Friday, August 22, 2008

#1

Image adopted from http://www.sexualhealthcentresaskatoon.ca/par/comm.htm



Have you ever been impressed by someone who can deliver an inspiring speech or presentation? Have you ever wondered what makes them such successful communicators? Do you wish that you could be like them as well? I guess these three questions might have resurfaced in my mind several times; especially when I get to witness an inspiring presentation, be it a seminar, talk or presentations.


So what actually determines the success of a presentation, particularly in an oral presentation? According to a research done by Dr. Robert Merabian from the University of California, he listed three important channels of communication information: Word, tone and body. Word can be defined as the type of language used to convey the message; tone is the sound in speaking and body is the way we look and move when delivering a presentation. He concluded from his research that body has the highest total impact of a spoken language (56%) followed by tone (34%) and word (10%).

Certainly, oral communication skills cannot be mastered in a day or two. They can be improved and polished with every presentation that we make. For myself, I would consider oral communication skills to be my major concern among the other communication skills. In my opinion, having good oral communication skills enables a presenter to convey his/her messages across to the audience in a precise and understandable manner. Furthermore, a major plus point would be to make the presentation “catchy”, meaning that it will be able to attract the attention of the audience from the start of the presentation till the end of it. To be able to achieve this, the presenter must equip him/herself with other communication skills such as non-verbal communication skills and interpersonal communication skills. Certainly, personality and charisma of an individual is important to determine the success of an oral presentation.

Written communication skill is another part of the communication skills that I hope to improve on. As you are reading my blog, you would might think that my postings are not as exciting and intriguing as the others. Often, I will be “stuck” in a situation where I could not continue my writing anymore because I was just unable to articulate and find the right words to put it into my writing. (You will never guess how many times I have struggled with writing this first posting) However, please be assured that I am working hard on making my future blog posts more interesting and exciting to read.


That is all for this first blog post. Thanks for reading.

6 comments:

Danny Wong said...

Hey guys! I need some help regarding the pictures on my blog. How do I actually shift it from the top of my blog post to the centre of the post (in between the text)? I am new into this so I will appreciate your help. Thanks!

Brad Blackstone said...

This is an excellent post, Danny. You move well from the discussion of Merabian's ideas to a more personalized reflection on the struggle for improving your skills. (Good luck with that. Hopefully this experience in ES2007S will have a positive impact!))

I look forward to reading more from you!

Brad Blackstone said...

Oh...to move pictures, go into "edit" function of the post, then while in that box, actually cut and paste the picture html code from one part of your post to another.

Hope that helps.

XiaoTong said...

I like the point that you mentioned "personality and charisma of an individual is important to determine the success of an oral presentation". I totally agree that able to communicate well is important, however, other factors do play a part.

I remembered attending this particular class, having a young and handsome tutor/lecturer. I looked forward to all his lessons and missed none of it. He is one of the few lecturers, whom I would not sleep through the lessons conducted. (or maybe because I was too busy looking at him??)

Sharon said...

This is a big improvement from your original draft, with additional interesting content added in. Good effort put in and looking forward to reading your future posts!

I think most of us have difficulty in starting to write a first piece of writing… too much stress and high standards of ourselves to meet because we aim for excellence.

You are the first writer I have seen who thanks the reader. Thank you for acknowledging the reader's participation in communication! :)

Danny Wong said...

Hey guys,

Thanks for all of your comments in my debut blog post.

To Xiaotong,
Other parts of communications skills do play a part since there is no one communication skills that will stand on its on.

To Sharon,
Thanks for your compliment. I am looking forward to your future posts too.

To Brad,
Thanks for the compliment and help regarding the pictures.

Cheers,
Danny.