How To Speak: Patrick Winston, MIT

Patrick Winston's How to Speak talk has been an MIT tradition for over 40 years. Offered every January, the talk is intended to improve your speaking ability in critical situations by teaching you a few heuristic rules.

Summary based on notes by @BoyInTech & other YouTube commentators -

00:00 🎖 Communication skills are vital for success in life; speaking, writing, and idea quality matter.

01:25 🏆 Knowledge, practice, and inherent talent influence effective communication; knowledge matters most.

02:20 📢 Learning various speaking techniques can significantly impact your success; a non-linear process.

03:17 📵 Avoid distractions during learning; laptops and cell phones off to engage fully.

04:39 🚀 Don't start with a joke, start with a promise, outlining what listeners will gain from the talk. 

06:01 🔄 Repetition and cycling ideas can help ensure better understanding among the audience.

06:58 🧱 Build a fence around your idea to differentiate it from others and avoid confusion.

08:24 ❓ Use verbal punctuation and ask intriguing questions to keep the audience engaged and help them stay on track.

09:52 💼 Develop your personal speaking style by observing effective speakers and adapting their techniques.

10:20 ⏰ Choose an optimal time and well-lit environment for effective communication. The place should be checked before the lecture and be adequately populated. 

13:38 🖼 Use props, such as boards, to engage the audience and make concepts more tangible.

16:53 🎭 Effective use of props can enhance audience engagement through empathetic mirroring.

24:08 📊 Slides are effective for exposing ideas, but avoid reading them or overcrowding with text.

27:52 📊 Experiment: Slides with too much text make the audience focus on reading rather than listening to the speaker. Students remembered slide content over spoken information.

28:49 🚫 Eliminate Clutter: Excessive words on slides due to small fonts reduce audience engagement. Use easily legible fonts (around 40-50 size) to avoid cramming.

29:46 🖐 Avoid Laser Pointer: Laser pointers disconnect you from the audience, leading to lack of eye contact and engagement. Use arrows or other methods to guide attention.

32:08 📜 Too-Heavy Slides: Presentations with heavy text lack white space and visuals. Aim for balanced text and imagery to maintain audience interest.

38:39 🌟 Inspiration: Inspire by sharing passion about your topic. Express enthusiasm and excitement to engage your audience effectively.

41:31 💡 Teaching People How to Think: Educate by providing stories, questions, mechanisms, and ways to evaluate reliability of information, focusing on thinking skills.

43:28 💼 Job Talks: In job talks, establish your vision and show steps taken to solve a problem in the first five minutes. Practice with friends to refine your presentation.

48:30 🌟 Why should you care about getting famous? Because we want our work to be recognized and we need good communication skills to do that. Use "5 S":

- Symbols associate with your ideas (visual perception is the best way to attract attention)

- Slogan (describing your idea)

- Surprise 

- Salient Idea (not necessarily important but the one that sticks out)

- Story (how you did it, how it works…)

53:17 🏁 Ending a Talk: Avoid ending with a list of collaborators; introduce them at the beginning. Avoid concluding with negative statements or questions.

54:34 🗣 Slides should effectively communicate your identity and message, avoiding wasted opportunities.

55:31 🧠 Conclude with a "Contributions" slide to highlight what you've achieved, not just conclusions.

56:56 😄 End with a joke to engage the audience and create a positive closing impression.

57:54 🙌 Avoid weak endings like just saying "thank you". 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.

59:18 🎤 Observe how political speeches end ("God bless you and God bless America") to learn diverse ways to conclude effectively.

01:02:09 🙏 Salute the audience by expressing gratitude, valuing their time, and leave a positive impression.