Hacker News Comments on
How to Speak
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.The following presentation called How to speak on YouTube is excellent and very popular. The talk is given by Patrick Winston (1943 – 2019) who was a professor at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).Description: "The talk is intended to improve your speaking ability in critical situations by teaching you a few heuristic rules."
For #1, How to Speak[0]
⬐ willswireThis is one of my all-time favorite videos on YouTube.I often think about the speaker’s point regarding repetition/rephrasing - a sizable portion of your audience will often tune you out, so it it important to repeat the key information from time to time. This also goes for leadership positions in organizations I think; repeating the key mission and core beliefs helps everyone to internalize the message you want them to understand/remember.
⬐ polyterativeI agree. Being able to speak well has been my higher multiplier in terms of success and productivity across any field
Make it Clear by Patrick Henry Winston [0] is slightly related to this. I learned a lot of things from it.I first got to know about him through his now famous video- How to Speak [1].
"Don't introduce yourself, act like you were in the room all along."This surely is a good advice from someone in the room greeting someone who just entered.
It's called a protocol. Assume "hello" means something.
Hear hear! I came to mention "How to Speak" (https://youtu.be/Unzc731iCUY) but it makes even more sense to amplify you thoughts.
⬐ trulyFWIW, the speaker is Patrick Winston, a top-notch professor, who was a former head of the MIT (CS)AIL laboratory.
How to Speak, Patrick Winston: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY&ab_channel=MITOp...(And, more generally, just any/all of the MITOCW stuff.)
I don't know about the course itself, but you probably would like to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY (How To Speak by Patrick Winston)Content: 00:16 - Introduction 03:11 - Rules of Engagement 04:15 - How to Start 05:38 - Four Sample Heuristics 10:17 - The Tools: Time and Place 13:24 - The Tools: Boards, Props, and Slides 36:30 - Informing: Promise, Inspiration, How To Think 41:30 - Persuading: Oral Exams, Job Talks, Getting Famous 53:06 - How to Stop: Final Slide, Final Words 56:35 - Final Words: Joke, Thank You, Examples
⬐ i_am_not_elonI loved it! Thank you Rzor!⬐ dionidiumI've seen this recommended many times and when I click the link now the progress bar is about a third of the way through from my last failed attempt to watch it. I find it moves very slowly, is not information-dense, and his tone is monotonous and unengaging. After 10 minutes I struggled to think of one concrete takeaway and I really had to force myself to get as far as I did. Sometimes the audience laughs, but it feels like they're just being deferential, and I wouldn't realize I'd just heard a laugh-line without their cue. Does it get better?
Patrick Winston (1943-2019) was a computer scientist at MIT. Every year he gave a popular talk titled How to Speak. In the talk he explains effective techniques to hold your audience's attention. Here is a recording of the talk from 2018:How To Speak by Patrick Winston:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
He also published a book of his insights in 2020 titled Make It Clear: Speak and Write to Persuade and Inform. Many of the examples in the book have an emphasis on speaking in an academic or teaching setting. However, there are good insights that anyone can learn from.
⬐ titusblairThanks so much I will check it out!
Patrick Winston (1943-2019) was a computer scientist at MIT. Every year he gave a popular talk titled How to Speak. Here is a recording of the talk from 2018:How To Speak by Patrick Winston:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
A book of his insights was published in 2020: Make It Clear: Speak and Write to Persuade and Inform. I'm half-way through the book and it is good so far. Although the book pitches itself as suitable for anyone who writes or speaks, many of the examples in the book have an emphasis on speaking in an academic or teaching setting. However, there are good insights that anyone can learn from.
I recommend watching the talk above first to help you decide whether the book will appeal to you (the material in the lecture is in the book as are additional insights). There are lots of reviews of the book on the Amazon US site too.
⬐ kqr2He actually wrote a recent book: Make It Clear
I've got to reference Patrick Wilson's "How To Speak" course from MIT OpenCourseWare here[0]. An hour of life well spent!
⬐ slowhand09Worth watching again!
