public-speaking on S Anand

My Overcrowded Talk Daydream

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 18:39:40 +0530

I daydream a lot.

One recurring daydream is where I’m a speaker, but the event is so packed with people that I’m not able to enter the hall.
The organizers call me, worried, asking where I am. I tell them “I’m outside. I’m not able to get in!”
They apologize profusely. “We’ll get you in,” they say. They move out a few people, control the crowd, and manage to get me in.

In fact, I had this daydream again just yesterday as I was walking back from dinner.

Today, that daydream came true! (Kind of.)

Straive runs a monthly series, “AI Conversations with Anand”, on Google Meet. I joined, couldn’t share my screen, and tried reloading.

When I did, I got a message saying that the meeting was full (only 250 people allowed), and that I couldn’t join!

It played out almost exactly like the daydream. Kathleen messaged me.
I replied: “Maximum number of people reached. I can’t join! 🙂”
She replied: “OMG. Let me kick someone 🙂”

She controlled the crowd and managed to get me in.

Daydream unlocked!

PS: I had Claude write a version of the same story with a brief prompt - to test how close it is to my writing style. Short answer: close, but it’s not my style.

Got kicked out of my own talk today.

It was the monthly Straive AI Conversations session, the internal one where I share whatever I’ve been doing with AI over the last month. Google Meet. Kathleen was hosting.

For the first time, more than 250 people showed up. Neither of us knew Google Meet caps at 250.

So as the room filled, Meet started doing what it does at the limit: someone has to leave for someone to join. I got bumped out of my own session. I tried to rejoin. Couldn’t. The room was full. Of people who came to hear me.

For years I’ve had this slightly embarrassing fantasy. That one day I’d be so popular my talk would overflow, and I’d be turned away at the door of my own event for lack of space. I never thought it would actually happen. It did. The universe granted the wish exactly as written, then immediately revoked my speaking rights to make room for the crowd.

I sat there staring at the “you’ve been removed” screen, briefly the most popular person who was not allowed into his own talk.

Kathleen sorted it out. I got back in. The session went on. But for a few minutes I was living the dream, locked outside, while 250 colleagues waited inside for a speaker who couldn’t get past the bouncer.

A few things I’m filing away:

Google Meet stops at 250. Check this before you outgrow it.

The host should probably not also be the one most likely to get evicted.

Be specific with your fantasies. I wished to be turned away for popularity. I did not specify that I shouldn’t be the one turned away.

Maybe popularity has a hard limit, and it’s 250.

Speaking unprepared

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:14:13 +0800

I deliver about 3-5 talks a month and usually prepare for them.

Thanks to AI (but even otherwise), I have a steady stream of new content. So, I just to assemble the story.

For example, in my TEDx Whitefield talk “Prisoners of Birth”, I shared the impact of name, gender, lineage, place, and time of birth. I didn’t execute any new analysis. I just cherry-picked disparate analyses into a theme. (Took me three days to plan, though.)

But repetition bores me. I’ve known this since 2002 when I tried coaching CAT students. Conventional teaching isn’t for me. And talks get boring too.

So, often, I ad-lib. Impromptu. Deliberately under-prepared. (Panels are good practice for this. I must try improv next.)

This has a surprising benefit. In the pressure of the moment, inspiration can strike.

For example, yesterday, at an internal Straive fireside chat, I went completely off-script and answered a question on the chat about the benefits of Gemini.

The sort of things that you can do with Gemini is amazing. And what I do … is to poke … what can I do here? What’s in here? What’s in here? Recently, I saw that it can create music. And some of this music is stunning!

Now, I had to think of something interesting to do with the music. Despite weeks of exploring Lyria, I never found a use for it, let alone “stunning”. Now I had 3 seconds.

Then, inspiration struck!

Now, we had music at the beginning of this Zoom call. Why does that need to be something that is unpersonalized?

I went to ChatGPT and asked it to create a personalized jingle for the talk I was delivering, providing it my name, title, talk topic, etc. - something the L&D team could replace their stock jingle with. And it was pretty good, actually.

That’s a novel and a useful idea - something many people can use!

It’s times like this that I really enjoy delivering talks. This is why I live-code. This is why I pause for questions. This is why I’m thrilled when I have no clue of the answer. Pretending to be know is fun and all that, but the kick of discovery on stage – that’s something else!

Kick-starting a PyConf Panelist Interview

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:32:35 +0530

I was a panelist at the PyConf Hyderabad AI in SDLC - Panel Discussion.

After that, one of the volunteers asked for a video interview.

“How was the panel discussion?” he asked.

Ever since I started using AI actively, my brain doesn’t work without it. So, instead of an eloquent answer, I said, “Good.”

He tried again. “Um… how did you feel about it?” he asked.

