Confessions of a Robot

Well, the presentation could have gone better.  We spent forever and a day working on the report and had largely burnt out by the time we got to the report.  We learned the information, but we didn't really come up with anything for the presentation besides just getting our lines down.  I kinda wanted to come up with something to make it more interesting, but there wasn't really too much time left and none of us really had any ideas.  It's kind of a shame though because I feel like our first presentation was better and there weren't nearly as many points on the line.

So we all had nervous ticks and stuff, but I think my presentation problems are a lot worse than the standard nervous person's presentation problems.  I don't really show nerves, but my default voice is pretty monotonous. I guess it's nice not to sound nervous, but I think people feel more natural sympathy for the person who sounds nervous than for the guy who sounds like a robot.  It just feels unnatural for me to emote while speaking.  Oh well, so it goes.  I guess I should just be grateful for the practice since I'm probably going to have to present at some point or other.

Thanks for reading guys.

Remote Meeting and Stuff

So I did not have access to skype and stuff, since my desktop computer doesn't have a video cam and my laptop is crap, but I did a conference call with speaker phone.  We also shared google docs so that we could each revise them as we saw fit.

Honestly, the remote meeting wasn't really my thing.  It took longer to communicate effectively due to delays in hearing each other and technical difficulties.  I did however, really enjoy having a google doc to work with.  I wound up copying the google doc and putting it onto Microsoft word so that I could revise it and then posted another google doc to compare with the old one.  This allowed the group to decide which changes I made would be kept without destroying past work.  I also found it cool to watch more than one cursor at the same time.

Business Projects of Doom

Is it just me, or is M Com suddenly ramping up in difficulty?  My group has spent about 15 hours on our project and we still aren't done.  I'm not too happy about that, but I guess that's just life sometimes.  I'm sure there are plenty of people who have it worse.  I feel really bad for the members of my group who have jobs and families and stuff because that must really make for a busy schedule, especially considering other classes having tests, assignments, or midterms.

That being said, the project is useful.  I imagine I may find myself doing projects like this if I go into consulting in a business capacity.  The project also teaches how to work with a group.  We learn when to be picky and when to let things slide.  We also learn to coordinate schedules and work out details.

In short, the project is pretty annoying right now, but it will probably be useful to me in the future.  Thanks for reading.

The Briefing Stuff

That briefing article makes me a bit nervous.  Probably because it's worth a lot of points.  I suppose also because formatting has a lot to do with it rather than just material.  Getting published would be pretty awesome, but I don't know if talking about how adjusting accounting standards would help the U.S. would make for interesting reading.

Props to Posh Penguin for their presentation.  Very creative.  I also loved the chocolate strawberries.  I couldn't think of a ton of where questions that could apply to dating woes, but I still think it was a memorable way to interact with the audience.  

I also got the feeling that confidence really can do a lot.  Taylor Mali's video was a good reminder of that.  I've watched that video before.  It made me feel the need to state what I believe in.

That's all for today.

Tour and stuff...

I know I should stick to what I'm learning in MCom, but I just thought that I'd mention that I've been on tour with the Men's Chorus in St. George.  It's been great.  I've had a host family that has been great and have really helped me and my group out a ton, providing food, lodging, and even a computer for me to borrow to get this assignment done.  We've sung two concerts, as well as singing a short version of our concert for two high schools as well, so it's been pretty busy.  

Anyway, besides dating experiences (which there were a lot of that class; she must have really been a part of the popular crowd or something), I remember doing the in-class resume interviews.  Truth be told, the experience was a little intimidating.  Trying to prepare a resume made me realize that I really don't have that much work experience and that my GPA could be a little better.  Combine that with my limited socializing, and I might have kind of a mess getting a job.  That and in the short term, I'm a little stressed out.  I've got a lot of homework and apparently the online interview being due on Tuesday is non-negotiable, even though I had to get a new partner in addition to all this.  Oh well, such is life I suppose, so while tour's been great, I'm getting rapidly reintroduced to the real world now.

Thanks for reading, as always.

The Art of Getting a Job

I might be paraphrasing (or something like that), but that did seem to be what our class wound up being.  Hearing about how hard it is to get a job always makes me kinda nervous.  I have tended to try to coast on being a pretty good test-taker (though that has hurt me sometimes), but I've never really been that good at anything within the social realm.  Unfortunately, negotiations for a job and establishing a network both require a certain amount of social savvy. 

