How to Speak

[Music]

the uh uniform code of military

Justice specifies Court marshal for any

officer who sends a soldier into battle

without a weapon

there ought to be a similar protection

for students because students shouldn't

go out into life without an ability to

communicate and that's because 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 I know that I can be successful in

this

because the quality of

communication your speaking your writing

is largely determined by this

formula it's a matter of how much

knowledge you have how much you practice

with that knowledge and you're inherent

talent and notice that the tea is very

small what really matters is what you

know this point came to me U suddenly a

few decades ago when I was skiing at Sun

Valley I had heard that it was celebrity

weekend and one of the celebrities was

a was Mary L Reon famous Olympic gymnast

perfect tens in the vault and I heard

that she was an novice at skiing so when

the opportune moment arrived I looked

over on a novice slope and saw this

young woman who when she became

unbalanced went like that and I said

that's got to be her that must be the

gymnast but then it occurred to me I'm a

much better skier than she is and she's

an Olympic Athlete not only an ordinary

Olympic Athlete an outstanding

one and I was a better skier because I

had the K and I had the p and all she

had was the tea so you can get a lot

better than people who may have inherent

talents if you have the right amount of

knowledge so that's what my objective is

today and here's my promise today you

will see

some examples of what you can put in

your

armorium of speaking techniques

and it will be the casee that someone of

those examples some urtic some technique

maybe only one will make will be the one

that gets you the

job and so this is a very nonlinear

process you never know when it's going

to happen but that is my promise by the

end of the next 60 Minutes you'll been

exposed to a lot of ideas some of which

you'll incorporate into your own

repertoire and they will ensure that you

get the maximum

opportunity to uh have your

ideas uh valued and accepted by the

people you speak with now in order to do

that we have to have a rule of

Engagement and that

is no laptops no cell phones so if you

could close those I'll start up as soon

as you're

done some people ask why that uh is a is

a rule

engagement and the answer is we humans

only have one language processor and if

your language processor is engage could

you shut the laptop please if your

language processor is engaged browsing

the web or reading your email you're

distracted and worse yet you distract

all the people around you Studies have

shown that and worse yet if I see a open

laptop somewhere back there or up here

it drives me nuts and I do a worse job

and so that ensures that all of your

friends who were who are paying

attention uh don't get the performance

that they came to

have so that's it for Preamble let's get

started first thing to talk about of

course is how to

start some people think the right thing

to do is to start a talk

a

joke I don't recommend

it and the reason is that in the

beginning of a talk people are still

putting their laptops away they're

becoming adjusted to your speaking

parameters to your vocal

parameters and they're not ready for a

joke so it doesn't work very well they

usually fall

flat what you want to do instead is

start with empowerment

promise you want to tell people what

they're going to know at the end of the

hour that they didn't know at the

beginning of the hour it's an

empowerment promise it's the reason for

being

here uh what would be an example oh I

see at the end of this 60 Minutes you

will know things about speaking you

don't know now and something among those

things you know will be make a

difference in your life yeah that's an

empowerment promise so that's the best

way to

start so now that I've talked a little

bit about how to start what I want to do

is give you some samples of tics that

are always on my mind when I give a

talk and first of these

tics is that it's a good idea to cycle

on the

subject go around it go around it again

go around

again some people say tell them what you

want to tell

them tell them again and then tell them

a third time as if

people weren't intelligent but the point

is the reason is well there are many

reasons one of which is at any given

moment about 20% of you will be fogged

out no matter what the lecture is so if

you want to ensure that the probability

that everybody gets it is high you need

to say it three

times so cycling is one of the things

that I always think about when I give a

talk another thing I think about is in

explaining my idea I want to build a

fence around

it so that it's not confused with

somebody else's idea so if you were from

Mars and I was teaching you about what

an arch is I might say to you well

that's an arch and that's not to be

confused with some other things that

other people might think is an AR this

is not an AR

Arch that's not an arch I'm building a

fence around my idea so that it can be

distinguished from somebody else's idea

so in a more technical sense I might say

well my algorithm might similar might

