The night before presentation

This is just a random post. I have a big presentation tomorrow, and I am bored thinking of how to sell in the presentation, and so, I decided to post something.

This is a presentation on the conference that I am organising, it's called BioBiz. Basically, I am to sell this conference to the directors of s

ome medtech companies during their council meeting. I made a similar presentation to another group of companies the next day after our ES2007S presentation.

Although it's the same presentation, but because the audience has change, my strategy has to change as well. I've not really prepared for this presentation because I was busy watching overdue webcasts for the past few days, and now, I am suffering the consequence of my laziness =_=. Just want to share with you a few lessons (they are still at the hypothetical stage, not proven yet) that I've learnt about presentation (particularly presentation that requires you to sell) which might be helpful to you :

1. Don't leave the charting of your ppt strategy to the last minute, you need time to build up the momentum. the sense of excitement and confidence towards it. Previously when I did my first presentation, due to the need to prepare the slides and the stress due to the high-ranking audience that I have, I thought about the presentation for one whole week and in the end, I can speak and present very naturally, cause everything is in my head. Now? I'm just stuck at it...
2. You should speak properly a few days before your presentation. Stop using lah, ehm, uhhu if you don't want them to appear in your presentation. Speak the language of your presentation. For the past few days, I was studying with my friend from China and have been speaking Chinese. Suddenly, I discovered that I can't pronounce some words clearly and can't construct sentences properly. Somehow, your tongue adapt to the language that you speak.
3. Presentation notes can only be used one time, not twice, even for 2 similar presentation. For the second time when you try to use the same note, you'll find that you box yourself up to conform to the previous things that you said, and you'll have the tendency to start memorising things, which is not good at all, because when you try to memorise, you forget it much more easily! For every presentation, INTERNALISE IT!
4. Animation is very important! Use it well to enhance the effect of your presentation.
5. When you are trying to print multiple sets of presentation slides from Microsoft Powerpoint, please send your printing set by set and don't try to print 5 sets in one goal. The thing is, the second set of your slides will continue to be printed on the same piece of paper after the first set finishes. Ex: Let say one set of slides take 5 pages, and so if you print your slides in a double-sided form, you are suppose to have one blank page. However, the 1st slide of your next set will be printed on the blank page... (not sure if you get what I'm trying to say, if you don't, just follow, you won't regret it)
6. When you are selling your idea, if you need to tell your audience that they've miss out something in the past, or they are not good enough, don't put it on the slides, just tell them verbally in a respectful manner. Reminding them too much of their mistakes doesn't help them to be more receptive to your idea. When you want to tell them about a problem, make sure you will suggest some solutions at the same time. No ones like to hear that NOTHING CAN BE DONE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM!
7. Use personal experiences to connect with the audience. This will make your presentation very natural.
8. If you have a small group of audience, there will tend to be those who has very stiff face (I'm not sure why). Try to establish some eye-contact but don't keep looking at them. Trying to look-out for people who are more friendly and attentive and look at them more. That will help you to stay calm and happy throughout =D
9. Don't be defensive when people shoot you questions. Being defensive will offend the audience and evoke the defensive side of them.
10. It will be great to print out slides for your audience, so that they can take note during your presentation. It helps to leave a better impression.
11. If you are invited to make the presentation, always express your appreciation for the opportunity and thank the audience for their time here.
12. Always smile to everyone!

That's all I've got. I was just so bored that I started to do some formation with my slides. I formed a hexagon, and tried to make sure that the angle between the sides are 120 degree. Doing these kind of random things just make me happy. Looking at the photo, it's not really 120 degree...sigh....disappointed. =(

The hexagon!

That's all for now, I have to go back and start pronouncing the words properly.

All the best for your study. =D Enjoy it man!

I'm getting Josh Groban's new album "Illumination" tomorrow! Yay! I highly recommend him, this is the REAL music and voice that people will remember for life (not just for entertainment) compared to all the Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber type of music...

