What’s the Purpose of Eye Contact?
What are your eyes doing during a presentation, or even during a conversation? Think about it.
Are they looking down at your hands or your notes?
Do they gaze out the window or over the heads of the audience?
Or are you staring at just one person the entire time you’re speaking?
Maybe you’ve never considered it before, but using your eyes is an easy way to connect with your audience and to increase your confidence when talking.
Here are three reasons why eye contact will help you present yourself stronger in front of an audience:
Jordan Rudess on Listening
At Improving Communications, we ask professional musicians to tell us about their “money maker;” their ability to listen and interact well with others. We ask these gifted artists to teach us more about listening so that in business, we can use similar practices to be more successful. Below is what Jordan Rudess had to say […]
Text-Speak in the Workplace
All choices in communication are of terrific importance. Modern-day shorthand (text-speak) is very useful, and entirely appropriate. (Did that just say what I think it said?) Yes, TXT shorthand is the right answer–when it’s used with the right audience. You can draw an analogy here to using profanity. Vulgar language, when used with the correct […]
Rude Business Phone Antics
What is proper Business Phone Behavior? Have you ever made a phone call to a business and gotten the answer, “So-and-so isn’t here right now. Can you call back in 15 minutes?” Do you find anything wrong with that? In a tennis game, when a player hits the ball, the second player hits it […]
Active Voice – When to use Active vs Passive
Many of us have seen the spellcheck on our devices suggest that we revise from passive voice to the active. OK. What if we don’t know what that means? What is active voice? When we talk about active and passive voice, we are talking about the action described by the verbs in the sentence. When you […]
AWFUL or EXCELLENT Cover Letter?
The decision has been made – time for a new job! The résumé has been spiffed up, and you have found the perfect new position for you. Now it is time for the cover letter. This is your chance to speak in your voice and tell this company why they want to hire you. The question […]
Happy New Year from the People at Improving Communications
Well lookie here… the Earth has revolved around the Sun once again! Three hundred sixty-five days have elapsed (or as the cast in the musical Rent would sing, “525,600 Minutes”). A year is a good marker for progress made. Once it’s completed, it all starts again. Happy New Year. Two thousand seventeen has been Improving Communications’ best year yet. We owe […]
Listening: One Cohesive Unit (Rod Morgenstein)
NOTE: As you read, apply Rod Morgenstein’s message of listening to your profession by substituting the discussion of “music” with “work,” and terms related to “musician” with “colleague.” Listening is the practice of being in the moment, in touch with my surroundings, and fully aware that I am part of a creative process that involves […]
Majuscules and Minuscules – The Art of Using Capital Letters
Using capital letters properly is a sign of respect for your audience and subject. By not using, or misusing capital letters, your readers may think that you don’t know what’s correct (or even worse, don’t care). It may send a message to others that makes you look thoughtless. None of us would want that. If […]