What is VoIP?
VoIP is an acronym for voice over internet protocol. A VoIP, in essence, is a computer softphone that allows you to make phone calls from your computer to anyone in the world, e.g., PC to PC, PC to landlines, or PC to cell phones. The voice signal converts to data packets and travels across the internet through a VoIP platform, and then converts back to voice at the receiving end of the communication exchange. Leading telecom experts are projecting that 75% of the world’s communications will be done on VoIP within the next several years.What Kind of Equipment Do I Need?You will need a computer with internet access and an inexpensive microphone if your computer does not have one built in. Although most VoIP providers require high speed internet connections, there are a few that can be used on dial-up connections.How Can I Place a Call or Receive a Call?Basically, the same way you would a regular phone, except on your PC. When you download a VoIP line on your computer, a phone usually appears on your screen. The computer phone acts like any other phone in that you can dial numbers on it from a pad, or click on a contact’s pre-programmed name, and press the call button. You will then hear the phone ringing to the party you have called and can talk to them when they accept the call, or leave a voicemail if they are not available.When receiving a call, the phone will ring on your computer and you can click to accept the call and talk, or let it ring (based on the number of rings you have set up) and forward the caller to your voicemail.What Kind of Features Does a VoIP Have?Typically a VoIP has voicemail with audio capabilities, three-way calling, text messaging, and contacts list. Some VoIPs even have webcam capabilities. In addition, there is usually a button to click that can indicate to others when you are available, unavailable, away, or off line. Who Can I Call?Most reputable VoIP solutions providers limit PC to PC calls among their own subscribers for privacy purposes and so that the quality of sound is not compromised. Most reputable VoIP solutions providers have secure lines that include their own patented technology.Some VoIP solutions providers require limiting PC to landlines or cell phones to their own subscribers. Advantages of VoIP·With VoIP, you have unlimited talk time to anyone in the world from PC to PC for a flat monthly rate ·Most VoIP’s offer drastically reduced costs for calling PC to landlines ·Most VoIP’s offer reduced costs for calling PC to cell phones, however, prices vary depending on the cell phone carrier. ·Savings of up to 80% off current phone bills. What are the Costs for VoIPs?Typically there is an enrollment fee which varies between $20.00 to hundreds of dollars Monthly fees, after enrollment, varies between $5.00 per month to $75.00 per month If you do not have a microphone on your computer, you would have to purchase one. Cost is between $5.00 to $40.00.Things to Watch Out For with VoIP Solution Providers·Hidden costs ·Unsecure lines - meaning anyone can listen to your conversation because of shared servers or open platforms ·Inability to be used with dial-up connections ·Public listing of your name and/or phone number ·Unsecure lines or Free services may have spyware, no protection against viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc., which can corrupt your computer and ultimately causes it to crash
Friday, December 23, 2005
Barriers to business communication
Barriers to business communication
There are six crunching barriers to business communication:1. Poor structure to the communication2. A weak delivery3. The use of the wrong medium to deliver the communication4. A mixed message5. The message is delivered to the wrong audience6. A distracting environmentLet's consider each of these barriers to business communication in turn...Poor structure to the communication~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The structure of a communication is an essential factor in how well a business communication is received by an audience.It doesn't matter whether that audience is an audience of one or one million, good structure is essential if a communication is to be 'heard' amongst the advertising and marketing 'noise' of today's business environment.So a poor structure to your message or delivery is therefore a major barrier to effective communication.Weak delivery~~~~~~~~~~~~~It doesn't matter how important or impressive the subject of your communication is, if you deliver it without any 'punch' you will not get as many people to take your desired action as you would like.A weak delivery is like the very funny joke with the badly-told punchline --- it is not as funny or as memorable as you remember the original to be.It is important to not get confused between delivery and presenter. I know of one English businessman, Richard Branson, who is a shy and reticent public speaker. Yet I have seen audiences hang on his every word.Branson may not be a powerful orator, but his message and its structure are very sound.The use of the wrong medium~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~You have to announce a temporary hold on non-essential stationery spending in your department. How do you communicate this?Believe it or not, I know of one company who were seriously considering holding a major public meeting about this, with the department head having to get up in front of the entire department in the staff restaurant and explain why her staff couldn't order disposable fountain pens for a while.I know of one group that were thinking of rolling out a small internal initiative via an expensive multi-media cd-rom, one to be given to each member of staff.In the first case a simple memo would have sufficed; in the second a simple announcement on their intranet would equally have gotten the message across.Similarly, an advertising campaign on local radio would be a highly ineffective way of reaching the desired audience if the message was complex and really intended for a narrow niche audience.A public presentation, with 'obligatory' PowerPoint slideshow full of complex