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Posts Tagged ‘Better’

Old favorites just keep getting better
It wasn’t that long ago that the Forest Service considered closing two popular camping areas on the Uncompahgre Plateau. Thanks to a visitor use survey, upgrades are now in the plans for the Columbine gravel pit area.

Read more on The Norwood Post

Forecast: 2010 will be difficult, but better year
The message was loud and clear — 2010 will be a difficult, but a better year, according to Rich Studley, of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

Read more on Tri-County Times

Marketing through mobile is the hottest choice of every advertising company. For advertising or marketing every business house is concerning this new medium. Marketing strategy here is simple and more importantly it is time saving and less expensive but more fruitful comparing with other methods of marketing. It will help you to connect with a large scale of people within less time span. Therefore for communicating with people and telling them about your product SMS marketing or mobile marketing is the one of the best way available now in marketing industry. You can understand this strategy if you have a mobile. You can see that some SMSs are sent to your message box telling you the story of different products and they are sent to you either on each day or with some day’s interval. Now you can understand the range of this kind of marketing strategy or advertising strategy.

This is a much preferred way of communication as SMS marketing is more discreet method than a telephonic conversation. In a telephonic conversation your customer may feel disturbed and annoyed but in a SMS there is no way of getting angry or disturbed. So it is a great tool to make your customers aware of your products and newly launched products. Comparing with other method of marketing like email or telephonic conversation it is less time consuming for both the receivers and senders. Therefore if you are using SMS marketing strategy instead of phone call or email you need not spend a lot of time in making the customer understand what you want to say and even sometimes disturbing him. It is even better than instant messaging and email, therefore you need not stay connected to the computer all the time.

Now look at the advantages of this kind of marketing. It is a spam free mode and the delivery of your message is more certain than an email. There are lots of reasons of the failure of your email marketing. It can be considered as a spam or land up as a junk mail. Then the main purpose of your mailing will be failed. But in this case of SMS it is more certain and customers friendly than an email marketing. However, because of the store and forward service of the SMS, the message does not go directly to the client’s cell phone. In this case the advantage is that there is no need for the client’s cell phone to be active or in range for you to send the message. The messages in this case are stored in SMSC and when the cell phone is turned on and gets into the range the message is automatically sent to your mobile. So the delivery of the message advertising your product will surely be delivered to your clients. For this single reason SMS is much preferred than other mode.

Other advantages of this type of marketing are the customers will not get confused with the jingle of words. This medium is better than verbal marketing in a way that there is always a chance of ignoring and deleting the message.

Improve Business Writing Skills Tool is actually a ‘personal’ English writing and proofreading assistant. English writing is one of the most important forms of communication today, it is necessary to maintain it correct and professional. The following article will show you how by using a software solution you will be able to improve your writing skills.

Some basics

What does Improve Business Writing Skills Tool do? To make it very simple, it instantly analyzes text for any basic grammatical or spelling errors, and then it automatically corrects these errors. The way they ‘fix’ your writing is interesting yet complicated; basically these solutions compare your sentences to their own ‘proper versions’ of similar sentences. In most cases these solutions enables us to do the following: grammar check, misspelling and typos correction, and suggesting proper punctuation.

What is in it for us?

Now that we understand how it works, we need to know the main benefits:

* Improving our word choices with synonyms, adjectives, and adverbs suited to our text.
* Improving sentence construction with correct grammar and punctuation.
* Analyzing our sentences structure for correct punctuation, thus transforming our writing more comprehendible.
* Helping us to avoid embarrassing grammar mistakes.
* Saving precious time spent on manual proofreading.

There are probably many other benefits that are not covered here, as this solution constantly changes, bringing us new ideas and additional solutions that help us on improving our English writing.

Final words

We can easily take our writing skills and performance one step ahead with this Improve Business Writing Skills Tool. Until today we trusted our conventional word processors to help us with spelling errors, but unfortunately it couldn’t help us with grammar. We can only expect this exciting technology to further develop itself, simply because writing is one of the most important tools that help us fulfill our daily assignments.

Autism And Communication

Children with autism commonly have to deal with problems amongst verbal communication. This is typically due to the frequent speech and gobbledygook problems associated with the disorder. Though the actual reason who such problems are faced by autistic children is unknown, many experts believe which properties are the result of several conditions occurring before, during, or once the child’s birth such a hold had an impact on the development of the brain. The inability to ideally communicate verbally can make interpretation and interaction with the child’s world significantly larger number of difficult.

