How to Speak on HackerTube: recommended by 17 Hacker News commenters across 16 separate months, 2020–2025.
lecture · evergreen
Patrick Winston's long-running MIT lecture on public speaking teaches heuristic rules for talks. It covers how to start, use time and place, boards, props and slides, and how to inform, persuade and finish.
HN treats it as the canonical, near-universally recommended lecture on giving talks and presentations.
“drop what you're doing and watch it now”
20 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
This title reminds me of Patrick Winston's "How to Speak" lecture at MIT. It's the best of its kind that I've seen. An hour long and I've watched it several times. Even my highschooler was impressed. ▶ this video EDIT: no way, it was just posted yesterday. Glad it got the attention.
in “How to Give a Good Talk” · View on HN
In my opinion, Professor Patrick Winston's lecture (MIT) is likely in the top-5 when it come to advice on how to give presentations. I have used his framework multiple times, for both technical and business presentations in groups of a few to hundreds of people and have always had good results. Well worth watching. ▶ this video
in “Start presentations on the second slide” · View on HN
MIT lecture by Patric Winston: How to speak is the lecture you need to watch about public speaking and presentation. The most awesome thing about the lecture that it is self describing it's tools and framework in an awesome way and built up exactly as it's content describe is should. It's on youtube: ▶ this video
in “Ask HN: What talks do you consider real gems?” · View on HN
Encourage anyone interested in communicating to watch this. ▶ this video He has a pretty funny response to someone asking him to review slides. He immediately says there are too many words and too many slides without even looking. Which I have found to be true 90% of the time. Excellent presentation.
in “” · View on HN
>The most memorable talk I’ve ever seen was a lunchtime keynote by Harry Kroto, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, at an undergraduate research conference in Tallahassee in 2004. I have no idea why I was there, what the conference was about, or what he said— OK, so if your goal is to not have a forgotten message, watch How to Speak by Patrick Winston and then read his book Make It Clear . The advice is as good as gold. ▶ this video [link] [link]
in “A gambler's guide to giving talks” · View on HN
The following presentation called How to speak on YouTube is excellent and very popular. The talk is given by Patrick Winston (1943 – 2019) who was a professor at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Description: "The talk is intended to improve your speaking ability in critical situations by teaching you a few heuristic rules." ▶ this video
in “Ask HN: Any good resources you have used becoming a better confidence speaker?” · View on HN
I've got to reference Patrick Wilson's "How To Speak" course from MIT OpenCourseWare here[0]. An hour of life well spent! [0] ▶ this video
in “A tool to create slides using Markdown easily for you” · View on HN
Not sure if this fits the bill, but: How To Speak by Patrick Winston [1] I watched this 'talk' on 'how to give talks' last week. It was uploaded at the end of 2019 and recorded 2018 (Patrick Winston passed away in 2019) and it is really good. Anyone who gives talks can learn a few things from this. [1] ▶ this video
in “Ask HN: Best Talks of 2020?” · View on HN
I was lucky enough to get paid for this but I'll say it anyway: learning to speak is the only thing of lasting value I have gotten out of startup accelerators. I would have gladly drop a few grand to acquire that skill. In fact, I'm considering hiring a speaking coach to improve. I've historically been a strong written communicator, but it turns out that speaking is very different from writing. In fact, I had thought of myself as a pretty strong speaker due to my experience giving scholarly presentations ... how wrong I was. Academic talks are a different beast altogether. If you haven't seen Patrick Winston's How to Speak lecture [0], drop what you're doing and watch it now. I'll leave you with a (paraphrased) quote from his lecture: your ideas are like your children and you don't want to send them off into the world dressed in rags. [0] ▶ this video
in “Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?” · View on HN
An interesting lecture on the topic is also How To Speak by late MIT professor Patrick Winston [1]. Very much recommended! [1] ▶ this video
in “How to give a great presentation: advice from a legendary adman (2012)” · View on HN
Ah I guess if you’re very bad at presentations, then this could be beneficial. However, scientific presentations are meant to be communicating science and making things stick to your audience (no matter if it’s scientists or children you’re presenting to). This does not fix that problem at all. For anyone thinking of using this: please watch: ▶ this video and maybe a talk from Jane Goodall on how to engagingly show your science. I would hate to see a lot of conference presentations be made with this generator. Another thing that improved my personal presentation skills was noting down why I liked a presentation or why I didn’t - what specific things a person did to make it engaging. Just paying attention to that improved my presentation skills enormously
in “Paper2video: Automatic video generation from scientific papers” · View on HN
Make it Clear by Patrick Henry Winston [0] is slightly related to this. I learned a lot of things from it. I first got to know about him through his now famous video- How to Speak [1]. [0]: [link] [1]: ▶ this video
in “How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]” · View on HN
Hear hear! I came to mention "How to Speak" ( ▶ this video ) but it makes even more sense to amplify you thoughts.
