Communication Strategies for a Virtual Age

Communication has changed! The traditional rules for speaking and presenting, meeting coordination, influencing people, negotiating and selling ideas no longer apply in a world of skype, messenger, video and teleconference. This course will act as an overview on several concepts each of which could be a course of their own and our goal is to give you tools that you can practice and perfect on your own. By the end of this course, you will be able to: • Apply communication principles and techniques for in-person and virtual teams • Use a science based approach to create impactful presentations • Refine your communication style to better persuade and influence others • Run more effective and impactful meetings • Incorporate strategies to have positive difficult conversations and make people feel valued and listened to *** This course will require you to record yourself speaking. Therefore you must have a phone/computer with a functional camera and microphone.*** WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE? Anyone looking for professional and/or leadership development. This class mainly uses examples from the professional, business environment. If you are looking to advance at your current organization or to enhancing your personal value for potential employers this course is for you. WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE EFFECTIVE? Many educational experiences describe and explain, but in this course we will apply and demonstrate. We teach practical and proven concepts, show you how to apply them and give you opportunities to practice them in a safe and supportive environment. This course is full of opportunities to put the ideas presented into practice and test their effectiveness for yourself. WHY SHOULD YOU TAKE THIS COURSE? We will challenge the preconceived ideas about what it means to be part of a virtual team, and support you to be a dynamic team contributor no matter where you work. In this course you can expect to be both energized and uncomfortable – like in most experiences that result in positive growth and change! This course is offered through the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies (https://learn.utoronto.ca/).

• Introduction to Virtual Teams and Virtual Communication
• This module is intended to create a foundation for the course by challenging your ideas of not just what virtual communication means, but also communication as a whole. This module will also introduce the foundational ideas of the whole course.
• Virtual Meetings: Boring to Awesome
• In this module we cover meetings both in person and virtually. We will discuss how to make meetings dramatically more efficient and effective. We will also introduce strategies to make the meetings more interactive and to keep an audiences attention especially when they are looking at a screen.
• Influence, Power and Questioning Strategies in Virtual Collaboration
• In this module we move from presenting to convincing and persuading. These ideas can be applied to to presentations and also one-on-one communication both in-person and virtually. We will cover how recognize peoples communication styles and motivations and how strategically communicate in a way that will resonate with them.
• Speaking and Presenting in a virtual context
• This module focuses on presenting and public speaking. Each lesson will cover a communication strategy for in-person presenting and then show you how to use that same strategy in a virtual presentation.