Skill and determination

Big thanks to Lesley, Des and Robert for helping us understand the importance of good and effective business writing and presentations. Lesley’s session on writing skills was very informative. As a social science and humanities student, I have had many a lecture on this topic, so I wasn’t too happy to go through another one. But this type of writing is totally different to what I know. My writing skills are equipped out of fantastically long sentences and big words. All of us are used to the type of writing that can publish a novel. We explain things three times in one sentence, and you will be lucky if you understand the words. Lesley taught us that our writing and business writing is like chalk and cheese. This type of writing is more to the point, short and sweet, easy to understand, yet very professional. Thanks Lesley for making us see our mistakes with all the examples you gave us. It really helped me a lot.

Everyone in our class is still talking about the presentation skills seminar. What a great experience. For once in my life somebody has given me constructive criticism on my presentation skills. At school and university we had to do presentations, but never got feedback, only a mark. Here we were focussed on by Robert and Des from Connemara Consulting (http://www.connemara.co.za). The criticism and advice they gave me was extremely helpful. At last I know how to work with my nervousness and now I have the opportunity to sell myself in a professional and striking way. I can influence people to become interested in me and I can make myself stand out from the rest. The session was fun and it is amazing to see how the advice helped all of us in our second round of presentations.