7 ms·

The “three things” exercise for getting things out of talks (2011)

339 points by mutant_glofish 3y ago

quickthrower2 3y ago
Thats why I love that so much knowledge is on Youtube. You can go back in time. Speedup/Slowdown. Copy stuff from transcripts into your notes etc. The ideas in the article here still apply, but being 'late' is not a thing. Decent video + helpful chat community = all you need for Maths/CS stuff (below research level). You don't need university lectures where you need to madly cycle across campus to make it on time.
- pbj1968 3y ago
  Wanna know what I prefer? Clearly written, succinct instructions. So much knowledge is being frittered away in podcasts and “smash that like, follow, and subscribe” videos it almost keeps me awake at nights.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Yes I find I need to be fussy to avoid that kind of promo driven content. There is a place for both videos and written instructions. None is better.
    - GavinMcG 3y ago
      Assuming you meant "neither is better," I disagree. Text is far more susceptible to navigation—especially via searching, but also by way of formatting and hyperlinking. It also permits more flexible clipping, saving, or sharing. You're right to suggest that video can be a good replacement for in-person lectures. But it's a terrible replacement for a transcript or other way of publishing content in two dimensions rather than binding it to the progression of time.
      - wholinator2 3y ago
        Well i think that's what they're saying. Videos are better than text for a college lecture. The big up video has on text is... video. Moving pictures, animations, words at the same time as images. These are all things text cannot do or cannot do well. You are right that it's hard to look at a video and know what's in the whole thing but a portion of that is solved by table of contents/chapter navigation and its honestly good enough for me. I can't read a paper while doing the dishes or other necessary chores that have to be done, but i can watch or at least listen to a video or podcast. Each medium has its own benefits and i will state again, neither is better outright. You're entitled to your opinion. I've been working through an applied linear algebra textbook on my own this summer and have at multiple points encountered subjects that the book simply could not communicate to me well. I go search a video on the topic and find that the man who wrote the book also made video lectures from the time he released the book, so it's not like the book sucks and the videos are $100,000 dollar productions. If anything the book is ridiculously better produced than the videos. It's just him talking into what sounds like a crackly phone mic and drawing on pieces of paper under a bright but inconsistent light. But you know what, I'll be damned if those videos didn't make sense of every difficulty i had in the book. And it's explicitly the benefits of video, he shows the process while talking and there's no editing for brevity or page count, just the raw facts that come into his head as he progresses. It's so good that I've honestly switched to the videos for at least a chapter. I find they're more succinct and usable, and i learn much faster from them. And that's nowhere near a 3b1b level of video! Again, you're entitled to your opinion but i don't think the fact that you like books better gives you the ability to state the 'fact' that books are downright and unquestionably better than videos, podcasts, images, hell even vr some day maybe. Videos are also drastically more accessible. I can find videos on things that would cost me hundreds of dollars to get a comparable book on. It drastically lowers the barrier to learning and i think that's really important for children whose classrooms are not adequately challenging them
  - bongobingo1 3y ago
    I landed on a classic "32 pt typing into notepad tutorial" the other day. What a weird concept that was. I guess it was an artefact of having no other way to post text to a large community as a lay person.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Those have different goals, it's not an XOR.
  - _17sn 3y ago
    Videos are useful when they're 3blue1brown style taking advantage of the format. They're a waste of bandwidth when they read from a script with some footage/stock photography in the background.
    - curtisf 3y ago