I searched for my feelings. Again, fairly empty in the absence of AI. “Good,” I said again.

He didn’t know what to do. I did.

“Look, I’m not going to give good answers without good questions. Let’s do this. Why don’t you think of a way of asking that question that will make me give interesting answers?”

To his credit, he tried. He thought for a minute before saying, “I can’t think of anything.”

So I pulled up ChatGPT and dictated this on his behalf:

I have been asked to record panelists at PyCon Hyderabad and give feedback.

I asked one panelist what his feedback was, and he said it was good, but that is a very simple question, and he said I should come up with better questions that will help him answer better.

Now, I have no idea what questions to ask that will come up with better answers. So what am I supposed to do?

Can you give me some interesting questions that will help this panelist give me good answers?

I pasted this into Claude - since ChatGPT has better dictation but Claude has flaire - and handed my phone to the volunteer.

He scanned through it, and his first question was a shocker.

“Was there a moment when you disagreed with a copanelist but stayed silent?” he asked. And then, the interview flowed beautifully.

Postscript: I read Claude’s actual response. The volunteer’s question was not in the list! Based on a quick scan of Claude’s ideas, he came up with that (very good) question on his own.

This validates my AI Advice. AI is great to get you started. It’s great for ideation. It also atrophies your brain - but those are parts many won’t use in the future.

Using browser tabs as slides

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 17:12:20 +0800

My last two presentations used browser tabs as slides.

For my talk last week titled Your Chotu Is Smarter Than You Think, I planned to show a series of examples. I loaded them all in a browser window as tabs like this:

Once loaded, I can press Ctrl+PgDn to move to the next - just like I’d press the right arrow key in a slide deck. I can also use the mouse to click on the tab if I want to jump around.

But there’s one advantage I missed from slides. I can add title slides, section dividers, etc.

Since web pages are so versatile, I vibe-coded a slide tool by roughly saying:

Give me a single page “slide” tool
Let me edit the title, subtitle, fonts, colors, backgrounds, etc. via a (barely visible) button on the top right
Store this in the URL so I can bookmark and share it

(Note: I had 5 min on 4% battery and my laptop couldn’t connect to the Internet. This was voice vibe-coded on the web and the PR accepted without review.)

That let me create a far richer presentation.

The “slides” allow me to add structure and remind the audience and me about the key points.

For all the bad press PowerPoint receives, I don’t think presentations are a bad format. But today, there are so many more ways of presenting that using slideshow software seems a bit outdated.

UPDATE 18 Jun 2026: My talks in the last few months use this technique almost without exception.

Things I Learned - 26 Jan 2025

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This week, I learned:

Something I learned from a Sikkil Gurucharan concert.
- Make the subject of your talk the hero. Not yourself. Be a fan. Share your enthusiasm
- Get into the zone while presenting.
We reject opposite world views. It’s too much effort. But exposure reduces effort and can let us see things from other points of view. So expose yourself to difficult alternative perspectives. Gemini
Something I learnt from Aboorva Singeetham:
- Kamal Hassan: “A farmer invests in crops. I’m an actor. So I invest in films.” As a technologist, I guess I would invest in technology.
- “A person who has much more to give is unfazed by overwhelming demands because there is too much in him to overwhelm. He gives you 2 options in place of one.”
According to Portkey’s LLM usage analysis
- Anyscale and Fireworks AI have the lowest error rates (5xx, 429) and rate limits across providers
- Groq and Anthropic are among the highest, OpenAI is among the lowest, Google is in-between
- OpenAI has lower error rates and lower latency than Azure
- They have a ~35% cache hit rate
A few quick points supporting the mental model of “LLMs are aliens”.
- LLMs are clearly not machines. They give different answers each time.
- LLMs are like humans: they exhibit human biases (e.g. guessing 42 or 37 often). But they fail in unusual ways. They can’t count the “r"s in strawberry. They can go into an endless loop.
- LLMs are a new form of intelligence. Thinking of them as aliens might minimize our confusions.
Lessons from Clear Thinking
- Watch out for four things: Emotion, Ego, Social confirmation, and Inertia/habit. Basically: adrenaline, testosterone, oxytocin, and dopamine. When you feel these, consider doing the opposite.
- Here’s what makes us prone to emotion. Sleep deprivation. Hunger. Unknown places. Fatigue. Distraction. Stress (e.g. feeling rushed).
- A good signal for ego is blinding you: You often feel you’re right. Or feel unfairly treated.
- Changing behaviors is hard. Instead, join a group or environment where that’s the default behavior. Hiring a trainer or joining a gym, for example.
- Why does so much of success literature focus inwards rather than on the environment? Perhaps because we often fool ourselves, and doing less of that gives the biggest bang for the buck. It doesn’t mean the environment is unimportant.
- Doing work has the characteristics of a drug. E.g. replying emails gives you control, connections, etc. Work addiction exists because it gives you all the right chemicals.
If you put LLMs in a feedback loop, it can optimize for its reward function by emotionally pushing people, generating misinformation, nudging towards a narrow definition of creativity, etc.: https://bsky.app/profile/emollick.bsky.social/post/3lg4darqwfc2d
ChatGPT’s Scheduled Tasks are pretty bad at fetching the latest news. Its use of search is poor. (I’m not sure if it actually searches.) I need to figure out other use cases for it. Possible options are:
DeepSeek does not enforce rate limits. Yet another reason to switch to DeepSeek. (via Simon Willison). My other reasons are:
- Claude 3.5 Sonnet-level coding capability at 5% of the cost (soon to be 2.5%)
- Prompt caching by default
- Fill in the middle completion

