The Final Push

This weeks post is close is an attempt to get all of the extra credit that is available, for this reason I have created a survey that everyone can take about MCom and our semester together. Here is a link to the survey that I created; https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D3GZS7Q.

I hope that everyone enjoys the survey, in addition i have uploaded a video that I made while I was on my mission in Mozambique, I hope that you all enjoy watching it. It is a video of a drunk Mozambican trying to read English and I swear that I have felt as if I sound that way sometimes when I wake up in the morning.

On a more serious not MCom has been a good class for me,I have learned a lot of things that will cary over to my career as I continue to communicate with the people around me. I feel that I have improved greatly int he area of presentations where at the beginning of the semester it seemed like something that would be insurmountable and when it came down to it I am not a terrible presenter like I thought I was.

I will for sure need to continue to practice both written and spoken communication so that I can be a pro, but more importantly so that I can communicate in a way that I am understood and not misunderstood.

Keeping Email Organized

This week we had day one of the MCOM mini conference there were a lot of interesting presentations that I was able to watch. I had the pleasure of watching instead of presenting, but i will be on the other end of things on Tuesday.

One of the presentations that particularly stuck out to me was about keeping your inbox for emails empty. I thought that I did a pretty decent job at keeping my email organized, but I learned that I have actually been off the mark the whole time.

Keeping your inbox clean will help in other aspects of your professional life as well such as being sure to get back to people who communicate with you in a timely fashion. One way that this can be done is to have separate folders can be created to keep track of where unread emails are and what sort of subject they have, whether it be school, work, networking, or some other subject that you can think of for emails could be appropriate.

The most important thing that I took away was that it really doesn't matter what you do to clean up your email inbox, what really matters is that you have a system that you are able to stay organized and on top of your emails. Additionally, as a result of hearing this presentation I am actually going to make these new folders and actually use them in a systematic way so that I will be able to organize my email and by extension organize my life.

As a reference this is a link to VoNique's blog, she is the one that made the presentation.

Teamwork.... Oh Teamwork

In the first chapter of our book it talks about the stages that a team goes through until they start to meld together ad work well. We learned that the steps are: forming, storming, norming and performing. Throughout the semester I have seen my group go through all of these steps, and it wasn't until recently that our group went through the process.

At first we didn't really know each other, we were obviously in the forming stage. We worked for quite a while in the forming stage, I would even say for a majority of the semester. It was tough to try to get the group together because there was a serious lack of effort from multiple members of the team, in honesty I feel that all of us were guilty of this.

This lack of effort is what made us pull ourselves through the storming stage and into the norming and performing stages. The consulting project really made us get together and produce results in order to get the assignment on time.

I feel that this experience in groups has taught me how to deal with others who are assigned to a project even when times get tough. I feel like this is how the real world is, not everyone has the same level of priority on something as the others in a group do and frankly that is expected. What I have taken away is that problem resolution is an important skill to develop, and I will continue to work on how well I work with others in a group setting.

Team Video Conference Call

Video conference calls are a useful thing that we are able to utilize now that we have the technology. They allow for meetings to happen without actually meeting in person, which is a great way of cutting costs. In our video conference we were able to coordinate who was taking care of which aspect of the report. We were able to get organized in an efficient way so that all the aspects of the presentation are handled.

One of the downsides of doing internet meetings is that you are in essence dependent on how the connection is. In our case we had a hard time getting connected through Google hangouts because we had a weak connection. So while a remote meeting is useful, it is not as reliable as an in person meeting. All in all however I would say that the remote meeting was a good experience and will be something that I can see becoming the most common ways to conduct meetings in the future.

Making a Mark With Short Presentations

This week we talked about how to effectively use a flip-chart while presenting. presenting this way is a whole different ball game because not while things are planned out and prepared before hand there is possibility of writing on the flip-chart while presenting.

With flip-chart presentations it can be harder to keep an audiences attention because you may be writing on the chart or the colors or words could start to blend together. A way to keep contrast with in the text is to mix up the colors that you are using, it is a great idea either to alternate colors or highlight certain words so that they stand out.

