About Minutes of Magic
Minutes of Magic is a collection of outstanding 4-minute speech transcripts by some of the brightest graduate students from around the world.
The common thread running though the speeches is that they were all originally delivered in Professor Mihir Mankad’s impactful “Arts of Communication” course on public speaking. Most were recreated for the larger public audience in a TED-style event entitled “Faces of Community.”
80 speeches are selected for the first edition of the book, from almost 40 offerings of this course to date. And from around 3,000 speeches delivered by 1,500 students at institutions of global repute such as Harvard, Tufts and the Indian School of Business.
This project maintains a unique identity and provides an engaging learning experience for a number of reasons.
It showcases powerful examples of writing intended to be heard (vs. only to be read).
It brings pieces that are concise and precise. Four minutes to recite, and only two to read. Digestible for today’s attention-starved audience.
It brings excellence that a rigorous and reputed academic program demanded. With a few natural imperfections of a live performance.
It represents the voices of talented and motivated young people. Aspiring leaders, yet mostly unknown. Understanding the thinking of this demographic on a range of subjects can be revealing.
It covers a good number of personal, and often “heavy” topics, allowing for powerful learning through osmosis. While books abound on how to win audiences through inspirational content, much rarer is the availability of a set of honest topics that was actually shared to an audience, and in a short amount of time.
It is visual, with speech pages containing images of the speaker, accompanying videos where available, and upcoming podcasts. To engage and identify with the speakers’ experiences and lives.
It is curated by the Communication Professor who has gotten to know each speaker well, and experienced each speech and its reaction live.
It is binded nicely by short lessons shared by Professor Mankad, that provide context for the learning that the speakers attempted to incorporate.
It is reinforced by Reflections and Testimonials of a small group speakers and course alums. These shed light on how and why a unique community was formed through a space of sharing personal ideas and stories, which also have their own nuggets to a scholar or enthusiast of spoken communication.
It is a constantly evolving project, with an accompanying website that will continually update additional quality pieces.
As a Professor of Practice, Mankad’s time was focussed primarily on teaching vs research, and he travelled extensively to teach a large number of courses at institutions across the globe in a relatively short amount of time. Through this journey, and after diligent record of the large number of speeches to date, Professor Mankad curated a list with a team, and reached out to and received consent from each one of the original speakers, now alumni of their schools, to recreate their work for this project.
These pieces can be studied as benchmarks for speechwriting in a variety of contexts, ranging from inspirational and informative talks, to reframes and learning from adversity. They showcase the unique and personal philosophies of these young men and women, providing a new lens to life. They also serve as benchmarks and learning pieces around creating impact in a short amount of time. Indeed, one can continually push to learn how content can be packaged in creative and diverse ways to leave a mark in four minutes.
Indeed, at a time when the world is reeling in the wake of a global pandemic crises, some of these speeches serve as a beacon of hope and strength, and play their small role in the resilience and healing of the nation and the world.
This project is inspired by a number of recent successful initiatives, such as Chicken Soup For the Soul, This I Believe (originated by Edward R Murrow initially) on personal philosophies of famous and everyday people, and even the Humans Of New York project on pictures and short stories on individuals from varied backgrounds. It takes some powerful features from each of these initiatives, yet keeps its own.
Reading these speeches will inspire, motivate, convince, persuade and stir you. They cut across various themes and provide profound perspectives on a range of topics for which there isn’t conventional coaching available. You have to experience and immerse into this world to move your own needle as a communicator, and win hearts and minds.