in “Tech talks don’t have to be boring” · View on HN
I don't know about the course itself, but you probably would like to watch this: ▶ this video (How To Speak by Patrick Winston) Content: 00:16 - Introduction 03:11 - Rules of Engagement 04:15 - How to Start 05:38 - Four Sample Heuristics 10:17 - The Tools: Time and Place 13:24 - The Tools: Boards, Props, and Slides 36:30 - Informing: Promise, Inspiration, How To Think 41:30 - Persuading: Oral Exams, Job Talks, Getting Famous 53:06 - How to Stop: Final Slide, Final Words 56:35 - Final Words: Joke, Thank You, Examples
in “Ask HN: Best online speech / public speaking course?” · View on HN
Patrick Winston (1943-2019) was a computer scientist at MIT. Every year he gave a popular talk titled How to Speak . Here is a recording of the talk from 2018: How To Speak by Patrick Winston : ▶ this video A book of his insights was published in 2020: Make It Clear: Speak and Write to Persuade and Inform . I'm half-way through the book and it is good so far. Although the book pitches itself as suitable for anyone who writes or speaks, many of the examples in the book have an emphasis on speaking in an academic or teaching setting. However, there are good insights that anyone can learn from. I recommend watching the talk above first to help you decide whether the book will appeal to you (the material in the lecture is in the book as are additional insights). There are lots of reviews of the book on the Amazon US site too.
in “Ask HN: Books for Effective Communication” · View on HN
This might be helpful. How to Trick Your Brain to Like Doing Hard Things – Atomic Habits by James Clear [link] How To Speak by Patrick Winston ▶ this video Help with Writing: George Orwell -Politics and the English Language [link] Philosophy - A Guide to Happiness (7 parts) by Alain de Botton [link] Namaste Yoga (DVD set sold on Amazon) Best Yoga series I know. Combines synchronized breathing with movement/meditation. Especially nice to do after a hot bath, when muscles are warmed up. [link]
in “Powerful Life Skills for the New Decade” · View on HN
If your goal is to learn how to tell a story to a live audience see this: ▶ this video Otherwise I'd suggest you read up a lot of literature, start with classic folk tales like those collected by the brothers Grimm. The more you read the easier it will become to write a proper story. Lastly as you're reading I'd suggest you start writing material yourself and maybe publishing it online on some web novel sites. At first people will be very critical of what you have written, but with time it should change for the better. Lastly, writing is a habit, just like coding. A habit should be repeated daily to become stronger. Read and write each day, unless you're feeling foggy or in need of rest. After a certain amount of time it should just click, but realize that that amount of time varies from person to person, some may never break that threshold, others are talented and are able to break through just like that. Best of luck!
in “Ask HN: How to Learn the Art of Storytelling?” · View on HN
The real problem is teaching children that "reading" is merely decoding words off a page, and "listening" is merely hearing the words someone says. The book itself is a way to open the door to learning, not the end point. Reading subject titles first, cross-referencing, and working examples and doing projects help teach and cement ideas. There's techniques like SQ4R [1] for reading, and hugely applicable to general technical and article reading is "How to read a paper" [2]. For lecturers, there's "How to Speak" [3], and for those attending a talk there's the Cornell Notes system. [4] [1]: [link] [2]: [link] [3]: ▶ this video [4]: [link]
in “Andy Matuschak – Self-Teaching, Spaced Repetition, Why Books Don't Work” · View on HN
That army metaphor is used by the late PATRICK WINSTON -0:19: The Uniform Code of Military Justice specifies court martial 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 the ability to communicate, .... ▶ this video
in “US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]” · View on HN
"Don't introduce yourself, act like you were in the room all along." This surely is a good advice from someone in the room greeting someone who just entered. It's called a protocol. Assume "hello" means something. ▶ this video
in “No hello – please don't just say hello in chat” · View on HN