charts and data, would be the wrong medium if the message you were trying to communicate would be better served by a white paper, or some similar print-based format that allowed the audience to digest the complexities at their own pace.A mixed message~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It is very hard for an audience -- whether an audience of 1 or 1 million -- to understand your communication if you unnecessarily obfuscate.What?If you deliberately, or otherwise, confuse them. A HUGE barrier to business communication is the ability of 'business-speak' to confuse and alienate its audience.It does this in two ways:1. By using terms and phrases that are 'jargon', the meaning of which are possibly recognised but probably not fully understood2. By trying to 'save time/paper' by rolling several different communication messages into one.An example of the latter is where a business communication mentions, in the one communication, two or more completely separate events. Such as, for example, a memo that talks about what management expect you to do to conform to the latest departmental stationery budget cuts alongside an events list of the up-coming staff picnic.Another barrier arising from mixed messages is when a previously-held stance is lightly overturned to meet some political or business expediency, then upheld again.An example of this would be where the acceptance of corporate gifts is not allowed, but then allowed if it a brand new client who has contracted a large amount of money to your business, then not allowed again after the gift-giving and receiving season is over.Or a company-wide budget cut that stops all business-class travel, but the very senior management are found to be travelling first class.Be very careful of mixing your messages, as mixed messages are a very real barrier to effective business communciation.The wrong audience~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I once attended a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, of the British Psychological Society.Fortunate to have been presenting a paper there, I was nevertheless distracted by the very large number of other presenters, many of whom were presenting papers that, on reading their paper's titles in the Proceedings, looked really interesting.With a couple of hours to spare before I was due to present, I picked what appeared to be an interesting presentation, and sauntered casually into the lecture room.So you can imagine my dismay when I found, about five minutes into the presentation, that the title was a 'trick' title, a play-on-words by the author that no doubt struck him as funny and clever, but struck me as dastardly.As Robert Cialdini would say, the presenter was a 'smuggler' of influence. That is, he used a 'hot' topic of the day to entice an audience in, only to then present to them something that had VERY little relevance to that 'hot' topic.I was not alone (and not the first) in walking out of the lecture theatre and heading for a 'second choice' presentation (which, incidentally, I did thoroughly enjoy!)I also remember a very large and cumbersome booklet being left on my desk overnight by a then employer. The booklet went to great lengths to inform me of the latest company initiatives in a particular HR area. Whilst the time and expense the company went to to create and publish the booklet was considerable, the actual initiative itself affected perhaps less than a fifth of the total employees in the company. Even then, from talking to colleagues in that 'fifth' group, I doubted that more than a few of the fifth would have been interested in it, too.The company had its own intranet (it was one of the pioneers in the computing industry) before business really understood the power and potential of internet publishing, so it could have just as easily and far more cheaply just emailed everyone with a link to specially-written pages on their intranet.But these were the days when it was the IT department that controlled access to and publishing on the intranet, not individual business groups.At least these days the HR Department could have published their own webpages on the intranet and sent an email out to individually affected employees.Presenting your message to the wrong audience for your business communication is a complete waste of your time and money. Don't do it -- pick your audience then pick the medium that will best find them.A distracting environment~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~There's nothing worse than trying to communicate your message to a group of people who cannot 'hear' you.Whether their inability to 'hear' you is because of:* your voice not being strong enough* too many others talking in the room at the same time* police and ambulance sirens outside the venue* too many phone calls coming in to their office while they'retrying to read your memo* interruptions while they try to read your report* incoming emails keep popping up while they are reading yourweb-based communication* their minds are full of other pressing matters* they are supposed to be somewhere else at that moment* their mobile phone keeps ringing, or vibrating if they'veset it to 'silent' instead of switching it off* their internet connection is slow* their internet connection keeps dropping out* there are too many interesting people to look at* the room's airconditioning is not working and the room ishot and stuffy* the room's heating is not working and the room is cold andclammyWell, there are of course a thousand possible distracting reasons why they cannot or will not attend to your business communication.The point is to do whatever you can, whilst acknowledging that this might be next to nothing, to reduce the number of distractions your chosen audience might be subjected to.In closing...~~~~~~~~~~~~~The barriers to effective business communication are many, but with care and attention the majority of them can be overcome.The fewer the barriers, the greater the chance that your business communication will be heard, understood and your MDA ('Most Desired Action' you wish them to take) will actually occur.
