A MIT professor gave a 1-hour lecture in 2019 that has 18 million views. He died 5 months after recording it. It was his final gift to the world. Patrick Winston taught at MIT for 50 years. The smartest engineers on earth sat in his classroom. And he spent his last lecture teaching them the one skill their degrees never covered. How to speak. 15 lessons that will change how you communicate forever: Never open with a joke. Your audience is not ready to laugh yet. Open with a promise of what they will know by the end. Your ideas are like your children. You are too close to them. What is obvious to you is invisible to everyone else. Explain the obvious. The 5-minute rule: the first 5 minutes of any talk determine whether people will listen for the next 55. Spend more time on your opening than anything else. Repeat your most important idea 3 times in 3 different ways. Once is never enough. Build a fence around your idea. Tell people what it is NOT before you tell them what it IS. Verbal punctuation. Pause. Let the idea land before moving to the next one. Ask questions nobody will answer. Then wait 7 seconds. The silence is not awkward. It is processing. Never read your slides. Your audience can read. They cannot listen and read simultaneously. Use the board not the slides. Writing forces you to slow down. Slowing down forces clarity. Inspire before you inform. Nobody learns from someone they are not inspired by. End with a contribution not a summary. Tell them what you gave them. Not what you said. Never say thank you at the end. It is weak. End with something that lands. Stories make ideas stick. Data makes ideas understood. You need both. In that order. The quality of your communication determines the quality of your ideas in the eyes of the world. Not the ideas themselves. Practice is not preparation. Practice IS the skill. Patrick Winston understood something most people spend their entire careers missing. Your ideas are only as powerful as your ability to transfer them into someone else's mind. You can be the smartest person in the room and be completely invisible. Or you can master communication and make average ideas feel like breakthroughs. He chose to spend his last lecture teaching this. Watch it tonight. Bookmark this first. Follow @cyrilXBT for more lessons from the people who built the future.

IR35: MPs denied vote to amend Finance Bill to ‘curb or kill’ umbrella companies bit.ly/3fkdaG1 via @computerweekly

So how precisely will the Government honour the findings of the Morse review, which denounced 'reprehensible' scheme promoters? These schemes will surely flourish without decisive intervention. #LoanCharge

Inequalities in vaccination in England are significant. The variation is a big problem because of how infectious the virus is. The variation in people aged 70yrs and older having been vaccinated, when broken down by ethnic group, is enormous. Ethnicity isn't the only factor, 1/4

As I've now been promoted (Shadow Planning Minister) I have stepped down as Co-Chair of the APPG. Many thanks to the @LCAG and @GregMulholland1 for keeping the show on the road, and good luck for the future!

Whenever I see BLM I read BIM. Building Information Matters? Does it? If so - how much so?

Norway's grand plan to build the world's first "cruise ship tunnel" explained - bit.ly/3gOMrCO #construction #engineering #architecture #Norway

OK This is beyond a joke #Dell My new, expensive, high-end laptop I bought well under a year ago has already has a site visit repair & now has been away for repair for 19 days. I'm losing customers! #regrets @Dell #TryingToMakeALiving #Complaint

Yet another major public project that has delivered COBie, but felt it necessary to deliver traditional O&Ms too! Thousands of public projects every year, duplicating efforts by providing COBie & traditional O&Ms, whilst COBie often goes in the bin. Major issue @UKBIMAlliance

London's skyline will be almost unrecognisable by the mid-2020s. New renders released by the City of London Corporation show how a number of recently approved #skyscrapers will impact the City once constructed - bit.ly/3hiaCJL #construction #architecture #london

What about Directors of small limited companies @DavidDavisMP ? Thanks to @Conservatives : 1. I'm threatened with financial ruin because of retrospective Loan Charge 2. Have no job due to IR35 3. Can't get a job due to the lockdown 4. I get no support from Govt during lockdown

Helps no one working via a PSC @EdwardJDavey We face: 1. Financial ruin via the retrospective Loan Charge 2. Have lost job because of IR35 3. Can't get a job because of the lockdown 4. Got no support from the Govt #ScrewedByTheConservatives @piersmorgan @BorisJohnson

Did @RishiSunak just announce a future increase in #tax for the #selfemployed, when they'd tuned in to hear that they would get some support during #covid19 @BBCPolitics . Who decided that was the right time for that to be put out??? #HMRC? #contractors #ir35 #offpayrolltax ???

Self Employed Income Support: Many with limted companies asking who pay through a mix of dividends and PAYE asking what support. Sorry to say I've had it confirmed dividends won't count. You can get furlough help for the PAYE but dividends fall outside system. Pls share :(

8 minutes ago yet it's already up 342,407 cases 14,762 deaths 99,041 recovered!

Day Four. I am at the end of my tether. Gawd elp me.