Delivery of Informative Speech

When I delivered my speech on Queen Elizabeth II I tried to use eye contact when I could I did not use many hand gestures because I was holding my note cards the entire time.  I did avoid vocal pauses and distracting mannerism when giving my speech I started from the beginning and went directly to the end without pauses.

I believe I used credible sources when I gave my speech.  I did not orally site my sources but I did have my sources cited so the audience could review them in my PowerPoint presentation.

My information was well organized and I believe that it was clear to my audience I had a lot of information to go over in a short period of time so I summed up as much as I possibly could.

I was adequately prepared in giving a lengthy speech but I noticed that I went over the 7 minutes when I rehearsed it I was actually right on the 7 minutes in length I didn't ave anyone in the room with me so I had to start recording and stop recording when appropriate so I think that is why my speech ended up being 8 minutes instead of 7.  I could have rehearsed a little longer because I used my note cards pretty much the entire time, and I should have been giving more of my attention to my audience.

Behavior's used by effective speakers

When giving a speech it matters what clothes you decide to wear when delivering your speech.  You should consider the topic, the audience, the occasion  the clothes you wear should not distract receivers from focusing on the ideas of your speech.  Behavior's used from effective speech givers can include:

Posture-Good speech givers are expected to stand when addressing your audience and not act stiff and just go with it as others to evaluate you as you speech.

Gestures-How we use gestures while giving a speech is important not to distract your audience from what is being said.  You need to give appropriate gestures that can be used to enhance the ideas contained in your speech.

Movements and Facial Expressions- It is important to avoid movements and facial expressions that will give your audience the wrong impression.  So it is important to keep movements and facial expressions to a limit when giving a speech.

Eye Contact-  It's important to look at everyone in your audience.

Behaviors that are exhibited by effective speakers are the ability to speak clearly, use eye contact, posture, gestures, movements and facial expressions, and controlling anxiety.  The language and content of your speech matters tremendously because using the proper main points and to ensure proper organizational design  to give a logical sequence in order to keep the audience from being confused.  By careful rehearsal of your presentation you can help develop the confidence and competence required to deliver an outstanding speech.

Thesis

I am doing an oral speech on Queen Elizabeth II because she is Head of State of the UK and 15 other Common wealth realms.  After doing some research on Queen Elizabeth II and found that earlier in her life as princess she impressed many during the war when she was a junior subaltern (second Lieutenant) in the women's services and worked as an auto mechanic.  I also found that Queen Elizabeth II was actually third in line to the throne when her uncle King Edward VII gave up the crown to marry a twice-divorced American.  King Edward VII passed the crown down onto her father King George VI, which would leave Princess Elizabeth heir to the throne, who later became Queen at the young age of 25.  I will be speaking about the Queens early life and reign, public life, marriage and family, and personal interests to learn more about Queen Elizabeth II and her life as Queen.

Blogger Buzz: Grow your audience with the Google+ followers gadget

Blogger Buzz: Grow your audience with the Google+ followers gadget

Evaluating Participation in Intercultural Communication Group Project

When we were working on our group charter assignment it was a little confusing at first trying to figure out the best way to communicate.  So I created a document in Google drive and sent a link to all team members where we could work back and forth.  We also used e-mail to communicate.   It was also my idea to elect a group leader who spoke on behalf of our group, and having the group leader helped tremendously, he did a very good job working around our busy schedules and was always there to help the rest of the group with any difficulties they were having.  With the intercultural group project assignment I did what I agreed to do by completing my portion on the historical cultural conflict involved in the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan.  I inserted an introduction and conclusion into our report because I did not hear back from my group and the deadline was getting closer.  I also went ahead and moved all of our references to the end of the document in order to make the report look more professional and easier to read.  I feel that I did well in completing my portion of the project, and proofreading it for errors.

The things that I could have improved on are communicating with my group more often.  I communicated back and forth multiple times.  But, I think that with a clearer understanding of where everyone is as far as how far along they are on their part of the project it would have made it easier for us to move along quicker.

