Effective Communication

Group communication has always seem challenging to me. One does not have the luxury to choose one's perfect group-mates or the simplest task or sufficient resources to work with. Having been through my vacation job previously as a cosmetics sales promoter, it provided me with more insights in working within a team and as an individual to hit my sales target.

In this sales line, it is very competitive and every single minute counts as our salary is mainly commission-based. Even though the company is constantly stressing about teamwork, it rarely happens because individual sales target not only concerns money issues but one's work performance. Without a manager around to supervise us, the relationship between colleagues is quite straining at times and may indirectly affect the customers as the mood and tension could be felt strongly.

To further illustrate my point, I personally feel that The Apprentice by Donald Trump shows very good examples. Each season, there are two teams which are given tasks to complete and the losing team will have to attend the boardroom for evaluation and deliberation for someone to be fired. During each episode, it is clearly shown the relationships between one another, how the team operates, different leadership styles of each individual leader, the various steps taken to reach their ultimate goal.

In the video shown below, it is the final scene in the boardroom and it shows the leader resigning herself before deliberation. She complained about the harsh conditions and was not fully informed about the working and living conditions that she was signed up for, hence she resigned. It shows that communicating for her seems tough and because of the setback and the poorly performed task that she has led her team to failure, hence she resigned due to overwhelming pressure. Even after the boardroom, while packing her bags, she kept asking her team-mates to support her and all her team-mates were angry with her and blaming the leader for not standing by them.




The second video also depicts the importance of effective group communication when people of different backgrounds and cultures come together. It shows the characters of the team(s) and especially the leader, Michelle (who resigned herself), how she procrastinated and lacked to make a decision at the most critical time.

Hitched!

Re-watching this movie 'Hitch', starring lead actor Will Smith, represents the importance of the role of communication in relationships. People cannot really communicate well when it comes to interpersonal communication especially when it comes to interacting with the opposite sex. Many a time, we wished we could seek professional help in courtship. This is what the movie 'Hitch' is about. Will Smith plays the role of Hitch who provides professional help to men who has met their dream woman, but would not have the guts to approach them, much less know how to react around them. In this movie and the clips attached above, he is coaching this plump guy, Albert who is a social reject and helps him to chase after the woman of his dreams, who is a successful and popular woman who is always under the spotlight and scrutiny of media coverage.

In communication, first impression counts and since physical appearance has the biggest impact, Albert (due to his bigger size and huge tummy) has inferiority complex. Hitch's job is to help him overcome it, and projects confidence in pursuing his dream woman. Based on the second video on his personal dance which Albert thought was good, his dance is socially awkward and repelling. Hitch warned him never to do that dance again, and Albert replied 'I'm just expressing myself', rubbing his palms on his pockets embarrassingly.

Although Albert was taught to learn how to dance from Hitch, as the movie progresses, he ended up being himself and did his personal dance during the night out with his date. With inference from the movie, there was a twist to the story as the girl really liked him for who he really is even though the dance moves were slightly awkward and out of the norm. This goes to show that there is always an exception to the general rule, when it comes to interpersonal communication, that not one formula of communication works for every single individual. No two persons are alike, hence depending on case-by case basis. In this scenario, bringing on a very strong point, dissimilarities and complementary differences work for this couple, as the girl preferred Albert rather than those group of rich men who always hang around her, and are arrogant and snobbish.

In addition, in the case of Will Smith chasing after Eva Mendes, he tried to engage her into a first date by using a walkie-talkie to converse with her. He employed an interesting way of approaching her and Eva reciprocated while being intrigued and surprised with the novelty of communicating via a walkie-talkie.

Despite the fact that there is general social norm of general communication, there is still a small little class of people who implements unorthodox or alternative means of communication which works better for them. Even though the movie talks about effective means of communication, the best way of communication is still communicating with the heart and sincerity, which both men succeeded in winning the fair lady's heart.

Advertising Humor

Plenty of advertisements (ads) are shown everyday, and our brains are very selective as to how we perceive them and whether we can retain the information accurately. Every single ad is vying for attention and media companies are constantly finding new novelties to bombard people with stimuli.

