Excellent tips! Some observations as someone whose role entails lots of public speaking, and the driver of a presentation training initiative for technical professionals at my org:
It's strangely embedded deep into his notes and presentation, but preparation is crucial. Practice your talk in front of others, as the author says, or at least rehearse it out loud to yourself. A big mistake I've seen technical professionals make is over-focusing on the content, structure, and detail, and leaving too little time/energy to actually practice their talk. I guarantee you'll find something to fix / add / remove when you hear your presentation out loud. Bonus points if you actually record yourself practicing and review it afterward. This is THE single best bang-for-your-buck practice for improving your presentation skills.
He's right about evaluations. You almost always receive contradictory feedback. A few weeks back I read the evals after running a workshop. One person said (paraphrasing) it was "too long, maybe shorten from 2 hours to just 1." Another said "too short, this could easily have been 4-6 hours." Other examples abound. The reason one person enjoys your presentation might be the exact reason someone else hates it.
Sure, some presenters are too slow. But many - especially inexperienced or nervous presenters - rush through their talk at breakneck speed. Both are equally sinful. If you have a tendency to rush, practice pausing periodically and don't litter the empty space with filler words ("uh," "so," "y'know," etc.). Embrace the silence. Audiences interpret that comfort with silence as authoritative, not incompetent.
Plant a friend in the front row so you can look at them and see a friendly face? I can see people misinterpreting this advice to mean "just stare at your friendly-looking friend for your whole presentation." Maybe it'll help for your first few talks, but it could become a bit of a crutch. Scan the room and address individual attendees as if you're having a conversation with them directly. Watch for their reactions (or lack thereof). Expect people to look annoyed, bored, etc. If you expect it, it's less likely to throw you off. More often than not, that's just how their face looks.
He's right about "geeks" reacting adversely to suits. I wore a suit to run something for our technology group's leadership team, and within the first five minutes they were busting me about it. Know your audience. That includes knowing what manner of dress they expect, but also what they might know/don't know about your topic, why they might care, etc.
The goal was to deliver advice that wasn't so widely available. "Practice beforehand" is something you can hear a lot of places. "Don't jingle your coins" and "watch the cake schedule" are rare advice.
I think it's interesting that the author writes extensively here about the relationship between hierarchical rank and income without mentioning the actual trait that most reliably predicts the ascension of hierarchies: ambition.
I've written about this trait before (1) and was expecting it to be explored with the mention of "trait" in the title (which typically refers to temperament or personality). More ambitious people consistently pursue roles that beget status, authority, and income opportunity. Ambition, which is a combination of traits in itself, reliably predicts actual outcomes like educational achievement, the pursuit of more prestigious occupations, career advancement, work output (per the author's mention of working full time vs part time), etc. While the research on ambition is admittedly fragmentary, it's safe to say there is more than purely an economic angle to this conversation.
I've seen ambitious people that are also competent, and I have seen ambitious people that are are not very competent. It is hard to work with the latter kind. It's usually a lot easier to work with grumpy but competent people who actually have some realism. If they say something, it's worth listening.
In a working meritocratic organization, competence is recognized and rewarded. Competent people have a lot of projects that they can choose from. Competent people want to work in meritocratic organizations. They can switch jobs until they find one. Organizations with a lot of competence tend to do well. Owning stock for example then becomes quite profitable.
So maybe it's not all about ambition or climbing the ladder...
I am painfully technical and throughout in what I do and this has me pushed up the ladder usually against my will. My company wild prime me without telling :)
I hate management (and am bomber about that) so I always had a tiny tell and was happy to oblige of someone in said y'all wanted to make and go that path (two successfully did)
I am now an SVP in a very large European company and remind everyone that there is supposed to be a "technical ladder" for people that "lack ambition in management" (said my teenage son about me, he just does not understand how I can mis such opportunities).
Ambition for me is to coach people and always understand what they are saying. Or help to promote the good ones, or help some to realize that management is a pain in the ass when I realize that they are like me (just 30 years younger).
Ambition is not always to get a better sounding title or be closer to the CEO.
Do you have any non-anecdotal information to support this theory?
It's definitely within reason to reframe ambition as "willingness to take risks to advance oneself." In which case your theory might be suffering from survivors bias. Given a number of people pursuing ambitious agendas the average and median results could be anywhere on the map but you would still have an outsized representation within "people who ascended hierarchies".
There is also a good amount of literature around "achievement motivation," which in many cases is a surrogate term for ambition in the research context although the argument can be made that they are not completely synonymous. However they generally reach the same conclusions. Also the underlying causal factors related to ambition - high conscientiousness and extraversion, low neuroticism, higher general mental ability, etc. - predict higher achievement outcomes in research as well.