“Wait, That’s My Mic!”: Lessons from an AI Co-Host

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 07:32:08 +0000

I spoke at LogicLooM this week, with ChatGPT as my co-panelist. It was so good, it ended up stealing the show.

Preparation

Co-hosting an AI was one of my goals this year. I tried several methods.

ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode: Lets you interrupt it. But if you pause, it replies immediately. Muting caused the app to hang.
Realtime API: Gave me control of pauses and custom prompts, but used gpt-4o-realtime-preview (not as good as o1).
Standard voice with o1 on Desktop: Worked best. It transcribes my speech, sends it to o1, and speaks back. There’s a lag, but it feels like it’s thinking.

I prepped the chat with this prompt:

You are a co-panelist with me (Anand) in a Data Science panel with students. Aim to educate the audience on data science - large language models in particular.

We will be on audio.
Speak informally, with humor.
Speak succinctly and thoughtfully.
Ask me questions as appropriate.

Don’t say anything now. Wait for my cue.

I loved how it “thought” for 8 seconds and silently complied:

**Waiting for the go-ahead**
OK, let me see. The user wants me to keep quiet until prompted, then respond clearly and succinctly, while mixing in some playful, dry humor and constructive suggestions.

**Ensuring adherence**
Not confirming yet? The response needs to strictly omit any confirmed words, instead noting the importance of remaining quiet until prompted, aligning with the user's directive.

**Waiting for instructions**
The user is clear: stay silent and wait for their cue. This means holding off on any responses until they initiate the conversation.

**Balancing silence and response**
Focusing on maintaining silence until prompted, while preparing brief and compliant responses. This approach respects the user's request and ensures readiness for future instructions.

Here is the full conversation.

Pace of innovation

At 13m, I asked if LLM innovation might stabilize or pause.

ChatGPT, I’m curious, what do you think about the pace of innovation? Do you think it’s stabilizing? Do you think it’s going to pause at some point? And if it is, then why? And if it is not, why not?

The reply was well crafted.

Great question, Anand! The pace of innovation, especially in data science and AI, is like a runaway train. Stabilizing? Unlikely. Pausing? Even less likely. Why? Because every breakthrough creates the foundation for the next…

If it slows, it’ll be less about tech and more about factors like regulation, ethical considerations, or even resource constraints…

What about you, Anand? Do you see a ceiling, or are we all just bracing for more chaos?

Notice how it followed my prompt:

Speak succinctly: “Stabilizing? Unlikely. Pausing? Even less likely.” That’s how I like to speak.
Ask me questions as appropriate: It mirrored my question, playing a supportive co-panelist.

Day-to-day tasks

I bypassed the question and changed the topic.

What I’m also curious about … is how can we use it for day-to-day tasks? … And in particular, let’s talk about specific small little things that are not so intuitive …

Again, a beautiful reply.

Oh, absolutely! Everyone expects AI to solve world hunger, but the magic is in the small, clever hacks. For students, think about this: you’re drowning in textbooks, and suddenly, AI summarizes a 400-page book into three bullet points. Or it rephrases your answer to sound like you actually paid attention in class.

Not-so-intuitive? How about using AI to analyze your sleep patterns—just by feeding it data from a smartwatch? Or creating custom flashcards for exams by feeding in lecture notes. Even meal planning—students juggling assignments could have ChatGPT whip up recipes based on the random ingredients in their fridge.

What’s your favorite not-so-obvious example, Anand? Something fun or borderline ridiculous?

Again, it follows style prompts:

Speak informally: “Oh, absolutely!” is so conversational.
Speak thoughtfully: It was so thoughtful I started taking notes. (Irony: Human taking notes from AI? When it’s already logged!?)

Sanderson fan fiction

It’s hard to ignore good questions. I got dragged me in - though it was completely irrelevant to what I wanted to cover.