Intercultural Group Communication Project

I found the following credible source to research in order to get started on my speech project.  The article or website below will help me with my project because the article contains useful information about the historical background of Joan of Arc and other interesting facts needed to give my speech.  This article I feel comes from a credible source because it comes from the archives of Joan of Arc.  The article or biography also explains the culture differences and cultural information related to Joan of Arc.  It also gives an example and definition of the religious leader and the certain characteristics she possessed in which make her unique.

Williamson, Allen. (2002-2005). “Joan of Arc, Brief Biography."  Retrieved From http://archive.joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_short_biography.html

"The Mellennial" Generation

I belong to a generation called “the millennial” generation.  This generation belongs to those born after 1982, also called generation Y.

 

Key Characteristics of "The Mellennial" Generation

Special:  Have always been treated as special or important.  This generation of children has been the most wanted.  Every milestone was marked with celebrations and praise.  They may carry a sense of entitlement about them and have an expectation of frequent positive feedback.   It’s been instilled in them that they are vital to the nation and to their parents’ sense of purpose.  They feel they are here to solve world problems that older generations have failed to solve.  They may claim they want privacy, but they crave attention.

Confident: they are motivated, goal-oriented, and confident in themselves and the future. Grew up in time of increasing safety measures.  They were rarely left unsupervised.  They were sheltered from having to take care of their  own conflicts as parents advocated on their behalf, and “spared” them from unpleasant experiences.  As college students, they may expect facult6yu and staff to shelter, protect, and nurture them-and resolve their conflicts for them.  Millennia’s are the focus of the most sweeping youth safety movement in American history.

Team-oriented: they are group oriented rather than being individualists. They may sacrifice their own identity to be part of the team. They prefer egalitarian leadership, not hierarchies. They are forming a tight-knit generation. While they are group-oriented within their own cohort, they may “politely” exclude other generations. They do not want to stand out among their peers, they want to be seen as part of the group. They dislike selfishness and are oriented toward service learning and volunteerism.

Achieving: grade points are rising with this generation and crime is falling.  The focus on getting good grades, hard work, involvement in extracurricular activities, etc. is resulting in higher achievement levels. They see college as the key to a high paying job and success, and may miss the bigger picture of what a college education is all about. They are pressured to decide early on a career – and have been put on a career track orientation since grade school. Their focus is more on the world of achievement rather than personal development. The Boomer generation made their mark in the humanities and arts, whereas the Millennia’s prefer math and science fields.

 

Pressured: tightly scheduled as children and used to having every hour of the day filled with structured activity. This generation may have lost a sense of pure spontaneous play. They may struggle with handling free time and time management in general. In elementary, middle, and high school, have had more hours of homework and less free time than any of the previous generations. They feel pressured to succeed. They’ve been pushed hard to achieve, to avoid risks, and to take advantage of opportunities. They may take on too much, and then think others should be flexible with them when they want to negotiate scheduling conflicts. They think multi-tasking saves time and is a smart thing to do, but aren’t usually aware of the poorer quality of results.

Conventional: respectful to the point of not questioning authority.  They are civic-minded and believe the government knows what’s best and will take care of them. They fear being considered non-conformist. Their clothing, music, and cultural markings will be very mainstream. They value their parents’ opinions very highly. They support and believe in social rules, and are more in line with their parents’ values than most other generations have been. They are trying to invite rules and norms back into the culture.

Beliefs and Values "The Millennial" Generation

Live first, work second, Social causes, Flexibility, Balance, Fun, Friends, World travel, Diversity, The value of Meaningful work-, Authenticity, Friendships/Groups of Friends, Fast access to information, Experiential activities, The ability to travel the world,

The beliefs and values that identify me are the shift from social networks to face to face community networks. Use your knowledge to improve efficiency and create social change

 

Events occurring during “The Millennial” generation

 