seem similar to Jones's algorithm except

his is exponential and mine's linear

that's putting a fence around your idea

so that people can not be confused about

how it might relate to something

else the third thing on this list of

samples

is the idea of verbal

punctuation and the idea here is that

because people will uh occasionally fog

out and need to get back on the bus you

need to provide some Landmark places

where you're announcing that it's a good

time to get back on

so I might in this talk say something

about this being my

outline the first thing we're going to

do is talk about how to start then we're

going to deal with these four samples

and among these four samples I've talked

about the first idea that's cycling the

second idea building a and now the third

idea is build is verbal

punctuation so I'm enumerating I'm

providing numbers I'm giving you a sense

that there's a seam in the talk and you

can get back back on

okay so now we're on a

roll uh and since we're on a

roll can you uh guess what fourth idea

might be here an idea that helps people

get back on the

bus yes ask question ask a question yes

thank

you so ask a question

and so I will ask a question how how

much dead air can there be how long can

I pause uh I counted 7 Seconds it seems

like an eternity to me to wait and not

say anything for 10 for 7 seconds but

that's the the standard amount of time

you can wait for an answer and of course

the question has to be carefully chosen

it can't be too obvious because then

people will be embarrassed to say what

the answer is can't be too hard because

nobody will have anything to

say so here are some sample eristics you

can put in your armorium and build up

your your repertoire of uh ideas about

presentation and now if this persuades

you that there is something to know that

there there is knowledge then I've

already succeeded because what I want to

convince you of is if you watch the

speakers you admire and feel are

effective and ask yourselves why they're

successful then you can build up your

own personal repertoire and develop your

own personal style and that's that's my

fundamental

objective and the rest of this talk is

about some of the things that are in my

arm inventorium that I think are

effective so next thing on our agenda as

we start to discuss these other things

is a discussion of time and place so

what do you think is a good time to have

a lecture

11:00 a.m.

yeah and the reason

is most people at MIT are awake by then

and hardly anyone is going back to

sleep it's not right after a meal people

aren't fatigued from this or that it's a

great time to have a

lecture so that brings me next to the

question of what about the place and the

most important thing about the place is

that it be well

lit this room is well

lit problem with the other kinds of

rooms is that we

humans uh whenever the lights go down or

whe whenever the room is dimly lighted

it signals that we should go to sleep so

whenever I go somewhere to give a talk

even today the first thing I do when I

speak to the audiovisual people is say

keep the lights full

up oh they might

reply people will see the slides better

if we turn the lights off and then I

reply it's extremely hard to see slides

through closed

eyelids what else can you say about the

place well the place should be

cased and I mean that in the clal sense

of like uh if you're robbing a bank you

would go to the bank you know some some

occasions before to see what it's like

so there are no surprises when you uh

when you do your

robbery so uh whenever I go somewhere to

speak the first thing I ask my host to

do is to take me to the place where I'll

be speaking so that there any

weirdnesses I'll be able to

um to deal with it uh sometimes it might

require some intervention some time it

just might require me to understand what

the challenges are so when I came here

this morning I did what I typically do I

imagined that all the seats were filled

with disinterested farm

animals that way I knew that no matter

how bad it was it wouldn't be as bad as

that so uh finally it should be

reasonably it should be reasonably

populated

it should

be it should be the case that you know

if there are 10 people in this Hall

everyone would be wondering what's going

on that's so much more interesting that

nobody's here so you want to get a right

siiz place that's doesn't have to be

packed but it has to be more than half

full so those are some thoughts about uh

time and place next thing I want to talk

about is uh subject of uh bo boards and

props and

slides well these are the tools of the

trade uh I uh believe that this is the

uh this is the the right tool for uh

speaking when your purpose is uh

informing uh the slides are good when

your purpose is uh exposing but this is

what I use when I'm informing teaching

lecturing

and there are several reasons why I use

it for one thing when you use the board

you have a Graphic

quality it's the case that when you have

a board then you can easily exploit the

fact that you can use Graphics in your

presentation so that's the graphic

quality that I like and next thing I

like is like a speed property

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 finally one great property of a