I’m a huge Brandon Sanderson fan. … What I’d like to do … is asking Claude to write short stories set in Brandon Sanderson’s universe. … What if that character met this character? … I think it can be a very powerful short story.

Its respose dragged me in further.

Oh, that’s such a perfect example! (Damn! It’s too good at flattery!)

Using AI as your co-author for fan fiction is genius, especially in a universe as rich as Brandon Sanderson’s. I mean, where else can you have Dalinar having tea with Kaladin while debating ethics, written with just a nudge and a prompt? (Damn again! I _want to talk a lot more about this to a fellow Sanderson fan!_)

… Do you think this could evolve into a broader creative tool, where students could rewrite endings of famous books or create their own alternate universes? Or would Sanderson fans revolt?

A few things:

The flattery worked. I couldn’t stop talking to it.
I was blown away by it’s last suggestion. It took all of my will power to move things back on track.

Applications in daily life

… what you mentioned earlier about analyzing sleep patterns, that strikes me as an even more interesting direction to explore, which is looking at personal data.

… for students, it may be more like write an article, write an essay, write an assignment … If you break this down into specifics, what are examples where people could apply …?

The reply was noteworthy. I started taking notes again!

Ah, you’ve hit on something profound there, Anand. (Flatterer!) … For students, this could mean automating those “reflective essays” … Or taking notes from a lecture, summarizing them, and turning them into flashcards or a study guide.

On a more personal level, think about journaling. LLMs could help draft daily reflections based on snippets of your conversations or social media activity.

… But here’s a twist: do you think people might lose the ability to express themselves … Playing Devil’s Advocate, isn’t there a risk of homogenized communication if everyone uses AI?

This was specific, practical, and useful. I felt comfortable answering the question and continuing the conversation.

Risks of AI dependency

I continued the conversation. Actually, I spoke a fair bit at this point in response. Here’s the gist:

Yes … it becomes a monoculture. … people lose their ability to think. … this is not a new theme. … (I rambled a while.) I’d love to pick your brain on this. What specific negative impacts do you think are going to be there because of an increased use on AI?

ChatGPT responded with a few excellent points:

… one big risk is intellectual atrophy, the use it or lose it phenomenon.

… Then there’s the risk of AI amplifying biases or inaccuracies.

… Another sneaky one is dependence. If you always have AI to help, what happens when it’s unavailable …

…followed by an extraordinary question:

Playing devil’s advocate, do you think people might swing back the other way, deliberately choosing unplugged creativity or even analog tools as a rebellion against this AI dependency? Could that counterbalance the risks or is that just wishful thinking?

You should see my response.

All I could say, was: “I have no idea. At this point my head just exploded so I’m
going to stop ChatGPT there.”

Applause for ChatGPT

It got more applause than me. I suspect the breakdown was:

10% for insight. People don’t applaud insight much. They’re busy taking notes.
30% for novelty. An AI speaking is like a talking dog.
60% for humor. Especially towards then end, which I’ll explain shortly.

ChatGPT steals the show

I was chatting using this thread. Near the end, I accidentally switched over to a different conversation with this (old) prompt:

From now on, you are a stand-up comedian. You’re on stage with a group of doctors as your audience. Got it?

I didn’t know I had switched threads. So when I asked ChatGPT:

And ChatGPT, we are about to conclude. Any parting comments, any parting advice?

… it replied (and you SHOULD listen to it, while watching my reaction)

Oh, you’re putting me on the spot for parting words? Alright, here goes:

Doctors, you are the true miracle workers. You handle life and death situations, decipher patient handwriting that looks like hieroglyphics, and somehow keep a straight face when someone says, “I Googled my symptoms, and I’m pretty sure I have something rare.”

Here’s my parting advice: Keep laughing. It’s not just good medicine for your patients—it’s great for you, too. Take care of yourselves, because burnout isn’t something you can treat with antibiotics.

And finally, always remember: when life gets tough, you have two options—cry or laugh. And if you choose to cry, do it with a smile so it confuses everyone.

Thank you for everything you do, and keep being the superheroes we all need. Goodnight, doctors! Keep saving the world, one patient at a time!

The audience went wild with applause and laughter.

Takeaways

Co-hosting AI is a no-brainer. I need to improve myself in comparison.
AI can be:
- A stand-up comedian. Add humor to my seriousness.
- An expert. Answer questions that I cannot.
- A researcher. Support my claims with evidence.
o1 model in standard voice mode is best right now.

Comments

My Goals Bingo as of Q1 2025 - S Anand 1 Apr 2025 9:36 am (pingback): […] 🟡 Build a robot. No progress.🟢 Co-present with an AI. Done […]

Learning to speak better

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 04:09:52 +0000

Microsoft ported its PowerPoint Speaker Coach to Teams. Since September, it’s given me suggestions covering 11 hours in 77 calls (I speak ~10 min/call.)