There are six crunching barriers to business communication:1. Poor structure to the communication2. A weak delivery3. The use of the wrong medium to deliver the communication4. A mixed message5. The message is delivered to the wrong audience6. A distracting environmentLet's consider each of these barriers to business communication in turn...Poor structure to the communication~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The structure of a communication is an essential factor in how well a business communication is received by an audience.It doesn't matter whether that audience is an audience of one or one million, good structure is essential if a communication is to be 'heard' amongst the advertising and marketing 'noise' of today's business environment.So a poor structure to your message or delivery is therefore a major barrier to effective communication.Weak delivery~~~~~~~~~~~~~It doesn't matter how important or impressive the subject of your communication is, if you deliver it without any 'punch' you will not get as many people to take your desired action as you would like.A weak delivery is like the very funny joke with the badly-told punchline --- it is not as funny or as memorable as you remember the original to be.It is important to not get confused between delivery and presenter. I know of one English businessman, Richard Branson, who is a shy and reticent public speaker. Yet I have seen audiences hang on his every word.Branson may not be a powerful orator, but his message and its structure are very sound.The use of the wrong medium~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~You have to announce a temporary hold on non-essential stationery spending in your department. How do you communicate this?Believe it or not, I know of one company who were seriously considering holding a major public meeting about this, with the department head having to get up in front of the entire department in the staff restaurant and explain why her staff couldn't order disposable fountain pens for a while.I know of one group that were thinking of rolling out a small internal initiative via an expensive multi-media cd-rom, one to be given to each member of staff.In the first case a simple memo would have sufficed; in the second a simple announcement on their intranet would equally have gotten the message across.Similarly, an advertising campaign on local radio would be a highly ineffective way of reaching the desired audience if the message was complex and really intended for a narrow niche audience.A public presentation, with 'obligatory' PowerPoint slideshow full of complex charts and data, would be the wrong medium if the message you were trying to communicate would be better served by a white paper, or some similar print-based format that allowed the audience to digest the complexities at their own pace.A mixed message~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It is very hard for an audience -- whether an audience of 1 or 1 million -- to understand your communication if you unnecessarily obfuscate.What?If you deliberately, or otherwise, confuse them. A HUGE barrier to business communication is the ability of 'business-speak' to confuse and alienate its audience.It does this in two ways:1. By using terms and phrases that are 'jargon', the meaning of which are possibly recognised but probably not fully understood2. By trying to 'save time/paper' by rolling several different communication messages into one.An example of the latter is where a business communication mentions, in the one communication, two or more completely separate events. Such as, for example, a memo that talks about what management expect you to do to conform to the latest departmental stationery budget cuts alongside an events list of the up-coming staff picnic.Another barrier arising from mixed messages is when a previously-held stance is lightly overturned to meet some political or business expediency, then upheld again.An example of this would be where the acceptance of corporate gifts is not allowed, but then allowed if it a brand new client who has contracted a large amount of money to your business, then not allowed again after the gift-giving and receiving season is over.Or a company-wide budget cut that stops all business-class travel, but the very senior management are found to be travelling first class.Be very