@mitocw

For more on the life and work of Professor Winston (1943-2019), visit https://www.memoriesofpatrickwinston.com/

@MarcoDinacci

"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."

@jooplin

I am 27 and this is the first time I spoke thanks to this gentleman

@GregoryKC

A summary of the whole talk. Save, read, use... Enjoy!

I believe it'll be usefull for many people out there!

Start
1. Do not start a talk with a joke.
2. Promise - Tell them what they gonna learn at the end of your talk.
3. Cycle – make your idea repeated many times in order to be completely clear for everyone.
4. Make a “Fence” around your idea so that it can be distinguished from someone else’s idea.
5. Verbal punctuation – sum up information within your talk some times to make listeners get back on.
6.  Ask a question - intriguing one

Place and Time

7. Best time for having a lecture is 11 am.
 (not too early and not after lunch)
8. The place should be well lit.
9. The place should be seen and checked before the lecture.
10. The place should not be full less than a half, it must be chosen according to the amount of listeners.

Tools
For teaching.
1. Board – it’s got graphics, speed, target. Watch your hands! Don’t hold them behind your back, it’s better to keep them straight and use for pointing at the board.
2. Props – use them in order to make your ideas visual.
Visual perception is the most effective way to interact with listeners.

For Job Talk. Exposing, Slides
3. Don’t put too many words on a slide. Slides should just reflect what you’re saying, not the other way around. Pictures attracts attention and people start to wait for your explanation – use that tip.
4. Make slide as easy as you can – no title, no distracting pictures, frames, points and so on.
5. Do not use laser pointer – due to that you lose eye contact with the audience. Instead you can make the arrows just upon a slide. 

Informing
 
Show to your listeners your stuff is cool and interesting.
You have to be able to:
-show your vision of that problem
-show that you’ve done particular things (by steps)
All of that should be done real quick in no more than 5 min.
Persuade your listeners you’re not a rookie (Prof. Winston contrived to do that from the very first seconds of his talk)

Getting Famous
If you want to your ideas be remembered you’ve got to have
 "5 S"


- Symbols associate with your ideas (visual perception is the best way to attract attention)
- Slogan (describing your idea)
- Surprise (common fallacy that is no longer true, for instance, just after you’ve told about it)
- Salient Idea (not necessarily important but the one that sticks out)
- Story (how you did it, how it works…)

How to End

- Don’t put collaborators at the end, do that at the beginning.
- Question’s the worst way to end a talk.
- It’s good to end with a Contribution slide – to sum up everything you’ve told with your OWN decision.
- At the very end you could tell a joke since people then will leave the event feeling fun and thus keep a good memory of your talk.
- "Thank you (for listening)" isn’t good ending, it’s trite at least. You can end with a quote of a prominent person (my own knowledge), with a salute to people (how much you valued the time being here, the people over here..., “I’d like to get back, it was fun!”

That part actually I find the hardest one, since saying “Thanks” is a kind of a habit and it’s really difficult to make people clap if your talk wasn’t fascinating, so you’d better do this great and you won’t have to worry about how to end!

@ernieho5468

Once upon a time, I stayed up late at the MIT lab. At 6 a.m., I saw Professor Winston walk in and start drawing on the board.
I asked, “Hi Prof. Winston, why are you here so early?”

He didn’t respond—just kept drawing on the board.

An hour later, he turned and called my name. “Hey Ernie, what’s up?”

I looked at him and asked, “Hi Prof, is this the drawing for the course later this morning? Why do you still rehearse the material when you’ve taught it so many times?”

He smiled and replied, “I’m like an athlete—I have to rehearse and improve my performance before every game. I’ve done this for decades. It’s my commitment to the students.”

In that moment, I was speechless. Tears welled up in my eyes. I felt the deepest respect.

The man standing before me was the Ford Professor at MIT. He rehearsed every class, even after more than 30 years of teaching. His commitment and dedication weren’t just spoken—they were lived.

He was Professor Patrick Henry Winston, a great spirit who inspired thousands of brilliant minds.

Prof. Winston, may you rest in peace.

Thank you for teaching and mentoring. Your dedication lives on in our hearts.