      Even then, a lot of the video may not be useful to a particular audience. Being able to scroll past a sequence of short animations could be even more valuable -- especially because then you have the opportunity to include more optional branches via links or tabs or user preferences, and make the content even more accessible without making it excessively long for all audiences.
  - rkangel 3y ago
    I'm transitioning to Bitwarden. It seems great, but the "how to get going" content is all in a series of 5 minute Youtube videos. I just want some text to read!
  - jvanderbot 3y ago
    Written instructions are abysmal for woodworking or other mechanical tasks. I adore videos for home improvement. But yeah, I'd love written instructions with optional videos for each step.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "Decent video + helpful chat community = all you need for Maths/CS stuff" I used Youtube to learn a lot of CS stuff. As a side effect, I also feel like I now have a solid understanding of Hindi.
  - wholinator2 3y ago
    Yes, after working in the cs department with entirely international students from India or Nepal i learned to pick up on the speech patterns, grammar, and accent of the students. I don't do it but i learned once when challenged that i can do a near perfect Indian accent in English without ever having practiced. Also, i knew they were talking shit about basically everybody cause the managers and professors couldn't understand what they were saying. One time the group leader came up to me all concerned to ask if i knew hindi because i guess i was laughing at a few too many of their jokes. I just nonchalantly didn't answer to keep em on their toes lol.
- raincole 3y ago
  > Thats why I love that so much knowledge is on Youtube. You can go back in time. Speedup/Slowdown. Copy stuff from transcripts into your notes etc. Really? This is the exact reason I hate so much knowledge is on Youtube instead of text + figures.
  - BossingAround 3y ago
    That knowledge would never get to text if it wasn't for youtube.
  - mowse_winded 3y ago
    YouTube auto-generates captions. Even if it isn't perfect, being able to full text search those captions would be a huge benefit in discovery.
- mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
  Do you have good examples of where this knowledge is on yt? When I want to learn something like a woodworking technique video does help immensely to see someone do the physical thing they describe with the materials to get a level of understanding. Like oh that's how you position the wood on a jig to use your table saw like a jointer (an expensive tool I don't have). Rarely do I need to see the person/tools in play for anything software related. Text is king for me when learning things regarding computers. Granted I learned CS the old fashioned way, in a lecture hall before google existed. I imagine for beginners maybe getting down early concepts is easier with video?
ramraj07 3y ago
This seems like the opposite of why or how I would go for talks. Seminars are the biggest part of academic life I miss on the other side. Hearing smart people talk about genuinely interesting topics in great detail is not something you can see much in tech circles. After years of doing it I classified talks as of two types: first is where you know you want to listen to this person because that topic is already of great interest and you’re looking for the details. You already know how pluripotent stem cells came about but it was fun to hear Shinya Yamanaka describe the actual experiments and how they came about. Or perhaps it’s your competitors presenting their latest “ready to be public” findings where you’re trying to read between each line and dot in figures to guess what else they have up their sleeves they haven’t published yet. The second category is of talks where you have some interest or hook but that’s it. Maybe it’s a Nobel laureate (I can assure you most Nobel talks are the most boring and useless ones you can go to). Maybe it’s an obscure topic but has some interesting keyword that intrigued you. So you just go there. Perhaps you get totally captivated in that talk, perhaps you learn some nuggets of information that you never knew about, but perhaps worst of all you zone out quickly because it’s too arcane or boring. I still see the second category as the most rewarding. Maybe you’re bored in the talk, but that puts you in a place where you typically can’t leave, someone’s yapping and seeding your random thought generator with kernels of factoids that your imagination can run wild in. I often come out of these talks with other ideas only vaguely related. Some other times I’d have refined some of my own project ideas since I have nothing better to do. None of these trials and tribulations have anything to gain from a contrived exercise to jot three things down though.