Key historical events that occurred the millennial generations childhood effected our generation's current beliefs and values through the key historic events that occurred during my generation.   Our generation group up in the technology age and we got more engaged in social causes.  Violence was also a big part of our generation because of all of the following events that occurred through generation y.  Through these events generation y became more globally concerned, open and accepting of diversity, tech savvy, the “knowledge worker”, concerned about safety, team players, multi-taskers, and impatient

1993      NAFTA was passed  and The north American free trade agreement was passed

1994      U.S. Send troops to Persian gulf

1995      O.J. Simpson trial was found not guilty

1996      The first version of JAVA was created

1999      Columbine shooting

2000      Hubble telescope

2001      Twin towers and pentagon were hit by hijacked plane operated by Al Qaeda

2003      Space shuttle catastrophe

2003      Uday and Qusay were killed (sons of Saddam Hussein)

2003      Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected govorner of california

2003      Saddam Hussein captured

2004      Bush was re-elected as president of the United States

The events that affected my generation the most were September 11, global terrorism, terrorism on home soil, Columbine, Virginia Tech, high speed internet, text messaging, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, environmental concerns, parents being laid-off, downsizing of corporate America, the melting pot  syndrome, plug and play knowledge, pop culture

What I Can Offer My Group

The skills that I can offer my group for our group project are my Leadership skills, Computer skills, and Proofreading Skills.

Leadership Skills: I can help organize a group meeting by setting up documents in Google drive and making sure those involved in the project have access to the document.

Computer Skills: I have the ability to create and organize the editing functions in a wiki and Google Docs that our group can use to edit, create projects, and communicate back and forth to accommodate our busy schedules.

Proofreading Skills: I can help our group by proofreading our project for errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.  I can also watch for discrepancies that could possibly raise a flag in the record.

A proposed code of conduct for my group would be; do not act in a manner that is deliberately hostile and insulting to other participants.

Everyone handles conflict differently to find out how I handle conflict I filled out a questionnaire on how I respond to conflict.  It states that I typically resolve conflict by collaborating, compromising, accommodating, and lastly avoiding the situation in the future. To compromise means to make a deal between different parties where each party gives up part of their demand.  In arguments, compromise is a concept of finding agreement through communication, through a mutual acceptance of terms-often involving variations from an original goal or desire.  To collaborate is working together to do a tasks when two or more people in organizations work together to realize shared goals.  By sharing knowledge, leaning and building consensus.  Most collaboration requires leadership. Accommodating means to bring it into reconcile or harmony by settling the problem and then competing or striving towards a goal to receive victory. 

Conflict and relationships

The way we handle conflict and our feelings affects our relationship with others.  In some cases, when we relate to others, we tend to bury our real feelings, hesitate to express them, or unleash them uncontrollably, and this is called suppressing or censoring our feelings. Healthy relationships do not consist totally of positive feelings.  Other feelings are also important.  Many of us lack the commitment, courage, and skill needed to express our own feelings, when those feelings are not positive-or to allow other people to express their feelings to us.  Many people are reluctant to work their feelings through; instead, they ignore or deny a feeling until it eventually becomes unmanageable.

For example, a time I suppressed or censored my feelings during a conflict was while I was at work.  Something I did created a conflict between me and a co-worker.  I was still new to the company and I was not sure how to fix the problem that I was having with one of the machines, and everything seemed to be going wrong for me that night and I started getting upset and frustrated.  Instead of going to my supervisor to explain the problems I was having and asking for help I decided to suppress or censor my feelings without telling others about the problems I was having I just walked off.  The result of me walking off was not only hurting production but it was also creating conflict between my co-workers and I.  Most businesses probably would have fired me due to my personality conflicts, but instead they gave us the chance to work through our differences and resolve the conflict in a positive manner.   

Our supervisor approached the conflict by calling us into the office to speak to us one-on-one to find out exactly what the problem was.  We spoke with each other about the feelings we were having and ways we can improve our behavior in order to prevent conflict in the future.  The reason I chose to speak up about the feelings I was having is because of the importance of letting others know how you are feeling and tell them about the things that are bothering you so we can prevent conflicts from arising in the future.   If the supervisor would not have approached me I probably would not have said anything and that is not good because when we suppress our feelings we become emotionally isolated or we seek to avoid situations that may require the exchange of feelings.  But becoming emotionally isolated from others can cause problems with relationships.