The communication problems experienced vary from child to child, depending on the individual’s social and intellectual development. While some may not be able to speak at all, others may maintain extensive vocabularies and can express themselves regarding complex topics. However, most children with autism experience some form of communication difficulty usually with the appropriate use of the language, for example difficulty with intonation, rhythm, and word and sentence meaning. Autistic children who are able to speak may say things without true information, expression, or content.

They are only words with no meaning to the situation. Others will use echolalia, where they simply repeat what they have heard, even if they have been asked a question. And yet other autistic children will use delayed echolalia, using the question previously posed in order to ask for what they want. For example, a child who had earlier been asked “are you hungry?” may say “are you hungry” at a later time to express his or her hunger. Many autistic children will have a stock of phrases that they use in specific conditions.

For example, a child may introduce him or herself at the beginning of every conversation. Some autistic children learn scripts from television shows, commercials, books, or other recorded dialogs. Autistic children able to speak can frequently speak extensively about a topic without the ability to actually converse with others. They may also make up a voice to use other than their own such as a robot voice, a deep voice, a squeaky voice or another similar type of alteration. It is possible to help an autistic child to better his or her verbal communication skills with improvements made through the use of appropriate treatments. Autism And Communication

The first step is to consult a speech and language pathologist in order to have your child’s communication skills evaluated. Specific treatments suitable for your child may be recommended during this evaluation. No single method of communication treatment has been universally found to improve all autistic children, but starting early increases the chances of significant improvements. Try to target your child’s specific communication strengths and weaknesses. Different forms of goal orientated therapy for useful communications are the most successful techniques, though not guaranteed to work for all children.

Periodic in-depth evaluations from a specialist are recommended for perfecting and altering the therapy to best work for your child’s unique needs. Many parents find that consulting physical and occupational therapists can also be very helpful for helping to reduce unwanted behaviors during communication, which are common hindrances to the development of skills. Find out what your child best responds to: a structured behavior modification program, an in-home therapy program, or another type of therapy that utilizes reality-based situations as a foundation for the therapy.

It may surprise you to discover that music therapy and sensory integration therapies may have a large impact on your child’s ability to use verbal communication. This is because stimulation of the senses often helps to improve the child’s ability to respond to sensory information, and therefore helps him or her recognize what he or she is hearing through verbal communication and seeing through non-verbal communication.

The goal is to help improve the effectiveness of sensory understanding. Medications may also improve an autistic child’s attention span, which in turn can help to improve verbal communication in your child. However, with long-term medication use there is the possibility of undesirable side effects. To be certain that your child is at his or her fullest potential, mineral and vitamin supplements, as well as a tailored diet, psychotherapy, and overcoming sleep challenges may greatly assist in focus and attention, which should help improve verbal communication. Don’t let your child suffer anymore! Lead your child out of his world through Autism And Communication program now!

Introduction

The challenge of better communication skills has spawned books, seminars and many a consulting company.   How can it be addressed in a short article like this?

Treat this, and other articles like it, as a tip.  This is a brief education in a couple of important aspects of effective communications.  No theory here; this is real observation and advice.  Put it to use, and you’ll be a more effective leader.

The Communications Mystique

“What we have here is a failure to communicate”.  Are you old enough, like me, to remember that line from the movie Cool Hand Luke?  Even if you’re not, you’ve heard some version of that line if you’ve been in business.

Hardly any missed milestone, production problem, or customer service failure hasn’t been at least partly explained as a communications problem. 

What’s so difficult about communications?

Nothing, really.  Whether it’s one to one, one to many or many to many, communication is nothing more than conversation.  Somebody’s speaking, and somebody’s listening (hopefully). 

Gaining better communication skills involves developing the ability to observe the conversations taking place, and make adjustments so that the speaking and the listening are both being done effectively.  That doesn’t sound so tough, does it?  Well, it’s a little harder when you’re observing your own conversations.  But it’s still possible!

The First Secret to Better Communication Skills

Have the conversation!  It’s amazing how often the “failure to communicate” is just that — a failure to even hold an important conversation.  Leaders assume people know what needs to be done.  People assume leaders understand the obstacles they face.

Or if assumptions aren’t getting in the way, sometimes the problem is reluctance.  After all, some conversations are tough to have.  It’s not easy to tell someone that you disagree with them.  Worse yet, maybe you’re angry with them because you feel they’ve let you down failed to live up to an agreement.

If you’re the leader, your team may be reluctant to bring you bad news.  They may be very reluctant to disagree with you or challenge your position.  After all, career suicide is not usually on the path to success and happiness.