The MIT OpenCourseWare talk How to Speak by Patrick Winston is a great lecture on this subject: https://youtu.be/Unzc731iCUY
This might be helpful.How to Trick Your Brain to Like Doing Hard Things – Atomic Habits by James Clear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7w5r5PfBKo
How To Speak by Patrick Winston
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
Help with Writing: George Orwell -Politics and the English Language
https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_poli...
Philosophy - A Guide to Happiness (7 parts) by Alain de Botton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVA8jX9KQcE&list=PL6EB5455DD...
Namaste Yoga (DVD set sold on Amazon) Best Yoga series I know. Combines synchronized breathing with movement/meditation. Especially nice to do after a hot bath, when muscles are warmed up.
Not sure if this fits the bill, but:How To Speak by Patrick Winston [1]
I watched this 'talk' on 'how to give talks' last week. It was uploaded at the end of 2019 and recorded 2018 (Patrick Winston passed away in 2019) and it is really good. Anyone who gives talks can learn a few things from this.
⬐ justinhjWonderful talk and I followed his guidelines in my public speaking this year⬐ caddemonSeconding this, and also wanted to recommend the book "Make it Clear", which contains a lot of PHW's communication advice beyond just talks. https://www.amazon.com/Make-Clear-Speak-Persuade-Inform/dp/0...
If your goal is to learn how to tell a story to a live audience see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUYOtherwise I'd suggest you read up a lot of literature, start with classic folk tales like those collected by the brothers Grimm. The more you read the easier it will become to write a proper story. Lastly as you're reading I'd suggest you start writing material yourself and maybe publishing it online on some web novel sites. At first people will be very critical of what you have written, but with time it should change for the better. Lastly, writing is a habit, just like coding. A habit should be repeated daily to become stronger. Read and write each day, unless you're feeling foggy or in need of rest. After a certain amount of time it should just click, but realize that that amount of time varies from person to person, some may never break that threshold, others are talented and are able to break through just like that. Best of luck!
I was lucky enough to get paid for this but I'll say it anyway: learning to speak is the only thing of lasting value I have gotten out of startup accelerators.I would have gladly drop a few grand to acquire that skill. In fact, I'm considering hiring a speaking coach to improve.
I've historically been a strong written communicator, but it turns out that speaking is very different from writing. In fact, I had thought of myself as a pretty strong speaker due to my experience giving scholarly presentations ... how wrong I was. Academic talks are a different beast altogether.
If you haven't seen Patrick Winston's How to Speak lecture [0], drop what you're doing and watch it now. I'll leave you with a (paraphrased) quote from his lecture: your ideas are like your children and you don't want to send them off into the world dressed in rags.
⬐ SZJXI watched this talk as it was posted on HN a while ago, though I have to say, surprisingly I wasn't very impressed with it for whatever reason. Maybe I have to revisit it to see if I can get more out of it.⬐ nvusuvuI took your advice, dropped everything, and spent the last hour watching Patrick Winston's lecture. What a master class in public speaking! I'll be revisiting this lecture to take in-depth notes.⬐ omginternets⬐ suyashI'm really glad you enjoyed it :)It's funny, I had the same reaction as you. I watched it once without taking notes (because it's so damn engaging!) and at the end of it, I suddenly realized that I would need to take notes if I wanted to learn this stuff!
I really don't understand why I wasn't taught this in school. It's borderline criminal.
P.S.: the "fencing in the idea" is something I do all the time now.
May I recommend my newsletter if you're looking to improve technical communication skills : http://tinyletter.com/suyash⬐ omginternets⬐ julianozenYou may! Thank you so much -- I'll be following this religiously.I just watched this video and wanted to return to say thanks for the great suggestion. What an unexpectedly delightful lecture⬐ lucasfcostaI’ve just watched this lecture and I can’t thank you enough. It was one of the most useful talks I’ve ever seen.⬐ biztosHave you heard of Toastmasters?[0]I haven't done this myself but I plan to, as I've heard good things about it, and if you live in a big city or metro area there is probably at least one group you could join. Also in many cities outside the US, for example I think Bangkok has several different ones, I know Budapest has at least two. And it's really cheap, AFAICT, in case that's a factor.
