speech class ( topic selection for speech )

We communicate to get our needs met. It is a fact that, statistically, people who live alone live shorter lives than those who live with others. Our connections with others act as a lifeline that is almost as important as food and water. We establish and maintain those connections through communication. Long-term relationships give us pleasure and make us feel needed and important. How we communicate with others determines how we see ourselves. We communicate to exchange information and to persuade others. These reasons for communicating are all vital to our personal and professional development.

Take a minute to think about a time when you said something that you wished you could take back. How did it make you feel? What was the impact on your communication exchange and your relationship?

We have all made this communication mistake at one time or another. Is it possible to take back our communication? You can follow your communication blunder with an apology and you can say that you did not mean what you said, but because communication is continuous, it always moves forward; there is no going back. Once you put it out there, it is not easily forgotten.

Sometimes we plan what we want to say, and sometimes our communication with others is spontaneous. Regardless, communication operates on two levels: a content level and a relational level. Words and nonverbal messages carry some of the meaning, and relationship dictates the context, adding a whole new level of meaning to an exchange. You could use the same words and nonverbal communication to send a message to two different people and you would be likely to get two different outcomes. Status differences, control, and cultural variations all may impact the relational perception of a message. Looking back on those walkie-talkies, they sure seem to have it easy in light of all we must consider.

Well, you are off to another typical workday at the office. You start by turning on your computer, and while you are waiting for it to boot up, you dial in to your voicemail. You try to make a quick determination about which of the nine messages are really important versus being just important. After you have weeded through the voicemails, your computer is ready, and you log in to your e-mail and do the same. You get through 12 of the 18 new messages before your personal digital assistant (PDA) alerts you that it is time for a management meeting. That PDA is a real time-saver; with it, you are able to take notes that you will fileshare at a virtual meeting later in the day to update your staff on the status of the deliverables from other departments.

You leave your Blackberry on during the meeting. Everyone does. You are expecting a visit from your parts vendor and you have asked him to notify you when he arrives. Your cellular phone is on vibrate, and you receive an urgent text message from your colleague that informs you that the parts shipment will be delayed. This is urgent, so you leave the meeting to track down the problem, stopping only for a minute in your office to fax a request to another supplier.

Does this sound familiar? While the invention of all of this communication technology has enhanced our ability to stay connected at work and at home, using this technology effectively is not as simple as it seems. With this technology, we communicate important messages, and the messages we communicate extend far beyond the words in an e-mail or the documents we upload to fileshare with our colleagues. Like all other forms of communication, virtual communication is subject to nonverbal messages as well, intended or otherwise.

Consider this:

· Have you ever considered the nonverbal messages you send when using virtual or electronic channels of communication?

· Do you control the technology, or does the technology control you?

· Does the constant influx of messages, otherwise known as information overload, have an impact on how you reply?

· Does everyone place the same importance on electronic communication or share the same habits when using technology?

No matter how you use electronic communication, you can be sure that others will certainly read the nonverbal cues that accompany your words. Think about the following forms of virtual nonverbal communication. What messages do they send?

· Response time

· Amount of detail included

· Use of emoticons

· Forwarding of jokes and other junk mail

· The use of the urgent feature

· External noise on conference calls

· Preparedness

· Practice with shared technology

· Tone

Recognize that all of these and more may impact how you are perceived by others and how well you communicate your message.

Conflict is inevitable. No matter what type of job you are in, at one time or another, you will be faced with conflict. How you handle that conflict and the choices that you make can have a distinct impact on your relationships with others and on your career. While your skills in nursing, accounting, business, or network management are important, your ability to manage conflict is critical.

The work world of today is more stressful than ever. Often, individuals with competing goals incur conflict as they seek recognition. In addition, the goals of individuals are sometimes out of sync with the company mission. This occurs when a company fails to communicate shared values. Increased market pressure requires decisions to be made today, not tomorrow, often with limited evidence to review. All of this creates a highly charged environment that is ripe for conflict to occur.

There are a variety of styles for addressing conflict that are discussed in the text, including withdrawal, accommodation, forcing, compromising, and collaboration. Most of us rely on one or two of these strategies and apply them to all conflicts we face instead of examining situational factors when choosing a strategy. Recognizing that there is a time and a place for each of these styles is important to understanding conflict management strategy.

There will be times when you need to give constructive feedback to teammates, subordinates, or even to a superior. Knowing how to give constructive criticism can be the difference between a successful conflict interview and a failure. One method for communicating constructive criticism is to create a feedback sandwich. Start and end your comments with something positive and sandwich the criticism in between. People tend to focus on what they hear first and last, so this is a good strategy for managing the relationship impact of giving constructive feedback.

Here are some other considerations:

Give the feedback as close in time to the behavior as possible. Imagine disciplining your child six weeks after he or she wrote on the wall with a crayon. That would not be very effective. Providing constructive feedback to subordinates or teammates is no different. If it is worth addressing, it should be addressed in a timely manner.