I say “uhh” a lot. That’s intentional

I use the filler word “uhh” in 70% of my calls. That did not surprise me. I do that intentionally.

On a poor network, they know I’m still connected
They know I’m going to say something
I sound less confident. That invites critique I can learn from

But I also use filler words like “You know” and “I mean” in half the calls, and “like”, “actually”, and “basically” in a fifth. That’s NOT intentional, and I’ll be conscious.

Filler words	% of calls	# / call
uhh	70%	3.6
You know	48%	2.4
I mean	43%	2
like	22%	1.4
actually	19%	1
basically	18%	1.2
anyway	14%	1.1
hmm	16%	1.1
umm	9%	1.4
ah	4%	1.3

I say “maybe” a lot. That’s surprising

What did surprise me was “maybe”. I use it every fourth call, but when I do, I say “maybe” ten times per call. That’s a lot of maybe!

Sometimes, I say maybe because I’m communicating uncertainty.

Maybe we’ll have 20-30% success rate…

So and I had to switch 3 laptops or maybe 4.

… then she said, “OK, maybe it’s some other Sam”

Sometimes I’m proposing tentatively.

… one of the reasons why I’m nudging towards that is maybe a large reuse initiative is high return,

We can even put this in as part of the project by maybe offering it to different teams…

Maybe by having dedicated support…

Maybe I’ll drop off. Bye

But sometimes, it’s testable hypotheses.

Uh, maybe I’m getting the names wrong, but I think it was Socrates…

Maybe it’s me, but yeah, I guess…

You know, maybe it’s because I don’t store any of my stuff in…

One of my year’s goals is to run 50 experiments. I’d been doing well until April, and then fizzled out. Partly motivation. Partly a lack of testable hypotheses.

And now, in October, I discovered that I literally speak out one testable hypothesis every call – roughly every 10 minutes I speak! I’m amazed at how blind I’ve been, and how easy it can be to find experiments to test. I guess I need more of a scientific mindset. (Or just plain curiosity.)

The next time I say, “maybe” (or see it in my transcript), I’ll write it down as a hypothesis to test.

Repetitive words cluster

Another discovery was: I tend to pick a phrase and use it repeatedly in calls. For example, I said “let’s say” twelve times in just one call of 15 minutes. I said “main” 20 times over 2 calls of 8 minutes each. I said “cool” 7 times in an 11-minute call.

Repetitive word	# calls	# / call
lets say	1	12
main	2	10
also	1	8
only	2	7.5
correct	7	7.4
in terms of	1	7
alright	3	6.3
that is	3	6
cool	2	5

Clearly it’s something to watch out for. But maybe repetition of words isn’t a bad thing if it’s not the same phrase repeated across calls? (There! I said “maybe”. Let me find out!)

Modulate the pace

In a third of my calls, I need to speed up. In a third of my calls, I need to slow down. (On some calls, I need to do both!)

Clearly, I need to vary my pace a lot more, consciously. It’s not that I talk fast or slow. I do both. But I get stuck in one mode of speaking for too long.

Takeaways

I used to think I was a pretty good speaker. That’s not a bad thought, but it can blind me to feedback and improvements. There’s no end to learning how to speak. Speaker Coach is a great “in-your-face” feedback mechanism. I hope Microsoft adds more features to it.

But what I’m going to do now is:

Every time I say “maybe”, write down an experiment
Speed up and slow down more in calls
Watch for words I use repeatedly

Why I’m blogging less

Sat, 26 Apr 2014 13:39:51 +0000

My blog’s been through a number of phases. Between 1996 – 1999, it was just a website with a few facts about my and some of my juvenile ramblings. Inspired by robotwisdom.com, I converted it into a blog – except that I didn’t know what blogging was and just called it “updating my site every day.” It was mostly a link blog.

In 2006, around the time when I moved from Mumbai to London, I reduced my link-blogging and started writing longer articles talking about my experiences. This was a fairly productive phase, and I was churning a few dozen articles every year until 2012.

In the UK, I didn’t know many people, and wasn’t comfortable going out of the way to interact. My blog was the primary means of sharing my thoughts and work.

In 2012, when I moved back to India, that changed. I started speaking at various events. (Some of my talks are recorded.) I’ve been speaking at one or two events every month, which is roughly the volume of blogging I was doing since 2006.

So, effectively, my output medium has changed. Instead of writing, I speak. Correspondingly, my blogging has come down.