The propositions in the article are good, although the tips proposed by the Center for Humane Technology [1] are much more tactical (they are apparently mentioned in the audio version, but I only read the article).
Also, as a complete aside, I'm not sure if the third passage [2] in the article is facetious or what, but I'm always surprised to see credibility-destroying statements like these in legitimate publications. In this day and age readers have to be ruthlessly efficient in discerning reliable information/advice from nonsense. They are on the lookout for any reason to abandon articles and content to avoid wasting valuable time and attention. There is an old direct-response copywriting dictum: "The purpose of each sentence is to get the next sentence read." The aforementioned passage does the opposite, even though the subsequent tips are pretty good.
Wholeheartedly agree. As you read, you'll notice yourself noticing - you're consciously processing the narrative but also semi-consciously reflecting on how the narrative is delivered. You wonder what made that line stick out, what made that dialogue feel authentic, what made that description compelling.
It's like a casual fan watching MMA vs someone who practices martial arts. You attend not only to WHAT is done but HOW it is done, and what it means to be able to do it. You move beyond merely witnessing and start analyzing, learning, and appreciating.
Here's something I've experimented with that I don't see recommended often - In similar circumstances, I'll leverage both the book and audiobook. This way when I'm on the move, I can pick up the audio version where I left off and keep the momentum going.
Downside is you invest a small amount of time syncing between the two sources, and there might be additional cost associated.
Upside is you gain more cumulative reading time, and it keeps things interesting by adding variability and a new dimension to the experience.
I have a very hard time absorbing audiobooks. When I read, I often stop and follow the train of thought that a particular passage has begun in my brain before then proceeding on with the reading. I automatically do the same thing with an audiobook, but by doing that I miss content because the audio continues while I'm thinking and I don't pay attention to it. Sure, I could stop and start the audio, but I typically don't realize I'm even doing it until I realize I've missed a portion of the audio.
I have to admit, I agree. I have friends that plow through audiobooks, but I don't absorb them well either. I like them for fiction, which I personally read for pleasure and don't analyze as closely as nonfiction, and to act as a bridge between print reading sessions. I've also found listening to podcasts sort of 'trains' your mind to attend more closely to long-form audio.
Yes! Audiobooks have been a godsend for me. I "read" a few of those a year, but I read essentially no books anymore. Unfortunately, I find that the type of book that works via audio is more limited than the full range of books. For instance I really can't read technical books that way. I also find I don't enjoy more literary books that way, for some reason. But I listen to quite a lot of sci-fi and non-technical non-fiction, like history and biographies and ... whatever you call mass market sociology / economics / self help type books (like Thinking Fast and Slow - pop-sci I guess?).
For anyone even vaguely familiar with audio engineering and recording, these tactics are not profound. Not a bad thing because in the end, less is more.
Worth mentioning that a good mic is arguably the 20% input that contributes to 80%+ of the output/audio quality, as supported by the article.
#6 is really the only non-obvious point. Apparently this is a major subject of debate.
1.) If you can afford it, use the Neumann U87 mic (~$3.5k)
2.) High pass filter (~250hz) on the vocal chain
3.) To avoid plosives, don't speak head-on into the mic. Speak off the side, on a diagonal. Use a pop filter.
4.) Design your studio to minimize reverberation. Make sure the recording space is isolated and there "aren't a lot of solid walls." Absorb sound with baffles, sound panels, etc. Counterintuitively, a larger room with more diffusion is better than the opposite.
5.) Minimize ambient sound. Your mic will pick up everything from fans to CPUs to electronic interference off computer screens. This noise will muddy up the recording.
6.) Minimize processing or compression of the signal before streaming, or in the case of radio, sending to the satellite.
BBC Radio 3 uses no dynamic range compression, so might be most comparable to NPR (although it's likely that each local station applies a ton of compression before the signal hits the air).
Most (other) radio stations apply copious amounts of multiband dynamic range compression on their output - with the nickname of "sausage-making", since the process turns waveforms that look like music into waveforms that look like sausages. In the FM days, louder sounding stations were associated with better signals, so got bigger market share...
250Hz high pass seems too high for male voices in the baritone or bass range. And depending on whether the female in question is more of an alto vs soprano 250Hz might still be too high.
The cheap Behringer mixer I use for voice chat, karaoke and so on has a selectable 80Hz high-pass filter, I can't remember ever switching it off on the vocal channels, except to parody that Howard Stern-esque huge bottom end with heavy compression radio host thing.
Using a decent microphone (AKG D5 in my case) and a little bit of tweaking (just a low cut and some compression is a good start) instantly puts your sound quality in voice chats so far above everyone else using cheap headsets or their laptops' built-in mics.