board is that it's can be a

Target many people

who are novices at speaking find

themselves uh suddenly aware of their

hands it's as if their hands were

private parts that shouldn't be exposed

in public so right away they go into the

pockets and this is considered insulting

in some parts of the world or

alternatively maybe the hands will go in

in back like this I was once in a

Convent in

Serbia and uh my uh host U well we were

as soon as we entered a nun came up to

us and offered us a refreshment and I

was about to say no thank you when he

said eat that stuff or

die it's a question of local custom and

and politeness but then uh before

anything happened there uh the nun

pulled my hands off like this because it

was extraordinarily insulting in that

culture to have your hands behind your

back so uh why is that well it's it's

usually supposed that that's what that

has to do with whether you're concealing

a weapon so if your hands are in your

pockets behind your back then um it

looks like you might have a weapon and

that's what I mean by The Virtue one of

these virtues of the board now you have

something to do with your hands you can

point out the

stuff I was once watching Seymour paper

give a lecture I thought it was terrific

so I went a second time first time to

absorb the content second time to note

the style

and what I discovered is that papet was

constantly pointing at the board and

then I thought about a little while and

I noted that none of the stuff he was

pointing to had anything to do with what

he was

saying nevertheless it was a effective

technique so that's a just a little bit

about the the virtue of of of black

boards and now I want to talk about

props you know the custodians of

knowledge about props s are the

playwrights many decades ago I saw a

play by Hinrich Ipson it was head of

gabbler I remember vaguely there was

about a woman in an unhappy marriage and

her husband was in competition for an

academic job with somebody else and he

was going to lose partly because he was

boring and partly because the competitor

had just written a magnificent book by

the way this is back in the days before

they were copying machines and comp

computers any anyhow as the play

opens there's a pot bellied

stove and in the beginning of the

play uh the putt belly stove with its

open door just has some uh slightly

glowing

Embers but the P stove is always there

and it tension mounts in the play

uh and you see this manuscript this prop

that Ipson so artfully used you just

know that something's going to happen

because as the play goes on the Fire

gets bigger and hotter and finally all

consuming and you just know that that

manuscript is going to go into that

fire it's memorable thing it's what I

remember about

play so the play rights have got this

all figured out

uh but on the other hand they're not the

only people who can use props here's an

example of the use of a prop also due to

sear paper he was talking about how it's

important to look at the problem in the

right way and here's an example that uh

not only teaches that but makes it

possible for you to embarrass your

friends in mechanical engineering so

here's here's what you do take this

bicycle wheel you start it spinning and

then you put some

torque on the axle or

equivalently you blow on the edge and

the issue is does it go that way or does

it go that way now the mechanical

engineers will immediately say oh yes I

see right hand screw and they'll put

their fingers in this position but

forget exactly how to align their

fingers with various aspects of the

problem and so it's you usually the case

that they get it right with about a 50%

probability so they um very fancy

education gets them up to the point

where they're equivalent to flipping a

coin but it doesn't have to be that way

because you can think about the problem

a little differently so here's what you

do you take some duct tape and you uh

put it around part of the wheel like

that and now you start to think about

not the whole wheel but just the little

piece that's underneath the duct tape so

here that piece comes rolling over the

top and at this point you blow on it

with a puff of air forgetting about the

rest of the wheel what happens to that

little piece that's under the duct tape

it must want to go that way cuz you bang

on it like that it's already going down

like that and what about the next piece

same thing next piece same thing so the

only thing that can happen is the wheel

goes over like that and so now you'll

never Wonder again because you're

thinking about the problem in the right

way and it's

demonstrated by the use of a

problem you can try this after we're

done another example I like to remember

is one from when I was taking

801 Alan Lazarus was the instructor at

the time and he was talking about the

conservation of energy kinetic and

potential

and there was a long wire in the ceiling

in 26 100 attached to a much bigger

steel Ball but one not un like this and

Lazarus uh took the

ball up against the wall like this he

put his head flat against the wall to

steady

himself and then uh he let go and the

Pendulum takes many seconds ago over and