careful of mixing your messages, as mixed messages are a very real barrier to effective business communciation.The wrong audience~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I once attended a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, of the British Psychological Society.Fortunate to have been presenting a paper there, I was nevertheless distracted by the very large number of other presenters, many of whom were presenting papers that, on reading their paper's titles in the Proceedings, looked really interesting.With a couple of hours to spare before I was due to present, I picked what appeared to be an interesting presentation, and sauntered casually into the lecture room.So you can imagine my dismay when I found, about five minutes into the presentation, that the title was a 'trick' title, a play-on-words by the author that no doubt struck him as funny and clever, but struck me as dastardly.As Robert Cialdini would say, the presenter was a 'smuggler' of influence. That is, he used a 'hot' topic of the day to entice an audience in, only to then present to them something that had VERY little relevance to that 'hot' topic.I was not alone (and not the first) in walking out of the lecture theatre and heading for a 'second choice' presentation (which, incidentally, I did thoroughly enjoy!)I also remember a very large and cumbersome booklet being left on my desk overnight by a then employer. The booklet went to great lengths to inform me of the latest company initiatives in a particular HR area. Whilst the time and expense the company went to to create and publish the booklet was considerable, the actual initiative itself affected perhaps less than a fifth of the total employees in the company. Even then, from talking to colleagues in that 'fifth' group, I doubted that more than a few of the fifth would have been interested in it, too.The company had its own intranet (it was one of the pioneers in the computing industry) before business really understood the power and potential of internet publishing, so it could have just as easily and far more cheaply just emailed everyone with a link to specially-written pages on their intranet.But these were the days when it was the IT department that controlled access to and publishing on the intranet, not individual business groups.At least these days the HR Department could have published their own webpages on the intranet and sent an email out to individually affected employees.Presenting your message to the wrong audience for your business communication is a complete waste of your time and money. Don't do it -- pick your audience then pick the medium that will best find them.A distracting environment~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~There's nothing worse than trying to communicate your message to a group of people who cannot 'hear' you.Whether their inability to 'hear' you is because of:* your voice not being strong enough* too many others talking in the room at the same time* police and ambulance sirens outside the venue* too many phone calls coming in to their office while they'retrying to read your memo* interruptions while they try to read your report* incoming emails keep popping up while they are reading yourweb-based communication* their minds are full of other pressing matters* they are supposed to be somewhere else at that moment* their mobile phone keeps ringing, or vibrating if they'veset it to 'silent' instead of switching it off* their internet connection is slow* their internet connection keeps dropping out* there are too many interesting people to look at* the room's airconditioning is not working and the room ishot and stuffy* the room's heating is not working and the room is cold andclammyWell, there are of course a thousand possible distracting reasons why they cannot or will not attend to your business communication.The point is to do whatever you can, whilst acknowledging that this might be next to nothing, to reduce the number of distractions your chosen audience might be subjected to.In closing...~~~~~~~~~~~~~The barriers to effective business communication are many, but with care and attention the majority of them can be overcome.The fewer the barriers, the greater the chance that your business communication will be heard, understood and your MDA ('Most Desired Action' you wish them to take) will actually occur.
