Southeastern News Online May, 2004 Vol. 2  No. 1

Communication Workshop with Pat Wagner

More than 35 people filled the conference room at SENYLRC in attendance of the Boot Camp to Strengthen Communication: Customer Service & Presentation Skills workshop given by Pat Wagner of Pattern Research. Attendees traveled from as far away as Buffalo to participate. Participants represented all types of libraries including sixteen from public libraries in the region, five from academic and nine from the area’s library systems.

Participants at Communication Boot Camp

Pat Wagner interacts with participants

Pat Wagner is a nationally renowned trainer for topics of communication, leadership and marketing. For this workshop, she led the group through basic skills to improve communication skills with customers. Highlights of the workshop included her review of three main learning and communication styles which are auditory, visual and kinesthetic and a three step model to negotiate and influence others. Pat interacted with her audience throughout the day. The audience was given exercises to improve communication such as a checklist to help identify negative behaviors that affect communication, as well as a one-on-one exercise to improve presentation skills.

Participants showed enthusiastic appreciation for the workshop. This is reflected in the evaluation comments:

• The instructor was outstandingly engaging and kept our attention throughout the whole time. It was a tremendous learning experience and I will be using the information gained from this class. I intend to pass along this information to co-workers at my institution whom I know will be interested in this.
• I'm going to use the model of rapport, limits and action when faced with gossip.
• Today flew - it was superb! Instructor was magical! It was both fun and informative.
• What I learned: 1) most influential behavior is my own (towards others...not theirs toward me); 2) 5-minute rapport at the beginning of a presentation may be the most important 5 minutes of the entire time.

Participants in their comments requested that Pat Wagner be brought back in the future for additional workshops. When she comes back to the region again, don’t miss the opportunity to benefit from her positive and enjoyable training.

By Judy Fischetti, Member Services Librarian

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