Improving Oral Communication Skills through Meetup.com Network

This article discusses how attending a Meetup.com network can help improve oral communication skills. The author shares their experience and strategies used to develop trust and confidence in their presentation. The article also highlights the positive networking skills observed and what could have been improved.

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FOUNTATIONS OF WORKPLACE SUCCESS
Student Name
Institution Affiliation
Facilitator
Course
Date

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PART B
Based on my objectives and aims, I will be attending a meetup.com network. In the
previous section of this assignment, I chose oral communication as my point of weakness and
which I wished to develop. For that matter, my choice of network plan was mainly based on the
fact that meetup.com was the only effective channel which could help me nurture my oral skills.
Some of the other platforms like Facebook groups, state and local government websites as well
as professional associations although were good channels, they only dealt with writing and
presentation skills (Ashrafian, Toma, Harling, Kerr, Athanasiou and Darzi, 2014, p.1642).
From its description point of view, meetup.com equips the trainees with oral
communication skills. For instance, whether in need of practicing public speaking for anticipated
presentations or technology talks, in need of improving skills of delivering content as a teacher
or building more confidence as a public speaker in general, meetup.com has been ranked as the
best channel for those services. The main goal of this network is to help the participants cultivate
more confidence and effective communication through practical exercises, instructions,
individual feedbacks and speaking opportunities (Auer, Calvi, Jordan, Schrader and Byrd-
Craven, 2018, p.87). Considering that my weakness as outlined above concerns oral
communication, being part of this network will be a golden opportunity for me. As outlined
above, equipping the participants with effective communication or speaking skills is main goal
and which is my weakness. So, I will get a chance in this platform to build my oral skills.
There is quite a wide range of professionals I expect in this meeting, actually listing all of
them may take me centuries because almost every career requires public speaking skills. This is
because in almost all the careers, there must be interaction between two or more people and who
must communicate effectively with each other in order to achieve certain goals. However, there

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are certain groups of people whom I consider to be in the frontline of this network. Sales
&Marketing agents are in the top list because effective communication is a must for them to
succeed in their career (Hua et al, 2016, p.200). Second on the list are the motivational speakers
who must be equipped with effective communication skills to be able to win the attention of their
audience. Thirdly, public relation officers are expected in the platform because effective
communication to them is essential in consideration to the fact that they portray organization
image in the public and must do so effectively. Politicians are also expected in this platform
because they usually require public speaking skills in their campaigns to win public confidence.
Lastly but not least are the trainers and teachers whose career is majorly on communication
(Shen, Chiou, Hsiao, Wang and Li, 2016, p.2266).
From this network platform, I would like to gain insights on how to improve on oral
communication skills. Considering that the platform is majorly on promoting public speaking
skills and instilling confidence to the participants, through these and other opportunities offered
here I will come out with the necessary approaches to achieve that (Lindner et al, 2017, p.20).
Also, because the platform gives opportunities to gauge the participants, I will learn some of the
skills I might be lacking from the rest of the participants. Through my opportunity to express
myself, I will also realize some of my weak areas as per the instructor’s comments and
recommendations.
In this network platform, I will be aiming at promoting myself orally and to make the rest
of participants develop trust and confidence in whatever that I will be presenting. I will use
several strategies to achieve that. First of all, I will strive to be expressive in my emotions. This
is because I have realized that being nervous whenever delivering a public talk has always been
my main weakness however much I try to overcome. So, playing my emotions by getting into

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excitement of my speech I will be able to mask the jitters. This is in consideration to the fact that
hiding an emotion with another is much easier than hiding it by suppressing it. Maintaining good
posture will also make the rest of participants develop trust and confidence in whatever that I
will be presenting (Ning, 2014, p.290). I will always make sure that I hold my head high and
constantly roll my shoulders back all through my presentation to make me not only look
confident but also improve my voice. I will also insert smiles in my presentation with an aim of
making my voice pleasant as well as conveying confidence in my speech.
The network strategies I used
 Keeping it simple
 Building rapport
 Growing my relationship database
 Being nice to all people I met in the platform
Strategies I used to develop trust and confidence
 Being expressive in my emotions
 Maintaining good posture
 Inserting smiles in my presentation
These strategies really worked miracles because the rest of the participants appreciated. It
was also unbelievable to me as I have been always overcome by nervousness anytime I
encounter such huge congregations and ends up not finishing my speech appropriately.
Positive networking skills I observed
 Growing my relationship database

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 Being nice to all people
 Building rapport
What could have been improved?
 The amount of time allocated to each participant was too small to adequately learn from
them. It should be a little bit longer
Information I passed to members of the network
I encouraged them on following networking strategies in whichever the career they are in
because it’s an easy way of climbing the ladder to success.
PART C: REFLECTION
Time constraints
The issue of time constraint made me not to achieve what I purposed to pass to the rest of
the participants. This is because I spend a lot of time to fully gather myself and ended up not
finishing by presentation
Anxiety during presentation
I was extremely anxious at the first few minutes of my presentation to an extent of
making me waste a lot of time before delivering the main points of my presentation. This saw me
run out of time before completing my presentation
Lack of initial rapport with audience
Failure to draw the attention of the rest of the participants led to wastage of time before
beginning my presentation and ended up not finishing my presentation

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Next time, I would prepare myself fully by ensuring that I practice my presentation with a
group of individuals under while timing myself to ensure that I stick to the timeline and deliver
all the points of my presentation. This will not only equip me to avoid the time constraints but
also reduce anxiety before proceeding to the real presentation. Also, I will practice on creating
initial rapport before the real presentation to avoid the inconveniences I experienced during this
presentation.
References
Ashrafian, H., Toma, T., Harling, L., Kerr, K., Athanasiou, T. and Darzi, A., 2014. Social
networking strategies that aim to reduce obesity have achieved significant although modest
results. Health affairs, 33(9), pp.1641-1647.
Auer, B.J., Calvi, J.L., Jordan, N.M., Schrader, D. and Byrd-Craven, J., 2018. Communication
and social interaction anxiety enhance interleukin-1 beta and cortisol reactivity during high-
stakes public speaking. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 94, pp.83-90.
Hua, J., Filaire, E., Giraud, T., Jáuregui, D.A.G., Soury, M., Martin, J.C., Devillers, L. and Le
Scanff, C., 2016. Predicting a Failure of Public Speaking Performance Using Multidimensional
Assessment. Journal of Sports Science, 4, pp.197-209.
Lindner, P., Miloff, A., Fagernäs, S., Andersen, J., Sigeman, M., Andersson, G., Furmark, T. and
Carlbring, P., 2017. Therapist-led and at-home one-session Virtual Reality exposure therapy for
public speaking anxiety using consumer hardware and software, with online maintenance: A
randomized controlled trial. In 9th Swedish Congress on internet interventions (SWEsrii), 3
November 2017, Linköping, Sweden (pp. 19-20). Linköping University Press.

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Ning, Y., 2014. Quantitative effects of drivers and barriers on networking strategies in public
construction projects. International Journal of Project Management, 32(2), pp.286-297.
Shen, G.C.C., Chiou, J.S., Hsiao, C.H., Wang, C.H. and Li, H.N., 2016. Effective marketing
communication via social networking site: The moderating role of the social tie. Journal of
Business Research, 69(6), pp.2265-2270.