In our class we will have to present an assigned topic in a few weeks using flips-charts and I think that it will be an interesting experience. yesterday in class Pro. Middleton introduced how to use a chart like this and she gave some helpful insight. The thing that stuck out to me most was writing while talking and writing big enough, I feel that it would be a waste of time to prepare for a presentation and then write too small which makes it difficult for the audience to see what you have written. Letters should be at least two inches and should be in all caps so that the words are easy to read.

Personally I am not god at writing in all caps so that will be something that I need to work on in order to prepare for my presentation that I will have to give with a flip-chart.

Online Interview

The online interview was interesting for me, as far as the interview went, I would say it is more like a normal interview. The questions were thought provoking, I made sure I was using PAR stories to answer questions and I did what I could to bring the questions back to my resume.

The things that were interesting or almost weird to me were the things that weren't in the dialogue. In the room that I did the interview in there was a light with a ceiling fan, the light was behind me and as such it made it look like the top of my head was shining, if I have to do an interview over Skype I wish make sure the room is well lit and that the light is in front of me. I will probably sit in front of a blank wall so that the things that are in the room don't end up distracting from the interview.

I also noticed the there is not as much room for hand gestures, where if I want to gesture I need to bring my hands up near my face and I feel that if I do that then I will be distracting from the interview. In order to preserve the same level of interest I found that I would use more facial expressions. Yukio, the person I was paired with, noticed something that I do that I want to change, the problem that was identified was that when I think of how to answer and when I start answering a question I tend to look off screen or away from the person. I will be sure to work on this so that I can have the most successful interviews that I can./

Spreading Your Word

This week we talked about business letters for when written communication is sent between you and someone else. The main point that stuck out to me was about using appropriate voice. We know about both active and passive voices so I won't spend time going through those, but rather I will try to answer my own question which is when is it appropriate to use passive voice in a persuasive letter?

I know that many times when trying to persuade someone we use the direct approach to writing which is to draw them in with facts about what you are trying to do or something and then putting an agenda in the letter so they know what is about to come at them. Active voice is used in persuasive letters in, what seems to be, a majority of situations.

I think that passive voice would be used if someone is trying to get someone else to do something that they don't really want to do or don't feel they need. In these cases passive voice could be used to draw the reader in and get them to feel good and then deliver the bad news of what you want them to do.

Knowing the differences about when to use which kind of voice is important because it will make your writing more effective. To overcome my problem of not knowing when to use passive voice I will go back to the book and try to find out because I know that it is something important and something that I should know.

Ch 5 Presentation Thoughts

My group had its presentation this week about chapter five so I was able to practice presenting and actually make a presentation for the class. Afterwards I have now been able to see the video of our presentation to see better what I need to improve. Watching the video was an interesting experience because I don't usually see myself from the third person perspective and also the video didn't have sound on it, but this made it very easy to see what I do when I am in front of people.

Going in to this presentation I was nervous because I don't do well speaking in front of people, my biggest fear is to put myself in front of people and have the presentation turn out like a failure. While this didn't actually occur while watching the video I found that my insecurity about that was also presented. This nervousness caused me to be very jittery, I honestly remember having a "Ricky Bobby" moment from the movie Talledega Nights, Ricky Bobby is the main character and after winning a race he was being interviewed on camera and he did not know what to do with his hands and as a result he continually raised them into the view of the camera. I feel like I acted similarly while presenting where I did not know what i should do (or not do) with my hands so I was continually doing something that could be distracting to audience members. Something that I also noticed was that I am not very aware of the space, I move a bit but I stay in a place that might be distracting (I had the projector on my face because I was tall.

Some things that I did well as well as my team was our transitions, this was something that we actually didn't practice before hand, but when it came down to it, we did them pretty well. We also did a good job at incorporating humor throughout the presentation to help keep the audience's attention.

