Soft skills are Hard!

I was on a late evening stroll with my husband yesterday. We were talking about how our day passed. An incident about what happened at his work brought us to the topic –

Soft skills "Hard"ly taught/emphasized in India -

Here is a short, but not an exhaustive list we came up with.

1) Saying thanks to somebody who helps you – Ex. At the end of a talk with a colleague or customer service representative
2) A firm handshake - when you meet an executive of your company for an instance.
3) Introducing yourself to somebody – may be in an interview
4) Dressing up to suit the place you visit
5) Approaching your boss for a favor – Here I should say about this person who was looking for MS project went to a professor requesting a project in his lab. She requested, “Professor, I have been to talking to the other professors in the department. If nobody takes me will you please accept me in your lab??” Sob sob!
6) Being on time for a meeting – be it official or personal, respect the other person’s time
7) Last but not the least, talking aloud in a language that is not understood by everyone in the room/ the group. This is very true with a lot of Indians who live outside India.

Feel free to add more!

Presentations - Do's and Dont's

A must read for all of you who will be giving presentations often - as grad students or as company executives.

http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/labrats/

I learnt a lot. I wished this guy had posted a couple of weeks ago! I did face many of these problems he has mentioned. Especially the background color scheme. It is in fact very deceiving. It looks different at home and very very different in the seminar hall. The lesson I learnt - never trust your background colors unless you are going to be presenting in a dark seminar hall.

Some funny picks-
- Don't get too depressed if people are asleep. It happens to all of us!
- Remember you're trying to impress us (The audience), not the screen!
- Imagine that Professor Sleepy has dozed off during your talk, and wakes suddenly during a crucial data slide!
- Recall that 10% of your audience might be colour-blind!

Apart from what he had to say, out of experience in my own talks and as an audience, I had a couple of things to add in -

- If you are copying images from a text or a journal, take care not to distort them out of proportion.
- Never put stuff in there just to add/fill slides. I have seen a lot of people, especially students, do that.