Communication strategy during a time of strategic planning
Communication strategy during a time of strategic planning
"Rubbish!" shouted the large, aggressive man in the red-striped shirt (we had to pay attention to him because he owned the company)."The staff don't need to be told anything. When we've sorted out all the details and have the adverts ready to run, then we'll tell them. They don't need to know beforehand, it'll only stop them working" he went on to loudly proclaim.It's hard to ignore the wishes of your client, especially when he's paying you so well and has browbeaten every other consultant, as well as his management team, into submission.Yet my experience, again and again, is this:If you don't tell them what's going on, they'll make it up anyway!Employees not present at strategic planning offsite meetings aren't dumb; they're just not present. They know you're away (they think probably planning the future of the company, their jobs and their salary cuts), so they will gossip and rumour-monger to their heart's discontent while you are not 'minding the store'.So planning your internal communication is an essential prerequisite to effective and committed implementation of any business strategy. It also goes a long way towards problem minimisation.In order to minimise the internal and external risks of gossip and rumours, therefore, you should have it very firmly set in your mind that a communication outlining the outcome of the planning should arrive with all due speed, consistency and completeness.The following guidelines have been tested by experience and found useful:1. Design and agreeThe communication strategy should be designed and agreed by all as part of the planning process, not an adjunct activity delegated to a junior manager who, in all probability, wasn't even at the planning meeting.2. Tell everyone ASAPFeedback to all those affected should take place at the earliest possible opportunity —- preferably first thing next morning, before the rumour mill has had too much time to gear up. A useful strategy is to have planning meetings on weekends, with the staff briefing occuring first thing Monday morning.3. One meeting to bind them allAim for one single briefing or feedback session, rather than multiple sessions where watering down or distortion of the original message might occur. Thankfully, technology largely allows such a singel session to occur, even across multiple timezones. In such an instance, scripting of the communication would prove a valuable tool to consistency, especially where the text of the session will appear on a company intranet.4. Follow up and re-purposeA follow-up message (via audio, video or even simple written) to all from the CEO, emphasing the key points, is very useful. It too can be re-purposed to appear on the company intranet, or as a briefing to investors and the marketplace.All of this might seem like overkill, a tremendous amount of effort for very little gain. But such a view must be evaluated against the fact that the long-term strategic plan will drive the company for anything from the next five to fifteen years.Investing time at the beginning to 'get it right' will pay massive dividends over the longer term.
"Rubbish!" shouted the large, aggressive man in the red-striped shirt (we had to pay attention to him because he owned the company)."The staff don't need to be told anything. When we've sorted out all the details and have the adverts ready to run, then we'll tell them. They don't need to know beforehand, it'll only stop them working" he went on to loudly proclaim.It's hard to ignore the wishes of your client, especially when he's paying you so well and has browbeaten every other consultant, as well as his management team, into submission.Yet my experience, again and again, is this:If you don't tell them what's going on, they'll make it up anyway!Employees not present at strategic planning offsite meetings aren't dumb; they're just not present. They know you're away (they think probably planning the future of the company, their jobs and their salary cuts), so they will gossip and rumour-monger to their heart's discontent while you are not 'minding the store'.So planning your internal communication is an essential prerequisite to effective and committed implementation of any business strategy. It also goes a long way towards problem minimisation.In order to minimise the internal and external risks of gossip and rumours, therefore, you should have it very firmly set in your mind that a communication outlining the outcome of the planning should arrive with all due speed, consistency and completeness.The following guidelines have been tested by experience and found useful:1. Design and agreeThe communication strategy should be designed and agreed by all as part of the planning process, not an adjunct activity delegated to a junior manager who, in all probability, wasn't even at the planning meeting.2. Tell everyone ASAPFeedback to all those affected should take place at the earliest possible opportunity —- preferably first thing next morning, before the rumour mill has had too much time to gear up. A useful strategy is to have planning meetings on weekends, with the staff briefing occuring first thing Monday morning.3. One meeting to bind them allAim for one single briefing or feedback session, rather than multiple sessions where watering down or distortion of the original message might occur. Thankfully, technology largely allows such a singel session to occur, even across multiple timezones. In such an instance, scripting of the communication would prove a valuable tool to consistency, especially where the text of the session will appear on a company intranet.4. Follow up and re-purposeA follow-up message (via audio, video or even simple written) to all from the CEO, emphasing the key points, is very useful. It too can be re-purposed to appear on the company intranet, or as a briefing to investors and the marketplace.All of this might seem like overkill, a tremendous amount of effort for very little gain. But such a view must be evaluated against the fact that the long-term strategic plan will drive the company for anything from the next five to fifteen years.Investing time at the beginning to 'get it right' will pay massive dividends over the longer term.
