[sheensleeves]

I am learning public speaking, now that school is all over.

It turns out that my first speeches weren't very good. I didn't understand that writing and speaking are different. When it clicked, I wrote: "I have deciphered the master key to public speaking: use Vanity (idolz) or Pride (topic translatable to lowest common denominator), but not Envy (my endeavors)."

So in my opinion, TED by nature of being oral presentations would skew away from the dry wit, and piercing insight of writing.

[saraid216]

Honestly... you haven't learned public speaking. Watch any widely-acclaimed comedian and tell me there's any lack of dry wit and piercing insight. Those routines are speeches. Pick one that you like and dissect it to see how it works.

There's two giant components to public speaking: (1) not freezing up and (2) successfully communicating what you want to communicate. Well, really, those are the two components to any form of communication. For most people, this is circular: they freeze up because they don't think they can communicate, and they can't communicate because they freeze up: so learning public speaking is a matter of breaking that cycle on either end.

Your speeches are good if you got your message across. Sometimes that requires getting a laugh. Sometimes that requires a plot twist to make them reconsider. Sometimes that only requires reciting the facts without embellishment. It depends on your audience and your relation to them. A "master key" that doesn't recognize that you can't give the same speech to a group of 5 year olds that you gave to a group of Nobel laureates is useless.

[seanmcdirmid]

When you get more experienced at speaking, you can get back to dry wit and piercing insight. It is difficult, but I find TED to be very bland compared to the talks I'm used to watching.

[dwiel]

And which talks are those?

[seanmcdirmid]

I'm in the PL community, so talks by people like Gilad Bracha, Richard Gabriel, Guy Steele, Dave Thomas (the OTI founder), Christina Lopes, Simon Peyton Jones are really good. I saw a Bret Victor talk that wasn't really bad either, with lots of wit, though he seems to be a bit more subdued than I'm used to (which is fine, it is important to stay real to yourself as a speaker). I'm sure I'm missing many people in the list of good speakers.

Also, James Mickens in the systems community (and also a colleague at MSR) is really good. He tends to go off the wall a bit more, but that is just part of his rhythm.

[mvkel]

You think this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GPpYseUZck is more exciting than a TED talk?

I guess it's subjective...

The point of TED talks isn't that they're supposed to have a stand-up comedian's level of presentation skill. It's about captains of industry talking about their slice of the world.