
11:15humans uh whenever the lights go down or
11:18whe whenever the room is dimly lighted
11:20it signals that we should go to sleep so
11:23whenever I go somewhere to give a talk
11:25even today the first thing I do when I
11:27speak to the audiovisual people is say
11:30keep the lights full
11:33up oh they might
11:36reply people will see the slides better
11:38if we turn the lights off and then I
11:41reply it's extremely hard to see slides
11:44through closed
11:49eyelids what else can you say about the
11:52place well the place should be
11:57cased and I mean that in the clal sense
12:00of like uh if you're robbing a bank you
12:03would go to the bank you know some some
12:06occasions before to see what it's like
12:08so there are no surprises when you uh
12:10when you do your
12:12robbery so uh whenever I go somewhere to
12:15speak the first thing I ask my host to
12:17do is to take me to the place where I'll
12:18be speaking so that there any
12:21weirdnesses I'll be able to
12:23um to deal with it uh sometimes it might
12:27require some intervention some time it
12:29just might require me to understand what
12:31the challenges are so when I came here
12:35this morning I did what I typically do I
12:39imagined that all the seats were filled
12:40with disinterested farm
12:43animals that way I knew that no matter
12:45how bad it was it wouldn't be as bad as
12:50that so uh finally it should be
12:54reasonably it should be reasonably
12:56populated
13:04it should
13:04be it should be the case that you know
13:07if there are 10 people in this Hall
13:09everyone would be wondering what's going
13:11on that's so much more interesting that
13:12nobody's here so you want to get a right
13:15siiz place that's doesn't have to be
13:17packed but it has to be more than half
13:19full so those are some thoughts about uh
13:22time and place next thing I want to talk
13:25about is uh subject of uh bo boards and
13:29props and
13:37slides well these are the tools of the
13:40trade uh I uh believe that this is the
13:44uh this is the the right tool for uh
13:48speaking when your purpose is uh
13:51informing uh the slides are good when
13:53your purpose is uh exposing but this is
13:56what I use when I'm informing teaching
13:58lecturing
14:00and there are several reasons why I use
14:02it for one thing when you use the board
14:04you have a Graphic
14:09quality it's the case that when you have
14:11a board then you can easily exploit the
14:16fact that you can use Graphics in your
14:21presentation so that's the graphic
14:23quality that I like and next thing I
14:25like is like a speed property
14:30the speed with which you write on the
14:31Blackboard is approximately the speed at
14:33which people can absorb ideas if you go
14:36flipping through a bunch of slides
14:38nobody can go that
14:43fast finally one great property of a
14:46board is that it's can be a
14:52Target many people
14:55who are novices at speaking find
14:59themselves uh suddenly aware of their
15:02hands it's as if their hands were
15:05private parts that shouldn't be exposed
15:07in public so right away they go into the
15:09pockets and this is considered insulting
15:12in some parts of the world or
15:14alternatively maybe the hands will go in
15:17in back like this I was once in a
15:21Convent in
15:23Serbia and uh my uh host U well we were
15:27as soon as we entered a nun came up to
15:30us and offered us a refreshment and I
15:32was about to say no thank you when he
15:34said eat that stuff or
15:37die it's a question of local custom and
15:40and politeness but then uh before
15:44anything happened there uh the nun
15:46pulled my hands off like this because it
15:49was extraordinarily insulting in that
15:51culture to have your hands behind your
15:53back so uh why is that well it's it's
15:57usually supposed that that's what that
15:59has to do with whether you're concealing
16:00a weapon so if your hands are in your
16:03pockets behind your back then um it
16:07looks like you might have a weapon and
16:10that's what I mean by The Virtue one of
16:12these virtues of the board now you have
16:14something to do with your hands you can
16:15point out the
16:19stuff I was once watching Seymour paper
16:21give a lecture I thought it was terrific
16:23so I went a second time first time to
16:26absorb the content second time to note
16:28the style
16:29and what I discovered is that papet was
16:31constantly pointing at the board and
16:34then I thought about a little while and
16:35I noted that none of the stuff he was
16:38pointing to had anything to do with what
16:39he was
16:42saying nevertheless it was a effective
16:48technique so that's a just a little bit
16:50about the the virtue of of of black
16:52boards and now I want to talk about
16:55props you know the custodians of
16:57knowledge about props s are the
17:00playwrights many decades ago I saw a
17:03play by Hinrich Ipson it was head of
17:06gabbler I remember vaguely there was
17:09about a woman in an unhappy marriage and
17:12her husband was in competition for an
17:15academic job with somebody else and he
17:17was going to lose partly because he was
17:19boring and partly because the competitor
17:22had just written a magnificent book by
17:25the way this is back in the days before
17:27they were copying machines and comp
17:29computers any anyhow as the play
17:32opens there's a pot bellied
17:42stove and in the beginning of the
17:45play uh the putt belly stove with its
