PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Recognizing that hiring organizations expect employees to possess strong communication skills, Wellesley College, St. Lawrence University, and Texas Christian University (TCU) have adopted the TalkMeUp communication effectiveness coaching and validation platform. The objective is to give students an edge and position them to be more successful as they start their career.
TalkMeUp analyzes practice videos recorded in private, as well as online meetings containing multiple participants, to gauge the performance of the host and the engagement and enthusiasm levels of the audience, such as fellow students and professors.
Corporate subscribers of TalkMeUp have realized gains in sales, customer retention, and organizational productivity through the software’s unique ability to coach people to deliver compelling and impactful messages. Students can realize the same benefits.
Communication Skills Have Taken a Backseat to Texting and Social Media
Technology keeps advancing in ways that encourage anonymous and scripted messages rather than fostering good verbal and nonverbal communication skills. TalkMeUp helps to swing the pendulum and leverage technology to practice and develop those critical skills that have not received the attention they deserve and businesses expect.
“There’s a perception that class participation is down in general,” said Ann Velenchik, PhD, Department of Economics and Writing at Wellesley College. “The feeling was there before 2020, and that wasn’t helped by remote learning during the pandemic. Students have become conditioned to text and use social media for communicating rather than face an audience, present a well thought out message or argument, and support and defend it conversationally. The ability to communicate effectively is a skill to be developed and nurtured like playing an instrument or a sport. You don’t just walk onto the stage or field and expect to play at a high level — it takes dedication, discipline, practice, and coaching. We think TalkMeUp can be the missing link by providing students with an indefatigable practice tool.”
Velenchik continued, “I vetted the tool by asking a wide range of students to work with it, and found it to be inclusive of all users, particularly our international students. We don’t want young women coached into sounding like 55-year-old white males. They should be able to learn how to communicate effectively, but still sound like themselves. TalkMeUp can do that.”
TalkMeUp Empowers Students to Be Effective Communicators, More Attractive Candidates
“While a fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, I surveyed my peers to understand what they believed was the most valuable aspect of the MBA program,” said JJ Xu, founder and CEO of TalkMeUp, Inc. “An overwhelming majority said that communication was the most significant aspect of their education because of its universal importance in their professional and personal lives. TalkMeUp was conceived out of this need, tested, and validated against traditional classroom presentation training methods and found to be more effective.”
Faculty who require student presentations typically only grade whether the presentation was given and its content. With TalkMeUp, they can provide immediate, specific, positively phrased coaching and feedback on their delivery enabling students to cultivate their individual style.
“We want students to feel empowered by this experience,” said C. Kevin Smith, Adjunct Professor of Sports and Entertainment Marketing at TCU. “I’ve asked a few top performers if I could share their TalkMeUp scores with the class to represent what good looks like. That gives everyone an idea of how to view and use the feedback provided.”
Smith continued, “Focusing on preparing students — especially seniors, who are about to search for and onboard into their first professional role — with the ability to speak, present, and communicate effectively will give them an edge. Many will already possess the skills necessary to assimilate into the workforce and talk with confidence to colleagues who will all be senior to them from the start. Good communication skills will make them more attractive to employers and eligible to advance sooner.”
TalkMeUp was recognized with three gold Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology awards, including Best Advance in Unique Learning Technology.
Download TalkMeUp’s whitepaper to learn about the business case and how it works.
About TalkMeUp
TalkMeUp, Inc., headquartered in Pittsburgh with business and engineering roots in Carnegie Mellon University, develops and markets solutions that drive business success through effective communication. The company’s patented, AI-powered platform enables professionals to see how effective they are in everyday conversations by analyzing their communication skills as well as the engagement level of their audience during video calls. TalkMeUp users practice delivering their message and can take courses on any of the communication attributes being measured. TalkMeUp’s mission is to empower every person and every organization all over the world to communicate their message effectively. (talkmeup.co)
