Presentation Purpose

What is the purpose of your presentation? What are you trying to achieve? You may have been given a very concise brief (or subject) for your talk, but sometimes you will only have a title or a vague description of what is required.

To inform or describe: Know the audience's current level of knowledge – if jargon is necessary and they are unfamiliar with it, you must explain the meaning of the words. Use anecdotes, examples and illustrations to give life and colour. Use deductive, chronological or spatial order and carefully chosen words to describe things precisely.

describing observations, background against which something has happened, facts and details: Deductive approaches can involve presentations that can be built up layer by layer, and allow the audience to understand your reasoning. Another way of understanding how you reached your final conclusion would be to present events in a time-based series (chronological).

To instruct or explain: Concentrate on showing, either by means of diagrams, pictures or demonstrations. Your words must be chosen to produce clear visual images which the audience can grasp.

explanations, directions, instruction: Analogy can be helpful here. Describe something the audience is familiar with: ‘This process is rather like…’

you are concerned with explaining how things work, how processes or procedures are carried out, how actions are performed; you may also want to include an explanation of why things are the way they are and why certain steps are taken in a process: Usually deductive, chronological or spatial order is most suitable but if you are concentrating on why a procedure is necessary, or is the way it is, a less systematic ordering might be appropriate.

To persuade, convince or inspire: Recognise how difficult a task this is: you must appeal to the heart and the head by quoting audience benefits and evidence to back up your arguments – statistics, authoritative opinion, experience of others – but these must be accurate and relevant.

usually changing beliefs, attitudes or behaviour: Avoid generalising and exaggerating, ‘emotive’ and ‘coloured’ language. If you base your argument on assumptions, explain those assumptions.

presenting a case or an argument in favour of or against: Avoid, or at least admit, your prejudices. Give some reference to the other side of the story, or your case will be weakened.Above all,
(a) you must get the audience's attention,
(b) find out what the audience's needs and interests are,
(c) show how you can satisfy those needs,
(d) ask for an appropriate reaction or approval.

To entertain or amuse: More than any, this kind of speaking is an art to which some people seem born; however, since we may all have to do it sometime, it is worth learning.

vote of thanks, ‘after-dinner’ speech: The general guidelines are: be brief, ration the humour (quotations, i.e. other people's humour, can be very useful here); relate your speech to the audience's interests and to the occasion – be personal and particular.

Credit to :  http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/

Task: Letter Writing

You are to write a letter to the organization that you intend to communicate to Academia Week purpose. You are not sure what type of letter to write. You are also not sure how to write the letter. You are not sure about the appropriate language to be used in writing the letter.

Based on the scenario above complete the tasks that follow:

a. Facts given in the situation

o have zero knowledge about how to create a letter

o do not know the formal of the of the letter

o which organization company that the letter want to be submitted

o which language that will be use and how to form the correct grammar

o lack of resources to write the letter

b. Steps to solves the problem

o choose the correct letter format whether formal or informal

o to whom suppose to submit the letter

o type of organization

o confuse which language will be selected to use

o type of event wants to conduct

c. Reflection

o decide to create a formal letter with the correct format form

o define the organization profile that the letter will be submitted

o make a confirmation about the event and date

o make a confirmation about their involvement on their event

d. Resources to complete the task

o from the organization profile itself

o From lecturer opinion

o On group discussion

Planning a Problem-Solving Meeting

Planning is important factor in meeting. Fundamental key to hold a meeting is to bring people together. Meeting are unproductive because matters could be handled through the phone, sending a memo, e-mail, or fax for people are not available to attend, members aren't prepared and have not enough time to handle the business, thinks the meeting as a routine and not compulsory meet, one or more people can handle the job without others consultation, and the final decision already been made.  

Planner should call a meeting when the job beyond the capacity of one person. There are two reasons which are, it might call for more information than any single person possesses and a job might take more time than one person has available. Another reason to call a meeting is because individual’s tasks are not independent. Each member's share of the task can be-completed without input from other members, it's better to have the members co-acting tinder the supervision of a manager. If each person on the team is responsible for a separate section, there is little need for the group to meet frequently to discuss the task. There are times when people who do the same job can profit by sharing ideas in a group. Working independently might profit by exchanging experiences and ideas. This is part of the purpose of professional conventions.