Handled appropriately, conflict can help each participant involved develop a clear picture of the other person and strengthen a relationship.  Handled poorly, conflict can create schisms, inflict psychological scars, inflame hostilities, and cause lasting resentments.  A conflict free relationship shows that you really have no relationship at all, not that you have a good relationship.  If a relationship is healthy, conflicts will occur regularly.  If a relationship is healthy, conflicts will also be handled effectively.  

This conflict was a low-intensity conflict which the persons involved worked together to discover a solution beneficial to all parties.  In a medium-intensity conflict each person feels committed to win, but winning is seen as sufficient.  No one feels that the opposition must be destroyed.  If conflict is not handled correctly, or there are suppressed or censored feelings the conflict can quickly turn into a high-intensity conflict which one person intends to destroy or at least seriously hurt the other.  It is also important that conflicts are approached in a calm manner by being assertive when we express our feelings and display respect for the thoughts and feelings of others.

Listening skills facts

Introduction

The video Ted Talks located on you tube describes how effective your listening skills can be if they are used correctly.  The very first message in Julian’s Treasure video is that many of us are losing our listening and that we only spend 60% of our time listening and we are not very good at it we only retain 25% of that information we hear.

Ways to listen better

Ted explains that listening means making meaning from sound and it is a process of extraction.  Techniques used to do this is pattern techniques that we us to distinguish noise from signals and then there are a range of filters down to what we actually pay attention.  Attention is very important in sound.

I agree with what he said in his main message because many of us do fail to listen to what the other person is saying and we tend to end up with a completely different meaning of what the speaker is trying to say and many tend to ignore crucial facts about what is going on around them.  By ignoring crucial facts when it comes to listening we are not only affecting our life, but also the life of everyone else around us.

Five Simple exercises to increase listening skills

1.       Silence- taking three minutes a day of silence to recalibrate in order to hear the quit again.

2.       The mixer-Go in a noisy environment listens and listen to see how many channels of sound you can hear.

3.       Savoring-enjoying mumbling sounds of one thing such as a dryer.

4.       Listening positions and filters- Move your listening position to different places using active and passive, reductive and expansive, and critical and empathetic listening positions. Filters- culture, language, values, beliefs, attitudes, expectations, and intentions.

5.       Using the acronym RASA which stands for

Receive meaning pay attention to the person,

Appreciate making little noises like hm, oh, ok

Summarize using the word so is very important

Ask- ask questions after words to be sure you interpret the meaning of what is being said.

I used one of the five simple exercises in order to improve my listening skills.  I tried the mixer by listening in a noisy environment you can channel sounds you hear.  You can hear many of different sounds at once and we only take in so much of that sound at once.  So it all depends where we channel our brains.  I could hear machines and I could also hear others trying to tell me something from a distance.  I just kept on listening to what I was hearing and I then started to have many memories of life situations that I have not heard in a very long time.

Conclusion

I think that these listening habits could improve my life by getting a better understanding of what is expected of me, what others are telling me, and what needs to be done in the future.  I plan to do this by asking the appropriate questions needed in order to understand what is being said.

Non-Verbal Communication

Artifactual Communication

Artifactual communication is a way we express non-verbal communication through judging others by their appearance.  People also make inferences about our age, social and economic status, education level, group membership, athletic ability, personality, and relationships to others by the way we dress, our use of artifactual communication provides important nonverbal clues to a person.  Many people react to us on the basis of our clothing which impacts first impressions and exert influences that lead to acceptance and rejection.  Either way you look at non-verbal communication, the truth is that it communicates information about you. 

           
The environment and social and cultural artifacts are vital for understanding of nonverbal communication.  The environment is the physical place in which communication takes place.  The objects in the environment can provide a form of stimulus to the communicators.  This all plays a role in something called proxemics which can be defined as personal space and what we do with our personal space.