17:48open door just has some uh slightly
17:51glowing
17:53Embers but the P stove is always there
17:56and it tension mounts in the play
17:59uh and you see this manuscript this prop
18:02that Ipson so artfully used you just
18:05know that something's going to happen
18:08because as the play goes on the Fire
18:11gets bigger and hotter and finally all
18:14consuming and you just know that that
18:16manuscript is going to go into that
18:20fire it's memorable thing it's what I
18:22remember about
18:25play so the play rights have got this
18:27all figured out
18:29uh but on the other hand they're not the
18:31only people who can use props here's an
18:34example of the use of a prop also due to
18:38sear paper he was talking about how it's
18:41important to look at the problem in the
18:43right way and here's an example that uh
18:47not only teaches that but makes it
18:49possible for you to embarrass your
18:50friends in mechanical engineering so
18:53here's here's what you do take this
18:55bicycle wheel you start it spinning and
18:58then you put some
18:59torque on the axle or
19:03equivalently you blow on the edge and
19:06the issue is does it go that way or does
19:10it go that way now the mechanical
19:13engineers will immediately say oh yes I
19:16see right hand screw and they'll put
19:18their fingers in this position but
19:21forget exactly how to align their
19:23fingers with various aspects of the
19:26problem and so it's you usually the case
19:29that they get it right with about a 50%
19:33probability so they um very fancy
19:37education gets them up to the point
19:39where they're equivalent to flipping a
19:42coin but it doesn't have to be that way
19:45because you can think about the problem
19:47a little differently so here's what you
19:49do you take some duct tape and you uh
19:53put it around part of the wheel like
19:56that and now you start to think about
19:58not the whole wheel but just the little
20:01piece that's underneath the duct tape so
20:04here that piece comes rolling over the
20:05top and at this point you blow on it
20:07with a puff of air forgetting about the
20:10rest of the wheel what happens to that
20:11little piece that's under the duct tape
20:13it must want to go that way cuz you bang
20:15on it like that it's already going down
20:18like that and what about the next piece
20:20same thing next piece same thing so the
20:23only thing that can happen is the wheel
20:26goes over like that and so now you'll
20:28never Wonder again because you're
20:30thinking about the problem in the right
20:32way and it's
20:34demonstrated by the use of a
20:37problem you can try this after we're
20:43done another example I like to remember
20:47is one from when I was taking
20:49801 Alan Lazarus was the instructor at
20:52the time and he was talking about the
20:54conservation of energy kinetic and
20:57potential
20:59and there was a long wire in the ceiling
21:02in 26 100 attached to a much bigger
21:05steel Ball but one not un like this and
21:09Lazarus uh took the
21:12ball up against the wall like this he
21:15put his head flat against the wall to
21:17steady
21:18himself and then uh he let go and the
21:21Pendulum takes many seconds ago over and
21:24back and then uh gently uh kisses
21:28lazarus's
21:30nose and so you have many seconds to
21:32think this guy really believes in the
21:35conservation of
21:41energy um do not try this at
21:45home the problem is that uh first time
21:49you do this you may not just let go
21:51there's a natural human tendency to push
22:01so uh that's a little bit on a subject
22:04of
22:23props you know it's interesting whenever
22:25surveys are taken students always say
22:28more chalk less
22:30PowerPoint and uh why would that be uh
22:34props are always also very
22:36effective why would that be uh I'll give
22:39you my Lunatic Fringe view on this it um
22:44has to do with
22:46uh what I would call
23:00empathetic
23:01mirroring when you're sitting up there
23:03watching me right on the board all those
23:05little mirror neurons in your head I
23:07believe become actuated and you can feel
23:10yourself writing on the Blackboard and
23:13even more so uh when I uh talk about
23:16this steel ball going that way and this
23:19way you can you can you can feel the
23:21ball as if you were me and you can't do
23:24that with a slide you can't do it with a
23:27picture you need to see see it uh in in
23:30the physical world that's why I think
23:33that oh yes of course it's it's there
23:35there speed questions involved too that
23:37have to be separated out but I think the
23:40empathetic mirroring is why props and
23:42the use of a Blackboard are so
23:46effective
23:48well let's
23:50see oh yes there is one more thing by
23:54way of uh the tools and that has to do
23:57with the uh use of
24:01slides I repeat I think they're for
24:04exposing ideas not for teaching ideas
24:06but that's what we do in a job talk or
24:09conference talk we expose ideas we don't
24:12teach them so let me tell you a little
24:15bit about my views on that
24:19um I remember once I was
24:23um in um Terminal
24:26A had Logan airport I just come back
24:29from a really miserable conference and
24:33the flight was really horrible it was
24:35one of those that feels like an
24:36unbalanced washing machine and for the
24:39only time in my life I decided to uh
24:42stop on my way to my car and have a cup
24:46of coffee and relax a little bit and I
24:48as I was there for a few minutes uh