Dealing with Opposing viewpoints

If two persons is in a position need to call a meeting but one person is gone will be out of the office for a week. So the things that need to do are to keep distractions to a minimum and use the best equipment possible to increase understanding of one another. Online meetings allow computer users to use the Internet to create their own private conversation, in which they exchange typed messages in real time. Sophisticated programs for meetings include a document-sharing capability, which allows users to view and add to the same computer file.

Virtual meetings have many advantages when compared to the face-to-face variety. They allow people to interact far more quickly, easily, and affordably than would otherwise be possible. Its easier to schedule, and they take less time than in-person sessions since participants don't have to worry about getting to and from the meeting site. A virtual meeting makes it possible to include people who otherwise wouldn't be able to attend. Finally, the less-personal nature of meetings encourages lower-status members to participate in discussions more freely and stand their ground on controversial issues.

Virtual meetings have some important drawbacks when compared to the in-person variety. Participants have less access to one another's nonverbal feedback, increasing the chances of misunderstandings. They also may exclude participants who don't have access to the necessary technology. Even when they do have all the technology, some participants who don't use teleconferencing or videoconferencing regularly may be uncomfortable or clumsy when using it.

Formal letter format

source : http://www.tutor.com.my/creative/Apr/image/PMR_BI3b.gif

memo project

MEMORANDUM

To: Member MINISTER OF PAIN
From: Mr. Zamir (Project Planning Manager)
Date: 6 February 2011
Subject: Monthly Meeting

Meeting will be discussing about project proficiency English planning and activities. The detail will be including with minute meeting.

The meeting will be held:

Date: 8 February 2011
Venue: UNIKL Room 2040
Time: 9.30 a.m. – 11.30 a.m.

Your attendant will be recorded and those who don’t attend will get penalties.

Please contact Mr. Zaman for any further information.

Following up the meeting

GETTING CREDITS FOR YOUR IDEAS

There are some non-aggressive strategies for making sure you get recognition for your ideas.Firstly is you should share your ideas with others who will present.Secondly,you should put your proposal in writing and send to all members of a group.Lastly,reminded the others where the original idea came from in a sincere manner.


ENCOURAGING PARTICIPATION

Unbalanced participation can cause two problems.It will discourages people who don't get a chance to talk.It also will prevents the group from considering potentially useful ideas.
There are several ways to improve participation at meeting.
(a) Nominal group technique(NGT).Consist of 5 phase:
      -Each member writes down their ideas and then collected by a discussion leader.
      -All ideas are posted for every member to see.
      -Discuss the ideas but criticism is prohibited.
      -Each member privately rank-orders the ideas.
      -Items with largest votes are discussed critically and decision can be made by using decision making
       method.
 (b) Have members take turns.
       -Give every member a turn to speak.
 (c) Use question.
       -4 types of question to balance the contribution of members.
            -Overhead question : Directed toward the group as a whole.
            -Direct question       : Aimed at particular individual.
            -Reverse question    : Occur when a member asks the leader a question and the leader refers the  
                                             question back to the person who originally responsible.
            -Relay question        : Occur when the leader refers a question asked by one members to the
                                             entire group.

KEEPING DISCUSSION ON TRACK

Leaders need to get the discussion back on track by using using some techniques.Firstly is remind the group of time pressures.Secondly,summarize and redirect the discussion and also enhance the value of member's comments.To deal with a irrelevant and worthless idea,the leaders can use relevancy challenges.Relevancy challenges is questioning the idea's relevancy.Beside that,keeping the positive tones by keeping potential enemies as allies and gets the job done.Promise to deal with good ideas later and ask questions or paraphrase to clarify understanding is another way to keep off irrelevant ideas.Paraphrasing accomplish two things.firstly is provides a way to double-check the understanding.Secondly is an invitation for the other person to explain the idea in more detail.

CONCLUDING THE MEETING

There are three times when a meeting should be closed.Firstly is when the scheduled closing time is arrived.This is to prevent members from drifting off to other commitment,losing attention and becoming resentful.Secondly when the group lack resources to continue.Lastly when the agenda has been covered.

 HOW TO CONCLUDE A MEETING

A good conclusion has 3 parts.Signal when the time is almost up.Secondly is summarized the meeting's accomplishments and future actions.Be sure to set a new meeting date.Lastly is thank the group.This is to show that you appreciate the group efforts.

FOLLOWING UP THE MEETINGS

-Follow up to make sure that the desired results have really been obtained.
-Involves 3 steps:
(a) Build an agenda for the next meeting.
(b) Follow up on other members.
(c) Take care of your own assignments.