Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

Transform how you communicate with tools that make your message stick.

Sometimes the best way to explain an idea is to show it. That’s why Loom was built — to make communication more visual, authentic, and efficient. By combining video, screen sharing, and AI-powered editing, Loom helps teams connect and collaborate asynchronously, no matter where they are.

In this episode of the Think Fast, Talk Smart Tech Tools miniseries, host Matt Abrahams talks with Joe Thomas, co-founder and CEO of Loom, now part of Atlassian, about how asynchronous video can make communication clearer, faster, and more personal. They discuss why “show, don’t tell” is such an effective communication principle, how authenticity builds trust, and why recording yourself might be one of the best ways to improve how you communicate.

In addition to insight-packed discussions, this miniseries explores innovative tools that enhance the way we communicate and connect. Whether you want to make your presentations more memorable, craft stories that stick, or connect with your audience on a deeper level, these episodes will help you communicate with greater clarity, confidence, and impact.

Episode Reference Links:

Connect:

Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (01:18) - Loom Elevator Pitch
  • (02:27) - Creation of Loom
  • (03:50) - Show, Don’t Tell: Using Video Effectively
  • (09:15) - Favorite Communicator
  • (10:19) - Communication Hack or Tool
  • (13:22) - Conclusion

 *******
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Creators and Guests

Host
Matt Abrahams
Lecturer Stanford University Graduate School of Business | Think Fast Talk Smart podcast host
Guest
Joe Thomas
Co-founder & CEO at Loom

What is Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques?

One of the most essential ingredients to success in business and life is effective communication.
Join Matt Abrahams, best-selling author and Strategic Communication lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, as he interviews experts to provide actionable insights that help you communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact. From handling impromptu questions to crafting compelling messages, Matt explores practical strategies for real-world communication challenges.

Whether you’re navigating a high-stakes presentation, perfecting your email tone, or speaking off the cuff, Think Fast, Talk Smart equips you with the tools, techniques, and best practices to express yourself effectively in any situation. Enhance your communication skills to elevate your career and build stronger professional relationships.

Tune in every Tuesday for new episodes. Subscribe now to unlock your potential as a thoughtful, impactful communicator. Learn more and sign up for our eNewsletter at fastersmarter.io.

Matt Abrahams: This Tech Tools miniseries
is brought to you by Prezi, the

presentation tool that makes your ideas
easy to follow, hard to forget, and

faster than ever to create with Prezi AI.

The best investment is in
the tools of one's own trade.

At Think Fast Talk Smart, we are
taking this quote by Benjamin

Franklin, the famous US inventor
and founding father, very seriously.

As you know, our show strives to share
tips and techniques to help you hone and

improve your communication and careers.

These practices and approaches can be
augmented with tools and technology.

I'm Matt Abrahams.

I teach strategic communication at
Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to this Tech Tools miniseries
of Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

In this multi-part miniseries, we'll
introduce you to tools we use at Think

Fast Talk Smart to help us be better at
our spoken and written communication.

And you'll learn best practices
from the founders who created them.

Taken together, we hope these
communication tools will help you find

new ways to think fast and talk smart.

I'm excited to speak today with Joe
Thomas, who's one of the founders and

the CEO of Loom, now part of Atlassian.

Well, Joe, welcome.

Thanks for joining me.

Joe Thomas: Thank you so
much for having me, Matt.

Matt Abrahams: Some of our listeners
might not know exactly what Loom is.

Can you share what your product is using
the elevator pitch structure that I teach

to my MBA students, what if you could,
so that, for example, and that's not all.

Joe Thomas: Certainly.

So what if you could record a quick video
showing your screen, including a camera

bubble, where the video is instantly
ready to share, to communicate complex

ideas with anyone anytime, so that you
can save time, reduce misunderstandings,

and build stronger connections with
your team, no matter their availability

or where they are in the world.

For example, with Loom, instead of
typing out a long note to explain a

project or walk through a slide deck
live in a meeting, you can record a

video for your team to move work forward.

Over ten million Loom
videos are shared per month.

And that's not all.