24:50someone came up to me and said uh are
24:52you Professor
24:53Winston I think so I
24:56said I don't know I guess I was trying
24:59to be funny in any event uh he said I'm
25:01on my way to Europe to give a job talk
25:04would you mind critiquing my
25:06slides not at all I said you have too
25:08many and they have too many
25:11words how did you know he said thinking
25:14perhaps I'd seen a talk of his before I
25:18hadn't uh my reply was because it's
25:21always true there are always too many
25:23slides always too many words so let me
25:26show you some extreme examples of how
25:29not to use
25:33slides well for this demonstration I
25:36need to be uh way over
25:40here um and uh when I get over here then
25:43I can start to say things like
25:47U one of the things you shouldn't do is
25:49read your
25:50transparencies people in your audience
25:52know how to read and reading will just
25:53annoy them also you should be sure that
25:56you have only a few words on each
25:58transparency and that the words are easy
26:01to read and I hope it driving you
26:03crazy because I'm committing uh all
26:06kinds of crimes the first of which is
26:08that there are too many words on this
26:11slide second of which is I'm way over
26:13there and it slides away over there so
26:16you get into this uh tennis match
26:19feeling of uh shifting back and forth
26:22between the slide and the speaker you
26:24want the slides to be uh condiments to
26:26what you're saying not the main event or
26:29the opposite way around so how can we
26:31fix this step number one is to get rid
26:35of the background junk that's always
26:39distraction uh step number two is to get
26:41rid of the
26:42words when I reduceed the the words to
26:45these then everything I
26:47read a previous time I'm not licensed to
26:51say because it's not on the slide I'm
26:53not reading my slides anymore but I'm
26:55saying what was written on the slides in
26:58a previous
27:00example so what else can we do to
27:03simplify
27:04this well we can get rid of the logos we
27:07don't need
27:09them
27:11simplification what else can we
27:14do get rid of the
27:16title now I want to talk to you about
27:18some rules for slide preparation I'm
27:21telling you the title doesn't have to be
27:23up there by reducing the number of words
27:26on the slide I'm allowing you pay more
27:28attention to me unless to what's written
27:30on the
27:31slide I mentioned it before we have only
27:33one language processor and we can either
27:36use it to read stuff or to listen to the
27:39speaker and so if we have too many words
27:42on the slide forces people in the
27:44audience to read this stuff and not
27:48listen student of mine did an experiment
27:50a few years ago uh he taught some
27:53students some
27:55um web based programming
27:59ideas half the information was on slides
28:02he said the other half and then for a
28:04control group he reversed it and the
28:07question was what did the subjects that
28:11is to say freshman in his fraternity
28:13what did the subjects remember
28:15best what he
28:16said or what they read on the
28:20slide and the answer
28:22is what they read on the
28:25slide when their slides have a lot of
28:27material on it they don't pay attention
28:29to the speaker in fact in the after
28:31Action Report one of the subjects said I
28:34wish you hadn't talked so much it was
28:39distracting well that last item is
28:41eliminate
28:42clutter I hear some clutter no no no
28:46reason even for those
28:48bullets so the too many words problem is
28:51a consequence of h a crime Microsoft has
28:54committed by allowing you to use funds
28:56that are too small
28:59so you should all have a sample slide
29:02like this that you can use to determine
29:05what the minimum Fun Size is that's
29:07that's easily leisurable shiv what do
29:10you think of
29:13those which size is right what's that
29:17size is right yeah minimum maybe 40 or
29:2150 yeah he says 40 or 50 I think it's
29:25about right 35 is get too small not
29:29necessarily because you can't read it
29:30but because it because you're probably
29:32using it to get too many words on the
29:36slide what other crimes do we
29:38have well we have the laser pointer
29:43crime not for that I you know in the old
29:45days when we didn't have laser pointers
29:47we used wooden ones and people would go
29:51waving these things around
29:54and pretty soon it became almost like a
29:58the CH swirling contest so here's what
30:00here's what I recommended in the old
30:02days for dealing with this kind of
30:07pointer this example of used of a
30:13prop Jim glass up there saw this talk
30:15about 20 years ago and uh so oh yeah I
30:18remembered that talk that's the one
30:19where you broke the
30:22pointer it's amazing how props uh tend
30:24to be the things that are
30:26remembered well now oh we don't have uh
30:29we don't have physical pointers anymore
30:32we've got uh we got laser pointers
30:35that's a Wonder more people aren't
30:37driven into epileptic fits over this
30:39sort of stuff but here's what tends to
30:43happen look at that it's a lovely
30:46recursive picture and I can become part
30:48of it by putting that laser beam right
30:51on the back of my head up
30:55there and what do you see
30:58you see the back of my
31:00head I'm have no eye contact no
31:02engagement nothing I was sitting with a
31:05student watching a talk one day and she
31:08said you know what we could all leave