The choices we make in the colors we wear, clothing, hairstyle, and makeup are all means of nonverbal communication.  Different colors can invoke changes in mood and affects humans psychologically through their emotions and acceptance of colors.  Color psychology has demonstrated that different colors can invoke changes in mood.  Physiological reactions of others, their judgement and interpretations can be altered by our appearance.  Just think of all the subtle judgments you quickly make about someone based on his or her appearance. These first impressions are important, which is why experts suggest that job seekers dress appropriately for interviews with potential employers.  

Nationality is another way we communicate non-verbally.  It shows us the nationality we belong to and our appearance is another way we use communicative artifacts.  The picture shows an example of how someone might judge another person based on their nationality just be looking at their personal appearance.  Tattoos and the jewelry we wear is another type of artifactual communication.  Notice this man has put different a gage in his ears and his body is full of tattoos that all communicate a variety of messages to others.  Some people may react negatively to body art and some may see it as a sense of creativity.  But, most humans tend to treat others based on these stereotypes.  This type of space decoration informs others about their working status, interest, and priorities.  One way to get to know each other better is to pay attention to artifactual communication to get a better understanding of each other and what our interests are.

Language

What information did you find interesting in the article you chose? Why?

I found the article The Truth About Change interesting because it talks about the influence that Language change has in social circumstances.  The reason I found this to be interesting because they speak about a person’s accent having such an effect on social context such as their fixin to move.  I believe that some hesitations could also fall into the change of language and how we perceive what other’s are telling us.

What did you learn that you did not previously know?

I learned what I previously did not know about American society and the English language is now following a single path of change under the irrepressible, homogenizing influence of mass media.  But, language is far too resourceful and social culture is far to complicated to follow any single path and that change is one of the inevitable facts in life of any language.

 What information did you find fascinating and wanted to learn more about?

I found that women often lead the way when it comes to change and my be different from the popular concept.  Most language change starts subtly and unconsciously among middle-class speakers and spreads to other classes and women often lead the way, and we also use language to  separate ourselves into social groups.

Finally, how will you use this new information in the future? Where? How?

I will use this new information in the future when speaking with co-workers and I will pay more attention to the grammatical changes that influence the way we speak.

Stereotyping to me is when someone makes a judgment about someone that isn’t true because they do not know the person.  I would most likely be stereotyped by the class I belong to because I may not always dress up or brag about what I have it does not mean that I do not have anything.  Many stereotype me on the clues they see around them about my particular class and not what the true facts are.  Many say that we grew up very poor and that there was no money.  But my great grandfather was a wealthy man and my grandmother inherited that wealth.  So I don’t want to say we do have a lot of money and I don’t want to say we don’t.  I believe stereotypes can be harmful because they could lead society to believe something about the particular group I belong to be untrue.  Stereotypes can be helpful to try and benefit from society’s views on a particular group.

Self Concept

This photo symbolizes that others see me and I see myself as a mother.  This part is the open part to my Johari, because everyone sees me as a mother.  

The second photo symbolizes the area of my Johari I keep hidden.  I have always had this feeling or a need for peace within my life and my relationships. It is hard for others to see the peace within me and my need for peace from others.  I always feel like I am trying to keep peace with everyone.

Oral/Interpersonal Communication

I choose to take the Oral/Interpersonal Communication course as a program requirement in the Office Support Specialist program at MSTC.  I am hoping to learn how to communicate effectively with others in an online environment through the use of research and the exchange of ideas and thoughts in order to improve relationships.  It is important to have a good understanding of communication and how it can be effectively used in our day-to-day lives.

Written communication intrigues me the most, because it is a lot like intrapersonal communication it gives us the chance to reevaluate ourselves through proofreading and editing.  In the future I think Understanding and insight to meaningful relationships is a helpful communication topic because we can better our lives through communication.  Taking oral/interpersonal communication will help me in my customer service management, and business information management studies.  It will also help me in my personal life by providing me with tools needed to build strong healthy relationships.