- Dr_Birdbrain 3y ago
  I think this is more targeted at new graduate students. I remember when I first started my PhD, literally all of the talks were completely over my head, and I did not understand enough to engage as you describe here :) Gathering three key takeaways would already require a good deal of effort :) and, I appreciate that the author of this post absolves you of having to have the speaker’s message as a key takeaway, since as a beginner grad student that is frequently beyond reach.
  - 3y ago
sanj 3y ago
What a strangely small world – that's my cousin!
korginator 3y ago
This would never work for me. Sometimes I attend talks to look for specific information, which is often a lot more than three things. Sometimes I attend just to learn about a new subject, or for some inspiration. Often, it's not a talk but a dialogue, and many interesting points come up during the Q&A. If I needed answers for a specific point, I'd ask the question. Imposing such an artificial and rigid structure when attending a talk will stress me out, get me less, and turn me off. I still remember my student days when the best lectures or talks served to inspire, and I'd often dig deep into a subject because of that.
bdcravens 3y ago
I'd also add, photographing slides is not the same as writing things down. (especially if you're photographing every slide, to the degree where you're paying little attention to the speaker)
- vmurthy 3y ago
  > the same as writing things down Ah, I could go down this rabbit hole but (after a lot of trial and error), I have come to a (reasonably working) method. It's not enough to write down what you hear/see . I find it so much better to link what you write down to something you already know. That way, things tend to stick longer. Otherwise the notes are just that -- a random collection of things you have written down. No idea if they will ever surface in your memory.
  - bdcravens 3y ago
    I think that was the point of the article - actively listen and identify only 3 main points to write down.
jlev1 3y ago
Relevant context: it’s very hard to learn from research-level math talks, because the material is almost absurdly complicated even when presented well. This advice is for grad students who are often totally at sea as to how to get anything useful or real out of attending a math talk.
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  The point of attending those talks is to get a flavor of the area. To get a sense of the language the practitioners use, and how they reason about things. Perhaps what sort of results they consider important. These are incredibly important things, if you want to work within the social institution of academia. And of course, sometimes you are presented with a wonderful theorem, that just makes you open the book/paper and start seeing why it is true.
  - nohuck13 3y ago
    "To get a sense of the language the practitioners use, and how they reason about things." Isn't the article assuming you already are a practitioner?
    - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
      By practitioner I mean, you are one in your own research areas. And not in other areas of math. People in different areas of maths have radically different languages and ways of thinking about things. And subareas will develop their own ways of thinking and talking about things. If you are a young researcher, you almost certainly have to learn these, if you want to understand the area. A more mature researcher can be confident enough to understand the new area in their own language.
  - andirk 3y ago
    Much like cliffhangers in fiction, sciences should be taught this way as well. Cause the student to anxiously seek out what happens next. Some will, some won't. Those who do are the ones the program should want to keep.
naruhodo 3y ago
I am reminded of the Selective Attention Test. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
fastball 3y ago