31:11and he wouldn't
31:15know so what happens when you use a
31:17laser pointer you can't use a laser
31:18pointer without turning your head and
31:21pointing it at something and when you do
31:23that you lose uh you lose contact with
31:26the audience you don't want to do it so
31:29what do you do if you need to need to
31:31identify something in your image and you
31:33don't want to point at it with a laser
31:35this is what you do put a little arrow
31:37on there and say now look at that guy
31:39number one at the end of Arrow number
31:40one you don't need to have laser pointer
31:43to do
31:48that the to heavy
31:50crime when people ask me to review a
31:53presentation I ask them to print it out
31:56and lay it out on a table
32:01when they do that it's easy to see
32:02whether the talk is too heavy too much
32:06text not enough air not enough white
32:09space not enough
32:11imagery this is a good example of uh
32:15such a talk way too
32:17heavy uh the uh presenter has taken
32:20advantage of uh small font sizes to get
32:23as much on the slide as he
32:26wanted lots of crimes here but uh the
32:29too heaviness the fact that it's too
32:31heavy is what I wanted to illustrate so
32:34here by contrast another talk one I gave
32:37a few years ago it's not it wasn't a
32:38deeply technical talk but I show it to
32:42you
32:43because there's air in
32:45it it's mostly pictures of things there
32:49are three or four slides that have text
32:51on them but when I come to those I give
32:54the audience time to read them and
32:56they're there because they might have
32:57have some historical significance the
33:00first slide with a lot of text on it is
33:02a extraction from the
33:051957 from the for the from the proposal
33:07for the 1957 AI conference at Dartmouth
33:10extraordinarily interesting event and
33:13that
33:15historical extraction from The Proposal
33:17helps drive that point
33:19home what else have we got here oh yeah
33:23your vocabulary word for the day this is
33:25an NAX Lon
33:28what that means is this is the kind of
33:30slide you can get away with exactly once
33:33in your
33:35presentation this is a slide that got
33:37some currency some years ago because it
33:39shows the
33:41complexity of um governing in
33:44Afghanistan by showing how impossibly
33:47complex it is it's something we you in
33:50the audience can't understand and and
33:52that's the point but you can't have many
33:55of these you can have one per work one
33:57per presentation one per paper one per
33:59book that's what it that's what epex Lan
34:03is and this is an example of
34:05it well I've shown you some crimes and
34:08so you might be asking do these crimes
34:10actually
34:11occur so
34:14um they
34:20do there's the hands in the pockets
34:25crime there's a um crime and time and
34:29place selection
34:31here this is how you get to the BTO
34:34theater first thing you do is you get
34:36down these steps over at the media
34:39lab then you cross this large open
34:43space then you turn right down this
34:46Corridor this point whenever I go in
34:48there I wonder if if there are torture
34:50implements around the corner and then
34:52when you get in there you get into this
34:55dark gloomy place so it's well- named
34:58what when they call it the baros theater
35:00because it's a place where you can watch
35:01a movie but it's not a place where you
35:03can give a
35:06talk now on a subject that doesn't
35:09happen here's a talk I attended a while
35:12back in
35:13stada notice that the speaker is H far
35:17away from the slides speaker is using a
35:19laser
35:21pointer and you say to me
35:24well what's happening here it's by the
35:26way the 80th 80th slide in the
35:30presentation notice that it stent with
35:32words this is the first of 10 conclusion
35:36slides so uh what's the audience
35:40reaction that's the sponsor of the
35:43meeting he's reading his
35:46email this is the co-sponsor of the
35:49meeting he's examining the lunch
35:52[Music]
35:53menu what about this person
35:58this person looks like he's paying
36:01attention but this because it's a still
36:03picture if you were to see a video what
36:06you would see is something like
36:13this so yeah it it it does
36:17happen well now uh that's a a quick
36:21review of of tools now I want to talk
36:25about some special cases
36:30we could talk a little bit about uh
36:32informing or to say it another way doing
36:35what I'm doing
36:36now but I'll just say a few words about
36:39that uh in that kind of in that kind of
36:41presentation you want to start with a
36:42promise like I did for this for this uh
36:46for this hour that we're going through
36:47now but then it comes to the question of
36:49how do you inspire
36:51people I've given this talk for a long
36:54time and a few years ago um uh our
36:57department chairman said would you
36:58please give this talk to uh a new
37:01faculty and be sure to emphasize what it
37:04takes to inspire students and strangely
37:07I hadn't thought about that question
37:08before so I started a survey I talked to
37:11some of my incoming freshman advises and
37:14I talked to senior faculty and
37:16everything in between about how they've
37:19been
37:20inspired what I found from the uh
37:22incoming freshman is that they were
37:24inspired by some high school teacher who
37:26told them they could do it
37:28what I found in the senior
37:31faculty they um were inspired by someone
37:34who helped them to see a problem in a
