Category Archives: Professional Development

The Future of Online Education is Now – Online courses from Harvard,MIT, etc

Personal Development, Professional Development,

I stumbled upon edX quite accidentally. One of my very respected LinkedIn contacts shared a link about an online course on the topic ” The Challenges of Global Poverty” by MIT and highly recommended it. I got hooked to this concept and explored “edX” further. What did I learn?

– edX is an initiative by MIT and Harvard

– Free online courses are offered by the edX consortium, comprising of some of the best schools in the world(including Berkley, Cornell, IIT Bombay)

– The courses are spread over 10-12 weeks(approximately)

– Certificates are given to those whose grades are above a certain threshold.

I liked the idea of “continuing education” and enrolled for the course on Global Poverty. It started off well, but at one point, I was not able to dedicate enough time for it and had to drop out. But I learned a lot of new things, and got more confident about completing an online course by managing my time better. Last month, I registered for another course, this time by the University of Texas, Austin on the subject ” Energy 101″ . The course has begun and this time, I am enjoying it more. I have already enrolled for my third course and have plans to learn things I never had the chance to study, like – ” Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge and Consciousness”  by MITx, ” The Ancient Greek Hero” by Harvardx, etc…

Want to know more about edX and the courses? Click here , here and watch the video below.

Epic Fail…

Professional Development

“Epic Fail” – This is what Seth Godin calls his first speech in front of an audience 40 years ago. Coming from someone who is hailed as a masterful public speaker, this gave me a mild surprise. I am saying mild, because Seth is not the first one to have started off as a poor speaker. Winston Churchill had an even worse problem, a lisp, and he would rehearse his speech several times before delivering it.

The bigger point is that such initial failures are inevitable. Let Seth have the last word

“It (the first speech) was an epic fail. Friends and relatives agreed that I wasn’t engaged or engaging, certainly a performance not to be repeated.

I ignored the part about not repeating it, but I definitely learned some valuable lessons about confidence and engagement.

Just about anything worth doing is worth doing better, which means, of course, that (at least at first) there will be failure. That’s not a problem (in the long run), it’s merely a step along the way.

If you’re not willing to get your ‘worst one ever’ out of the way, how will you possibly do better than that?”

PS : Want to know why Seth is considered a great public speaker? Click on the video below.

Steve Jobs And Presentation Skills

Professional Development, , , , ,

In a span of one week, Steve Jobs caught my attention twice. First, it was through a link of a YouTube video of Jobs’ speech at Stanford and the second, through  a recent Businessweek article.

In the first case, one of my friends tweeted about Steve Jobs’ commencement address in 2005. The first time I came across this speech was 2 years back and at that time, I read the transcript but hadn’t seen the video. Here is beginning of the transcript

“I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.” You can continue to read here.

The speech had simple language, was engaging and had some of Jobs’ powerful personal stories. Needless to say, I felt very inspired after reading it and had a great “feel good” experience.

A few weeks later, I got the chance to watch the video of the speech. Here it is.(I suggest you read the full text before watching the video).

The first thing I felt after watching the video was a sense of disappointment. The content was the same but the style of presentation was nothing extraordinary. For most part, it looked like Jobs was just reading the text without really looking engaged. The high expectations, derived from the text of the speech and also Jobs’ reputation as one of the best presenters in the world, obviously  led to this disappointment. It showed that great prose does not necessarily make great speech. I was left wondering, why did this happen? At that time,I could not analyse deeper . But now, I got the answers from the Businessweek article that I had mentioned earlier.

The article is about a book, “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” and it highlights the reasons why Jobs is such a great presenter. Watch the slideshow here to see what the author has to say. The author also has a video on the subject.

If you have watched this video, you will see why Jobs’ speech at Stanford was a letdown. He was just reading the text, he was not able to use his body effectively because of the gown, he had no visual aids and he was speaking outdoors on a sunny(hot?) day. It was also not a product launch but a commencement address, but most importantly, he was just recovering after a cancer surgery. That explains the relatively low stage presence and the energy level. If anything, it shows some of things that one should try to avoid while making a speech.

If you haven’t seen how the presentation of the real Steve Jobs’ look like, here are a few videos for you.  I am sure each of us can learn something from it. Enjoy the videos.