back and then uh gently uh kisses

lazarus's

nose and so you have many seconds to

think this guy really believes in the

conservation of

energy um do not try this at

home the problem is that uh first time

you do this you may not just let go

there's a natural human tendency to push

so uh that's a little bit on a subject

of

props you know it's interesting whenever

surveys are taken students always say

more chalk less

PowerPoint and uh why would that be uh

props are always also very

effective why would that be uh I'll give

you my Lunatic Fringe view on this it um

has to do with

uh what I would call

empathetic

mirroring when you're sitting up there

watching me right on the board all those

little mirror neurons in your head I

believe become actuated and you can feel

yourself writing on the Blackboard and

even more so uh when I uh talk about

this steel ball going that way and this

way you can you can you can feel the

ball as if you were me and you can't do

that with a slide you can't do it with a

picture you need to see see it uh in in

the physical world that's why I think

that oh yes of course it's it's there

there speed questions involved too that

have to be separated out but I think the

empathetic mirroring is why props and

the use of a Blackboard are so

effective

well let's

see oh yes there is one more thing by

way of uh the tools and that has to do

with the uh use of

slides I repeat I think they're for

exposing ideas not for teaching ideas

but that's what we do in a job talk or

conference talk we expose ideas we don't

teach them so let me tell you a little

bit about my views on that

um I remember once I was

um in um Terminal

A had Logan airport I just come back

from a really miserable conference and

the flight was really horrible it was

one of those that feels like an

unbalanced washing machine and for the

only time in my life I decided to uh

stop on my way to my car and have a cup

of coffee and relax a little bit and I

as I was there for a few minutes uh

someone came up to me and said uh are

you Professor

Winston I think so I

said I don't know I guess I was trying

to be funny in any event uh he said I'm

on my way to Europe to give a job talk

would you mind critiquing my

slides not at all I said you have too

many and they have too many

words how did you know he said thinking

perhaps I'd seen a talk of his before I

hadn't uh my reply was because it's

always true there are always too many

slides always too many words so let me

show you some extreme examples of how

not to use

slides well for this demonstration I

need to be uh way over

here um and uh when I get over here then

I can start to say things like

U one of the things you shouldn't do is

read your

transparencies people in your audience

know how to read and reading will just

annoy them also you should be sure that

you have only a few words on each

transparency and that the words are easy

to read and I hope it driving you

crazy because I'm committing uh all

kinds of crimes the first of which is

that there are too many words on this

slide second of which is I'm way over

there and it slides away over there so

you get into this uh tennis match

feeling of uh shifting back and forth

between the slide and the speaker you

want the slides to be uh condiments to

what you're saying not the main event or

the opposite way around so how can we

fix this step number one is to get rid

of the background junk that's always

distraction uh step number two is to get

rid of the

words when I reduceed the the words to

these then everything I

read a previous time I'm not licensed to

say because it's not on the slide I'm

not reading my slides anymore but I'm

saying what was written on the slides in

a previous

example so what else can we do to

simplify

this well we can get rid of the logos we

don't need

them

simplification what else can we

do get rid of the

title now I want to talk to you about

some rules for slide preparation I'm

telling you the title doesn't have to be

up there by reducing the number of words

on the slide I'm allowing you pay more

attention to me unless to what's written

on the

slide I mentioned it before we have only

one language processor and we can either

use it to read stuff or to listen to the

speaker and so if we have too many words

on the slide forces people in the

audience to read this stuff and not

listen student of mine did an experiment

a few years ago uh he taught some

students some

um web based programming

ideas half the information was on slides

he said the other half and then for a

control group he reversed it and the

question was what did the subjects that

is to say freshman in his fraternity

what did the subjects remember

best what he

said or what they read on the

slide and the answer

is what they read on the

slide when their slides have a lot of

material on it they don't pay attention

to the speaker in fact in the after

Action Report one of the subjects said I

wish you hadn't talked so much it was

distracting well that last item is

eliminate

clutter I hear some clutter no no no

reason even for those

bullets so the too many words problem is

a consequence of h a crime Microsoft has