For everyone saying "this doesn't work because I usually have more than three takeaways" – that is kinda covered in TFA. You write down more than three but are forced to only choose three, and this process of choosing three actually makes you remember the ones you "scratched out" better. It's a simple mindfulness hack.
- andirk 3y ago
  And possibly that you may not fully remember after the 3 but you got your feet wet on 4, 5, and 6 and voluntarily go back to notes and additional research to get it all.
marshray 3y ago
I've helped with giving a few talks and I guess I probably saw this page back in 2011, because "three things" has always been my guideline as well. I've noticed that the tendency for most folks giving technical presentations is to want to advance to a new slide every 30 - 60 seconds for their entire speaking slot - usually 25 to 50 minutes. Not practical. If, after its conclusion, most of the audience remembers just three important things then your talk will have been an unequivocal success! Sometimes less really is more.
totetsu 3y ago
I used to do this when I participated in Toastmasters, to give evaluations. While listening to the speaking members speech, just focus on getting and memorizing three things to give them feedback on.
dotancohen 3y ago
I most enjoy conversations that end with "Oh, and one more thing...". That style always gets right to the point and makes it in an irrefutable manner.
movedx 3y ago
As a YouTuber, I'm now wondering if I shouldn't focus on making sure people get at least three, and maybe only three, key take aways from my educational/opinion videos?
- swyx 3y ago
  yes probably? any more and it might as well be a separate video. with perhaps one mega recap video with everything stuck together for the view time
- impendia 3y ago
  As a research mathematician, who knows the author (Ravi Vakil) personally -- This advice is for the audience, not the speaker. (There's lots of good advice out there on how to give a talk, too!) If Ravi gave a seminar talk, and everyone listening wrote down their "three things", then I'm sure he would be delighted if everyone's note cards were different.
unsupp0rted 3y ago
> If you can get even three small things out of a talk, it is a successful talk. What a (necessarily) low bar, because talks are a lousy way to share knowledge
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
rob-fx 3y ago
[dead]
smartmic 3y ago
Several comments are about taking more than 3 things with you. For me it's the other way round, for me it's a success if I can keep ONE thing. And that's usually a new insight, something surprising, something I can link with other information, something inspiring... When I have taken part in a conference or a series of lectures, an aggregation or 'best of' selection takes place in my mind afterwards (this can also be only one point in the end) and the whole event was only a success for me if this 'one' thing can still be recalled days and weeks later.
- andirk 3y ago
  Can't say whether more or less is better, but I got a D grade in my Advanced Bio class in high school, then I retook that semester but did regular Biology. Got an A (maybe B+) and I remember almost everything from the regular class. Depth has its merits but it's not reasonable to expect the participant to retain all that knowledge. Let them come back for more once those few things they retained tickle their fancy!
hdivider 3y ago
I wonder: if we were more peripatetic about talks -- meaning, if we walked, in a group, rather than all sat down -- would we still struggle to get so much out of talks? We sit wayyyy too much in business and tech. There is not nearly enough movement. Yet our bodies are built for movement, not for sitting on our duffs for most of the day.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
distcs 3y ago
This was good. Short and sweet. I might start applying this 3-thing rule in meetings I attend. It'll be nice to have 3-point summaries of every meeting I attend.
nico 3y ago
Almost completely unrelated There is an exercise called three good things And it’s the challenge of thinking/naming/saying three good things About what? About anything So for example, if you want to be a bit more social, you can apply it to meeting someone As soon as you see them: think three good things about them or the moment The idea is to flex our “liking” muscles, which makes us feel good and we can actually develop a habit of triggering consciously
Aqueous 3y ago
thought this was "The 'three things' exercise for getting out of talks." I'd be very interested to read that article.