 The Leader’s Role in Fostering Better Communication Skills

Make it safe.  Encourage people to bring you bad news, and to challenge you.  Let the organization know when it’s done and done well.  Acknowledge the people who stepped up and took the risk.  Do this even if you disagree with their points.  In fact, do this especially when you disagree with their points.

If people see that they can make an argument and be appreciated for it, even when they don’t win the argument, the level of dialogue will step up.  You as a leader have become a better communicator by exhibiting the behaviors that reward just holding  the important conversations.

The Next Level of Better Communication Skills – Observe

Look around the organization.  Pay attention to the dialogue.  You’re looking for one of three things:

Silence — People withdrawing and not contributing to the conversation.  Some are shy and need their confidence built.  Some are avoiding conflict and need to know it’s ok. All need to understand that they’re on the team because they bring needed talents.  And their talents need to be part of the dialogue.

Violence — People dominating the conversation and not allowing others’ views to be heard or considered.  Counsel these people.  Help them understand that dialogue is not a contest to see who wins.  It’s a process to get out as much relevant information as possible.  This is especially important because when you have people who are prone to go silent, someone who dominates or goes violent makes it easy for the others to hide.

Real Dialogue — The free flow of ideas, effective debate and discussion, and ultimately a team that stakes out a position and where the members support one another.  It sounds ideal and not everyone gets there, but work at it by creating an environment that’s safe for dialogue, and you’ll be amazed at the results.

Introduction 

Better communication skills start with the right choice of communications media.  Good intentions are sometimes lost in misunderstanding that could have been avoided with honest, face to face discussion.  Yet face to face is not always practical.  How do you make the right choice? 

A Real Example

This is a story I’m going to tell on myself.  It’s true, and because it’s a bit personal I’m leaving out some of the details.  You’ll still see the point. 

Recently I emailed a good friend and business associate to ask a small favor.  In the email I also asked how he was doing, and asked about family as well.  It was a sincere inquiry, since we are friends, but it was casual. 

In his response, my friend immediately addressed my request for a favor, positively of course.  He then answered the family question by mentioning problems he was having with one of his sons.  Very little detail, but it didn’t sound good. 

In an effort to provide a little hope, I quickly responded to him and told him a brief story about my brother, who had similar problems when he was at the age of my friends’ son, but had outgrown the problem and was now a successful CEO. 

In my efforts to keep the email brief, I apparently didn’t word it very well.  He immediately emailed me back with a note expressing concern and wishing the best for my brother. 

Think about it — here my friend had shared a personal problem he was addressing, and my email back to him must have sounded like “you think you have problems, let me tell you about mine”.  Now that was not my intent of course, but I hadn’t taken the time to carefully read my own email. 

The good news is that we were emailing in near real time — almost chatting, really.  So as soon as I realized the mistake I had made I was able to set it straight.  And it’s a good thing I did, because just as I suspected I had come off as insensitive and self centered to my friend. 

The Perils of Email 

As the above story illustrates, written communication is often misunderstood.  Nowhere is this more evident than with email, a media which often masquerades as letter writing, but without the care, proof reading and editing that a personal letter or business letter normally receives. 

I had a boss for whom I’d only been working a short while.  On a weekend when we were having some operational problems, this boss sent me an email in which he vented openly about the breakdowns we were having.  He was not subtle in describing his frustration, and he was not subtle in his threat that heads were going to roll the next week. 

Now the only recipient on this email was me, and at the time I was the guy who was busting my you know what to get everything fixed and back on track.  I was getting results and frankly others were not.  But I got the menacing email.  You can imagine how I felt. 

I got so mad when I got his email that I quickly wrote a strong and not very subtle response.  Thanks to what was probably divine intervention, I didn’t hit the send button. 

My boss actually trusted me implicitly — enough to vent to me by email.  He needed to blow off some steam before he addressed real issues with other people more professionally.  He trusted me, and I thought he was threatening to fire me! 

Here are some guidelines when it comes to email: 

The more important the communication, the less you should rely on email.

Never use email for feedback, even positive feedback, except to reinforce something you’ve already communicated in person.

By all means take advantage of email as a distribution mechanism for other written documents, for scheduling meetings and agendas, etc.

You’re going to violate these guidelines; we all do.  When you do, hopefully you’ll be more aware of the risks, and hopefully you’ll treat the email you’re writing more like an important letter.  Take your time writing it, read it carefully before you send it, let someone else critique it if necessary.  You’ll save yourself a lot of grief by adopting these best practices. 