committed by allowing you to use funds

that are too small

so you should all have a sample slide

like this that you can use to determine

what the minimum Fun Size is that's

that's easily leisurable shiv what do

you think of

those which size is right what's that

size is right yeah minimum maybe 40 or

50 yeah he says 40 or 50 I think it's

about right 35 is get too small not

necessarily because you can't read it

but because it because you're probably

using it to get too many words on the

slide what other crimes do we

have well we have the laser pointer

crime not for that I you know in the old

days when we didn't have laser pointers

we used wooden ones and people would go

waving these things around

and pretty soon it became almost like a

the CH swirling contest so here's what

here's what I recommended in the old

days for dealing with this kind of

pointer this example of used of a

prop Jim glass up there saw this talk

about 20 years ago and uh so oh yeah I

remembered that talk that's the one

where you broke the

pointer it's amazing how props uh tend

to be the things that are

remembered well now oh we don't have uh

we don't have physical pointers anymore

we've got uh we got laser pointers

that's a Wonder more people aren't

driven into epileptic fits over this

sort of stuff but here's what tends to

happen look at that it's a lovely

recursive picture and I can become part

of it by putting that laser beam right

on the back of my head up

there and what do you see

you see the back of my

head I'm have no eye contact no

engagement nothing I was sitting with a

student watching a talk one day and she

said you know what we could all leave

and he wouldn't

know so what happens when you use a

laser pointer you can't use a laser

pointer without turning your head and

pointing it at something and when you do

that you lose uh you lose contact with

the audience you don't want to do it so

what do you do if you need to need to

identify something in your image and you

don't want to point at it with a laser

this is what you do put a little arrow

on there and say now look at that guy

number one at the end of Arrow number

one you don't need to have laser pointer

to do

that the to heavy

crime when people ask me to review a

presentation I ask them to print it out

and lay it out on a table

when they do that it's easy to see

whether the talk is too heavy too much

text not enough air not enough white

space not enough

imagery this is a good example of uh

such a talk way too

heavy uh the uh presenter has taken

advantage of uh small font sizes to get

as much on the slide as he

wanted lots of crimes here but uh the

too heaviness the fact that it's too

heavy is what I wanted to illustrate so

here by contrast another talk one I gave

a few years ago it's not it wasn't a

deeply technical talk but I show it to

you

because there's air in

it it's mostly pictures of things there

are three or four slides that have text

on them but when I come to those I give

the audience time to read them and

they're there because they might have

have some historical significance the

first slide with a lot of text on it is

a extraction from the

1957 from the for the from the proposal

for the 1957 AI conference at Dartmouth

extraordinarily interesting event and

that

historical extraction from The Proposal

helps drive that point

home what else have we got here oh yeah

your vocabulary word for the day this is

an NAX Lon

what that means is this is the kind of

slide you can get away with exactly once

in your

presentation this is a slide that got

some currency some years ago because it

shows the

complexity of um governing in

Afghanistan by showing how impossibly

complex it is it's something we you in

the audience can't understand and and

that's the point but you can't have many

of these you can have one per work one

per presentation one per paper one per

book that's what it that's what epex Lan

is and this is an example of

it well I've shown you some crimes and

so you might be asking do these crimes

actually

occur so

um they

do there's the hands in the pockets

crime there's a um crime and time and

place selection

here this is how you get to the BTO

theater first thing you do is you get

down these steps over at the media

lab then you cross this large open

space then you turn right down this

Corridor this point whenever I go in

there I wonder if if there are torture

implements around the corner and then

when you get in there you get into this

dark gloomy place so it's well- named

what when they call it the baros theater

because it's a place where you can watch

a movie but it's not a place where you

can give a

talk now on a subject that doesn't

happen here's a talk I attended a while

back in

stada notice that the speaker is H far

away from the slides speaker is using a

laser

pointer and you say to me

well what's happening here it's by the

way the 80th 80th slide in the

presentation notice that it stent with

words this is the first of 10 conclusion

slides so uh what's the audience

reaction that's the sponsor of the

meeting he's reading his

email this is the co-sponsor of the

meeting he's examining the lunch

[Music]