For the next presentation I will practice going through the presentation more with my group so that I will feel more comfortable with the material and as a result I think that I will not be such  distraction with my hands. In addition I will work hard to keep my hands still while not speaking in the presentation so I don't take people's attention away from where I want it.

Originally published 3/8/14, updated 3/20/14.

Selling Yourself Through the Past

This week a topic that stuck in my mind is PAR stories. These stories are methods by which a person can use to highlight attributes that they have, these are more effective than simply stating that an attribute is had. This is because a PAR story will show how a certain person acted in a certain situation proving that the person can think on the go and they really have the skill. This week I saw that a PAR story is the best way to answer a question in an interview.

We had a chance to do some mock interviews in class and while I was interviewing two of my colleagues I felt like the better way to sell your skills is through a PAR story. There was a stark difference between an answer that was simple and was simply stated and an answer that was illustrated by a specific story.

A PAR story is comprised of three parts, a problem, an action, and a result. In the problem part a problem is presented, in the action section, as would be expected, the action that took place is presented, and thee logicality continues to the result section where you relate the result of the action that took place that is related to the initial problem.

Honestly before learning about these stories this week I knew that it was better to answer questions by means of a story. However, now I know that there is a structure that should be followed to ensure that stories are used well.

As a result I will take some time before each interview that I have to draft some PAR stories in a way that they will be able to relate to the specific job that I am applying for. I feel that by doing this I will be able to better sell myself during an interview.

Sealing the Deal

This week we had a wonderful guest presenter come and talk to us about interviews and applying for jobs and internships. One counsel that I enjoyed was about the preparation that should be done before an interview, specifically that we should go into any interview with questions that we want to have answered. This makes sense to me for two reasons; first, you will know what kind of company it is that you are interviewing with and you are able to get your mind in the right place that you are thinking about how it would be to work in the company; second, you will be a better listener because it will seem as though you weren't listening if your question was answered during the actual interview.

Preparing for an interview is extremely important because you want to present your best self meaning you have to be sharp. One way that I prepare for an interview is think about what I would be able to do in the company to be able to add value to their team. Once I figure this out I will focus on these things during the interview so that the interviewer can see that I am not some random guy who wants to work in the company.

In order to better myself in interviews I will spend more time thinking about questions that I want to have answered, I will also be sure to research to see if I can find some projects that are being worked on so that I will be sharper and one step ahead of the competition.

Spacing, Who Needs It?

This week was all about written messages, specifically how to write and design your page so that it is appealing so that it has a higher chance of being read. One thing that stuck out to me was that everything that you do to the page visually including the use of white space will make writing either more or less inviting to reading depending on how well the page is designed so this is what I will write about today.

As stated about what is referred to as white space in a document many times is seen as lazy because whoever wrote the piece didn't want to fill up the page. This mindset is not a correct one. As we spoke in class white space should be used strategically so as to help the reader read the message. Contrarily if too many words are used in a given space the page gets really hard to read and can make even the most patient reader not want to read what is written, this is called grey space.

The reason that I bring these two points up is because I feel it is the most overlooked part of writing, many times people want to just write and not worry about what it looks like, I do this to. This tendency has been created because many of us up to this point have written because it has been an assignment and really no matter what our writing would be read. The reality is that this tendency needs to be changed because we are all getting to a time that our writing will now be overlooked if it is not structured well or if it is hard to read.

To fix this in my writing I will focus on the elements of spacing that are in my writing, especially the use of white space or the presence of grey space. Doing this will help me not just think about what I am writing as I have done in the past but also think about how the reader will perceive my writing and whether they will want to read it or not.

Sliding in to Home

Home base is the desired end point for baseball players everywhere, when they get started on their journey around the bases all the see is home plate and how they can get there. This vision is all great and dandy for those of us who play baseball, but when I think of home I think of my safe place.

A home in presentations, as we learned in class, is some sort of something that the presenter does because they are nervous or just because it is comfortable. Most of the time time little "home plate" action is not a very big thing that is done but it is big enough. The reason that I bring this up is that many times when I am watching a presentation I notice these sorts of repetitive things that the presenter does, and a majority of the time it is distracting and I see that it makes the presenter's message lose some of its importance.

