Letters Remain

Category: speaking

  • Randy Pausch Lectures

    By now I’m sure everyone has watched, listened to, or at the very least heard of, Randy Pausch’s lecture Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams which he gave at Carnegie Mellon University a year ago today (the lecture is more commonly referred to as The Last Lecture). Since then I’ve watched two more speeches by Pausch…

  • 10 Speech Writing Tips from Lincoln

    Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is arguably one of the most quoted, and one of the most famous, speeches in history. This two-minute, ten-sentence speech can teach us a lot about how to write a great speech. Keep it short Abandon the formalities Have purpose Connect to your audience’s hearts Speak to larger truths Speak to…

  • Ten Secrets to Giving a Good Scientific Talk

    Browsing the MIT OpenCourseWare’s Laboratory in Cognitive Science entry, I came across a paper on giving effective scientific talks. Prepare your material carefully and logically Practice your talk Don’t put in too much material Avoid equations Have only a few conclusion points Talk to the audience not to the screen Avoid making distracting sounds Polish…

  • World’s Best Presentation Contest

    In 2007 it was Shift Happens, closely followed by Meet Henry and The Sustainable Food Lab. What will win The World’s Best Presentation Contest of 2008?

  • Quantum Physics Made (Relatively) Easy

    Quantum Physics Made Relatively Easy: In 1999, legendary theoretical physicist Hans Bethe delivered three lectures on quantum theory to his neighbors at the Kendal of Ithaca retirement community (near Cornell University). Given by Professor Bethe at age 93, the lectures are presented here as QuickTime videos synchronized with slides of his talking points and archival…

  • Top Speeches and Motivational Videos

    American Rhetoric is a “speech bank” holding over 5,000 full text, audio and video on some of the most famous speeches, lectures, debates and interviews of all time. Recently they released a list of the top 100 speeches in American 20th century politics (complete with transcript and audio). Martin Luther King, Jr. – “I Have…

  • Great Speeches: Oprah and Obama

    A couple of speeches currently getting rave reviews: Oprah’s Stanford Commencement, 2008 Barack Obama’s Father’s Day Speech, Chicago Stanford always seem to nail that commencement speech. via Ramit’s del.icio.us links and 37signals’ Signal vs. Noise

  • 2008 Reith Lectures – Chinese Vistas

    If you haven’t yet discovered, the 2008 Reith Lectures are currently under way over at BBC Radio 4. This year they are being held by Jonathan Spence – a specialist in Chinese history – and the first two lectures have been on the topics of Confucius and UK-China relations.

  • Randall Munroe (of xkcd) Visits Google

    I absolutely, positively, know I’ve written about this and I would bet my life savings that I posted it, but alas I cannot find it anywhere. Every-so-slightly delayed (months later!), here’s what happened when Randall Munroe (of xkcd fame) was invited to Google – he also gave an Authors@Google talk. More Googleplex videos here, including…

  • Presentation Masterclass

    LifeHack has just started what I hope will become an informative and useful series entitled Presentation Masterclass, courtesy of Rowan Manahan. Audiences are so deluged with advertising messages and radio jingles, with phone calls, voicemail, email, SMS and IM, with… stuff in their personal lives that unless you, the presenter, are wowing them with every…