Use nonthreatening language. When language is used that puts the receiver on the defense right from the start, the focus of the issue is lost and it becomes personal. Instead of "you are the problem," phrase it as "we have a problem."

Demonstrate the impact that the behavior has on others and on company goals. Sometimes, people fail to see the big picture, and pointing that out can help a person see why certain rules, methods, or procedures are important. If they are indeed important, the person is more likely to comply. This will also allow the receiver to save face.

Ensure that the receiver understands your feedback. Sometimes a person may be unclear even after you have explained it. He or she may be hesitant to ask questions for fear of reprisal. Leaving the conflict interview assured that there was a mutual understanding is a foremost priority.

Work together to identify useful solutions. The point of giving constructive criticism is to help the receiver to improve. Since hiring and training new employees is very costly, it makes good business sense to manage relationships with good employees with care. Demonstrating your investment in a mutual solution will ultimately demonstrate respect for the receiver, which is important for the maintenance of the relationship.

When you find yourself on the receiving end of the constructive criticism, remember your objective in the situation, which is to come to a shared understanding of the issue. Viewing conflict interviews from this perspective will help you to avoid defensive reactions and to work toward resolution.

This week, your goal for the ITP will be to perform preliminary research so that you can effectively narrow your speech topic. Assuming that you have analyzed your audience, which in this case, is your peers in this class, the next step is to consider your purpose. Let's focus on your general purpose, narrowing your topic and specific purpose.

Topic: E-mail communication in the workplace. These are often the types of topic statements students submit when asked to make a team commitment to a topic. This is fine for that purpose. In the long run however, it will be necessary for you to narrow that topic, as you could not and would not want to talk about everything there is to know about e-mail communication in the workplace. In addition, you need to consider your audience and the parameters of the assignment to determine what would be a good choice.

General Purpose: Is it to inform? To persuade? To entertain? To mark a special occasion? For the Informative Team Presentation (ITP), many of you have probably guessed that your general purpose is to inform.

To narrow your topic, you may want to try a technique called visual brainstorming. Begin by drawing a circle, and in it write the topic that you sent to the professor.

Next, draw several lines extending from the circle (like a sun), and on each of those lines quickly jot down a way that the topic "e-mail in the workplace" could be narrowed.

Using this same method, draw lines extending from each of these five spokes and break these topics down further. In the end, this brainstorming will help you to conjure up some of the possible directions you might take a topic and allow you to see the relationship between those ideas. Once you have narrowed your topic, you are ready to write your specific purpose.

A specific purpose is a specific statement of what you expect to accomplish with your speech, your desired outcome. Whom do you want to inform or influence? What do you want them to think or do? How, when, and where do you want them to do it?

Test Your Knowledge

Test your knowledge of concepts learned in this lecture. Answer the following question by typing your reply in the textbox. Then click "Compare Response" to find out what the Professor says.

Once you have effectively established your purpose, you will need to identify research to support it. Research can include many things and should be of a sufficient variety to appeal to a diverse audience. Above all, you need to effectively evaluate your support before you commit to using it.

While it is easy to simply do a Google search on "e-mail legal privacy issues," you will find that this brings up an extraordinary number of websites to explore, so many that you could not possibly review them all, particularly for validity. If you have not taken advantage of DeVry's electronic library, there is no time like the present. Using a database like EBSCOHost to search for your support will provide many more specific results from much more qualified sources. Check out the tutorial in THE HUB and get started!

Regardless of where your information comes from, you do need to evaluate it. When you put your name on a paper or verbally give a presentation, you put your reputation on the line. Failing to test your evidence before you repeat it puts your reputation at risk. Here are some things to consider:

· Is the support used in context?

· Is it relevant?

· Is it sufficient to make the point?

· Is it specific?

· Is the information timely?

· Is it from an expert source?

· Is the source unbiased?

Panning for Gold

When you evaluate your support for all of this and more, imagine that you are panning for gold. When you first dip your pan into the water, scrape the bottom of the river bed and scoop up what is there. Small pieces of river rock quickly fall out, silt and dirt wash away, and you are left with what is in the pan. This dirt, silt, and small river rock are obviously not what you are looking for and are easy to identify, much like some of those Google search results of questionable quality.

When you look at what remains in your pan, you will see some rocks that do not belong. They are nice-looking rocks, they would make great support for someone, but are also not what you are looking for. The same is true of some of the Google sites you will come across and some of the articles you will capture using EBSCOhost. These rocks require you to take a closer look, but they are still easy to separate from the gold you are after.

So, what is left? Did you say gold? Yes, but there is still something else in that pan too. That something else is fool's gold. Fool's gold looks and feels just like real gold but is not of any value at all. It may be striking, but it is false, not real, fake, untrue. It is also difficult to identify without close inspection. Don't be fooled.