The greatest tool learnt -- LEARNING

DISCLAIMER: I did read the rubrics and I know this post doesn't follow the rubrics. However, since this is the last post, I really want to share something more personal that I have truly learnt from this module. Hope it's all right. =)

The first thing that I must say about ES2007S is that it's one of the most special module I've taken in NUS. Apart from MANY communication skillsets and some corporate related skills that we've learnt in this module, to me, the module has taught me something precious that I have not expected when I registered for this module—learning.

Discipline in learning

Lesson Learnt: Ok, it's the end of the module, I'll just confess it! I really DISLIKE blogging, especially the part which we need to comment on other people's blogs. Since young, I have problems in expressing my personal thought/opinions in a coherent and logical manner through writing. To show you just how bad I am with writing -- the only 2 Arts module that I've ever taken in NUS were both S/U-ed (after hard work) due to the unbearable result. Business proposals and technical reports are fine, but not stories, reflections or anything close to that. Usually, the thoughts and opinions came in an entangled and messy form and it takes me great effort to re-arrange my thoughts before presenting them.

Blogs and blog comments were great pain. Every blog took me an average of 3 hours. 250 words for 3 hours? I think I was just retarded. Zig Ziglar said that "It was character that got us out of bed (and start blogging), commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through." It's very true for me. The weekends before with blogging assignments were stress-filled. Nevertheless, because of the 3 hours of hard work each time, I am getting better at processing my thoughts and ideas now. All in all, I've learnt through this blogging journey that -- in order to learn your hardest lesson, only two things are required— complete willingness and great discipline.

Action Step: Well, though I did posted my blogs, I didn't synthesize much comments on most of your blogs. Truthfully speaking, I always found myself reading through the blog posts for 2 – 3 rounds, but just still can't find things to comment about. It usually just ended up with me closing the browser and tell myself that I will do it tomorrow. Well, tomorrow never came...even the 20% assessment on blogs and can't launch me into action. However, as I was thinking hard about writing this blog, a reflection on Ziglar's quote told me that it's time to get out of bed again! So, I decided that I should be committed to comment on your blogs if I want to learn how to. So, expect some overdue comments on your blogs soon. It might not be too useful, but well, let's just say that it's more for my benefits than yours...

Learning through different modes

Lesson Learnt: During my 3.5 years of learning experience in NUS, many lessons (academic, technical, skills) that I've learnt came from downloading information from lectures, tutorials, books, articles, etc. During ES2007S lesson, I'm learning new things through a whole new way! During our classes, I experienced learning through:

• Experience: mock-interview, elevator test, spontaneous presentations.
  
• Conversation: through some of the conversations and discussions we have during the class, I learnt about new concepts and find these concepts much more memorable than those learnt through lectures.
  
• Group project: projects in many of the modules are platforms for apply our knowledge, but not for learning. However, in both the peer-teaching and research project, I realized that I've learnt much more than I've actually applied my knowledge. I gained much insights on the area of my research, the way to do certain things, etc.
  
• Observation: the opportunities to observe each other doing presentation helps me to learn many new things about presentation.
  
• De-briefing and peer reviews: Something that I really appreciate about our lessons is that learning took place not only through the experience itself. If you can re-call, for every assignment, Brad will have a de-brief session with the class. This helped to enhanced the whole learning experience by consolidating the learning points. Besides, receiving feedbacks from each other helped me to process my own thoughts as well.
  

I was aware of these different learning platforms since long time ago but have not internalised them personally. Although I experienced these activities before, but those were rather dull and formal and therefore it didn't occur to me that I can learn through these platforms. Besides, I guessed the mono-directional learning experience in the last 3 years had more or less crossed out these learning modes from my learning journey. The turning point came when I took ES2007S. In the lessons, we were engaged to learn through these platforms in a very casual and fun way. I am truly grateful that I have learnt how to learn through these multiple modes.

Action step: My learning experience in ES2007S is a "proof-of-concept" to convince myself that learning can take place in so many ways. Having to learnt this, I shall now more intentionally engage in learning through these modes and activities, so that I can enhance my learning capacity and not discount myself from any opportunity to learn!

