Lectures have a bad rap. For many people, a lecture can only be 2 things: 1) a long boring class which is meant to be skipped 2) a common method used by adults to punish children.
While most lectures do fall in these categories, some lectures and speeches are pretty damn good. So good, in fact, that I would watch them in my free time. Hopefully, this article will lead you to do the same. In the past, I have posted a few of my favorites:
The Steve Jobs Speech still gets me.
The late Randy Pausch also had a couple of classics.
Here are 2 sites which have lots of great lectures and talks:
TED is a site which is dedicated to “Spreading Ideas” by sharing great talks from some truly great minds. TED , which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, has a collection of presentations which were taped at their conferences. Speakers include Bill Gates, Frank Gehry, Bill Clinton, Bono, and many others who have risen to the top of their respective fields.
Jill Bolte Taylor’s delivers one of the most popular Ted Talks. Is that a real human brain?!
Here is a cool presentation on the Bump Desktop. Perhaps the next big thing in Personal Computers?
Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point author) also breaks down the food science behind spaghetti sauce and the pychology of consumers.
Another great site is Google Videos…duh. More specifically, the Googleplex (previously known as Google Tech Talks). There are tons of talks which range from the insanely technical Tech Talks to the life lessons of Google Authors and entrepreneurs. Some speakers of note include: Salman Rushdie, Barrack Obama, John McCain, Noam Chomsky, and plenty of really smart people who only google can attract. These are less entertaining than the TED Talks, but there are many more talks which tend to be more specialized.
Unpretentious wine snob, Gary Vaynerchuk, talks about wine and the success of his webcast.
Here, Garr Reynolds gives a thoughtful presentation on …thoughtful presentations. He also has some great insights on desgin.
I guess the moral of the article is that lectures are only punishment if the speaker makes them so. Lucky for bad presenters, because even bad public speaking can be saved by compelling content, but it is still slightly painful to watch. If the the talks on the sites mentioned above don’t tickle your fancy, there are still plenty of other great speeches covering many topics. If you find some online, add them as comments to this article.
Tags: Entertainment · Speeches · Videos · Websites ·
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