---
title: Speaking unprepared
date: 2026-04-07T13:14:13+08:00
categories:
  - llms
---

I deliver about [3-5 talks a month](https://sanand0.github.io/talks/) and usually prepare for them.

Thanks to AI (but even otherwise), I have a steady stream of new content. So, I just to assemble the story.

For example, in my [TEDx Whitefield talk](https://youtu.be/ew5_-7cwSm0) "Prisoners of Birth", I shared the impact of name, gender, lineage, place, and time of birth. I didn't execute any new analysis. I just cherry-picked disparate analyses into a theme. (Took me three days to plan, though.)

But repetition bores me. I've known this since 2002 when I tried coaching CAT students. Conventional teaching isn't for me. And talks get boring too.

So, often, I ad-lib. Impromptu. Deliberately under-prepared. (Panels are good practice for this. I must try improv next.)

This has a surprising benefit. In the pressure of the moment, inspiration can strike.

![Like it strikes Calvin](https://sanand0.github.io/talks/2026-04-06-innovation-as-a-frontier-straive/calvin-last-minute-panic.webp)

For example, yesterday, at an [internal Straive fireside chat](https://sanand0.github.io/talks/2026-04-06-innovation-as-a-frontier-straive/), I went completely off-script and answered a question on the chat about the benefits of [Gemini](https://gemini.google.com/).

> The sort of things that you can do with Gemini is amazing. And what I do ... is to poke ... what can I do here? What's in here? What's in here? Recently, I saw that it can create music. And some of this music is stunning!

Now, I had to think of something interesting to do with the music. Despite _weeks_ of exploring Lyria, I never found a use for it, let alone "stunning". Now I had 3 seconds.

Then, inspiration struck!

> Now, we had music at the beginning of this Zoom call. Why does that need to be something that is unpersonalized?

I went to ChatGPT and asked it to create a _personalized_ jingle for the talk I was delivering, providing it my name, title, talk topic, etc. - something the L&D team could replace their stock jingle with. And it was pretty good, actually.

<audio controls preload="metadata">
  <source src="https://sanand0.github.io/talks/2026-04-06-innovation-as-a-frontier-straive/where-the-paths-thrive.opus" type="audio/ogg; codecs=opus">
</audio>

That's a novel _and_ a useful idea - something _many_ people can use!

It's times like this that I _really_ enjoy delivering talks. This is why I live-code. This is why I pause for questions. This is why I'm thrilled when I have no clue of the answer. Pretending to be know is fun and all that, but the kick of _discovery_ on stage -- that's something else!