Thats why I love that so much knowledge is on Youtube. You can go back in time. Speedup/Slowdown. Copy stuff from transcripts into your notes etc. The ideas in the article here still apply, but being 'late' is not a thing. Decent video + helpful chat community = all you need for Maths/CS stuff (below research level). You don't need university lectures where you need to madly cycle across campus to make it on time.

pbj1968 3y ago
Wanna know what I prefer? Clearly written, succinct instructions. So much knowledge is being frittered away in podcasts and “smash that like, follow, and subscribe” videos it almost keeps me awake at nights.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Yes I find I need to be fussy to avoid that kind of promo driven content. There is a place for both videos and written instructions. None is better.
  - GavinMcG 3y ago
    Assuming you meant "neither is better," I disagree. Text is far more susceptible to navigation—especially via searching, but also by way of formatting and hyperlinking. It also permits more flexible clipping, saving, or sharing. You're right to suggest that video can be a good replacement for in-person lectures. But it's a terrible replacement for a transcript or other way of publishing content in two dimensions rather than binding it to the progression of time.
    - wholinator2 3y ago
      Well i think that's what they're saying. Videos are better than text for a college lecture. The big up video has on text is... video. Moving pictures, animations, words at the same time as images. These are all things text cannot do or cannot do well. You are right that it's hard to look at a video and know what's in the whole thing but a portion of that is solved by table of contents/chapter navigation and its honestly good enough for me. I can't read a paper while doing the dishes or other necessary chores that have to be done, but i can watch or at least listen to a video or podcast. Each medium has its own benefits and i will state again, neither is better outright. You're entitled to your opinion. I've been working through an applied linear algebra textbook on my own this summer and have at multiple points encountered subjects that the book simply could not communicate to me well. I go search a video on the topic and find that the man who wrote the book also made video lectures from the time he released the book, so it's not like the book sucks and the videos are $100,000 dollar productions. If anything the book is ridiculously better produced than the videos. It's just him talking into what sounds like a crackly phone mic and drawing on pieces of paper under a bright but inconsistent light. But you know what, I'll be damned if those videos didn't make sense of every difficulty i had in the book. And it's explicitly the benefits of video, he shows the process while talking and there's no editing for brevity or page count, just the raw facts that come into his head as he progresses. It's so good that I've honestly switched to the videos for at least a chapter. I find they're more succinct and usable, and i learn much faster from them. And that's nowhere near a 3b1b level of video! Again, you're entitled to your opinion but i don't think the fact that you like books better gives you the ability to state the 'fact' that books are downright and unquestionably better than videos, podcasts, images, hell even vr some day maybe. Videos are also drastically more accessible. I can find videos on things that would cost me hundreds of dollars to get a comparable book on. It drastically lowers the barrier to learning and i think that's really important for children whose classrooms are not adequately challenging them
- bongobingo1 3y ago
  I landed on a classic "32 pt typing into notepad tutorial" the other day. What a weird concept that was. I guess it was an artefact of having no other way to post text to a large community as a lay person.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Those have different goals, it's not an XOR.
- _17sn 3y ago
  Videos are useful when they're 3blue1brown style taking advantage of the format. They're a waste of bandwidth when they read from a script with some footage/stock photography in the background.
  - curtisf 3y ago
    Even then, a lot of the video may not be useful to a particular audience. Being able to scroll past a sequence of short animations could be even more valuable -- especially because then you have the opportunity to include more optional branches via links or tabs or user preferences, and make the content even more accessible without making it excessively long for all audiences.
- rkangel 3y ago
  I'm transitioning to Bitwarden. It seems great, but the "how to get going" content is all in a series of 5 minute Youtube videos. I just want some text to read!
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  Written instructions are abysmal for woodworking or other mechanical tasks. I adore videos for home improvement. But yeah, I'd love written instructions with optional videos for each step.
JimtheCoder 3y ago
"Decent video + helpful chat community = all you need for Maths/CS stuff" I used Youtube to learn a lot of CS stuff. As a side effect, I also feel like I now have a solid understanding of Hindi.
- wholinator2 3y ago
  Yes, after working in the cs department with entirely international students from India or Nepal i learned to pick up on the speech patterns, grammar, and accent of the students. I don't do it but i learned once when challenged that i can do a near perfect Indian accent in English without ever having practiced. Also, i knew they were talking shit about basically everybody cause the managers and professors couldn't understand what they were saying. One time the group leader came up to me all concerned to ask if i knew hindi because i guess i was laughing at a few too many of their jokes. I just nonchalantly didn't answer to keep em on their toes lol.
raincole 3y ago
> Thats why I love that so much knowledge is on Youtube. You can go back in time. Speedup/Slowdown. Copy stuff from transcripts into your notes etc. Really? This is the exact reason I hate so much knowledge is on Youtube instead of text + figures.
- BossingAround 3y ago
  That knowledge would never get to text if it wasn't for youtube.
- mowse_winded 3y ago
  YouTube auto-generates captions. Even if it isn't perfect, being able to full text search those captions would be a huge benefit in discovery.
mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
Do you have good examples of where this knowledge is on yt? When I want to learn something like a woodworking technique video does help immensely to see someone do the physical thing they describe with the materials to get a level of understanding. Like oh that's how you position the wood on a jig to use your table saw like a jointer (an expensive tool I don't have). Rarely do I need to see the person/tools in play for anything software related. Text is king for me when learning things regarding computers. Granted I learned CS the old fashioned way, in a lecture hall before google existed. I imagine for beginners maybe getting down early concepts is easier with video?