Loom utilizes AI to transcribe your
video and auto draft a relevant title,

summary, chapters, and action items,
including helping you polish the video,

removing filler words and silences so you
can communicate even more effectively.

No video editing skills required.

Matt Abrahams: That was very well
done in that structure and very clear.

I'm curious, what led you to create Loom?

Joe Thomas: When we were starting out
in 2015, myself and two co-founders,

what we observed was that video was
everywhere in our personal lives from

a consumer landscape perspective.

But when we would show up
to work, video recording and

sharing was nowhere to be seen.

Where I was working at the time, we were
still using Microsoft Outlook for emails.

Slack was just starting to become a thing.

When we looked at what the existing
software and offerings provided,

it was really complex to use.

You would record a video, it would
save a local file on your desktop.

You had an app to upload it
to Dropbox or Google Drive.

By the time you were ready to actually
share a link, it had already been twenty,

twenty-five minutes, and we felt like
there was a ton of latent potential

within this space to bring video
recording and sharing to the workplace,

based off of the fact that consumer
behavior tends to leave the enterprise.

Now, to be clear, we had a core thesis
of bringing video to the workplace.

But from November 2015 when we
started building to June of 2016, so

nine months, we had a couple major
pivots about how we would apply

it and bring it to the workplace.

But ultimately, what we've built, and
what we've been building against now

for nine years, is how do we enable
more people to use async video as

part of their core communication?

Matt Abrahams: Thank you for that.

And one of the big powers of what you've
created is that it is asynchronous.

You don't have to be in live connection.

Many of us, thanks to the pandemic,
are very familiar with synchronous

communication, but the tool allows you to
do this asynchronously and provide very

specific videos for people to leverage.

Now I know beyond just really thinking
about bringing video to the enterprise,

you spend a lot of time thinking
about how to integrate videos into

our work life and our workflows.

What best practices have you learned that
can really help people be more effective

at integrating video into what they do?

Joe Thomas: It's funny 'cause in listening
to this podcast and other episodes,

I feel like a lot of things end up
being consistent in terms of what is

good ways to use asynchronous video.

And one of those is, you already talked
about it, which is show, don't tell.

I think one of the things about Loom
is that ninety-three percent of videos

that are recorded on our platform,
they have a screen component to them.

They're not just talking heads.

And that allows people to show
their work, not just tell about it.

There's also, keep it concise.

We actually have a feature on our free
tier of loom that is a five minute limit,

and we have had a lot of people talk
about the fact that it should be a paid

feature to implement a recording limit.

And then the third thing that I
think about is being authentic.

The thing about recording video and
sending it is that you can watch it back.

You can hear your own voice, you can know
the stumbles and say, I can rerecord that.

I might be able to do it better.

But in a meeting, you can't go back,
in a face-to-face conversation,

you can't go back in time, right?

And so just be authentic and
lean into that authenticity.

And that's what really resonates
and builds trust with people.

And the last thing that I'd say with
async video is that even though we're

bringing consumer behavior to the
workplace, it is still a new skill for

a lot of people to record and share
video as a form of communication.

And so just think of async video
as a skill that you can build and

develop over the course of time.

We actually have had many users and
customers write into us that they

started using Loom and because it
was the only consistent way that

they've ever heard themselves played
back, that they've improved their

communication as a result of just
clicking play on themselves, no matter

how painful it is, because pain is gain.

And so just think of
async video as a skill.

Matt Abrahams: Taking the time to
watch yourself is perhaps the best

way to improve communication skills.

And with a tool like yours, it allows
you the opportunity to try slightly

different variations and compare
them literally side by side so you

can see how that looks different.

I tell people this is like going
to the dentist, and I do not mean

offense to anybody who is a dentist.

My uncle was a dentist.

A lot of us don't like going to the
dentist, but we're super glad we went.

Some of what you're talking
about is exactly that.

Take the time to record
yourself, watch that recording.

As Joe said, it is a skill and it
is a skill that you can develop.

All athletes watch their videos, coaches
use those videos to help the athletes.

It's a great skill.

The notion of focusing on
showing really valuable.

I think it's fascinating that over
ninety percent of the folks that

use your tool have something else
on the screen besides just them.

That shows you how much
people are using it to show.

