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Comment by heymijo | Hacker News Reader

Communication is perception. Whose perception? The recipient(s).

I'm 2 minutes in. Lecturer revealed a formula for quality speaking. Knowledge, he says, is the biggest of the three components.

He then takes about a minute using an anecdote about Mary Lou Retton to demonstrate why knowledge is so important.

And yet, I'm wondering, how many people in his audience know enough about who she is to understand what he seems to want to say is an important point?

If they don't, then I think he just lost a bunch of them in the first two minutes.

Communication is perception and if his audience can't perceive his analogy, he hasn't communicated.

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He did say who she was, and explained the relevant information about her that made his point.

I think it made his lecture even better - he was able to communicate using an anecdote about someone I never heard of, but gave enough context for it to make sense to me. Most people don’t think about this.

Agreed. He did explain, and still I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of someone unfamiliar with her. If I have never heard of her, how strongly does that anecdote land to convey the message about knowledge being a big K in the formula and far more important than talent?

Were you familiar with her prior to the lecture?

Did you know what the iconic hands in the air thing meant?

Hey! Interestingly I watched that video a few months ago and I didn’t know who that person was. It did trip me up and I had to listen to that passage twice to understand what he was trying to say. The rest of the video was amazing though!

So you definitely have a point.

I had never heard of her before and still do not know who she is. All the same the example worked well for me. Whether I had heard of this person or not seems of little importance.

The point he was making was that talent by itself is insufficient. While presenting her as a case study he gave enough information to convince me that this person clearly was someone with a lot of physical talent. Specifically he mentioned that she was an olympic gymnast and moreover that she wasn't only excellent but one that would routinely get full marks. All the same she was not good at skiing because she lacked knowledge of skiing and practice (in his words the main factors contributors to quality).

I'm not american, never heard of Mary Lou Retton, still I understood the concept by his explanation, and loved his anecdote that was 100% clear even for me that never heard of that person.

What do you think enabled the analogy to work for you even though you hadn't heard of Mary Lou Retton?

I don't think the name matters. . the functional piece is someone highly adapted with KPT in their field had only T in the field of skiing. The olympics and her name are just dressing up for the story.

The fact that he compared his sport skills (in that case skiing) with an olympionic sport skills. That in my mind sounded like: "Well, she clearly had talent & potential, but he got the Knowledge for skiing, thus was better in that moment"

I'm Canadian but I remember her because I was around in 1984 when she competed in the Olympics.

People who are not from the US but are younger than age 35 now probably don't have a clue who she is. My assumption being a 10 year-old in 1984 would be old enough to remember her name now in 2020.

But saying she was an exceptional Olympic athlete, often getting "all 10s" (10 is good so she must be good) would give context.

He explains she was "a famous Olympic gymnast," and that's all that's relevant to the story. He was perfectly clear. It was a good analogy.

That's a good point about "famous olympic gymnast." I wonder if being familiar with the olympics is enough?

Also, with Simone Biles in the popular zeitgeist I wonder if someone not familiar with Mary Lou Retton might picture Simone instead when hearing "famous olympic gymnast."

> how many people in his audience know enough about who she is

Now I feel old.

It's kind of the same as I felt when I was talking to my nephews (who were born in 1992) a while back about assisted suicide and I mentioned Jack Kevorkian, and got blank stares. "Dr. Death?" I asked. Still nothing. Sigh. How quickly things fade away, which seemed noteworthy at the time.

Perhaps the key to effective communication is to avoid references to things which aren't universal across time...

I watched this talk a few weeks ago and even though I didn't remember the name 'Mary Lou Retton' I remember the anecdote without having to view the video again.

He explained who she was, so it did not matter.

Were you familiar with her prior to the lecture?

Did the point he was speaking about resonate with you?

Her name was not important.

I did not know who she was, he said, high mark achieving Olympic gymnast. It was exactly all the infomartion needed to make the analogy work. Him using her real name made the story authentic.

It didn't matter if I knew who she was (I did not), I got it perfectly

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