I attended the workshop “Small Talk: It’s a Big Deal! Part 2” hosted by the STARR program and I have to say it wasn’t at all very informative. It didn’t tell me anything that I did not already know. In this workshop we discussed the importance and prevalence of small talk. The first thing that the proctor discussed is the definition of what small talk actually was; he defined small talk as informal conversation between two people, or a group of people. I knew the definition of small talk and too me it was something that I did every single day. Small talk is used to pass time and get to know people and sometimes make them like you. I use small talk in my everyday life; I used small talk to score discounts in a store and even to make friends in order to get certain benefits.
The proctor then moved on to speak about how body language affects the mood of a conversation and how it gives the listener hints on how you are feeling. Again, this is knowledge that by this point in our lives we should probably already have. The body language that we give up is extremely important to those who are listening to us. It expresses our openness, respect and even our interest with the subject at hand. If we give off a particularly negative body language the person that is speaking might feel intimidated or might feel that you have no interest in what they are speaking about. This of course, affects small talk because when making conversation with people that you do not know, your body language is there main idea of you. If you give off a negative body language then they are going to feel negative about you.
The one thing that I found extremely interesting and insightful is the suggestion that we keep up with daily news and information because this will give us more to talk about during small talk. Now, I am not one to keep up with the main media or politics but I do tend to hear the important stuff that happens; which will hopefully give me something to talk about during an important interview. I’m not the type of person to make small talk but I do know a lot about it; we have exercise at my high school to improve or small talking skills and spontaneity, weird right? Of course, since I lack the confidence to actually go up to a random person and start small talk, I’ll never actually be able to use all my vast knowledge on the subject. Guess I just got to hope that people come up to me and just start talking away. I mean there is a huge difference between talking to a person at the store over clothes, or at a restaurant over the food but a random person about the weather? It just seems like i wouldn’t be very good at it, and probably end up having that awkward silence for a while. Lucky for me i go to seminars that will help me improve these skills, yay me.