What About Meetings? 

Ahhh, meetings — the bane of existence in corporate America.   

There’s a popular IBM commercial running these days featuring several business people in a conference room with sprinklers from the ceiling raining down on them.  They seem oblivious, and someone pokes their head in the room to ask what’s going on.  The answer from the meeting leader is “we’ve got this room until 3:30″.  And the inquisitor leaves, apparently satisfied with the response.  Oh by the way, the meeting in progress is about disaster recovery. 

There are too many companies where that commercial is not far off the mark.  Those of us who’ve spent a lot of time in corporate settings have developed a healthy distaste for meetings, and embraced some meeting avoidance and meeting reduction strategies. 

These include things like holding standup meetings, where there are no chairs, no coffee, and no opportunity to get comfortable.  Get together, share the necessary information, and get out.   

Another is 15 minute scheduling, which changes the culture in ways that make 30 minute meetings seem demanding and 60 minute meetings monumental. 

Of course, there is the old standby, the PAL (purpose, agenda, limit).  I’ve heard many people mock the PAL, but it should be a requirement wherever meetings are held.   

Use all of these tools, and any others you may have in your bag of tricks.  Never attend someone else’s meeting if they don’t provide a PAL.  Respect others time, and get others to respect yours. 

Leadership Communication Meetings 

After all I’ve had to say about meetings, this may seem out of place.  But leaders must have occasional communications meetings with the organizations they lead.   People who don’t hear from you, their leader, or only hear from you by email and press releases, won’t align as strongly with you as you need. 

Effective leadership communications have the following characteristics: 

They don’t become routine.  Usually they’re not regularly scheduled, but event driven.

They are focused and always provide limited, specific information.

They are followed up by talking points, management guides, surveys to determine whether the message was well received, or some other means. 

Leaders seeking better communication skills should strive to accomplish all of these. 

Phone vs. Face to Face 

Conference calls are a necessity in a geographically dispersed work force, and there are unique considerations to executing these successfully.  I won’t address them all here. 

It’s amazing, however, to see how often people choose to meet by conference call, even when they are located in the same building, even on the same floor.  If the meeting isn’t important, don’t go.  If the meeting is important, then nothing will make it more effective than face to face interaction. 

Face to face lets you see people’s reactions, the wrinkled noses, the nods of understanding and acceptance, the bewilderment or the confusion.  You can adjust on the fly, and you can engage people in real dialogue.  Body language is powerful.   

If budgets, time and practical considerations don’t allow face to face meetings, then do all you can to overcome the limitations of conference calls.  But if conference calls are being held when in person meetings are possible, that’s an unhealthy sign. 

One more point about leadership communication.  Regardless of how global the audience may be, the leader addressing their organization should be in front of at least some of their audience when they speak.  This helps the leader by giving him or her a chance to see body language and test their effectiveness.  It also goes a long way toward helping the leader seem more accessible. 

Leaders, use traveling roadshows to get in front of your teams if they’re spread out.  Video conferencing has come a long way as an affordable and effective technology, and may help bridge the gap as well.

Introduction

Better communication skills; not a term usually associated with technology types.  Perhaps you’ve heard the story about the man who asked the engineer what time it was, and the engineer told him how to build a watch?

Exaggeration?

Perhaps, but there is many a true story about firms meeting with clients, and the client asks the IT guy if the system will work.  The IT guy’s response goes something like this: “It certainly should.   We did all our design reviews, held code walk thrus, tested it in system test, user acceptance test, load test….yeah, we’re feeling pretty good at this point.”

The right answer, of course, is “yes, we guarantee it”. 

To be fair, it’s not easy for tech pros these days.  Many of their business counterparts are relatively tech savvy.  They don’t know if the VP of Marketing that they are talking to has detailed knowledge of web technology, or if they don’t know their browser from their Bowzer (that’s for you Sha Na Na fans).

Tips for Tech Pros

Technology professionals who don’t want to be treated like mushrooms, who want direct involvement with clients and the chance to participate in decision making, need to develop better communication skills.  It’s not too hard if they focus on four key behaviors:

Adapt to your audience.  Figure out where they start from on the technical knowledge scale.  You don’t want to lose them, and you don’t want to talk down to them.  If you’re not sure, ask.   They’ll usually give you a straight answer.

Listen for intent.  If the client wants a high availability customer database solution, and the customer billing info is on a separate database, then they probably need high availability for that other database as well. 