ramraj07 3y ago

This seems like the opposite of why or how I would go for talks. Seminars are the biggest part of academic life I miss on the other side. Hearing smart people talk about genuinely interesting topics in great detail is not something you can see much in tech circles. After years of doing it I classified talks as of two types: first is where you know you want to listen to this person because that topic is already of great interest and you’re looking for the details. You already know how pluripotent stem cells came about but it was fun to hear Shinya Yamanaka describe the actual experiments and how they came about. Or perhaps it’s your competitors presenting their latest “ready to be public” findings where you’re trying to read between each line and dot in figures to guess what else they have up their sleeves they haven’t published yet. The second category is of talks where you have some interest or hook but that’s it. Maybe it’s a Nobel laureate (I can assure you most Nobel talks are the most boring and useless ones you can go to). Maybe it’s an obscure topic but has some interesting keyword that intrigued you. So you just go there. Perhaps you get totally captivated in that talk, perhaps you learn some nuggets of information that you never knew about, but perhaps worst of all you zone out quickly because it’s too arcane or boring. I still see the second category as the most rewarding. Maybe you’re bored in the talk, but that puts you in a place where you typically can’t leave, someone’s yapping and seeding your random thought generator with kernels of factoids that your imagination can run wild in. I often come out of these talks with other ideas only vaguely related. Some other times I’d have refined some of my own project ideas since I have nothing better to do. None of these trials and tribulations have anything to gain from a contrived exercise to jot three things down though.

Dr_Birdbrain 3y ago
I think this is more targeted at new graduate students. I remember when I first started my PhD, literally all of the talks were completely over my head, and I did not understand enough to engage as you describe here :) Gathering three key takeaways would already require a good deal of effort :) and, I appreciate that the author of this post absolves you of having to have the speaker’s message as a key takeaway, since as a beginner grad student that is frequently beyond reach.
- 3y ago

sanj 3y ago

What a strangely small world – that's my cousin!

korginator 3y ago

This would never work for me. Sometimes I attend talks to look for specific information, which is often a lot more than three things. Sometimes I attend just to learn about a new subject, or for some inspiration. Often, it's not a talk but a dialogue, and many interesting points come up during the Q&A. If I needed answers for a specific point, I'd ask the question. Imposing such an artificial and rigid structure when attending a talk will stress me out, get me less, and turn me off. I still remember my student days when the best lectures or talks served to inspire, and I'd often dig deep into a subject because of that.

bdcravens 3y ago

I'd also add, photographing slides is not the same as writing things down. (especially if you're photographing every slide, to the degree where you're paying little attention to the speaker)

vmurthy 3y ago
> the same as writing things down Ah, I could go down this rabbit hole but (after a lot of trial and error), I have come to a (reasonably working) method. It's not enough to write down what you hear/see . I find it so much better to link what you write down to something you already know. That way, things tend to stick longer. Otherwise the notes are just that -- a random collection of things you have written down. No idea if they will ever surface in your memory.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  I think that was the point of the article - actively listen and identify only 3 main points to write down.

jlev1 3y ago

Relevant context: it’s very hard to learn from research-level math talks, because the material is almost absurdly complicated even when presented well. This advice is for grad students who are often totally at sea as to how to get anything useful or real out of attending a math talk.

abdullahkhalids 3y ago
The point of attending those talks is to get a flavor of the area. To get a sense of the language the practitioners use, and how they reason about things. Perhaps what sort of results they consider important. These are incredibly important things, if you want to work within the social institution of academia. And of course, sometimes you are presented with a wonderful theorem, that just makes you open the book/paper and start seeing why it is true.
- nohuck13 3y ago
  "To get a sense of the language the practitioners use, and how they reason about things." Isn't the article assuming you already are a practitioner?
  - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
    By practitioner I mean, you are one in your own research areas. And not in other areas of math. People in different areas of maths have radically different languages and ways of thinking about things. And subareas will develop their own ways of thinking and talking about things. If you are a young researcher, you almost certainly have to learn these, if you want to understand the area. A more mature researcher can be confident enough to understand the new area in their own language.
- andirk 3y ago
  Much like cliffhangers in fiction, sciences should be taught this way as well. Cause the student to anxiously seek out what happens next. Some will, some won't. Those who do are the ones the program should want to keep.

