Few...its over

Well today was the day of my presentation. I feel so much better now that it is over. As I woke up this morning I kept running through my outline and felt SO good about the whole thing. I had practiced and I knew my power point very well. I had also gotten some things together as sort of a display; I had a center piece example and a great dessert tower (thank you Melanie) it all looked so good up there. I felt very confident about it all.

As I started my presentation I was of course a little nervous but that feeling soon went away. I felt so comfortable up there. But I also knew I had a lot of information I needed to go over; and for that reason I think I talked to fast. That has always been a bit of a struggle for me I just need to just slow it down. I think my power point was very well put together and had wonderful visuals. I felt like the audience was really interested in what I was presenting on. Overall it was a great experience and I am glad I choose the topic I choose because I am very familiar with the Wedding field. I think it pretty well.

Presentation day!

There are a select few in my class today that can now have a sigh of relief. The first set of presentations were today, in our communications class. They all did so well!! Such a stressful time I am sure, and a lot of preparation had gone into them. We have been studying our topics for a little over 2 weeks. I learned a lot today. That is what is so cool Mr. Duncan did not really care what our topic was about. We just needed to communicate it very well in a 20 min presentation.

The first to go up to present was Kim. She did her presentation on UAV's, her husband is in the military so she had a great source. She had great things to pass around, we were able to hold actual propellers from the UAV's. Her power point was very informative and we were able to see great pictures of them. Jesse was up next her presentation was very inspiring. Hers was on self worth and self esteem. She told of a puppet maker and how they are all made with care and how they all have worth. You could tell she was very passionate about the topic. She had wonderful quotes that built you up. The next presentation was pretty exciting it was about Chinchillas. Amanda is actually a breeder for them. She brought 2 of them in so we could feel them and really see how they look. She knew so much about them and she was able to answer any question that we had for her. I learned a lot about them and they are super cute! The last one for the day was Brittney. Her presentation was on Motorcycles, she has a bullet bike. She was able to talk about how and when motorcycles started and how they were able to develop as technology advanced. She talked to us about the many different types of bikes. Having a bike herself she was able to take us through the emotions of riding a bike, and the rush of it.

I actually am giving my presentation on Wednesday. Mine is on wedding planning, I am very excited about it. I have put in a lot of preparation into it and I think it will go very well.

Meeting....yes please

I think we have all been there, we have all been in a meetings where it feels like nothing is being accomplished. So how can we make our meetings better? Communications this week has been great, we have been able to talk about how our meetings can be more productive. So if and when we ever are able to manage a meeting then we can help it flow really well and get things taken care of. Meetings need a lot of structure, you have to be able to brainstorm your points and bring them back to a helpful solution. The one thing you don't want to do is to bring all these problems to the surface and leave them unsolved. In the perfect meeting there would be a facilitator someone that keeps everyone on task. At the beginning of the meeting there needs to be a meeting objective or goals that you would like to accomplish. During the next stages of the meeting there needs to be a lot of brainstorming and group input. After all of the ideas have been considered the facilitator needs to consider those ideas and help the members of the meeting to build a consensus or a solution to the problems discussed. Those steps all describe a good and successful meeting.

As I have been in the dental field for a while now I have been able to be in a few meetings myself. And looking back am able to pick out the good group meetings and of course the bad ones. During the good meetings the Dentist ordered us lunch and he would hand all of us an outline of what we will accomplish during this meeting. They were always very good meetings because we were all able to put in our input no one was singled out. We could express how we felt or how we think the problem could be addressed.

Meetings are a fact of life they will always happen; what a sad but very true statement. So lets hope all of our business managers take a good communications class; so they can learn all about the structure of meetings. Then maybe meetings can become more tolerable :)

Communicating is key!

Being a good communicator is something I think we all strive for. But when asked how you can improve the way you communicate is something that can be a little harder. I have thought about this assignment a lot and I know one way (out of many) that can help me to be a better communicator.
In my daily conversations I have noticed I have fallen into a bit of a ditch. My conversations are not face to face or just over the phone but I communicate through text messaging. I have found that I have become less personable. I know that text massaging is easy and its fast but you can not fully understand someones mood or the tone of their voice. To be able to hear someones laughter cannot be heard over a simple message. I hope that I can be able to change this a little bit. I just need to make a phone call or maybe send a message that says I will call you soon or even I will meet you somewhere. I don't want all of my communication habbits to fall back on text meassaging. Communicating is important so let's all just communicate!

NO MATTER WHAT....ALWAYS SMILE