Speaking and communication. These two words seem the same thing, actually they are entirely different. 

Everyone can speak, but not all the people know how to communicate. 

Communicate means using words to connect with others prospectively and effectively. How to use words perfectly in order to connect with people? This is one of the biggest lecture to all the people around the world. 

If people only know how to speak but do not know how to communicate, failure might be faced. When there is no communication between people, no matter what you are speaking, there is no linkage to start the connection and the result of it, is the conversation ends. 

Not many people know the difference between speaking and communicating. Therefore, they even do not know why their conversation does not work. They have spoken for half decade and still do not understand why there is no connection with other people. As a whole, if they know the difference, bad thing will not happen. 

As for my opinion, I think there are three elements in making a communication, without these, it seems hard to create a good conversation among human. 

The first element of doing a communication, is to know who are the people that you going to talk to. Know, is not only the name of the person or the sex of the person, but is the overall personality of the person. Communication is a way for you to understand more about this person but not a start of know that person. Therefore, you should have a basic background before starting your communication. 

Second, try not to say any meaningless content in the communication, especially when during the beginning of it. This makes people speechless when talking to you and I believe they just want to terminate the conversation as soon as possible. I always found that some people love using this 'method' to open up a new conversation, unfortunately, it does not work frequently. Well, it is just a stupid way, especially when you meet someone who is over 25 years old and that guy or gal still use this as a opening of the conversation... 

Third, try to praise people when doing communication. Everyone knows the power of praising. This is the flower of communication which makes the conversation so beautiful. No one loves to listen any bad words. Therefore, in order to communicate with others and make it as a meaningful conversation, praising is not missed.