menu what about this person

this person looks like he's paying

attention but this because it's a still

picture if you were to see a video what

you would see is something like

this so yeah it it it does

happen well now uh that's a a quick

review of of tools now I want to talk

about some special cases

we could talk a little bit about uh

informing or to say it another way doing

what I'm doing

now but I'll just say a few words about

that uh in that kind of in that kind of

presentation you want to start with a

promise like I did for this for this uh

for this hour that we're going through

now but then it comes to the question of

how do you inspire

people I've given this talk for a long

time and a few years ago um uh our

department chairman said would you

please give this talk to uh a new

faculty and be sure to emphasize what it

takes to inspire students and strangely

I hadn't thought about that question

before so I started a survey I talked to

some of my incoming freshman advises and

I talked to senior faculty and

everything in between about how they've

been

inspired what I found from the uh

incoming freshman is that they were

inspired by some high school teacher who

told them they could do it

what I found in the senior

faculty they um were inspired by someone

who helped them to see a problem in a

new way and what I saw from

everyone is that they were

inspired when someone exhibited passion

about what they were

doing exhibited passion about what they

were

doing yeah so that's uh that's one one

way to be inspiring

it's easy for me because you know I do

artificial

intelligence um and uh how how can you

not be interested in artificial

intelligence right I mean if you're not

interested in artificial intelligence

you're probably not interested in

interesting

things so uh when I'm lecturing uh in my

AI class it's natural for me to talk

about what I think is cool and how

exciting some new idea is uh so that's

the kind of that's the kind of

expression of passion that makes a

difference uh while informing with

respect to this question of of of

inspiring oh yeah and of course during

this promise phase you can also Express

how cool stuff is let me give you an

example of a lecture that starts this

way I'm talking about resource

allocation it's the same sort of stuff

you would think of when you're s it's

the same sort of ideas you would need if

you're

allocating a aircraft to a flight

schedule or trying to schedule a factory

or something like that but the example

is putting colors on the states in the

United States without any bordering

states having the same color so here it

goes this is what I show in the

beginning of the class this is a way of

doing that coloring and you might say

well why don't we wait till it

finishes would you like to do that no

well we're not going to wait till it

finishes because the sun will have

exploded and consumed the Earth before

this program

finishes but with a slight adjustment to

how the program works which I tell my

students you will understand in the next

50 minutes this is what you

get Isn't that cool you know you got you

got to be you got to be amazed by stuff

that takes a computation from longer

than the lifetime of the solar system

into a few seconds so that's what I mean

by providing a promise up front and

expressing some passion about what

you're talking

about well the last item in this little

block here is uh uh it has to do with

what people think that they do at MIT

you ask a faculty what the most

important purpose is and they'll say

well uh the most important thing I do is

teach people how to

think and then uh you say oh that's

great how do you teach people how to

think Blank

Stare no one can quite respond to that

part that natural next question so how

do you teach people how to think

well I believe that we are storytelling

animals and that uh we start to

developing our story understanding and

manipulating skills with fairy tales in

childhood and continue on through

professional schools like law business

medicine engineer everything and we

continue doing that throughout life so

if uh that is what thinking is all about

then when you want to teach people how

to think you provide them with the

stories they need to know the questions

they need to ask about those stories

mechanisms for analyzing those stories

ways of putting stories together ways of

evaluating

how reliable the story is and that's

what I think you need to do when you

teach people how to

think but that's all about education and

uh many of you here not necessarily for

that but rather for uh for this part for

persuading which breaks down into

several categories oral exams not shown

job talks getting famous I won't say

much about oral exams other than the

fact that they used to be a lot scarier

than they are today in the old

days um

reading the literature in a foreign

language was a part of that and there

was a a high failure rate and when you

look at when you look back on those uh

on those failures the most uh usual

reason for people failing an oral exam

is failure to situate and a failure to

practice by situate I mean it's

important to talk about your research

and context uh this is a problem that's

being pursued all over the world there

hasn't been any progress before me in

past 30

years um everyone is looking for a

solution because it will have impact on

so many other things so that's situating

in time and place and field and then as

far as practice is

concerned yes practice is important but

that doesn't mean uh showing your slides

to the people who share an office with

the problem with that is that um if

people know what you're doing they will

hallucinate that there's material in

your presentation that isn't there it it

isn't

there a variation on the scene by the

way is your faculty supervisor is not a

very good person to help you debug a

talk because they in fact know what

you're doing and they will in fact

hallucinate there's material in your

presentation that isn't there so you

need to get together some friends who

don't know what you're doing and have

them well you start the practice session

by saying if you can't make me cry I

won't value you as a friend friend

anymore and then when you get to the

faculty uh on a uh oral exam it will be

easy you see

um difficulty the amount of flack you

get from somebody is proportional to age

the older somebody is the more uh the

more they understand where they are in

the world but but the young people are

trying to show the old people how smart

they are so so sobly vicious so whenever

you have an opportunity to have an

examining committee that's full of

people with gray hair that's what you

want well that's just a word or two

about something I haven't listed here

let's get into the subject of job talks

so I was

um sitting in a bar uh many years ago uh

in uh San Diego I was a member of the

Navy science board and I was saying with

a couple of uh my colleagues on the

board uh Dolores Eder from the

University of Colorado uh she made me so

jealous I could spit because she written

21 books and I'd only written

177 and then the other one was

uh bill welon from the University of

Texas he was a electrom magnetism guy

and he know knew how to use rail guns to

to drive steel rods through tank armor

these are interesting people so I said

