{"id":776,"date":"2018-01-25T20:57:47","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T01:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/?p=776"},"modified":"2020-12-10T17:55:57","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T22:55:57","slug":"you-cant-do-everything-online-or-i-have-a-great-powerpoint-on-how-to-swim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/you-cant-do-everything-online-or-i-have-a-great-powerpoint-on-how-to-swim\/","title":{"rendered":"You Can\u2019t Learn Everything Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was looking online and saw an ad\u00a0for Master Class<\/a>, an online site that has celebrities like Steve Martin teaching you comedy and Annie Leibovitz teaching you photography. It seemed interesting. Then I saw the videos about basketball and tennis, and I lost all hope that this was a good idea. Here’s why.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0few years ago I had this guy working for me, let’s call him Jim. Jim was a wonderful worker and would always present the most important information at our meetings. His one problem was that he wasn’t a dynamic speaker. This wasn’t a big problem.\u00a0 I’m at a big company and we have public speaking classes. I myself had learned how to be a better speaker at this company. So I called HR.<\/p>\n

“I want to get some public speaking training for Jim. Maybe he could take a\u00a0public speaking class? I took one last year,” I asked.<\/p>\n

“We don’t offer that anymore,” she said.<\/p>\n

“You don’t offer the class anymore? What do you have instead?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“We have decided to move to more online training. The world is moving to much more of a ‘training-on-demand’ culture — like YouTube. We have a number of online classes that teach you how to speak in public from the basic to the advanced level.”<\/p>\n

“You realize that public speaking is something you need to practice,” I said. “It’s not something you can learn from a book.”<\/p>\n

Crickets.<\/p>\n

I learned that there was a Toastmasters\u00a0group at work that met informally and told Jim to join that instead.<\/p>\n

When I told a co-worker this story, he said that it’s like saying “You don’t know how to swim? I have this fantastic PowerPoint deck on swimming. Once you read it just jump into the deep end of the pool. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was looking online and saw an ad\u00a0for Master Class, an online site that has celebrities like Steve Martin teaching you comedy and Annie Leibovitz teaching you photography. It seemed interesting. Then I saw the videos about basketball and tennis, and I lost all hope that this was a good idea. Here’s why. A\u00a0few years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[95,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8wCkz-cw","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10671,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/words-words-words-the-hidden-bias-in-language\/","url_meta":{"origin":776,"position":0},"title":"Words, Words, Words: The Hidden Bias in Language","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"January 25, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"When we were in London, we went to the fanciest teahouse in the world and were given a pastry fork\u2014a delicate little thing, part fork, part knife, designed for the precise task of slicing through scones and dainty pastries. Sitting there in such an elegant setting, it struck me how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/life-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Shakespeare-Parking-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Shakespeare-Parking-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Shakespeare-Parking-2.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Shakespeare-Parking-2.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Shakespeare-Parking-2.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Shakespeare-Parking-2.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8699,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/a-hackers-mind\/","url_meta":{"origin":776,"position":1},"title":"A Hackers Mind","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"January 7, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"When most people hear the word 'hacking,' their minds go to a scary place of spies trying to break into computers and steal their credit cards. However, in A Hacker's Mind, security expert Bruce Schneier points out that hacking is really something else. He defines hacking as \"Something that a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books \/ Audiobooks"","block_context":{"text":"Books \/ Audiobooks","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/books-audiobooks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":697,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/questions-or-rosencrantz-and-guildenstern-at-40\/","url_meta":{"origin":776,"position":2},"title":"Questions OR Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at 40","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"January 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Yale has a wonderful writing class called Daily Themes. This class has been taught at Yale for over 100 years and requires students to write a story each day of about\u00a0500 words. I always wanted to take the class but never did. So I started to do some of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fun Stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Fun Stuff","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/fun-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10355,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/yale-needs-women\/","url_meta":{"origin":776,"position":3},"title":"Yale Needs Women","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"November 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"This year, Yale honored Constance L. Royster \u201972, the second Black woman to receive the Yale Medal (as far as I can tell), the university\u2019s highest alumni honor. Ms. Royster was celebrated for her extraordinary contributions to Yale\u2014her dedication, her advocacy, and her unwavering commitment to building a stronger, more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books \/ Audiobooks"","block_context":{"text":"Books \/ Audiobooks","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/books-audiobooks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Women-at-Yale-300-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1279,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/the-happiness-class-yales-most-popular-offering\/","url_meta":{"origin":776,"position":4},"title":"How to be Happy — Yale’s Most Popular Class","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"July 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This year Professor Laurie Santos created\u00a0Yale's most popular class of all time. The class is titled Psychology and the Good Life but it's really a course on how to be happy both in the short and long term. I was excited to hear that Yale was offering the course but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Ideas","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/ideas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4276,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/why-privacy-is-about-to-change\/","url_meta":{"origin":776,"position":5},"title":"Why Privacy is About to Change","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"November 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The world of data privacy is about to change. Currently most companies feel free to treat your personal data as an asset that can be leveraged by their company. As you no doubt have realized, many companies sell your personal information to other parties to cross sell their products. For\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Product Management"","block_context":{"text":"Product Management","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/product-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3466,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions\/3466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}