This is a LONGGGGGGGGGGG post. I hope you've enjoy reading it. To sum it up, ES2007S opened up a whole new window in my journey of learning. ES2007S has equipped me with the most important skill in the marketplace -- LEARNING. I am really grateful that I took it before my graduation and I am much better in learning than I was before!

Last but not least, I am very grateful to be in the class with all you folks! You guys make the class so noisy and fun! You guys rock my socks off!!!

P/S: I started writing this on Sunday morning...but only completed it on Tuesday night =_=!

7-eleven Oral Presentation

Hi all, from the different types of questions/feedbacks we gathered during the Q&A, I guessed everyone has mixed opinion regarding our proposal and presentation. Nevertheless I hope that we did successfully illustrate the 3 bring-home points for you, which are

1. There're REAL needs and REAL challenges
   
2. We have a solution, the MOST SUSTAINABLE one.
   
3. YOU CAN make a difference!
   

You can comment on how well these points were brought across, or anything that we should be working on to bring these points across more effectively.

Reflection on group presentation

The preparation for the oral presentation has been a fun one for our team, filled with jokes, laughter, some tension and drama along the way. Of course, we worked hard as well. Proof? Please see below: ( I can see the smirk on your face! )

(Figure 1: the 7-eleven team! Thanks everyone for your hard work and commitment put into this project and presentation. I believed we were thrown out of our comfort zone for this presentation, and thus have grown to become better! Keep it up, guys!)

Apart from simply presenting our proposal, we were always seeking to make our presentation convincing, and most importantly to SELL our proposal. So, we referred to some sales and business presentations so as to learn from them. Apart from the skill sets, presentation style, the most important lesson that I've learnt is that every salesman must know his/her product well, and convinced that his product is the best because nothing can beat the passion that comes from within! Even accidents such as mental block, something goes wrong with your slides or even if you forgot your speech, you can just speak straight from the pool of knowledge and the conviction that is within you.

We tried to engage our audience through usage of different media, such as photos, animations, charts, etc. Besides that, we also tried to create leve a better and more in-depth impression by creating our 7-eleven logo and by using customised presentation templates. Although these were minor details, but I believe that it made a difference. Preparation is also another important part. I was quite happy that we were able to practice for the presentation twice on the day before the presentation.

I think as a whole, we did a good job in delivering the presentation. Each of us has a specific purpose and a specific thing to sell/convince the audience for (the needs, the concerns, the solution, and the benefits and final pitch) , but collectively, we are heading towards the same direction. What we did well was the transition from one person to another. I think they were rather smooth, and the presentation style (style of our slides and speech) do not differ too much.

Reflection on my own presentation

In terms of my own presentation, I think I really could have done much better. Frankly speaking, I wasn't very prepared because I was also busy preparing for another very five-digit worth presentation on the next day. I only started to type out my points at 4am in the morning and woke up late at 10am. I brought the script to the class thinking that I will have some time to commit it to my memory. However, to my surprise, we were the first to present. That caught me off-guard. Nevertheless, I just went ahead, hoping that everything will fall into place.

Thankfully, it did, to a certain extent. I was able to cover 75% of the points that I wanted to, however, I wasn't sure if it were as convincing as I wanted it to be. Perhaps you can let me know on this. During the presentation, I tried to establish eye-contact with everyone, expect Yong Xin (whose eyes were covered by his cap =_=!). Due to the lack of practice, I had some problems in constructing sentences spontaneously, and thus I thought there were some parts in which didn't appear to be very clear due to some fragmented sentences. Something that I have improved from the previous presentation was to stop saying "ah...ehm..." when I've nothing to say. Besides, I've also tried to internalise the transitions of the slides and the flow of animations so that the transition will be coherent with my speech.

Any feedback, please do leave a comment below. Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Excuse me? What did you just say?

Being in Singapore, I have had many opportunities to witness and participate in intercultural communications. In this post, I will be describing the most recent encounter I had in observing intercultural communication.