Anyway, the main things that stood out for me were that GPA isn't even necessarily a good thing to put on a resume (just as well, my GPA's only ok) because they want to know more about who I am rather than how hard I can study, the potential of career fairs, the degree to which internships are essential, and also to keep in mind that I'm interviewing them as much as they're interviewing me.

I'd also like to mention that I hope Lexi winds up ok.  It's really weird to me because I had just talked to her on Tuesday since she was my partner.  Next thing I know, she's in the hospital two days later.  I guess it goes to show that you never know what will happen in life.  I've prayed for her and I imagine you guys have too.

Loose Ends

I just realized that I hadn't formally organized my strengths and weaknesses in the presentation.  I mentioned them, but it wasn't that well organized.  I think it was two strengths and one weakness, right?

Personal Strengths

1. Knowledge: I read the material and knew how to explain it.
2. Simplicity: I think I used clear words that made the content easier to understand.

Personal Weakness

1. Tone: I can't hear myself, but if I had to guess, I'd say I was probably somewhat monotonous as far as tone is concerned.

Group Strengths

1. Synergy:  We transitioned well and were on the same page.
2. Engaging: Though I was a bit monotonous, the group as a whole kept the audience engaged.

Group Weakness

1. Pacing: We probably moved a little too quickly because of feeling the seven minute time crunch.

How is this going to work?

We didn't have class, and we're supposed to write about stuff we learn in MCom.    Were we supposed to evaluate our strengths and weaknesses in presenting?  I thought that was last week?  Unfortunately, I'm not that great at improvisation, so I might not find that much to say this week.

The formatting stuff from last class was really interesting to me.  I don't know if I really thought about sentence and paragraph length so much, but it can really make papers easier to read.  That illustration in class really made the point clear.  The example was of this long email with huge paragraphs dealing with logistics.  Through numbering and shortening paragraphs, it suddenly became easier to read.  These kinds of things seem easy to learn but can have a huge effect on your credibility.

Presentation, on the other hand, does not come as easily to me.  I can tell that Professor Middleton is a master presenter.  She presents with energy, clarity, relevant content, and sincerity.  I think I found the things she mentioned as asides to be the most interesting things.  I think the biggest thing I need is confident.  I usually research pretty well and prepare in advance, but I'm not that great at eye contact or enthusiastic tone.  I also stutter occasionally.  That being said, I guess this class wouldn't have much use if I already knew everything.

There's probably more I could say, but I'm drawing a blank.  As ever, thanks for reading and commenting.

Presentations and Cookies

That presentation was probably one of the more interesting presentations I've done.  It took a long time to get ready.  

My group and I wanted to be interesting/funny and avoid bullet points, but we were drawing a blank.  Suddenly Darren came up with the idea of a cooking analogy.  Devin came up with "Only Attractive Boys Cook" earlier, but we weren't sure we wanted to use it or not.  After starting the cooking analogy, we felt that it fit (and was kinda funny).  We then searched for images which Devin formatted and put on her computer.  From there, we made sure we continued the metaphor on all our slides.  

After that, we practiced together in the classroom the next day to decide who would do what as well as sort out any chinks.  It was a lot of work, but I think it went pretty well.  Devin, bless her heart, also brought cookies to make up for us not having a handout.  She really did a lot. 

As a whole, I think our group did well on transitions and having an engaging presentation.  We could probably work on pacing, inasmuch as we may have tried to fit too much information into the presentation or perhaps just could have afforded to talk a little slower or have a few seconds of pause.

I think I did pretty well at knowing the material to such a point where I could keep it simple, as well as doing pretty well at avoiding filler words (though I'm sure I wasn't perfect).  I could probably improve on having tone (as in no monotone).

Besides that, I found the information about paragraph formatting to be pretty cool.  I found it pretty cool how you can make a person want to read your posts more just by improving spacing and keeping paragraphs small.  

Well, that's all that comes to mind this week.  Thanks for reading.