37:36new way and what I saw from
37:39everyone is that they were
37:42inspired when someone exhibited passion
37:46about what they were
37:48doing exhibited passion about what they
37:50were
37:51doing yeah so that's uh that's one one
37:55way to be inspiring
37:57it's easy for me because you know I do
38:00artificial
38:02intelligence um and uh how how can you
38:05not be interested in artificial
38:06intelligence right I mean if you're not
38:08interested in artificial intelligence
38:10you're probably not interested in
38:12interesting
38:14things so uh when I'm lecturing uh in my
38:18AI class it's natural for me to talk
38:21about what I think is cool and how
38:24exciting some new idea is uh so that's
38:27the kind of that's the kind of
38:29expression of passion that makes a
38:31difference uh while informing with
38:34respect to this question of of of
38:38inspiring oh yeah and of course during
38:41this promise phase you can also Express
38:45how cool stuff is let me give you an
38:47example of a lecture that starts this
38:49way I'm talking about resource
38:52allocation it's the same sort of stuff
38:54you would think of when you're s it's
38:55the same sort of ideas you would need if
38:57you're
38:58allocating a aircraft to a flight
39:00schedule or trying to schedule a factory
39:02or something like that but the example
39:04is putting colors on the states in the
39:07United States without any bordering
39:09states having the same color so here it
39:14goes this is what I show in the
39:16beginning of the class this is a way of
39:19doing that coloring and you might say
39:22well why don't we wait till it
39:24finishes would you like to do that no
39:29well we're not going to wait till it
39:30finishes because the sun will have
39:32exploded and consumed the Earth before
39:34this program
39:36finishes but with a slight adjustment to
39:39how the program works which I tell my
39:41students you will understand in the next
39:4350 minutes this is what you
39:48get Isn't that cool you know you got you
39:52got to be you got to be amazed by stuff
39:54that takes a computation from longer
39:56than the lifetime of the solar system
39:58into a few seconds so that's what I mean
40:03by providing a promise up front and
40:05expressing some passion about what
40:07you're talking
40:09about well the last item in this little
40:11block here is uh uh it has to do with
40:14what people think that they do at MIT
40:16you ask a faculty what the most
40:18important purpose is and they'll say
40:20well uh the most important thing I do is
40:23teach people how to
40:25think and then uh you say oh that's
40:28great how do you teach people how to
40:30think Blank
40:34Stare no one can quite respond to that
40:37part that natural next question so how
40:40do you teach people how to think
40:44well I believe that we are storytelling
40:47animals and that uh we start to
40:51developing our story understanding and
40:53manipulating skills with fairy tales in
40:55childhood and continue on through
40:58professional schools like law business
41:01medicine engineer everything and we
41:04continue doing that throughout life so
41:06if uh that is what thinking is all about
41:09then when you want to teach people how
41:11to think you provide them with the
41:12stories they need to know the questions
41:14they need to ask about those stories
41:17mechanisms for analyzing those stories
41:19ways of putting stories together ways of
41:21evaluating
41:22how reliable the story is and that's
41:25what I think you need to do when you
41:27teach people how to
41:29think but that's all about education and
41:32uh many of you here not necessarily for
41:36that but rather for uh for this part for
41:40persuading which breaks down into
41:42several categories oral exams not shown
41:45job talks getting famous I won't say
41:48much about oral exams other than the
41:51fact that they used to be a lot scarier
41:53than they are today in the old
41:56days um
41:58reading the literature in a foreign
41:59language was a part of that and there
42:01was a a high failure rate and when you
42:04look at when you look back on those uh
42:07on those failures the most uh usual
42:10reason for people failing an oral exam
42:12is failure to situate and a failure to
42:16practice by situate I mean it's
42:19important to talk about your research
42:20and context uh this is a problem that's
42:23being pursued all over the world there
42:25hasn't been any progress before me in
42:27past 30
42:28years um everyone is looking for a
42:31solution because it will have impact on
42:33so many other things so that's situating
42:36in time and place and field and then as
42:39far as practice is
42:40concerned yes practice is important but
42:43that doesn't mean uh showing your slides
42:47to the people who share an office with
42:50the problem with that is that um if
42:53people know what you're doing they will
42:54hallucinate that there's material in
42:56your presentation that isn't there it it
42:57isn't
42:58there a variation on the scene by the
43:01way is your faculty supervisor is not a
43:05very good person to help you debug a
43:07talk because they in fact know what
43:09you're doing and they will in fact
43:11hallucinate there's material in your
43:12presentation that isn't there so you
43:15need to get together some friends who
43:16don't know what you're doing and have
43:19them well you start the practice session
43:22by saying if you can't make me cry I