@ar9907

We are lucky that we live in an age where we can watch/listen to something like this for free

1. Never start with a joke, it always falls flat.
2. Start with an empowerment statement, i.e. what will the audience achieve after the talk.
3. Humans have only one language processor, so make sure they focus on what you're saying.

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Sample Heuristics:

1. Cycle on the topic. Repeat what are talking about to reinforce it
2. Build a fence around your ideas, so audiences don't confuse them with the ideas from others. Tell them how your idea is different from others.
3. Use verbal punctuation to help audiences re-focus. State what you have covered so far and what is there to come.
4. Ask questions. Engage the audience with moderately difficult questions every now and then. But not very difficult ones.

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The Tools

Time & place:

1. Choose an appropriate time for talks. 11 am is a good time for the 1st lecture of the day.
2. The place should be well lit.
3. Know the place before hand, it should be cased so that you can address challenges if any.
4. Make sure it's reasonably populated.

Boards & Props:

1. Chalks and boards are good for informing and teaching.
2. Boards are well paced medium, people can absorb content while you write or draw graphics.
6. Using Boards and props helps in empathetic mirroring i.e. audiences think they are doing the writing and drawing
3. You can used hands to draw attention.
4. Slides are good for exposing.
6. Don't use laser pointers as they reduce the speakers' chance to engage with audiences, use a sign-post instead.
7. Slides should have minimum amount of words. You do the talking and explanation of the points.
8. Font size should be large enough for easy reading.
5. Props are useful to help audiences visualize things.
9. Practice your talk with people who don't know your work so that they don't hallucinate whats not in the presentation.

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Inspire

1. Show your passion towards the subject
2. Promise a solution to a problem
3. Inspire by igniting passion
3. Teach people how to think by:
- Providing stories that they need to know
- Providing questions that they need to ask about these stories
- Providing mechanism to analyse these stories
- Providing ways to put together stories
- Providing ways to evaluate reliability of the stories

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Persuade

1. Job Talks:
Vision - Tell them about a problem they'd be interested in and provide your approach to the solution.
Achievement - Provide the steps you will take to solve the problem

2. Getting Famous:
Why? - Because you want your work to be recognized.
How? - Brand your work, have a slogan, have a salient idea and have a story to tell.

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How to End a Talk

1. The last slide - It should enumerate what the audience have learnt or achieved after this talk, give them the time to read.
2. Final words:
- Never thank the audience.
- End with a call to action.
- Alright, you can tell a joke now, people will think they've had fun all the while.

@bubblydeveloper6180

How to start a talk. 4:15

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4 Sample Heuristics 5:38

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The Tools

Time & place 10:17

Boards. Props, & Slides 13:24

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Informing, Inspire 36:30

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Persuade 41:30

1. Job Talks:
Vision - Tell them about a problem they'd be interested in and provide your approach to the solution.
Achievement - Provide the steps you will take to solve the problem

2. Getting Famous:
Why? - Because you want your work to be recognized.
How? - Brand your work, have a slogan, have a salient idea and have a story to tell.

------------------------------------------
How to End a Talk 50:06

1. The last slide - It should enumerate what the audience have learnt or achieved after this talk, give them the time to read.
2. Final words:
- Never thank the audience.
- End with a call to action.

- Alright, you can tell a joke now, people will think they've had fun all the while. 50:36

@realhumphreyappleby

We're so lucky that this gem of a lecture was captured before he died. Now he can deliver this talk every year, just like he did before.

@FilosSofo

title: "How to speak"
the guy in the video: *starts speaking*
me: damn, he's good

@kittyjayway

Mark fans, this guy passed away in 2019, please be respectful to him in comments among the jokes from the stream.

@subindoamontanha07

I am Brazilian and I am 24 years old. The internet is an incredible tool. We can learn from the best professors in the world, from the biggest universities in the world. This is fantastic! I regret that many young people are not aware of the power of this platform.