Nowadays, companies have resorted to applying humor in print and TV advertising to capture its audience's attention. Sometimes, the purpose of the ads is not designed to hard-sell its products or make consumers to purchase them; but rather to enable them to recall their brand rather than a competitor's brand. In this way, using humor in ads can be quite effective and is able to communicate their message to their audience in a new novelty manner.

Moreover, our memory is fallible and with this in mind, ads are usually designed to make it easy to listen to, making it intense and novel. For humorous ads, sometimes colours are more vivid and intense, with loud sounds and visuals that are sometimes provocative and controversial that makes it more unforgettable.

Examples of ads that are humorous and controversial:








However, using humor in ads may also be quite risky and backfire. A good balance has to be struck in order that the humor delivers the desired positive impact instead of offending viewers. In these ads (above) - its strong visuals, bold headlines, sex and humor worked really well together. These advertising humor also works best with commonly purchased products and established brands. Not much text were used in the ads and it was very suggestive and non-verbal communication played a huge part in communicating its message to the audience.

In the case of the "condom commercial", the boy's screams and wails while making an embarrassing scene in the supermarket, as his father looked on with complete exasperation effectively communicates the message across. The use of body language and eye-contacts are used appropriately in the scenarios as well, especially the suggestive and averting eye-contacts in the Sweden Newspaper TV Ad. Some people may find it insulting or some find it humorous. So it's a either a love-or-hate commercial, don't you agree?

La Proposition d'Affaires

This video was nicely done by my ex-poly coursemates and my ex-lecturer who is also starred as the leading actor in this video.

Brillant, isn't it?

This video is shown to re-iterate my points in previous post regarding the use of Singlish. This video shows how Singlish is used in our everyday lives and it also shows a glimpse of our Singapore culture to a certain extent.

Enjoy the video! =)

Expressing Ourselves

Speaking Singlish has become part of our local roots and Singaporeans have naturally been associated with many different slangs like "la"and "lor". Education in Singapore makes it compulsory for students to be effectively bilingual in two languages, English as first language and one's Mother Tongue. This sometimes affects a child's learning as both languages may take a toll on them, unable to learn a language to the art of perfection. This in turns, enables us to develop a "new language" on what we term as 'Singlish'.


Singlish is a mixture of Hokkien, Mandarin, English and some Malay words and is ever-changing that sometimes, even I find it tough to keep up. Almost every Singaporean speaks 'brillant Singlish' that even foreigners find it hard to communicate to us. It is almost imperative to end each sentence with a slang of 'la', 'leh', 'lor', 'meh' that makes the style and delivery of the speech different and difficult to understand.


I was reading an article from the September 2008 issue of Reader's Digest: Mark Lee on his Trashy Comedy Beginnings. It is indeed mind-boggling as to how a man with no good looks and speaks in improper sentences with plenty of grammatical errors be raised to fame and becomes a household name in Singapore. The article speaks of his beginnings as an extra and how acting as a trash can role on the Mandarin Variety show Comedy Night made him a big hit with Singaporeans. To him, 'English is such a confusing language'.


With inference to this article, it shows that Singaporeans identifies with him, especially on the language he uses. The approach appeals strongly to the audience and the widely-use of Singlish brings in a closer feel from the audience to the actor himself, Mark Lee and which the television is the medium of channel involved. It represents a sense of belonging that makes Singlish part of the Singapore culture. Indeed, Singlish has become part of our everyday's lives and homegrown culture that even foreigners tease us about it. To us locals, it is perceived as a language that makes us different and unique as inidividuals as it embodies our surroundings, our experiences especially as a multi-racial society, the way we communicate with one another, with different races and religions. Yet in the eyes of the world, we could just be perceived as Singaporeans who can't string proper English sentences together.


In the end, it all boils down to perceptions and stereotyping. Would you, as a Singaporean be proud to declare that you can speak Singlish or rather not? The author herself would rather be proud of both, be able to speak in Singlish and yet be proficient in the English language.