As Soft Skills Studio completes 50 posts, I’d like to thank everyone who’s been involved in bringing it this far. A special thanks to all the readers and followers who have been coming back to read the posts week after week. Also, thank you for sharing your favourite ones, disseminating the knowledge that has been painstakingly created here for your benefit.
Soft skills Studio was conceptualized to cover topics related to communication and soft skills under one roof. Being passionate about communication, I wanted to talk about core concepts of communication skills that don’t generally find their own space. Even though, I was initially a little apprehensive about getting too basic with my topics, the encouraging response from the wonderful readers proved me right in bringing to limelight supposedly simple, yet important skills. For instance, speaking, reading, listening and language related concepts like punctuation.
THE STORY SO FAR
In a nutshell, the blog has posts that I have written, resources that I have shared from elsewhere on the web when I found a well written piece on a related topic, training skills page which will also serve as a training community page gradually and information about my professional life as a trainer. The plans for the future of the site come towards the end of this post.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
When I started talking about communication related topics in my posts, little did I realise that I’d hit 50 posts before I had even finished talking about them! I made sub categories to my main category of communication. Among the core skills of communication, I have covered the 4 basics of communication skills: Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing.
How to learn English skills and practice them
21 Indianisms you should never use in your speech.
Why are listening skills important?
How to use listening skills effectively in our everyday life.
How to enhance your reading skills
8 important principles of writing that everyone should be good at
The business communication section has useful posts like:
How to write emails effectively
I have resources from across the web shared on the blog for added value on the above topics. Some of the posts are:
Eliminating fillers from your speech and speaking more confidently
7 ways to handle the fear of public speaking.
TED talk by Julian Treasure himself where he talks about strategies that will help us listen better.
10 tips on how reading can make a difference in your life
SOFT SKILLS
Soft skills is a vast topic and if you ask me, pretty much covers communication too. Some of the posts in this category include:
How to feel confident in just 5 minutes
How to use eye contact to improve your communication (shared from the web)
40 most taught soft skills (shared from the web)
2 regular features that I have been excited about are Monday Mantra and the series on vocabulary building.
Soft skills 101: The story so far. Image courtesy
MONDAY MANTRA
Monday Mantra is usually posted on alternate Mondays of the month talking about a concept that inspires and motivates. Starting from the new year, the posts talk about how anytime is a good time to build your skills and pursue your passion, learn to be the first to give, never ever give up because if Edison gave up, we wouldn’t have electricity and how to make your to-do list and stick to it
VOCABULARY SERIES
The vocabulary series covers building word power from scratch. Tried and tested, these steps will help you from learning individual words to building a repository of word power over a period of time. The posts include:
6 reasons why you should have a great vocabulary
How to build vocabulary in 4 steps
Step 1: Learn new words everyday
Step 2: Make connections between similar words
Step 3: Make networks of synonyms
Step 4: Understand nuances of words
COLLEGE PLACEMENTS
I also decided to have a separate category to help students in their college placement with tips and advice on interview skills. There are posts on writing a winning resume, what to avoid on a resume, writing a cover letter and do’s and don’t’s for an interview.
TIP OF THE WEEK
This little corner at the footer of the blog gives a new quick tip every week on language and usage errors. These are then archived as a Tip of the week round up for each month.
WHAT THE FUTURE LOOKS LIKE
While the above is a report card of what’s been happening so far, I intend to take the blog in a whole new direction from here. Moving away from basics, there will be new categories for niche audience, addition of audio-visual content and a few new elements to the look of the blog. I hope to enjoy your continued support in my endeavour to help people be better at communication and more softly skilled.
Your valuable comments/suggestions/feedback will always help make this blog better and reader friendly. Praises and brickbats, both are welcome. Looking forward to a lot more of soft skills studio – soft skills for your success!