It's got a bit of a self-help sheen to it but I knew a couple guys in SF who were involved and they said it was just about public speaking. At which they were much better than I am.
⬐ omginternetsThis may just be exactly what the doctor ordered. Thanks!⬐ wencI was part of Toastmasters for a while. My observation was that the pedagogy is indirect: the premise is that you are thrown into the deep end and start to speak from day 1 and get feedback from others. The problem is, depending on your cohort, you might or might not get useful feedback. Not everyone knows how to help you improve -- they can only supply perceptions. You might get an experienced Toastmaster in the chapter who is also a good teacher, but you also might not.I found direct pedagogy to be much more useful for me personally. I took an in-person storytelling class and received feedback from an instructor who was also a practitioner. It's much more expensive, but it's still learn-by-doing (had to tell a new story every week for 8 weeks, and classes were 3 hours long each week, and like a workshop, I got real critique (positive and negative) -- so stressful) but I actually learned real technique (stuff like aspects of physical presence, using hooks, different forms of narrative arcs for different genres, etc.) The difference for me was professional feedback, and that difference was appreciable.
Here's a good talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY Press Shift + > to speed up or check the outline in the comments
⬐ omginternetsThis video made a lasting impression on me. Speaking is really one of the most important skills not taught at school.⬐ danghttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22848034⬐ sillysaurusx⬐ fcatusHi Dan,Re: your comment from a few years ago regarding LLVM: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11054682
So what's the best way to tackle the learning curve of what you're suggesting? If I know zero about LLVM and I want to make something like the OP, what should I do?
At the time, I was hoping for an answer to this too — my experience with LLVM was zero.
This lab from MIT 2014 turns out to be a minimalist useful example: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~junfeng/14fa-e6121/hw/hw2.html
It's a bounds checker rather than a compiler, but it seems to show how to use the full LLVM pipeline. When I realized that this might be an excellent starting point toward your original question, I thought I'd mention it in case it was helpful.
I got this video recommended to me too today on youtube⬐ gumbyHis death was a loss for humanity.⬐ suyashThere are so many great lessons in this video, Patrick was not only a great AI Researcher but also a great communicator. I curate tips and tricks on technical communication to make us better at public speaking, writing using storytelling etc in a monthly high quality newsletter, you're welcome to subscribe here : http://tinyletter.com/suyash
⬐ iamdaudPatrick Winston's How to Speak talk has been an MIT tradition for over 40 years. Offered every January, the talk is intended to improve your speaking ability in critical situations by teaching you a few heuristic rules.
direct youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
Youtube link if you want to speed it up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
⬐ XeanortYou can use this extension to change speed of all HTML5 videos: https://github.com/codebicycle/videospeed⬐ jmiskovicI've been using this extension for long time and it has changed my relationship to video content. I still prefer text to skim through and read at my own pace, but having keyboard shortcuts for video that work across all pages changes the game.Long talks no longer seem daunting because speeding up and rewinding becomes like a second nature. I use the speed step of 0.1x and rewind step of 3 seconds for fine control, the default values were too imprecise. Maybe I should start slowing down songs I enjoy?
Myabe your anxiety is because you're focusing on the "make some slides" vs. "deliver content in a presentation format". If you adhere to guidance for the later the slides are actually pretty easy. You quickly release they are just a prop that supplements the entire production.I found the video "How To Speak by Patrick Winston" delivered to new MIT students to be very helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
Careful - once you become attuned to pp failures you will have little tolerance for them from both other people and yourself, and good presentations are a lot of work!
⬐ zomberamaAncient Greeks were right!⬐ ZARinfluencerIs there a written version?
An interesting lecture on the topic is also How To Speak by late MIT professor Patrick Winston [1]. Very much recommended!
How to speak (Professor Patrick Winston from MIT) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
⬐ Keloojust took an hour to do that. That was an amazing lecture.I salute you for the suggestion.
⬐ slowhand09I just finished watching. Well worth the time.⬐ jasonlotitoMy short 4 word recommendation for people wanting to learn to speak in public: slow down, speak up.For me, those two things get you a lot farther than you might think, and solve two of the biggest issues I see from people.