Good communication and public speaking skills are essential in a professional working environment. Both skills can contribute to a person’s ability to build confidence, to establish a social network, and to shape public opinion. Due to its dynamic and changing nature according to the situation where communication is practiced, good communication practice is not something easy to do.
To increase young generation’s communication and public speaking skills, President University Students Union (PUSU) held a seminar and workshop entitled INTERACT, Interactive Communication 2019. The event was held at Antero Hotel, Jababeka (14/9) and invited Kirti Sharma, a professional public speaker, motivator, and book writer as a speaker during the first session.
During this session, Kirti Sharma explained what makes good communication practices. “Start small. Start by observing the communication style of the person you want to talk to. Next, you have to adapt. Keep practicing to communicate with them,” she said. Additionally, Kirti Sharma also mentioned that despite the effort to maintain good communication practices, the occurrence of conflict within communication practices is inevitable. Should that happen, one has to focus to find the solution.
Aside from observing people’s communication style, it is also important to know their personality. This statement was delivered by Putri Indonesia Perdamaian 2014 Dea Rizkita, the speaker for the second session in INTERACT 2019. In this session, Dea explained the nature of human’s personalities of introversion and extroversion. She also shared tips on how to adapt well when communicating through 3T, Tahu tempat (Know the place), Tahu waktu (Know the time), dan Tahu diri (Know yourself).
INTERACT 2019 was closed with a workshop and focus group discussion (FGD) that was led by The Light Indonesia, a community of young people concerning the issue of character building. In this FGD session, the participants were divided into groups to discuss miscommunication cases that often occur in the world of work which was then presented one by one.
The INTERACT 2019 committee hopes that after joining INTERACT 2019, young people will have good public speaking skills and be successful in their future professional careers.