@leixun

My takeaways:
RIP Professor Winston. I have learnt a lot today, thank you!
1. We humans only have one language processor, so focus 3:00
How to start a talk?
2. Don't start with a joke, start with a promise 4:15
Some techniques
3. Cycle on the topic to reinforce it 5:38
4. Build a fence around our ideas, so audiences don't confuse them with the ideas from others 6:32
5. Use verbal punctuation to help audiences re-focus 7:25
6. Ask questions to audiences 8:36
Time & place
7. 11am is a good time for the 1st lecture of the day 10:20
8. The place should have good lighting condition, should be cased and reasonably populated 10:55
Tools: boards, props and slides
9. Chalks and boards are good for informing and teaching, slides are good for exposing 13:40
10. Chalks and boards are good for showing graphics. You can control the speed of talk to help audiences absorb contents, and use your hand to point a target on board 13:55
11. Props are useful to help audiences think about abstract things 16:50
12. Boards and props are great because empathic mirroring 22:55, i.e. audiences can feel they are doing the writing and demonstration
13. Bad slides contain too many pages and too many words 23:50
14. Audiences can be tired to switch between slides and speaker if they far away from each other 26:11
15. How to create good slides: simplification. Audiences will pay less attention to the speaker if their slides contain too many words 26:30
16. Font size shouldn't be large enough for easy reading 28:49
17. Lazer pointer reduces the speakers' chance to engage (e.g. eye contact) with audiences 29:35, using sign-post in the slides instead
18. Examples: Bad slides vs good slides 31:45
More techniques
19. How to inspire your audiences? 36:20 Show your passion for the topic
20. An example of making a promise and showing passion 38:40
21. How to teach people how to think 40:10, Provide them with:
- The stories that they need to know
- The questions that they need to ask about these stories
- The mechanism to analyse these stories
- The ways to put together stories
- The ways to evaluate reliable stories
Oral exams
22. People usually fail them because they fail to situate the context and fail to practice 41:47
23. Practice your talk with people who don't know you work 42:38
24. Job talks 44:02
Getting famous
25. Why should you care about getting famous 48:30, because we want our work to be recognised and we need good communication skills to do that
26. How to get your presentation ideas to be remembered 50:07, we need to have: symbol, slogan, surprise, salient (ideas) and (tell a) story
How to end a talk
27. Some examples on final slides 53:10, show what you have done (i.e. contributions) and give audiences the time to read them!
28. Final words 56:31:
- A joke, his colleagues always end a talk with a joke, so people think they have had fun all the time :)
- The phrase "thank you" is a weak move, "thank you for listening" is even worse, it suggests that people listen to your talk because their politeness
- Some great endings without saying "thank you" 58:37
- Salute the audiences
His final salute 1:02:40

@TARTANTERR0R

I wish I had seen this during my military career, everything he said about PP, mannerisms, etc was something I instinctively knew was wrong, but it was exactly how we were taught to teach as instructors/mentors. Fantastic information and an excellent educator. I understand he has sadly passed, but he is still educating a 52-year-old man, which is appreciated. This presentation is a very valuable gift he has left.

@Kirstax

The fact I watched this entire talk, was not bored, laughed and remember what I watched tells you everything you need to know.

@voicelab9884

"I always finish with a joke, and that way people think they've had fun the whole time!"

@rcarnes3

I served with Patrick on the Navy Research Advisory Board (sic "Navy Science Board"). Few, very few, would ever tell you that there was anyone in our group with tighter reasoning, more humor, and better presentations. He could engage people on any subject, anytime, anywhere. I am honored to have known him and served with him. Rob Carnes

@teammindshift9536

Prof Winston had a profound effect on my life. I was an Electrical Engineering major when I took Prof Winston's Introduction to AI class in the early 80s. I still remember the excitement I had in his class over almost 40 years later. That course led me to do my Master thesis using AI and EE together and then go on to get a Ph.D. in Computer Science with an emphasis in AI at CMU. That one course changed my trajectory in life. Thank you, Prof Winston, so sorry to see you go. To his family, he made a difference in mine and so many other's lives.

@MyRuger

Being an only child, and living without parents alone for years has definitely degraded my ability to speak effectively to crowds especially in a teaching scenario. My job has kept me away from people for years and now I’m going to be training people! I said lord help me and here we are. Best of the best, thank you professor Winston.

@zachariasorfanos7583

Been telling my students for years to never finish a talk with “thank you for your attention”. He explains why. And so much more. What an amazing lecture.