[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]