um what do you look for uh in a uh

faculty

candidate and uh within a one microc

Dolores said they have to show us

they've got some kind of

vision quickly followed by Bill who said

they have to show us that they've done

something oh that sounds good I said and

then I said to them how long does the

candidate have to establish these two

things what do you think

compare your answer to

theirs 5

minutes so if you haven't expressed your

vision if you haven't told people that

you've done something in five minutes

you're you you've already lost so you

you have to be able to do that and let

me just mention a couple of things in

that

connection here which is you know the

vision is in part a problem that

somebody cares about

and something new in your

approach so the problem is understanding

the nature of human intelligence and the

approach is asking questions about what

makes us different from chimpanzees and

neandertals is it merely a matter of

quantity or we just a little bit smarter

in some continuous way or do we have

something that's fundamentally different

the chimpan Tendencies don't have and

the Andals either and the answer is yes

we do have something different we are

symbolic

creatures and because we're symbolic

creatures we can

um we can uh build symbolic descriptions

of relations and events we can string

them together and make stories and

because we can make stories that's what

makes us different so that's that's

that's my stump speech that's how I

start most of my talks on my my own

personal

research how do you express the notion

that you've done

something by listing the steps that need

to be taken in order to achieve the

solution to that problem you don't have

to have done all of those steps but you

can say here's here's what needs to be

done an example here's what needs to be

done we need to specify some Behavior we

need to enumerate the constraints that

make it possible to deal with that

behavior we have to implement a system

because we're engineers and we don't

think that we've understood something

unless we can build it and we've built

such a system and we're about to

demonstrate it to you today that would

be an example of enumerating series of

steps needed to realize the

vision so then blah blah blah blah blah

blah blah blah blah and then you

conclude by you conclude by enumerating

your contributions

it's kind of mirror of of these steps

and helps to establish that you've done

something so that's a kind of general

purpose framework for doing a technical

talk

now only a few more things left to do

today uh getting famous is the next item

on our agenda because once you've got

the job you need to think a little bit

about how you're going to be recognized

for what you

do so

[Music]

well first of all why should you care

about getting

famous I thought about this um in

connection with

a fundraising event I attended

once fundraising event for raising money

to save Venice from going underwater and

having all of its art destroyed anyway I

was sitting here

and JC was sitting

here that was uh Julia the late Julia

Child and as the evening wore on more

and more people would come up and ask

Julia to autograph something or Express

a a feeling that she had changed their

life and it just happened over and over

again So eventually I turned to Julia

and I said Miss child is it fun to be

famous and she thought about it for a

second and she said you get used to

it but you know what occurred to me you

never get used to being

ignored so it's you know it's it's

here's a way to think about it your

ideas are like your children and you

don't want them to go into the world in

rags so what you want to do is to be

sure that you have

these techniques these mechanisms these

thoughts about how to present the ideas

that you have so that they're recognized

for the value that that is in them so

that's why it's a legitimate thing to

concern yourself with the with

packaging now how do you get uh

remembered well there's something I like

to call Winston star and every one of

the items I'm about to articulate has a

starts with an

S so if you want your presentation ideas

to be remembered one of the things you

need to do is to make sure that you have

some kind of

symbol associated with your work so this

Arch example is actually from my PhD

thesis many many years ago

and in the course of uh my work uh at

that time uh this work on Arch learning

became mildly famous and I didn't know

why it was only many years later that I

realized that that work accidentally had

all of the elements on this star so the

first element is that there was a kind

of symbol it's the arch

itself next thing you need is some kind

of

slogan a kind of phrase that provides a

handle on the work and in this case the

phrase was one shot

learning and it was one shot because the

program I wrote learned something

definite from every example that was

presented to us so in going from a model

based on this configuration to something

that isn't an arch based on that

configuration the program learned that

it has to be on top one shot

learning so that's a

simple slogan now we need a

surprise yeah the surprise is you don't

need a million examples of something to

learn you can do it with one example if

you're smart enough to make use of that

example appropriately so that was the

surprise you can learn something

definite from each

example next item was a Salient

idea now when I say Salient idea I don't

mean important what I mean is an idea

that sticks

out

uh some some thesis funnily enough have

too many good ideas and you don't know

what it's all about because which one is

it it so you need an idea that sticks

out and the idea that stuck out

here was a notion of a near

miss you see this is not an arch but it

doesn't miss by much so it's a near

Miss

finally you need to tell the

story of how you did it how it works why

it's

important so that's

um a bit on uh how to not so much get

famous but how to ensure that your work

is

recognized well that that we're almost

finished because now we're we're down to

this last item which is U how to

stop and when we come to that there's a

question of all right well what is the

final

slide and what are the final words

so for the final slide let me give you

some examples of

possibilities how about this

one well you might see that

slide and

uh think to yourself there are thousand

faculty at

MIT nice piece of work but not so much

but it's only a tiny any piece of work

if you divide by a

thousand so when you show a whole

gigantic list of collaborators at the

end of a talk it's a kind of it's a it's

it's it's a kind of let down because it

suggests that nobody knows well did you

do anything

significant now you got to you got to

recognize your collaborators right so

where do you do that not on the last

slide on the first slide all this was on

the first slide these are the

collaborators so you don't want to put

them at the end you don't want a slide

like this

how about this

one this is the worst possible way to

end a

talk because this slide can be up there

for 20 minutes I've seen it happen it

squanders real estate it squanders an

opportunity to tell people who you are

it's it's

just what about this one

I often see it I've never seen anybody

write it

down also it wastes

opportunity oh my

[Music]