After learning about this, I started looking at myself when I present things, I actually had the chance to do this the very next day in my Portuguese class. Something that I noticed is that I have an action that I do when I present, most of the time I will clasp my hands in front of me because I don't know what to do when I present. As a result of this perception and lesson in class I am going to really pay attention to what I do when I present, I feel that if I notice things now and I practice presenting now I will be more successful in my career and my future employer will be able to be sure that I won't blow a potential deal because of a lack of credibility caused by a lack of good present skills.

Differences

An important part of life is to embrace our surroundings and situations and although they may be less than ideal in our minds, the reality is that we have to accept them and do what we can to embrace our differences. As we were presenting our group charters and as we were talking to our fellow classmates this week I could not help but notice the differences in the groups and in peoples' opinions.

Differences are what make us unique and awesome, I personally love hearing opinions that are different from my own, many times I feel my opinion is better but this is because I have ownership of it. My favorite activity of the week was when we did our networking activity, I really enjoyed getting advice about things that I have been pondering about from someone who is an outsider to the situation and does not have a bias as to how the situation plays out. A situation in which you or someone else is outside of the people directly affected allows and encourages opinions that are for the greater good of the people that are involved because you are not invested.

This activity has changed my outlook on networking, now I look at it as an opportunity to get to know someone who could potentially help me in the future. I usually see networking as a way to use other peoples in my goals of progress and self improvement. Looking at situations where I meet someone new and thinking about how I can enrich their lives will help me be more sincere in talking them and really make the whole encounter a more pleasant experience.

Table Manners, They are just for the table.

Every parent tries to teach their children about how to have good manners and how to treat other people. Well now it looks like Mommy and Daddy's councils are coming in to play. Manners, as we have discussed in class, can make or break a person. They can indicate that you are not the right person for the job or that you should not be taken seriously; contrarily, it may do the opposite, the other person may have their feelings of doubt reinforced because of your manners and the way that you conduct yourself. These days life and success is heavily tied to impressions and who you know, make a bad impression with someone and you may as well just be committing professional suicide. The importance of having good manners and good personal awareness is a crucial skill to develop. Since manners, as well as self awareness in professional settings, are so important you might be asking what am I going to do? Well since today is Thursday, and it is never too early to start improvement, I will find at least one aspect in my life pertaining to my manners and courtesy by Monday, January 20, 2014, at I will work on improving that thing. This change will be part of the new me, a more pleasant and professional person. I invite anyone who is reading this post to do similarly, no one is perfect so why not find something that  needs fixing and fix it. It may not be by Monday (you may not be readings this before the 20th) but give yourself a time frame and make it work. What do you have to lose? Worst case scenario you will become a more pleasant person, so hey give it a shot.

Nathan

Grammar Is Hard, Who Knew!?

A good friend of mine once told me, "Speaking is easy, communication is hard", while I never really agreed with this statement because I have found it easy to communicate, I do agree that the grammar aspect of communicating is difficult. While I was doing the reading for class this week I came to the realization that writing with correct grammar is quite complicated. With this in mind I still studied since I knew that we would have a grammar quiz during Thursday's class. The question that I had to answer for myself before I was able to buckle down and study was, why is grammar important? I did a little bit of soul searching and I realized that grammar is what separates someone from sounding uneducated from sounding educated. Using correct grammar is very important in the professional world and it is something that can make or break an impression about you. As a result of this realization I have resolved to dedicate myself to really internalize grammar, not just learn it for the test that we will have. Rather, I want to put it in use to become more refined in my speaking and writing, how this will be accomplished is through doing the readings more than once to be sure that I understand the concept and if I don't I will talk to the class TA's to get help. Aside from this I will practice implementing the grammar principles that I learn so that I get used to the new way of speaking and writing, this way grammatically correct English will not be as much like a foreign language, but rather it will be something familiar that I can use effectively.