Hello, my name is William Caskin and I'm delighted to speak with you today. I think I know many of you and I think you know me from a MOOC I did back in 2013 called Comic Books and Graphic Novels. I'm here to tell you about a new specialization and let me see if I can get this working Voila, perfect. That specialization is called effective communication, mastering business writing, graphic design, and successful presentation. And I think this is a very powerful specialization. I want to basically go through three main points. The first is, I'd like to cover the MOOCs in the specialization and those MOOCs they cover obviously, business writing, graphic design, successful presentation. But more than that they bring together a skill set that is greater than the sum of the parts. And in the second part of my talk today I'd like to talk about that skill set, talk about how powerful I think it is. And that leads me into a larger in thinking about education and about Coursera's really important role today. But if you remember nothing else about my presentation remember this, this specialization is a journey of self realization. On this slide, you can see my pen here which represents knowledge, it represents writing, and speaking, and delivering knowledge. And knowledge is written there on my notebook. And that's what this specialization is about. It's about learning knowledge but more than that, it's about internalizing that knowledge and using it to further who you are. Knowledge is not a static thing and learning to communicate effectively allows you to go to any field, and master it, and dovetail it with who you are inside and deliver it outward. So if you remember nothing else from what I say today remember this, communication is more powerful than anyone knowledge subgroup. Communication is who you are and how you express yourself to the world that's what we're after in this specialization. So, specialization has four courses the first by Quentin McAndrew. A veteran of the University of Colorado in Boulder English Department and I was chair of the department when she was teaching in it. And at the end of every semester, clockwork I'd be hit by five, six, 10 emails from her students telling me how great a teacher she was, and in fact the department got a little jealous. She's going to teach business writing and I think she'll really bring you an excellent course. Dave Underwood is teaching graphic design. About 10 years ago I first met Dave, and he taught me how to design a book. That I was making for the English department. And from that I learned that Dave has a quiet intensity, a caring, nurturing but nevertheless directed sensibility. Dave teaches in the prisons and he's a kind of mentor to people. And I think that that will be expressed in his MOOC as well. I'll teach successful presentation. And the specialization wraps up in a capstone. And the capstone is great because on the one hand it has an assignment, which the students have to write, design, and present something out of that assignment. But also there's a component that challenges them to go out in the world and find their own assignment. Engage, write, design and speak to the world. I think that connects powerfully with the Coursera mission. So, the thing about these four courses, these four individual MOOCs. They all come together around the power of clarity, the need for a formula, a framework in which to write, design, and speak, and finally, the importance of revision. Those three skills clarity, formula or scaffolding, and revision. They carry through all media, whether it's a crisp document, a clear design or a well spoken, powerful presentation. Those three things carry through, and they carry through all content. Whether you're a scientist or an accountant, a police officer or an engineer. You need to speak clearly and in turn, if you don't it reflects badly on yourself as a person. It fouls off your content. Finally, whatever your career is and you may have many careers and many jobs in your lifetime. You need to be able to communicate. Communication is something more fundamental than any individual skill set. So that brings me to a larger point here. This is a journey of self-realization. It's about developing the self. And that development occurs in a complicated way. To really learning something is to transform who you are. It's to take in something from the outside, some information and to put it in you, and then turn around and send it out with your own unique trademark, your own brand. So hear me, learning is not simply parading, learning is being willing to let yourself grow. And I think that's at the heart of Coursera's mission. How can I say this? The world it's an evidently unjust world. It's an evidently unjust world in which education is not meted out to everyone. And it's simply unfair. And Coursera's brilliance has been to recognize that the world can engage around something other than blood and gold. The world can engage powerfully around education. Around lifting everyone up, and Coursera's gone out to the world and offer this pattern. This pattern of giving, and growing, and giving out. And I see that directly in Coursera's infinity sign because there is no end to the potential of education. But at the heart of that, more than any individual lesson is communication and so I pose to you, I pose to you that effective communication is central to Coursera's endeavour. It's central to learning itself because if people cannot communicate then ultimately we are restricted to blood and gold. We're restricted to fighting amongst ourselves the unfathomable gap between cultures that we can never obtain without truly effective communication. So my argument is simply this. Coursera's mission is a bold and a noble one. And I believe effective communication fits that mission well. Thank you, thank you for hearing me out. Onwards.