Be tolerant and value differences.  It’s ok if the lawyer can’t turn on his laptop.   You probably don’t want to be his opposing counsel in front of a judge.

Don’t try to impress.  The tech knowledgeable members of the audience won’t be, and the tech averse already are.

Managers and Leaders

You stand to gain credibility with clients and partners when you can bring your tech pros along to answer questions and gain a stronger understanding of the business.  Of course you can suffer if they commit crimes of miscommunication.  Here’s what you need to do:

Decide which members of your staff just don’t have business communication in their DNA.  Be honest with those people, and define their roles accordingly.  You don’t have to keep them in the dark like mushrooms, just make sure you know who’s around before you let them into the daylight.

Highlight the strong communicators in your technology teams.  Give them access to clients and other business leaders.  Make it clear that they are demonstrating role model behavior.

Invite business experts (internal, external, client) to share their knowledge and feedback with your technical teams.  You’ll get a better sense of who “get’s it”, and your staff will appreciate your efforts on their behalf.

Take every opportunity to reinforce for technology professionals the reasons why they are asked to do what they do.  Help them keep perspective.  Encourage questions, and provide individual feedback about more than their technical skills.

In 2010, resolve to communicate better at work
With the New Year upon us, I’ve been wondering why we think of resolutions as temporary even before we make them.

Read more on The Tennessean

Children with autism commonly face problems with verbal communication. This is usually due to the frequent speech and language problems associated with the disorder. Though the actual reason that these problems are faced by autistic children is unknown, many experts believe that they are the result of several conditions occurring before, during, or after the child’s birth that have had an impact on the development of the brain. The inability to properly communicate verbally can make interpretation and interaction with the child’s world much more difficult.

The communication problems experienced vary from child to child, depending on the individual’s social and intellectual development. While some may not be able to speak at all, others may maintain extensive vocabularies and can express themselves regarding complex topics. However, most children with autism experience some form of communication difficulty usually with the appropriate use of the language, for example difficulty with intonation, rhythm, and word and sentence meaning.

Autistic children who are able to speak may say things without true information, expression, or content. They are only words with no meaning to the situation. Others will use echolalia, where they simply repeat what they have heard, even if they have been asked a question. And yet other autistic children will use delayed echolalia, using the question previously posed in order to ask for what they want. For example, a child who had earlier been asked “are you hungry?” may say “are you hungry” at a later time to express his or her hunger.

Many autistic children will have a stock of phrases that they use in specific conditions. For example, a child may introduce him or herself at the beginning of every conversation. Some autistic children learn scripts from television shows, commercials, books, or other recorded dialogues.

Autistic children able to speak can frequently speak extensively about a topic without the ability to actually converse with others. They may also make up a voice to use other than their own such as a robot voice, a deep voice, a squeaky voice or another similar type of alteration.

It is possible to help an autistic child to better his or her verbal communication skills with improvements made through the use of appropriate treatments.

The first step is to consult a speech and language pathologist in order to have your child’s communication skills evaluated. Specific treatments suitable for your child may be recommended during this evaluation.

No single method of communication treatment has been universally found to improve all autistic children, but starting early increases the chances of significant improvements. Try to target your child’s specific communication strengths and weaknesses. Different forms of goal orientated therapy for useful communications are the most successful techniques, though not guaranteed to work for all children. Periodic in-depth evaluations from a specialist are recommended for perfecting and altering the therapy to best work for your child’s unique needs.

Many parents find that consulting physical and occupational therapists can also be very helpful for helping to reduce unwanted behaviors during communication, which are common hindrances to the development of skills.

Find out what your child best responds to: a structured behavior modification program, an in-home therapy program, or another type of therapy that utilizes reality-based situations as a foundation for the therapy.

It may surprise you to discover that music therapy and sensory integration therapies may have a large impact on your child’s ability to use verbal communication. This is because stimulation of the senses often helps to improve the child’s ability to respond to sensory information, and therefore helps him or her recognize what he or she is hearing through verbal communication and seeing through non-verbal communication. The goal is to help improve the effectiveness of sensory understanding.

Medications may also improve an autistic child’s attention span, which in turn can help to improve verbal communication in your child. However, with long-term medication use there is the possibility of undesirable side effects.

To be certain that your child is at his or her fullest potential, mineral and vitamin supplements, as well as a tailored diet, psychotherapy, and overcoming sleep challenges may greatly assist in focus and attention, which should help improve verbal communication.