Last week, I had dinner with a few of my friends, and one of my Singaporean friend, Elise brought her boy friend from US, Jonathan along. We had our dinner on a long table and I was sitting right beside Elise and Jonathan. Halfway through our dinner, Elise asked Jonathan to get her the Calamari Rings that was placed further from her. This was how she did it:-

While cutting her fish, Elise nudged Jonathan with her elbow and said, " Hey Jon, pass me the Calamari Rings." Immediately, Jonathan folded his arms, stared at Elise sharply and said, "Excuse me? What did you just say?" Jonathan looked rather offended and I was quite shocked to look at his expression. At the same time, I can see the blank look on everyone else's faces. Then Elise looked up and responded slowly, "Oh sorry. I mean 'Jon, can you pass me the Calamari Rings, please?' " There and then, Jonathan's expression softened and he passed the Calamari Rings to Elise. Everything returned to normal after the incident, and we had our dinner pleasantly.

Frankly speaking, I was initially clueless when I looked at Jonathan's offensive face, because I didn't think that there's anything wrong with Elise's request. However, after witnessing the whole incident, I deduced that Jonathan reacted in such a way because he found Elise's way of asking rude because Elise request sounded more like a "command" rather than a request for help. As I thought about it further, I realised that for Singaporean, during informal conversation, we tend to speak Singlish -- simplify our sentences and leave out the words or phrases that portray our mannerism. However, for Jonathan who was brought up in a proper English speaking environment, not using phrases such as "please", "can you help..." in a request may sound rather rude.

After a few days, I had a chance to meet Elise for lunch and discussed about the incident. She told me that Jonathan was offended because he thought that the way she was acting very disrespectful towards him, because not only did she missed out the "magic words", she didn't initiate any eye-contact with Jonathan when she spoke to him. Elise told me that in the US culture, speaking to a person without maintaining eye-contact is rather disrespectful. On the other hand, mannerism in speech is also very important for them. She said that similar incidences also happened before, and had caused some tension between both of them.

Through speaking to Elise, my deduction was verified. However, more than that, I came to understand that things that we think is normal and acceptable for one's culture may be unacceptable another person's culture. Therefore, understanding cultural differences is crucial in order to have effective intercultural communication.

Click here!

Position Offered: QA Engineer

Corporation: Baxter BioScience Manufacturing SARL

Responsibilities

• Responsible for the documentation control system which includes issuance of SOPs/forms/various quality related documents, document

• archival and destruction, and maintaining the document management system

• Assist the varios tasks within the Qa/QO department such as:

• 
  

1. investigations relating to manufacturing/facilities/utilities and review/approve the investigation report

2. Managing of change controls

3. routine GMP walk through with manufacturing department

4. any Corporate / Divisional or site projects / initiatives /implementation related to quality systems

• Participate in internal or external assessments/audits, as required

• Participate in cross-function investigations as required

Requirements:

• Degree in Biotechnology, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Process Engineering or equivalent.

• Prior knowledge in cGMP requirements and various quality systems would be an added advantage

• Good report writing skills and communication skills

• Prior experience with information systems such as Trackwise, LIMS, Documentation Management System would be an added advantage

• Self motivated and good team player

KHOO YONG CHEAN

20 Dunearn Close, Singapore 118756

(65) 9326 6058, yongchean@gmail.com

__________________________________________________________________________________

September 1, 2010

Ms Cheryl Lee

Baxter BioScience Manufacturing SARL

4, Woodlands Industrial Park D,

118435 Singapore

Dear Ms. Cheryl Lee

In response to your advertisement on JobStreet on 26 August, enclosed is my resume in application for the position QA Engineer in your company.

I recently obtained my Honours Degree in Bioengineering from National University with a Second Class Upper Division. As a graduate in Bioengineering, I have acquainted myself with knowledge on cell culture and bio-pharma manufacturing which is highly relevant to your company’s business.

Being a pro-active student, I always take on challenges to expand my capacity. For example, I was the project team leader for several Bioengineering design projects during my course of study. These experiences have equipped me in project management skills and in using quality improvement systems such as LIMS and Kaizen. These are the critical skills that will define a competent QA Engineer for your department. Through my internship as a HR Specialists, I was trained in corporate information and documentation management, public relation skills, as well as effective communication skills. You will find all these qualities a great match to the position that is being offered.