Being concise and clear.

I love that you have a feature,
I wish we could build that

into everyday interaction.

Wouldn't that be great?

And then finally, be who you are.

Be authentic.

You don't have to put filters on and
be somebody or not when you do this.

That authenticity matters.

Before we end, I'd like to ask you
two questions that I'm asking everyone

who's part of this miniseries, who
is a communicator you admire and why?

Joe Thomas: This is gonna be a basic
answer in the sense that, look, Steve

Jobs I, I think he is undeniable, but I
wanted to call out not just his keynotes.

I think that the recordings that I'd
go back to on a very regular basis

are the informal Q&As that he's done
with Apple employees, where I find

it really fascinating to study those.

And Mike, the CEO of Atlassian does
something very similar to Steve in

our town halls where he'll pause
and he'll really think about an

answer for ten, fifteen seconds,
which seems like an eternity, right?

But that allows him to shape the
communication in his head such that

it is thoughtful, but it is also
not skirting around what the real

answer is, like the no BS answer.

And so I feel like Steve Jobs
was truly excellent at that.

Many of us, when we think of Steve
Jobs, we think of those big keynotes

or the amazing address he gave at
Stanford's graduation many years ago.

But in fact, he was also
pretty expert at the Q&A piece.

And that's where I really think the rubber
meets the road because you can prepare and

practice and have a lot of help in those
planned communications, but in those on

the spot moments, that's a lot harder.

Second and final question.

Beyond Loom your tool, what is
one communication hack or tool or

shortcut that you use personally
to help you be more effective?

So this one is probably more for
managers and leaders, but when I

actually adopted it, it was incredibly
helpful for me in order to reduce my

anxiety in communicating with a team.

It's a framework called do, try, consider.

A lot of times when you're communicating
things to your team, especially if

you're in a position of authority, if
you don't frame what your message is

to them through, do, try, consider,
they're all gonna take it as gospel.

Like, we need to go off and do this.

So when somebody finally introduced
to me three years ago, this, do try,

consider framework, it actually radically
changed my ability to share feedback

in a higher volume while also knowing
that I trust that it's not gonna

be misconstrued on the other side.

So, do in this scenario, is used
extremely rarely, at least for

myself personally, which is I have
extremely high conviction on this.

I am asking you to do this, right?

Like this, this isn't a try or consider.

Try is if it's a design concept.

I'm not saying that this is a thing that
we're gonna ship, but I would love for

you to experiment and tinker with the
designs in this way, and then we can come

back and have a conversation about it.

And then consider is used eighty to
eighty-five percent of the time, which

is just, hey, this is a random thought.

I think it's relevant, but I don't know.

You're the owner of your work and you
need to take it as like just another

data point relative to all of the
other things that you're considering.

And so that was a huge communication
hack for me as a leader, is making sure

that I communicate whether this is a do,
try, consider to make sure that something

that was a consider wasn't taken and
come back three months later and I'm

like, oh no, I forgot I even said that.

Matt Abrahams: I really appreciate
not only you sharing that,

but also teaching that to us.

And you're right, many leaders
when they will say things, people

take it as a do, when in fact it
was meant as a try or consider.

It's the preamble that you give to your
comment that helps people understand

this is a try, this is a consider.

And the fact that we look at
our thoughts as leaders and even

colleagues, I would argue as either
do, try, or consider, helps us to

frame and makes the communication
more clear for the recipient.

Joe, thank you.

You know, when I think about it, a
lot of what you're about is helping

make things clear and easier.

We are a visual species.

Seeing things helps us a lot
and Loom, as a tool, is really

helpful for us doing that.

Thank you for your time and thank
you for sharing your insights

and background story of the tool.

Joe Thomas: Matt, thank you for creating
this podcast in the first place.

So, so helpful, and thank
you for having me on.

Matt Abrahams: Thank you for
joining us for one of our

communication tools episodes of
Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

Please be sure to listen to all of
the episodes in this miniseries.

We appreciate Prezis
sponsorship of these episodes.

This episode was produced by Katherine
Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams.

Our music is from Floyd Wonder.

With special thanks to
Podium Podcast Company.

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