A Celebration of Patrick H. Winston's Life

I'm sorry to run across Patrick's death in my wanderings. He was a good and helpful friend to me while I worked on an assignment at the AI Lab and later when I was settling down for study in Japan. Now, looking around at his videos, I'm very unsurprised to find him still being helpful!

At the MIT faculty meeting on October 17, 2007, two faculty members, Ken Manning and Patrick Winston, presented a motion for a vote.  The immediate cause of the motion was MIT’s response to one of its students who had appeared at Logan Airport wearing a sweatshirt that sported a circuit board with tiny flashing green lights on an LED display. The student was surrounded by Massachusetts state troopers wielding MP5 sub-machine guns. The student put her hands up. The troopers lowered their guns. The student was charged with possession of a hoax device. MIT issued a public statement describing such behavior as reckless. Ken Manning and Patrick Winston presented this motion: In light of the Star Simpson event, we, the MIT faculty, request that the MIT administration refrain from making public statements that characterize or otherwise interpret—through news office releases, legal agents, or any other means—the behavior and motives of members of the MIT community whose actions are the subject (real or potential) of pending criminal investigation. We offer this resolution to foster mutual trust within the MIT community and to promote due process for all. One of the two authors of the motion, Patrick Winston was recorded in the minutes of the faculty meeting as having “related a personal story of how, when he was an MIT student, members of the MIT community went to significant lengths to support him, and that this contributed to his perception of MIT as an organization that is akin to an extended family.” This is the story that Pat told on the floor of the meeting: My own views were shaped many years ago when I was a 19 or 20 year old undergraduate here at MIT. It was October, and the previous summer I had purchased my first car, a Volkswagen, near the end of its service life. After driving it around Europe a little, I imported it. Then, it occurred to me from time to time that I should think about getting it registered in Massachusetts. But—I was busy. Then one night, or rather early on a Sunday morning, I was detained by the Wellesley police. They were upset because my car’s muffler didn’t amount to much, and they became additionally upset when they discovered my license plates were foreign and expired. I say “detained” but many years later, in the course of a routine security clearance background investigation, I found that I was considered arrested. In any case, I eventually received a summons, and a few days after that, I got a call from Chief Olivieri of the MIT campus police. He asked a few questions, and then indicated he would see me in court, which he did. When my case came up, he asked for and was granted a bench conference with the judge. I don’t know what Chief Olivieri said, but I imagine he said I was a good boy; a good student; not inclined toward reckless behavior; but just a little clueless perhaps, a common characteristic of boys just in from the corn fields of Illinois. In any case, the judge chuckled and dismissed the case. I’ve told that story many times to many people—students, staff, faculty, anyone contemplating a move to MIT. I use it to buttress my claim that MIT has always been as close to an extended family as an organization can be.… What I want is for people everywhere to say that MIT is a place that forgives—when it can; that supports—when it can; and that weeps—when it cannot. I wrote about this event in my MIT memoir, Mens et Mania . I concluded my description this way: I don’t think you can get a better statement of the MIT student-faculty bond unless you sing along to Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.” I wrote that almost 10 years ago. Nothing has happened to make me want to change a word of it.

If you agree that learning how to think is more important than learning how to do, you can skip the following introductory story and go directly to the meat. Being smarter means improving ways to think Imagine Professor Winston advised Alex, Bob, and Charlie on how to give a talk. He told Alex, "Here is what you should do when giving a talk. You should start by stating your Vision, followed by your list of Steps, highlighted by some News, and ended with your Contributions. " He told Bob the same thing and something more, "Here is why you should follow the VSNC framework. The Vision tells your audience the problem you are trying to solve and your approach to it. The Steps convince them that you have done something towards the vision. The News excite them by making them feel they are witnessing fresh big things happening. The Contributions reminds them of what you have done. So follow the VSNC framework if you want to make the audience engaged and make them remember." He told Charlie the same thing he told Bob and something more, "Here is how I come up with the framework. I have listened to thousands of talks in universities, companies, and government agencies. It always bothers me when I am halfway through the talk, and I am still not sure what problem the speaker wants to address, what his approach is to the problem, and what he has done about it. It bores me to hell if I can't hear any news in the talk; has the project died already? And worst of all, speakers always end their talk with a slide saying Thank You. Thanks to them, I remember nothing that they did! So I always tell my students to state clearly the Vision, Steps, and News, and to end with Contributions. And all this theory for communicators started with me being bothered by not getting the experience I wanted as an audience." So Alex, Bob, and Charlie went on to give their talks. They received similar positive responses from the audience. They all got the job they wanted. But who would be a better communicator and who achieves more in life in the long run? Bob will probably become a better communicator than Alex because Bob learned the knowledge to be adaptable. Bob knows the rationale behind each step, so he can adjust the framework to suit different purposes and audience. To be exact, he learned the goals he should better achieve as a speaker, and he learned the constraints of the audience whom he serves. So if he is reporting to his close supervisor, he can focus on steps and news. In the end, Bob can do more than communication; he can solve problems and achieve goals through communication. Charlie will probably become an even better communicator than Bob and a better problem solver in general than the other two because Charlie learned the knowledge for generating frameworks. Charlie realizes that whenever he feels bothered in any experience, he is in the perfect position to design better ways to do things. The next time he finds himself cursing about how long it takes to get through the queue, he realizes a way to make the registration process more efficient and pleasant. In the end, Charlie can solve problems and achieve goals not merely in communication, he can better solve problems and achieves goals in any field by generating good frameworks. Alex learned what to do, Bob learned why it should be done so, and Charlie learned how to come up with that procedure. Charlie benefited the most from Professor Winston by learning how he thinks, not just how to do. Being close to Professor Winston enabled me to hear his thinking processes and to ask how he came up with certain ideas. By no means can I simulate his intelligence. But his ways to think has started chain reactions in my mind that had enabled me to learn more with less time. To honor his dedication to students and his passion for making people smarter, I share the 54 lessons on how to think I learned from him. (to be continued...) ♠ Learning by making theories ♥ Learning with our mouth ♦ Learning with our hands ♣ Learning with story-understanding apparatus