Apart from my academic life, I was actively involved in other major projects. As Chairperson, I led a team of highly committed students in organising BioBiz, a major professional industrial Conference, in which Baxter BioScience have generously sponsored. Additionally, I was also the Vice President of NUS Campus Crusade for Christ, as well as the Publicity Director for Healthcare Conference 2010. These experiences have helped to sharpen my leadership qualities, team-building skills and decision making abilities, which valuable to your company, especially in the QA Department.

On a more personal level, I am a vision-driven person who strives to complete every task with utmost excellence and top-notch efficiency, without compromising on my personal moral and ethical values. You will find me a committed and trustworthy employee who can contribute enormously to your company.

Attached herewith is my resume for your full consideration. I appreciate your time reviewing my application, and it will be a pleasure for me to attend an interview with you at your convenient time.

Yours sincerely,

Yong Chean

Enclosed: Resume

EDITED

Unresolved Conflict

Last year, I was heading a committee to organise a one-day charity carnival and my close friend, Lynn was part of the committee. As the date of the event approached, Lynn was suddenly irresponsive and eventually stonewalled with the tasks assigned to her. In the end, the whole committee had to work extra hard to complete her task.

After the event, the real conflict arises. I called her to arrange for a meeting to talk about this issue. To my shock, she immediately started crying, saying that she didn't want to talk about this and assuring me that it would never happen again.The same thing happened for the subsequent attempts. I couldn't start a proper conversation with her without her crying non-stop. To me, she was engaging in emotional blackmail to avoid the confrontation. Her refusal to face the confrontation created an unspoken conflict between both of us. Eventually, I stopped pursuing the issue, because I was not sure how best to handle it. Today, we are still friends, but this conflict remains unresolved.

Upon reflection, I understood my motivation of initiating the meeting as one in which I sought to fully understand the situation to avoid any possibilities of misunderstanding each other. After speaking with other friends, I came to realise that she acted that way purely out of the fear of any forms of confrontation, thinking that shoving everything unpleasant under the carpet would protect each other’s feelings and preserve our friendship. I learnt from this experience that the main factor that perpetuated the conflict was the depth of friendship involved. If our friendship were shallow, any form of emotional manipulation might have been much less effective.

Dear readers, what would you have done in my place to resolve this conflict?

___________________________________

Resolution to this conflict:

As you have read from the post above, the conflict remains unresolved till this day. As much as I hope to resolve the conflict, I don't see how I can do that without her using her tears as weapon. If you are a biology student, you will probably know of the "fight or flight" principle. In facing a crisis, one can fight or flee. In this case, I choose to flee, leaving the conflict as where it was and "flee" from working with her again, until the right time arrives when I can talk to her calmly about this matter.

That doesn't sound like a happy ending, does it?

EDITED

Why effective communication is important for me?

"Communication is the real work of leadership." - Nitin Nohria-

Having the opportunities to take up different leadership roles in various settings, I can't agree more with the quote above. The major responsibilities of a leader include vision casting, task delegation, external liaison, etc. All these are mainly done through communication; however, it's not an easy task. Let me illustrate my point through some examples.

In delegating tasks, if one is too assertive, his/her team-mate may felt that he/she is forced to do it. If too gentle, he/she may not take it seriously. In confronting problematic team-mates, strict comments may cause people to feel condemned; however, weak confrontation with too much encouragement will not be effective in addressing the issues either.

Apart from handling internal matters, a leader is also a spoke-person representing his/her organisation. In liaison with external parties, e-mail etiquette is important to portray a professional image of the organisation. During different networking settings, simple gestures such as firm handshakes and smiles, body postures and tone of speech are critical to make a good impression.

Above are some of the aspects of communication that I struggled through the most in my journey in growing as a leader. Through these encounters I learnt that effective communication is a very critical criteria for effective leadership. This is why I take up this module to work on my communication skills, so that I can be a better communicator, and thus, a better leader.