God even

worse all of these slides do nothing for

you they waste an opportunity for you to

tell people to leave people with what

you with who you

are well well what about

this this a good

one it might seem so at first but here's

the

problem if you say these are my

conclusions these are perfectly

legitimate conclusions that nobody cares

about what they care about is what you

have done and that's why your final

slide should have this

label

contributions it's a mirror of what I

said over there about how job talks on

to ought to be like a sandwich and the

final Slide the one that's up there

while people are asking questions and

filing out it ought to be the one that

has your contributions on

it here's an example from my own stump

speech yeah this is what uh I talk about

a lot yes here are the things that I

typically

demonstrate and I wait for people to

read it and then the final element there

is this is what we get out of

it so that's a example of a contribution

line all right

now what about the other part you know

you got your final slide slide up there

it's a contribution slide somehow you

have to tell people you're

finished so uh let's check out a few

possibilities one thing you could

do in the final words is you could uh

tell a joke

it's

okay by the time you're done people have

adjusted themselves to your voice

parameters they're ready for a

joke I was sitting in another bar this

time in Austin Texas with a colleague of

mine named Doug lenat and Doug's a

fantastic speaker and so I said uh to

Doug Doug you're a fantastic speaker

what's your secret and he said oh

I always uh finish with a joke and that

way people think they've had fun the

whole

time so yeah a joke will work down

there how about uh this

one thank

you I don't recommend it

it's a weak move you will not go to hell

if you conclude your talk by saying

thank you but it's a weak move and

here's

why when you say thank you even worse

thank you for listening it suggests that

everybody has stayed that long out of

politeness and that they had a profound

desire to be somewhere else but they're

so polite they stuck it out and that's

what you're thanking them

for so once wild Applause has started

you can mouth a thank you and it's not

there's nothing wrong with that but the

last thing you do do should not be

saying thank

you now do you say to me well doesn't

everybody say thank you well what

everybody does is not necessarily the

right

thing and I'd like to illustrate how

some talks can end without saying thank

you I like to draw from political

speeches but the ones that I've heard

recently aren't so good

so

so I'm going to have to go go back a

little bit so here's a Governor Christie

he uh gave the U Republican keynote

address one year uh this is the end of

his talk let's see what he

does and together everybody together we

will stand up once again for American

greatness for our children and

grandchildren God bless you and God

bless

America that's some a classic

benediction ending God bless you God

Bless

America now I I don't want to be

partisan about this so I think I better

switch to the keynote address in the Dem

Democratic

Convention I was delivered that year by

by Bill Clinton who knows something

about how to

speak if that is what you want if that

is what you believe you must vote and

you must reelect President Barack Obama

God bless you and God bless

America now watch this let's go back a

little bit and redo it what I want you

to see is that at one point he seems to

be almost pressing his lips together

forcing himself not to say thank you and

then there's another place where he does

a little salute so watch for those this

time

around if that that is what you want if

that is what you believe you must vote

and you must reelect President Barack

Obama God bless you and God bless

America everybody's pursing his

lips there's a

[Applause]

SL yeah I think that's pretty good now

what are we going to take away from this

well um I suppose I can conclude this

talked by saying uh God bless you and

God

bless Institute of Technology but uh it

might not work so well but what what you

can't get out of this is you don't have

to say thank you there are other things

you can do and you know it's interesting

that uh over time people figure this out

and there's some stock ways of ending

things so uh in the Catholic church in a

good old Latin

Mass it landed with it

Miss EST

which translates approximately to okay

the mass is over you can go home

now and of course uh at the musical

concerts uh you know that uh it's time

to clap not at the end of the song but

rather when the uh conductor goes over

and shakes hands with the concert Master

those are conventions that tell you that

the that the event is

over so uh

those are all possibilities for here but

one more possibility and that is that

you

can salute the audience and by that I

mean you can say something about how how

much you value your time and a place so

I could say well it's been a a great fun

being here uh it's been uh fascinating

to see what you folks are doing here at

MIT I've been uh what stimulated uh and

and provoked by the kinds of questions

you been ask has been really great and

and and I look forward to coming back on

many occasions in the future so that

salutes the audience you can do

that well there it is um you know what

uh I'm glad you're here and and the

reason is by being here I think you have

demonstrated an understanding that how

you present and how you package your

ideas is an important thing

and I salute you for

that and uh I uh suggest that you uh

come back again and bring your friends

[Applause]