1. Lecture 1: General Communication Skills
Communicating in the IT Industry
Lecture 1: General Communication Skills
Zatil Ridh'wah Hj Darot

3. Learning objectives General communication skills
Adapting content and style to audience
Providing accurate information
Techniques for engaging audience interest
Ensuring the message gets cross

5. General communication skills
There are a number of factors you need to consider when communicating with an individual or group. The first consideration is your audience. Who are they? Is it one person or a group of people?
In person, one-to-one. This is probably easiest because you can see the person and judge whether they are following what you say. If you are explaining how to do something, you ____________________as well as tell them.
In person to an audience. When you are giving a presentation or training session to a group of people, you have to consider the needs of many people. For example, some people may be following what you say while others may not understand you.

6. Over the telephone. This can be more difficult because you don’t have the visual cues which tell you whether the person you are talking to understands you. You also won’t be able to show that person what to do, and _____________can be complicated and difficult to follow.

7. Adapting content and style to audience
You will need to consider how you can modify your language, use of terminology and the speed with which you talk to best suit your audience. Clearly you will talk in a different way to another IT professional than to someone who knows very little about IT.
Varying your voice
Talking in _______________________audience concentrate on what you are saying. Varying your intonation, pausing briefly and asking questions are all effective techniques to maintain your audience’s interest.

8. Terminology
You must use language and terminology that your audience will understand. If your audience is ______________, avoid using non-essential technical terms and make sure you clearly explain any that you do use.
Format
Using different formats to present information can make it more interesting for your audience. For example, you could make a lengthy explanation more interesting by including pictures or diagrams in a written document and videos or music in a presentation.

9. Providing accurate information
As an IT professional, people will expect you to provide them with correct information about IT issues. Of course, you can’t know everything – so if people ask questions you can’t answer, don’t be afraid to say, ‘I don’t know, I’ll find out’. ___________________is very frustrating for people, and it’s very damaging for your own reputation.

10. You should also take care when expressing opinions, because there is a big difference between facts and opinions. In your personal life it’s fine to express opinions about your likes and dislikes. However, you need to be _____________________, because people will see you as the IT expert and will take things you say about technical matters as facts.
For example, if you say ‘ABC laptops are unreliable’, this opinion might be based on one of their laptops you previously owned. However, if you have read in a magazine article that ABC laptops were proved in tests to be unreliable, then that is a fact you can tell people about.

11. Techniques for engaging audience interest
Using technology
When giving a presentation, consider using technology to help maintain your audience’s interest in what you are saying. For example, Microsoft® PowerPoint® is widely used to prepare slides to support presentations.
However, if your slides only ___________________, this is unlikely to engage your audience. Consider adding diagrams and multimedia elements such as animations, sound clips (for example, a short interview) or short videos to your slides, to make your presentation more appealing for your audience.

12. When using PowerPoint ®, bear in mind the following points:
Your slides should only support your presentation – giving the presentation is your job. Be prepared to speak in a confident, interesting and knowledgeable way.
Never _______________out! This is very boring, and what’s the point of you being there?
Don’t make your slides too complex – it is best to keep each slide to around five lines of text. The text should simply summarize the main points of what you are saying.
Keep diagrams or charts simple, as your audience will find very detailed charts hard to read.

13. Choose a slide template and stick to the colours and fonts provided by the template. This way your slides will be consistent. Bright, striking colours work best for projection onto a screen.
Make sure the text size and colour combinations will be legible for your audience. Have a trial run in the room where you will give the presentation to find out how large the slides will be when projected and how far the audience will be sitting from the projected slides.
Be aware that some _____________are difficult for people with visual defects, such as colour blindness, to read. For example, red and green will appear almost identical to someone with colour blindness.

14. Ensuring the message gets across
Watch the people you are talking to carefully. Are they nodding in agreement or are they looking confused or bored, maybe even falling asleep? If your audience doesn’t seem __________ what you are saying, it’s a good idea to stop, ask some questions and check they have understood you.

15. Activity: my plans for the future
Take 10 minutes and list down all your plans for the future

16. BTEC Level 2 First IT Student Book Unit 1 CITI
references
BTEC Level 2 First IT Student Book Unit 1 CITI