Kent’s Official Blog

I saw that Randy Pausch passed away over the weekend.

I’ve heard about his speech, but never invested the time to watch it until tonight.  There’s a dozen other things I need to be doing right now, but damn that thing sucked me in.  It has everything, laughter, cool stories, and then literally makes you weep like a small child.

So I just googled the man and found this:

Could something like Randy Pausch’s last lecture ever have become as widespread a phenomenon without YouTube and the Internet? I can’t see how. Maybe his lecture might have been videotaped and copies of the tape sent around to other professors, or to universities — or it might have shown up on PBS or the Discovery Channel (most likely after he had already passed away), where a couple of hundred thousand people might have seen it. He could have wound up on Oprah or Charlie Rose at some point, I suppose. But that’s just not the same.

So true, but it never would have been picked up by a network — too many infringing slides to get an E&O insurance policy, weird length, and too depressing.

If Mr. Pausch gave this speech ten years ago he would have been a local hero, today the book based on this lecture is a bestseller.  All of that because they were easily to experience his wisdom.

People want to experience great things.  This speech was a great thing — usually such presentations are reserved for high-paying corporate clients or a result of years of training on the comedy circuit.  This was a valentine to the loved ones he was leaving behind.  A public hug to his children and wife.

(God, I’m crying again.)

And because his communication goal was so specific, it’s so imminently watchable.  Because it’s voyeuristic and cathartic.  It’s also simply captured well with no frills, but with multiple, well-composed cameras and good sound.

The video works because it maintains that specify and clarity of purpose (even though the audience isn’t let in on it until the last sentence) for the entire 76 minutes.

There’s not a lot of online (or offline) video content that can claim to do that.

This was the speech of his life, both literally and figuratively.  There really wasn’t a wasted beat.  He laid out the rules at the beginning and stuck to them and then gave a twist ending.

Great job Randy, and my thoughts are with your wife and children.  I hope this speech helps me become a better person and love and appreciate each day of my life even more.