Presentation

I guess now is the part where the class moves on from stuff I'm good at to stuff that I'm not so good at.  I'm really grateful that I got an "A" on the test because that might be the last one that I get for a while in this class.  Unfortunately, a lot of the pitfalls in presenting that we talked about in class are exactly the kind of things that I mess up on, e.g. monotonous delivery, filler words, uncertainty of what to do with hands/gestures, etc.  I guess the good  news on that score is that I'm going to need to know how to do that stuff, so I guess it's better to learn it now than later.

I have to admit that I rather enjoyed hearing about some of the pitfalls.  I laughed out loud about the "fig leaves" and the potential mistakes of putting hands in pockets.  Unfortunately, I'm out of time and am not focused, so I'll try to make my next post longer.  Thanks for reading guys.

The End of Grammar

Or is it just the beginning?  At any rate, this is the last week we'll be learning specific grammar principles.  I think this is one of the few instances where I don't really enjoy something that I can do pretty well.  I guess attention to detail helps with that kind of stuff.  Some of the rules are a little harder to keep track of; i.e., rules concerning numbers or who vs. whom (seriously, why did they even make whom; it makes people sound like butlers).  Even though grammar isn't really an interest of mine (or of most people for that matter), I still can't help but like forming sentences while knowing all the structural things I'm doing.  That being said, I really need to study this stuff.  I have this really bad habit of putting things off (which anybody checking what time I submitted this could probably have guessed), which has caused me some trouble.  I guess I should just thank my lucky stars that this is stuff that I'm somewhat familiar with from middle school and high school.  Drat, sometimes I have trouble coming up with stuff to write.  My younger brother sends these very large mass-emails from Bolivia, while my missionary emails were barely any longer than this paragraph.  I also tend to write stream of consciousness (basically meaning that I write whatever enters into my head).  Though in my defense, we've been doing a lot of the same stuff for a while.  Anyway thanks for reading and commenting.

On Presentations...

They're not my thing.  I found the stuff that we learned to be quite useful, but it'll take some work to get the hang of presenting.  I think it also made me a little conscientious about how many "umms" I say.  I also found it kinda unfair that we had no prep time for our presentations.  I guess in a way it's an interesting way of seeing what people's bad habits are in the heat of the moment.  I still can't help but wish it would be other people and not me.  I certainly can see why being good at presenting helps out a bunch.  Lots of information will be presented in business settings, so there will always be a need to present.  If I'm able to do it well, I can impress people and receive opportunities.  If I don't, then there's a risk of me being overlooked by those who can

I also learned about networking.  Mom always told me about how important networking is, but it's never really been my thing.  I guess that's part of the reason I'm going for an Accounting major: 97% placement.  Maybe all those guys learned how to network, but I kinda imagine that they didn't have to go quite as far out of their way as those of less marketable majors do.  Since my future isn't set in stone and the fact that I could probably grow a lot by being forced to do things that I'm not good at, I think I might go for the extra credit anyway.  I might need the points.

My first MCom Blog

I don't really know what to expect with this blog.  My professor for my managerial communications class (M Com 320) has assigned us to regularly post to a blog.  It seems kinda weird to me to be learning the formalities of etiquette and behavior in class while learning how to write a blog at the same time.  Call me crazy, but a blog seems a lot less formal.  I wonder how much attention she'll be paying to grammar.

I've found some things I've learned to be surprisingly interesting.  I expected to hear a bunch of grammar rules and the like for class, but I have found some of the things taught to be useful.  I was interested by the conventions of good writing that aren't even grammar rules.  A few examples of this are: don't use there or it to begin a sentence, keep the verb close to the subject, avoid nominalizations (verbs that are turned into nouns such as consideration or watching), and other such rules.  I always have enjoyed writing, so I was very happy to learn about ways to improve.

I also found what was taught about dinner etiquette to be intriguing.  I was surprised that it is bad form to take food home or that if my host or hostess orders a dessert, I should as well.  I wonder what I'd do if I were full.  I remember on my mission, people kept trying to feed me when I was full, and it occassionally led to some awkward situations.  I certainly wouldn't want that happening during any job interview.  I also am sometimes prone to eat too quickly or sometimes even sloppily.  I have to admit that, even though I'm sure the food would be good, I would probably be better off just having an interview without food.  I can see why companies would do so though; it seems like an easy way to tell who is socially trained or well-adjusted.

Anyway, that's all that comes to mind for now. Hopefully I can do well in this class.  The Accounting Core is not too easy to get into after all.