Wetland Gardens
Where we live, in Hampshire, UK, there is a lot of clay in the soil and with our wet climate, this readily turns areas of the garden into a quagmire.But this does not have to be a cause for despair! The best option is to accept this area as a 'wetland' and address it accordingly. If you fancy the idea, but don't have a wetland area, you can create one artificially. More and more I'm being asked to do just that.There is a range of plants that can not only cope with boggy areas, but positively thrive, producing luxuriant foliage and stunning flowers.>Hosters>Lillies>Irises>Marsh Marigolds>Primulas>Ferns>A range of GrassesActually prefer these conditions alongside other trees and shrubs.We've briefly discussed how water attracts the birds and wildlife and wetland gardens are no different. Many birds and a variety of brightly coloured insects will soon enhance your garden. Wetland Gardens really are very beautiful.If you create these areas artificially, in order to blend it in with the environment, it is important to create an extended marginal area (the zone between wet and dry land).Another beauty of wetland gardens is their ability to stand alone as an attractive feature, or to act as an extenstion to a pond or a stream.They are inexpensive, and easy to create, so here we go, get your spade out ........Creating your Wetland Garden (2m - 6ft wide)--------------------------------------------Equipment:>Spade>Garden Fork>Rake>Scissors>Sheet of high density polythene 3.5m x 3.5m>8 x 25kg bags of 10mm shingleHow?----Mark out the area to the shape you want. Dig out a hole, to a depth of about 60cm (2ft), with sloping sides.Remove any large or sharp stones.Spread the polythene over the hole and gently press it into the bottom.Hold the edges down with bricks or heavy stones.Pulling from the edge work around the liner flattening the creases to the sides.Using your fork, puncture the liner, creating drainage holes over the whole area.Spread the shingle over the bottom to a depth of 5cm (2"), using the rake. This will now form a draninage zone to prevent stagnation.Refill the hole with the soil you removed, to about 5cm from the top.Trim the edges of the liner and continue filling, making sure that the edges of the liner are concealed below the surface.Firm the soil down, using your heels and rake over.How did it go? Ok I hope!You must keep your wetland garden well watered during dry periods, which can be done more attractively with a seeping hose (a hose with lots of holes in it). You can make your own from a piece of 2" pipe and drilling holes in it, the sort of pipe used for sink outlets is ideal.This then gets pushed into the gravel, with the buried end blocked off. Insert your garden hose into the pipe and allow the water to trickle slowly through the holes. This method prevents puddling on the surface.You are now ready for planting!Using the suggestions of types of plants listed above, be sure to visit a nursery that have a good selction of marginals to choose from.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Condition of Water
Most people get their water from the household tap. This water originates from lakes, rivers, streams, and underground sources. The majority of water goes through a system of cleaning at the local water treatment plant. However, because of a lack of funds to provide the necessary technology, many harmful pollutants and water borne diseases are present in the finished treated water.
Distillation
The health of an organism is absolutely linked with the quantity and the quality of water they drink. For maintaining optimum health a person need to drink 8-10 glasses of water per day. The daily ejection of wastes from each and every cell of an organism, the flushing of the alimentary canal, and the purification of blood lays on the water which we intake.
The distillation process in takes off all impurities from water. Outfitted distillers are competent at taking off nitrates (fertilizer residuals), bacteria, cysts, viruses, sodium, dissolved solids, most organic compounds (solvents, herbicides, and pesticides), and heavy metals together with lead and arsenic, and radio nuclides from water. Distillers generally take away about 99.5 percent of the impurities from the normal water.
Distillation
The health of an organism is absolutely linked with the quantity and the quality of water they drink. For maintaining optimum health a person need to drink 8-10 glasses of water per day. The daily ejection of wastes from each and every cell of an organism, the flushing of the alimentary canal, and the purification of blood lays on the water which we intake.
The distillation process in takes off all impurities from water. Outfitted distillers are competent at taking off nitrates (fertilizer residuals), bacteria, cysts, viruses, sodium, dissolved solids, most organic compounds (solvents, herbicides, and pesticides), and heavy metals together with lead and arsenic, and radio nuclides from water. Distillers generally take away about 99.5 percent of the impurities from the normal water.
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