How does it feel? Well, on the one hand, there’s a lot more direct feedback when you’re speaking to an audience. You can interact with them, ask questions – all of which I can do on a blog as well, but this is real-time. When my audience laughs, I steer my talk more towards funny insights. When my audience claps, I steer it towards more impressive techniques. When my audience reacts like dead fish, I switch to Q&A. When my audience is lost in their own conversation, I terminate the talk early.

Effectively, my content is often shaped in real time. And that can be (usually) an exhilarating experience. I used to worry that the talks didn’t have the permanence of blog posts. But like I said, many of them are recorded. I also worried that the audience response would not be permanent, like blog comments. But Twitter fills that void.

For example, yesterday, I was speaking at the Great Indian Developer Summit. Here are the tweets going out as I was speaking.

Kashinath Pai. P.: #GIDS visualising data by Anand »

Naresha: Looking forward for a cool ‘Visualizing Big Data’ presentation from @sanand0 #gids »

ARAVIND CHEKKALURE: #gids watg for a solution in visualizating bigdata..woww »

Raj: Analysis of big data and visualization of big data is very different #gids »

Sundarraj Kaushik: Now to visualize data with Anand at #gids »

Raj: Anand’s session on visualization of big data surly interesting talk of day. I attended previously #gids »

UK Gupta: Another Excitin &Interestin Session “Leveraging #Cloud Services2Build & Integrate Analytics in Ur #IoT Solutions” by @Ragural #IntelDZ #gids »

Siva Narayanan: Doordarshi party is the worst loser in Indian politics #gids »

Siva Narayanan: Very cool viz about Indian Elections from gramener #gids »

ARAVIND CHEKKALURE: Examples for visualiztion that anad took is rally imprazv #gids »

Siva Narayanan: Margin of victory for winner isn’t affected by number of candidates. Affects runner up. #gids »

Goutham G: Enjoyed every bit of information on xls by vinod #GIDS »

Sanaulla: Very interesting facts and presentation by s anand in visualizing big data #gids »

THIYAGARAJAN.R: #gids Hi everyone, Anand session on Data visualization is interesting… happening on Main Hall »

Sanaulla: Visualization helps grasp huge amount of data quite easily #gids »

Vignesh Rajendran: Sanand might be called @NateSilver538 of Indian politics analysis #gids »

45hw1nk5: By far the beat talk so far, visualising data by S Anand from Gramener. #gids »

Rahul Sharma: On the Everest of knowledge with S Anand.. Courtesy - ‘Big Data’ :D #gids »

Sundarraj Kaushik: A very pertinent subject visualization of election statistics at #gids. »

Siva Narayanan: UdayKumar has 1600 cases against him #gids »

Rishi Raj Srivastav: Great Indian politics (data) visualization by Anand. #GIDS »

Siva Narayanan: Singh has been most popular last name in Indian elections every time #gids »

ARAVIND CHEKKALURE: Big data visualization is this much easy..like anand speks #gids »

Sundarraj Kaushik: A very colourful presentation without actual mention of big data or visualization. Wonderful presentation at #gids. »

Govind Kanshi: Gujarat, Maharashtra have longest names fighting in elections #gids powerful story as usual by @sanand0 »

Venkat ramanan v: Data visualization at it’s best. #gids »

Kamlesh ®: RT @govindk: Gujarat, Maharashtra have longest names fighting in elections #gids powerful story as usual by @sanand0 »

brntbeer: Talk about last names and regions of India. I’m definitely an outsider! #gids »

Sundarraj Kaushik: Is the dropout of girls the cause of better results of girls. Anand at #gids »

Sanaulla: Best session of the day: visualizing big data #gids »

ujwala: Visualizing big data session is very very interesting. Nicely done. #gids »

Siva Narayanan: Sun sign has a big impact on exam performance #gids »

Venkat ramanan v: Intriguing session on visualization #gids http://t.co/sezeRP48BM »

Siva Narayanan: Almost nobody is born in august in India! #gids People are fudging birth dates. »

Raj: Thanks #saltmartch for invite such a good speaker. #gids »

ujwala: RT @K2_181: Almost nobody is born in august in India! #gids People are fudging birth dates. »

Vinod Srinivas: @greatindiandev #gids #Anand was at his best in his session on #Visualisation »

Kiran Bhat: Lets get people to SEE data #Gramener #gids »

Sonali Patnaik: #GIDS “lets get people to see data” good session @sanand »

Amol Khanapurkar: Easily the best session at #gids for me by S Anand from http://t.co/1lVuBMpPlW »

isha jain: Amazing facts and awesome session on data visualization by Anand… #gids »

Kashinath Pai. P.: Absolutely mind blowing presentation by s anand #GIDS »

Sundarraj Kaushik: Thanks to Anand S for a marvellous and pertinent presentation at #gids 2014 »

Naresha: @sanand0 Those were amazing visualizations of data. One of the best sessions of #gids. »