43:26won't value you as a friend friend
43:27anymore and then when you get to the
43:30faculty uh on a uh oral exam it will be
43:34easy you see
43:36um difficulty the amount of flack you
43:39get from somebody is proportional to age
43:41the older somebody is the more uh the
43:45more they understand where they are in
43:46the world but but the young people are
43:48trying to show the old people how smart
43:49they are so so sobly vicious so whenever
43:52you have an opportunity to have an
43:53examining committee that's full of
43:55people with gray hair that's what you
43:58want well that's just a word or two
44:00about something I haven't listed here
44:02let's get into the subject of job talks
44:05so I was
44:06um sitting in a bar uh many years ago uh
44:12in uh San Diego I was a member of the
44:15Navy science board and I was saying with
44:18a couple of uh my colleagues on the
44:20board uh Dolores Eder from the
44:22University of Colorado uh she made me so
44:25jealous I could spit because she written
44:2721 books and I'd only written
44:29177 and then the other one was
44:33uh bill welon from the University of
44:37Texas he was a electrom magnetism guy
44:40and he know knew how to use rail guns to
44:43to drive steel rods through tank armor
44:45these are interesting people so I said
44:48um what do you look for uh in a uh
44:51faculty
44:52candidate and uh within a one microc
44:57Dolores said they have to show us
45:00they've got some kind of
45:01vision quickly followed by Bill who said
45:05they have to show us that they've done
45:14something oh that sounds good I said and
45:18then I said to them how long does the
45:20candidate have to establish these two
45:23things what do you think
45:27compare your answer to
45:32theirs 5
45:35minutes so if you haven't expressed your
45:38vision if you haven't told people that
45:40you've done something in five minutes
45:43you're you you've already lost so you
45:46you have to be able to do that and let
45:47me just mention a couple of things in
45:49that
45:50connection here which is you know the
45:52vision is in part a problem that
45:54somebody cares about
45:58and something new in your
46:05approach so the problem is understanding
46:08the nature of human intelligence and the
46:10approach is asking questions about what
46:13makes us different from chimpanzees and
46:17neandertals is it merely a matter of
46:19quantity or we just a little bit smarter
46:21in some continuous way or do we have
46:23something that's fundamentally different
46:26the chimpan Tendencies don't have and
46:28the Andals either and the answer is yes
46:32we do have something different we are
46:34symbolic
46:35creatures and because we're symbolic
46:38creatures we can
46:41um we can uh build symbolic descriptions
46:44of relations and events we can string
46:47them together and make stories and
46:49because we can make stories that's what
46:50makes us different so that's that's
46:52that's my stump speech that's how I
46:55start most of my talks on my my own
46:57personal
46:58research how do you express the notion
47:02that you've done
47:04something by listing the steps that need
47:07to be taken in order to achieve the
47:10solution to that problem you don't have
47:13to have done all of those steps but you
47:14can say here's here's what needs to be
47:17done an example here's what needs to be
47:20done we need to specify some Behavior we
47:23need to enumerate the constraints that
47:25make it possible to deal with that
47:27behavior we have to implement a system
47:30because we're engineers and we don't
47:31think that we've understood something
47:33unless we can build it and we've built
47:35such a system and we're about to
47:37demonstrate it to you today that would
47:38be an example of enumerating series of
47:41steps needed to realize the
47:44vision so then blah blah blah blah blah
47:47blah blah blah blah and then you
47:49conclude by you conclude by enumerating
47:53your contributions
48:01it's kind of mirror of of these steps
48:03and helps to establish that you've done
48:05something so that's a kind of general
48:07purpose framework for doing a technical
48:11talk
48:12now only a few more things left to do
48:15today uh getting famous is the next item
48:18on our agenda because once you've got
48:20the job you need to think a little bit
48:22about how you're going to be recognized
48:23for what you
48:24do so
48:28[Music]
48:33well first of all why should you care
48:35about getting
48:37famous I thought about this um in
48:39connection with
48:41a fundraising event I attended
48:47once fundraising event for raising money
48:49to save Venice from going underwater and
48:51having all of its art destroyed anyway I
48:54was sitting here
48:57and JC was sitting
48:59here that was uh Julia the late Julia
49:07Child and as the evening wore on more
49:10and more people would come up and ask
49:13Julia to autograph something or Express
49:16a a feeling that she had changed their
49:19life and it just happened over and over
49:22again So eventually I turned to Julia
49:25and I said Miss child is it fun to be
49:29famous and she thought about it for a
49:31second and she said you get used to
49:34it but you know what occurred to me you
49:38never get used to being
49:40ignored so it's you know it's it's
49:43here's a way to think about it your
49:45ideas are like your children and you
49:47don't want them to go into the world in
49:49rags so what you want to do is to be