Anecdotally I've found that sounding more authoritative makes people listen a lot more to what you say, instead of zoning out.
It's not a hard cut off, it's an attenuation. If you set the room up right, it should basically undo the proximity effect so you getting something closer to how you would actually hear that persons voice.
Of course if you had it on and were further away from the mic, you'd thin out lower voices. Just goes to show micing people (or instruments) isn't entirely straightforward.
It depends on how close the speaker is. Getting that close creates a large proximity effect. The rolloff filter starts at 1k actually but is around -10db at 150hz [0]. I wouldn't use it unless one is close to eating the microphone.
Without knowing anything about your personal situation, my specific advice will have little value. A better exercise would be this:
Imagine you could have a half-hour conversation with yourself 10 years from now. Once you're done with the "what stock is about to blow up?" and "who will win the world series?" questions, what advice would you seek? What do you think Older You would say in response? Bonus points for journaling it out.[1]
I've found this exercise especially valuable for certain problems and goals. You can draw some pretty remarkable insights by separating from the emotions of the current moment and reframing your perspective.
As a non-technical professional (yes we also peruse HN), I can't stress enough the value of having career conversations early and often with your manager. It's not just HR mumbo-jumbo. OP's story is just one example of a potential benefit.
Most organizations actively try to support internal mobility (admittedly with varied success). Companies invest resources in hiring, training, and keeping you. Your manager, as a representative of the company, is wise to amicably transfer an unsatisfied employee to another part of the organization. And as a human being, they probably want to see you engaged and happy at work, even if it means losing you to another team. Plus in this example, OP was a high performer and had already shown initiative, putting in legwork to upskill themselves for the new role. Demonstrated value/performance and initiative are always helpful when asking for something of your employer.
Don't be dissuaded by cynical examples to the contrary - those who told their manager about other interests and suddenly and inexplicably got fired. Remember there are two sides to every story - for example, maybe they were underperforming and disengaged for a long time, and then randomly raised the question after their manager reached a breaking point? They won't share that in their post. Also remember availability bias - just because we see these people complaining on forums or "know a guy" doesn't mean it happens frequently enough in real life to be seriously concerned.
In the end you'd be surprised what you accomplish by simply talking to your manager early and often, having general conversations about potential aspirations and leaving the door open for them to say "How can I help?"
I don't know. For a sufficiently large change, it isn't necessarily in your company's best interest to try to keep you happy. You have banked knowledge and skill in X. You have limited skill in Y but wish to learn. The loss of some fraction of X is always going to hurt the company more than your gain in Y will benefit them, so they are going to try to keep you doing as much of X as possible for as long as possible. If they were to let you switch to Y, they'd have to have already needed a junior person there, and they will now have to replace the person doing X. Maybe this is a small vs large company thing, but I think it is entirely possible to "typecast" yourself into a corner such that the best thing you can do if you want to pivot is jump ship.
In addition to what other responders have said, another factor is that if you're a top (or better than average) performer in X, then the default assumption will be that you'll be a top (or better than average) performer in Y, given some time to ramp on Y.
That may or may not be true, of course, but it's an element in your favor either way!
(though fwiw, in my time as a past manager, I found that significant effort counted for a lot - it's cliche but folks who consistently put in extra effort and worked their butts off improved faster than those who relaxed, so they would soon exceed folks who relaxed, even if they had much less of a head start.)
> it isn't necessarily in your company's best interest to try to keep you happy
This is true -- but your manager won't always act in your company's exact best interest either! I do think "management are human beings, too" is pretty important to remember.
> The loss of some fraction of X is always going to hurt the company more than your gain in Y will benefit them
I don't think you can assume this is always true. What if X is jQuery and Y is Typescript? Or X is oldLegacyCodebase and Y is newProjectInBurgeoningField?
In some cases, probably. But in others, bringing your knowledge of X into the team that does Y can be quite valuable. Consider the case of a former product manager who knows very well what the customers need from the product, and how they use it, and now also understands the code and dev process - any dev team can really use someone like that. A subject matter expert, someone who knows the industry, designer, or whatever, can bring a lot of value to a different role.
And understanding what you're interested in. In spite of having an MBA, which has been at least somewhat useful (if only for being nearly a requirement for a somewhat different than today PM at the time), I've never had a great passion for managing people. And a semi-tech IC track has been fine for me through various iterations. And I've also done OK--at least enough--largely sticking with companies for many years. There are probably other paths that would have led to bigger paydays (or not) but I've been fine.
I started a niche menswear business while working FT almost five years ago.