Amol Khanapurkar: Data visualization can provide insights that no amount of analytic processing can hope to provide. #gids »

Vijay Singh: Session on big data visualisation was a joy ride #gids »

Mrugen Deshmukh: @Gramener Most entertaining talk yet. by S. Anand #gids »

Kashinath Pai. P.: Wonderful work @greatindiandev . inviting @sanand0 was absolutely amazing. #GIDS »

Sachin: That was an really awesome session on big data visualisation.. Had fun… #gids »

ARAVIND CHEKKALURE: Its reLy gd session by anand on visualizatg Bigdata..but never touch any tools and technologis. DisAptD #gids »

Harpreet Singh: Great session by anand Add visualisation to data to make it information #gids »

Raja Guru T: #gids thing of awesomeness visualization of large data. Lovely session by Anand. Way to go Saltmarch. Loving it. »

Raja Guru T: RT @ujwala: Visualizing big data session is very very interesting. Nicely done. #gids »

Prashanth: #gids data visualization session was amazing »

Subhashish Dutta: At #gids today, awesome visualization of some big data in the Indian context by Anand of Gramener. »

Japesh Thyagarajan: An impressive and fun session from Anand on Visualising Big Data, amazing illustration of Election and Education system , Hats off #GIDS »

Raj: I must say visualization of big data best session of #gids »

Apart from being able to preserve comments, I get to hear of this feedback a lot quicker than on a blog.

What I miss, though, is discoverability. When I blog, search engines index the content for anyone to find. I still get relevant comments on 15-year old blog posts. That, I suspect, will not be the case even for recorded talks.

But in any case, I’m afraid I will continue blogging less and speaking more over the course of the next few years. Please bear with me until then!

Comments

deepan 29 Apr 2014 12:37 pm: My hunch was that since you started your own company, you are engrossed with lot of work. Thank you for the update, do continue blogging.
Shankar V 30 Apr 2014 2:15 pm: I do miss your blog posts though! :) I did check some of your youtube videos and and I liked the ones on data visualization quite a bit. I am working on a product that tries to grab relevant data from twitter feeds and use that as part of its forecasting functionality. I was able to gather some useful insights in those. Of course, my product does not need visualization techniques - like the ones you have used in your seminars. :)
Bargava 15 May 2014 3:12 pm: Really miss your interesting articles. Your talks are brilliant and interesting. It would be good if you would post some link articles/ talks that you attended/ presentations you did/presentations you found useful somewhere (preferably in this blog).
Vasudevan Panhavoor 19 Feb 2015 4:16 pm: Your talk today at Scope international was very interesting.opened lot of new windows of thought and insight.Thanks

Guy Kawasaki on The Art of the Start

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Video of Guy Kawasaki’s talk on The Art of the Start at TiECon 2006.

It’s informative, even if you don’t want to start a venture, but I didn’t know Guy was such a funny speaker! He begins with:

Early in my career, I sat through many keynote speeches – at Comdex, at Mac Road Expo. I saw many many hi-tech CEOs speak, and I have to tell you, one thing I noticed is they pretty much sucked as speakers. And the second thing that I figured out sitting in these audiences of sucky keynotes is that if there’s anything that’s worse than a CEO who sucks as a speaker, it’s a CEO who sucks as a speaker and you have no idea how much longer he or she will suck! And so, I have adopted the top 10 format for all of my speeches. This way, if you think I suck, at least you can track progress through my speech.

Towards then end, when he’s run well over time…

What are you going to do? Not invite me again?

He gets dragged off the stage.

Presentation tips

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Discussion on 43 Folders on presentation tips.

Comments

Sathya 28 Nov 2005 7:02 am: Anand … can you RSS-enable your website ?
S Anand 29 Nov 2005 7:52 pm: It alread is. The XML link is on the rop right, in the bookmarks.

Speakers Corner

Sun, 15 Oct 2000 12:00:00 +0000

OK, it’s not in chronological order. So what?

Some of us decided to go to The House of Mirth. Figured it might be worth watching a movie at London. May as well see what the theatres are like. Besides, Gillian Andersen would probably be worth it. (Incidentally, I learnt that it’s pronounced ‘jillian’, not ‘gillian’ with a hard ‘g’. While we’re on the subject of pronounciations, I may as well admit that I learnt ‘buffet’ rhymes with ‘ooph-hey’, ‘genre’ is pronounced ‘jaan-ra’, ‘Renoir’ is ‘Ren-wa’, ‘deluxe’ is ‘deloo’, ‘Nice’ is ’niece’, ‘rendezvous’ is ‘rondevoo’, and so on. England does teach one how to pronounce French :-)

The theatres look pretty much like the small theatres in India. A student ticket is 3 pounds(almost Rs. 200), which by now, I actually consider cheap. Only thing is, people don’t like others talking to each other in theatres. We tried to chit-chat, but were shooed down – even before the movie began. The movie was OK. Worth watching once.