49:51sure that you have
49:52these techniques these mechanisms these
49:55thoughts about how to present the ideas
49:57that you have so that they're recognized
49:59for the value that that is in them so
50:02that's why it's a legitimate thing to
50:04concern yourself with the with
50:07packaging now how do you get uh
50:10remembered well there's something I like
50:12to call Winston star and every one of
50:15the items I'm about to articulate has a
50:19starts with an
50:21S so if you want your presentation ideas
50:24to be remembered one of the things you
50:26need to do is to make sure that you have
50:28some kind of
50:31symbol associated with your work so this
50:34Arch example is actually from my PhD
50:37thesis many many years ago
50:40and in the course of uh my work uh at
50:43that time uh this work on Arch learning
50:46became mildly famous and I didn't know
50:48why it was only many years later that I
50:51realized that that work accidentally had
50:53all of the elements on this star so the
50:56first element is that there was a kind
50:58of symbol it's the arch
51:04itself next thing you need is some kind
51:06of
51:09slogan a kind of phrase that provides a
51:12handle on the work and in this case the
51:14phrase was one shot
51:19learning and it was one shot because the
51:22program I wrote learned something
51:24definite from every example that was
51:27presented to us so in going from a model
51:30based on this configuration to something
51:33that isn't an arch based on that
51:34configuration the program learned that
51:36it has to be on top one shot
51:40learning so that's a
51:43simple slogan now we need a
51:50surprise yeah the surprise is you don't
51:52need a million examples of something to
51:54learn you can do it with one example if
51:57you're smart enough to make use of that
52:00example appropriately so that was the
52:02surprise you can learn something
52:04definite from each
52:06example next item was a Salient
52:12idea now when I say Salient idea I don't
52:15mean important what I mean is an idea
52:17that sticks
52:18out
52:20uh some some thesis funnily enough have
52:23too many good ideas and you don't know
52:24what it's all about because which one is
52:26it it so you need an idea that sticks
52:28out and the idea that stuck out
52:31here was a notion of a near
52:38miss you see this is not an arch but it
52:41doesn't miss by much so it's a near
52:44Miss
52:46finally you need to tell the
52:49story of how you did it how it works why
52:53it's
52:54important so that's
52:57um a bit on uh how to not so much get
53:01famous but how to ensure that your work
53:02is
53:04recognized well that that we're almost
53:07finished because now we're we're down to
53:09this last item which is U how to
53:12stop and when we come to that there's a
53:15question of all right well what is the
53:16final
53:21slide and what are the final words
53:30so for the final slide let me give you
53:32some examples of
53:36possibilities how about this
53:41one well you might see that
53:43slide and
53:47uh think to yourself there are thousand
53:51faculty at
53:52MIT nice piece of work but not so much
53:55but it's only a tiny any piece of work
53:57if you divide by a
53:59thousand so when you show a whole
54:01gigantic list of collaborators at the
54:03end of a talk it's a kind of it's a it's
54:05it's it's a kind of let down because it
54:07suggests that nobody knows well did you
54:09do anything
54:11significant now you got to you got to
54:13recognize your collaborators right so
54:15where do you do that not on the last
54:17slide on the first slide all this was on
54:20the first slide these are the
54:22collaborators so you don't want to put
54:23them at the end you don't want a slide
54:25like this
54:28how about this
54:29one this is the worst possible way to
54:32end a
54:33talk because this slide can be up there
54:38for 20 minutes I've seen it happen it
54:41squanders real estate it squanders an
54:44opportunity to tell people who you are
54:47it's it's
54:50just what about this one
54:56I often see it I've never seen anybody
54:58write it
55:00down also it wastes
55:05opportunity oh my
55:07[Music]
55:09God even
55:13worse all of these slides do nothing for
55:17you they waste an opportunity for you to
55:20tell people to leave people with what
55:22you with who you
55:25are well well what about
55:28this this a good
55:30one it might seem so at first but here's
55:34the
55:37problem if you say these are my
55:39conclusions these are perfectly
55:41legitimate conclusions that nobody cares
55:43about what they care about is what you
55:46have done and that's why your final
55:48slide should have this
55:50label
55:52contributions it's a mirror of what I
55:54said over there about how job talks on
55:55to ought to be like a sandwich and the
55:58final Slide the one that's up there
55:59while people are asking questions and
56:01filing out it ought to be the one that
56:02has your contributions on
56:04it here's an example from my own stump
56:08speech yeah this is what uh I talk about
56:11a lot yes here are the things that I
56:14typically
56:20demonstrate and I wait for people to
56:22read it and then the final element there
56:24is this is what we get out of
56:27it so that's a example of a contribution
56:31line all right
56:34now what about the other part you know
56:37you got your final slide slide up there
56:39it's a contribution slide somehow you
56:41have to tell people you're