naruhodo 3y ago

I am reminded of the Selective Attention Test. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

fastball 3y ago

For everyone saying "this doesn't work because I usually have more than three takeaways" – that is kinda covered in TFA. You write down more than three but are forced to only choose three, and this process of choosing three actually makes you remember the ones you "scratched out" better. It's a simple mindfulness hack.

andirk 3y ago
And possibly that you may not fully remember after the 3 but you got your feet wet on 4, 5, and 6 and voluntarily go back to notes and additional research to get it all.

marshray 3y ago

I've helped with giving a few talks and I guess I probably saw this page back in 2011, because "three things" has always been my guideline as well. I've noticed that the tendency for most folks giving technical presentations is to want to advance to a new slide every 30 - 60 seconds for their entire speaking slot - usually 25 to 50 minutes. Not practical. If, after its conclusion, most of the audience remembers just three important things then your talk will have been an unequivocal success! Sometimes less really is more.

totetsu 3y ago

I used to do this when I participated in Toastmasters, to give evaluations. While listening to the speaking members speech, just focus on getting and memorizing three things to give them feedback on.

dotancohen 3y ago

I most enjoy conversations that end with "Oh, and one more thing...". That style always gets right to the point and makes it in an irrefutable manner.

movedx 3y ago

As a YouTuber, I'm now wondering if I shouldn't focus on making sure people get at least three, and maybe only three, key take aways from my educational/opinion videos?

swyx 3y ago
yes probably? any more and it might as well be a separate video. with perhaps one mega recap video with everything stuck together for the view time
impendia 3y ago
As a research mathematician, who knows the author (Ravi Vakil) personally -- This advice is for the audience, not the speaker. (There's lots of good advice out there on how to give a talk, too!) If Ravi gave a seminar talk, and everyone listening wrote down their "three things", then I'm sure he would be delighted if everyone's note cards were different.

unsupp0rted 3y ago

> If you can get even three small things out of a talk, it is a successful talk. What a (necessarily) low bar, because talks are a lousy way to share knowledge

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

rob-fx 3y ago

[dead]

smartmic 3y ago

Several comments are about taking more than 3 things with you. For me it's the other way round, for me it's a success if I can keep ONE thing. And that's usually a new insight, something surprising, something I can link with other information, something inspiring... When I have taken part in a conference or a series of lectures, an aggregation or 'best of' selection takes place in my mind afterwards (this can also be only one point in the end) and the whole event was only a success for me if this 'one' thing can still be recalled days and weeks later.

andirk 3y ago
Can't say whether more or less is better, but I got a D grade in my Advanced Bio class in high school, then I retook that semester but did regular Biology. Got an A (maybe B+) and I remember almost everything from the regular class. Depth has its merits but it's not reasonable to expect the participant to retain all that knowledge. Let them come back for more once those few things they retained tickle their fancy!

hdivider 3y ago

I wonder: if we were more peripatetic about talks -- meaning, if we walked, in a group, rather than all sat down -- would we still struggle to get so much out of talks? We sit wayyyy too much in business and tech. There is not nearly enough movement. Yet our bodies are built for movement, not for sitting on our duffs for most of the day.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

distcs 3y ago

This was good. Short and sweet. I might start applying this 3-thing rule in meetings I attend. It'll be nice to have 3-point summaries of every meeting I attend.

nico 3y ago

Almost completely unrelated There is an exercise called three good things And it’s the challenge of thinking/naming/saying three good things About what? About anything So for example, if you want to be a bit more social, you can apply it to meeting someone As soon as you see them: think three good things about them or the moment The idea is to flex our “liking” muscles, which makes us feel good and we can actually develop a habit of triggering consciously

Aqueous 3y ago

thought this was "The 'three things' exercise for getting out of talks." I'd be very interested to read that article.