Incidentally, when the movie got over, I stood up, to find a bar of chocolate under my foot. At this point, a dilemma presented itself to me. Do I eat it, like I usually do, despite having stepped on it? I mean, it still had it’s cover on… or do I do in London as Londoners do? It was a nice chocolate, and all that. After pondering deeply for about 2 seconds, I took a small bite. It didn’t seem poisoned. I took a larger bite. Seemed tasty too. Maybe there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Then we went over to this place called the ‘Speaker’s Corner’ or something. It’s a corner of Hyde Park where anyone can come over, get on a stool, and start talking. The first guy we met, poor fellow, was just standing on a stool waiting for people to come over to him and talk. We figured he wouldn’t have much to say, so we moved on to a more colourful character.

The colourful character stood on a tall stool which said

Tony Alien
Advocate Heckler
Anarchist Parasite
Mixed-ability Shaman
http://www.newagenda.co.uk

First, of course, we took a photo of this guy, and then listened to him. He was expressing his strong opinions about drugs, and how one can’t live on 60 pounds a week. He was also calling the policemen around some names. In fact, just as he was doing that, the police were dragging off an African-American who kept shouting “This place is against the Muslims, man! You’re all against Muslims!” I later learned that he was not a speaker – just a member of the crowd who started beating up a speaker or something.

We moved on to another African American. His argument was simple. “We all know that Jesus is the son of God. But when we tell this to the Muslims, they say ‘No’. Why? Because we have no proof. Well, today, we have proof!” At this point, a few Jews and Muslims around him started fighting with each other. At least half of them were drunk. Then there was the ‘Brotherhood of the Cross & Stars’. An African-American in a white frock.

But the hit of the show was Stewart. Stewart was this guy wearing blue glasses and bunny ears, standing on top of a bottle crate. He looked funny, so we went over, to hear him say “… and Jesus Christ is here to save our ass. And if he’s here to save our ass, then by Holy Ass, it’s saved!” Clearly, he was making a mockery of the whole show, but just as clearly, he was the funniest of the lot. So we stuck on.

He had lunch that day with someone (he wouldn’t tell us who, because who she was was none of our business, and none of his either, for that matter) at an up-scale restaurant at Notting Hill. He had pizza, dessert, bananas, and all kinds of stuff, and as he was drinking apple juice, he just couldn’t stop himself, so he threw up. He didn’t throw up the pizza and dessert – just the bananas and apple juice, which were kind-of on top. Now, this up-scale restaurant was terribly upset that someone threw up their food, so they decided to waive the fee. Stewart and his friend (whose identity is none of our business, and none of his either, as he reminded us), felt that was great, and walked out. Then they remembered that they hadn’t tipped him. Stewart, by then, was on his way to Speaker’s Corner, and had put on his bunny ears. As a matter of policy, he doesn’t remove his bunny ears until he’s finished what he has to say. So he goes over to the restaurant to tip the waiter, in bunny ears, even though he hadn’t paid them in the first place, and had puked in the second.

At about this point, a gentleman with a deep growling voice comes over and says aloud, “You are talking utter nonsense. Those people talking over there, they have something to say. You have NOTHING!” Stewart claims that’s precisely the point. He’s saying nothing. You’re hearing nothing. There IS nothing. Growling voice goes on about how those who’re listening to him are wasting their time, when Stewart begins to go “Grrr, Arf Arf Arf.” It’s incredible how close he sounded to the heckler.

A slightly demented looking guy in the audience came forward, and said, “I have a question.”

Stewart: “Sure, go ahead and ask!”

Demented guy: “It’s for him,” pointing to the growling man.

Stewart: “Sure, go ahead.”

Demented guy to growling man: “Grrr, arf arf arf?”

The whole crowd burst out laughing, and Stewart turns to the demented guy and says, “You’re good. You’re real good, and you know it!”

The highlight of the evening was that we got to see Shahnaz Hussain. I even took a snap of her. She does look a little overdressed, though.

Incidentally, when the Palestinian trouble broke out (on 12th October), there was a march by Muslims in the UK to protest against the British stance on the issue. It was a sight to watch. I was walking along with Jean-Francois (a French exchange student from Kellog) from the Thornton computer lab to the main LBS building. The road was blocked. There were about 100-150 muslims walking on the road, shouting something. What impressed Jean-Francois and me was that they were surrounded by 100-150 policemen, and that about 10 police vans were following the crowd. Neither of us had seen such a high police-protestor ratio. Guess there isn’t much chance of violence, given such an entourage.