56:43finished so uh let's check out a few
56:49possibilities one thing you could
56:51do in the final words is you could uh
56:55tell a joke
56:59it's
57:01okay by the time you're done people have
57:03adjusted themselves to your voice
57:05parameters they're ready for a
57:08joke I was sitting in another bar this
57:11time in Austin Texas with a colleague of
57:13mine named Doug lenat and Doug's a
57:16fantastic speaker and so I said uh to
57:20Doug Doug you're a fantastic speaker
57:23what's your secret and he said oh
57:27I always uh finish with a joke and that
57:29way people think they've had fun the
57:31whole
57:34time so yeah a joke will work down
57:38there how about uh this
57:49one thank
57:52you I don't recommend it
57:56it's a weak move you will not go to hell
57:59if you conclude your talk by saying
58:01thank you but it's a weak move and
58:02here's
58:03why when you say thank you even worse
58:06thank you for listening it suggests that
58:09everybody has stayed that long out of
58:11politeness and that they had a profound
58:13desire to be somewhere else but they're
58:15so polite they stuck it out and that's
58:17what you're thanking them
58:19for so once wild Applause has started
58:21you can mouth a thank you and it's not
58:24there's nothing wrong with that but the
58:25last thing you do do should not be
58:26saying thank
58:29you now do you say to me well doesn't
58:31everybody say thank you well what
58:33everybody does is not necessarily the
58:36right
58:36thing and I'd like to illustrate how
58:39some talks can end without saying thank
58:41you I like to draw from political
58:44speeches but the ones that I've heard
58:46recently aren't so good
58:49so
58:51so I'm going to have to go go back a
58:53little bit so here's a Governor Christie
58:57he uh gave the U Republican keynote
59:01address one year uh this is the end of
59:04his talk let's see what he
59:08does and together everybody together we
59:12will stand up once again for American
59:15greatness for our children and
59:17grandchildren God bless you and God
59:19bless
59:22America that's some a classic
59:25benediction ending God bless you God
59:28Bless
59:29America now I I don't want to be
59:31partisan about this so I think I better
59:33switch to the keynote address in the Dem
59:36Democratic
59:38Convention I was delivered that year by
59:40by Bill Clinton who knows something
59:42about how to
59:45speak if that is what you want if that
59:49is what you believe you must vote and
59:52you must reelect President Barack Obama
59:57God bless you and God bless
1:00:08America now watch this let's go back a
1:00:12little bit and redo it what I want you
1:00:13to see is that at one point he seems to
1:00:15be almost pressing his lips together
1:00:17forcing himself not to say thank you and
1:00:20then there's another place where he does
1:00:21a little salute so watch for those this
1:00:23time
1:00:24around if that that is what you want if
1:00:28that is what you believe you must vote
1:00:31and you must reelect President Barack
1:00:35Obama God bless you and God bless
1:00:38America everybody's pursing his
1:00:42lips there's a
1:00:46[Applause]
1:00:48SL yeah I think that's pretty good now
1:00:51what are we going to take away from this
1:00:53well um I suppose I can conclude this
1:00:56talked by saying uh God bless you and
1:00:58God
1:00:59bless Institute of Technology but uh it
1:01:03might not work so well but what what you
1:01:05can't get out of this is you don't have
1:01:06to say thank you there are other things
1:01:08you can do and you know it's interesting
1:01:10that uh over time people figure this out
1:01:12and there's some stock ways of ending
1:01:14things so uh in the Catholic church in a
1:01:18good old Latin
1:01:20Mass it landed with it
1:01:23Miss EST
1:01:27which translates approximately to okay
1:01:30the mass is over you can go home
1:01:33now and of course uh at the musical
1:01:36concerts uh you know that uh it's time
1:01:39to clap not at the end of the song but
1:01:42rather when the uh conductor goes over
1:01:44and shakes hands with the concert Master
1:01:47those are conventions that tell you that
1:01:49the that the event is
1:01:52over so uh
1:01:56those are all possibilities for here but
1:01:58one more possibility and that is that
1:02:00you
1:02:04can salute the audience and by that I
1:02:07mean you can say something about how how
1:02:11much you value your time and a place so
1:02:13I could say well it's been a a great fun
1:02:18being here uh it's been uh fascinating
1:02:21to see what you folks are doing here at
1:02:23MIT I've been uh what stimulated uh and
1:02:27and provoked by the kinds of questions
1:02:28you been ask has been really great and
1:02:31and and I look forward to coming back on
1:02:33many occasions in the future so that
1:02:35salutes the audience you can do
1:02:39that well there it is um you know what
1:02:45uh I'm glad you're here and and the
1:02:47reason is by being here I think you have
1:02:49demonstrated an understanding that how
1:02:52you present and how you package your
1:02:54ideas is an important thing
1:02:56and I salute you for
1:02:57that and uh I uh suggest that you uh
1:03:02come back again and bring your friends
1:03:06[Applause]

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of How to Speak by MIT OpenCourseWare, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 9,086 words across 1,372 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.