I've made plenty of mistakes. It has evolved tremendously over time. It's now almost completely passive, and by adjusting a few levers could be profitable. But it does not - and likely will not - have scale. It also has vulnerabilities that I "can't" (read: won't) address while also working FT.
So it's hard to say objectively whether it's successful. But as a learning experience it has been worth its weight in gold. The diverse hard and soft skills you accumulate in the course of keeping your side hustle afloat while spending minimal money are endlessly valuable. Most of them come from learning the hard way. But that's what makes them stick. I've applied some of these skills and lessons learned to newer projects with positive results.
A few takeaways:
1.) If you can sift through the mountains of B.S., there is extremely high-quality, free content available to learn about building and scaling startups (e.g. YC Startup School, books, etc.). So not knowing what to do, per se, is not the issue. The real issue is knowing what hard-but-necessary things you should probably do, but not doing them.
2.) So, about those hard-but-necessary things. Working a "day job" and coming home to your side business can be exhausting. This exhaustion can further discourage you from doing the necessary things to grow your startup. To overcome motivation draughts and other mental hurdles, it's helpful to have some combination of the following: A.) a co-founder to share the load, B.) added accountability, e.g. employees, investors, C.) a valuable network with the resources or knowledge to pull you past certain plateaus, and/or D.) extreme passion and enthusiasm for the category / business.
3.) The ultimate challenge is finding balance. Yes, you will need to make sacrifices. But the experience forces you to be acutely aware of how you allocate your energy and attention. For example: Does spending a few hours per week exercising actually provide a net-positive affect on overall productivity? Does 20 minutes of clear-headed morning work before commuting accomplish as much as 1 hour of exhausted, post-commute work? While we're at it, is there "dead time" you could be using to work on your side business (e.g. commuting, watching Netflix, sitting on your phone waiting for food, etc.)? Are you already over-committed and stretched at work? Could you talk to your boss about your workload, find someone to delegate to, or negotiate a more flexible work arrangement? Are you spending an hour most nights with your significant other but your mind is elsewhere, or are you spending forty-five min where you're totally present? The list goes on. This exercise in itself is valuable even if your startup ultimately fails.
4.) Finally, in my experience, you can build a profitable product and achieve PMF while working a day job. These things require mostly a good tactics and knowledge (see #1). The true hurdle becomes scale. Scale requires resources - you could throw money at it, but that's rarely sustainable. It's better to use your time, ingenuity, sweat equity, and enthusiasm and hope the flywheel starts turning. But these are in short supply when you're already contending with a day job and other priorities. You can optimize your days (see #3). You can put controls in place to contend with inevitable hurdles (see #2).
5.) Ultimately, you need to define what success looks like for your side-business. Whatever your goal, day job or not, value comes from finding and solving the most interesting and commercially viable problem you can. Without this, the challenges of running a side business while working FT grow exponentially.
It's strangely embedded deep into his notes and presentation, but preparation is crucial. Practice your talk in front of others, as the author says, or at least rehearse it out loud to yourself. A big mistake I've seen technical professionals make is over-focusing on the content, structure, and detail, and leaving too little time/energy to actually practice their talk. I guarantee you'll find something to fix / add / remove when you hear your presentation out loud. Bonus points if you actually record yourself practicing and review it afterward. This is THE single best bang-for-your-buck practice for improving your presentation skills.
He's right about evaluations. You almost always receive contradictory feedback. A few weeks back I read the evals after running a workshop. One person said (paraphrasing) it was "too long, maybe shorten from 2 hours to just 1." Another said "too short, this could easily have been 4-6 hours." Other examples abound. The reason one person enjoys your presentation might be the exact reason someone else hates it.
Sure, some presenters are too slow. But many - especially inexperienced or nervous presenters - rush through their talk at breakneck speed. Both are equally sinful. If you have a tendency to rush, practice pausing periodically and don't litter the empty space with filler words ("uh," "so," "y'know," etc.). Embrace the silence. Audiences interpret that comfort with silence as authoritative, not incompetent.
Plant a friend in the front row so you can look at them and see a friendly face? I can see people misinterpreting this advice to mean "just stare at your friendly-looking friend for your whole presentation." Maybe it'll help for your first few talks, but it could become a bit of a crutch. Scan the room and address individual attendees as if you're having a conversation with them directly. Watch for their reactions (or lack thereof). Expect people to look annoyed, bored, etc. If you expect it, it's less likely to throw you off. More often than not, that's just how their face looks.
He's right about "geeks" reacting adversely to suits. I wore a suit to run something for our technology group's leadership team, and within the first five minutes they were busting me about it. Know your audience. That includes knowing what manner of dress they expect, but also what they might know/don't know about your topic, why they might care, etc.