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Archive for September, 2011

Business Communications

Business Communication: Communicationused to promote a product, service, or organization; relay information within the business; or deal with legal and similar issues. It is also a means of relaying between a supply chain, for example the consumer and manufacturer.

Business Communication is known simply as “Communications.” It encompasses a variety of topics, including Marketing, Branding, Customer relations, Consumer behavior, Advertising, Public relations, Corporate communication, Community engagement, Research & Measurement, Reputation management, Interpersonal communication, Employee engagement, Online communication, and Event management. It is closely related to the fields of professional communication and technical communication.

Characteristics of Communication

Communication is Inevitable (unavoidable)

Communication Operates at Two Levels (content and relational)

Communication is Irreversible

Communication is a Process

Communication is not a (panacea) Cure-all (a remedy for all ills)

In Communication Everything Effects Everything Else

Types of communication

Non-verbal communication

Non Verbal communication is the process of communicating through sending and receiving wordless messages. Such messages can be communicated through gesture, body language or posture; facial expression and eye contact, object communication such as clothing, hairstyles or even architecture, or symbols, as well as through an aggregate of the above, such as behavioral communication .Other communication channels such as telegraphy fit into this category, whereby signals travel from person to person by an alternative means. These signals can in themselves be representative of words, objects or merely be state projections.

Non-verbal communication into four broad categories

Physical:This is the personal type of communication. It includes facial expressions, tone of voice, sense of touch, sense of smell, and body motions.

Aesthetic:This is the type of communication that takes place through creative expressions: playing instrumental music, dancing, painting and sculpturing

Signs:This is the mechanical type of communication, which includes the use of signal flags, the 21-gun salute, horns, and sirens

Symbolic:This is the type of communication that makes use of religious, status, or ego-building symbols

Static features of Non Verbal Communications

Distance.The distance one stands from another frequently conveys a non-verbal message. In some cultures it is a sign of attraction, while in others it may reflect status or the intensity of the exchange.

Orientation.People may present themselves in various ways: face-to-face, side-to-side, or even back-to-back. For example, cooperating people are likely to sit side-by-side while competitors frequently face one another.

Posture.Obviously one can be lying down, seated, or standing. These are not the elements of posture that convey messages. Are our legs crossed or our arms folded ? Such postures convey a degree of formality and the degree of relaxation in the communication exchange.

Physical Contact. Shaking hands, touching, holding, embracing, pushing, or patting on the back all convey messages. They reflect an element of intimacy or a feeling of (or lack of) attraction.

Dynamic features of Non Verbal Communications

Facial Expressions.A smile, frown, raised eyebrow, yawn, and sneer all convey information. Facial expressions continually change during interaction and are monitored constantly by the recipient. There is evidence that the meaning of these expressions may be similar across cultures.

Gestures.One of the most frequently observed, but least understood, cues is a hand movement. Most people use hand movements regularly when talking. While some gestures (e.g., a clenched fist) have universal meanings, most of the others are individually learned.

Business Communications

Business Communication: Communicationused to promote a product, service, or organization; relay information within the business; or deal with legal and similar issues. It is also a means of relaying between a supply chain, for example the consumer and manufacturer.

Business Communication is known simply as “Communications.” It encompasses a variety of topics, including Marketing, Branding, Customer relations, Consumer behavior, Advertising, Public relations, Corporate communication, Community engagement, Research & Measurement, Reputation management, Interpersonal communication, Employee engagement, Online communication, and Event management. It is closely related to the fields of professional communication and technical communication.

Characteristics of Communication

Communication is Inevitable (unavoidable)

Communication Operates at Two Levels (content and relational)

Communication is Irreversible

Communication is a Process

Communication is not a (panacea) Cure-all (a remedy for all ills)

In Communication Everything Effects Everything Else

Types of communication

Non-verbal communication

Non Verbal communication is the process of communicating through sending and receiving wordless messages. Such messages can be communicated through gesture, body language or posture; facial expression and eye contact, object communication such as clothing, hairstyles or even architecture, or symbols, as well as through an aggregate of the above, such as behavioral communication .Other communication channels such as telegraphy fit into this category, whereby signals travel from person to person by an alternative means. These signals can in themselves be representative of words, objects or merely be state projections.

Non-verbal communication into four broad categories

Physical:This is the personal type of communication. It includes facial expressions, tone of voice, sense of touch, sense of smell, and body motions.

Aesthetic:This is the type of communication that takes place through creative expressions: playing instrumental music, dancing, painting and sculpturing

Signs:This is the mechanical type of communication, which includes the use of signal flags, the 21-gun salute, horns, and sirens

Symbolic:This is the type of communication that makes use of religious, status, or ego-building symbols

Static features of Non Verbal Communications

Distance.The distance one stands from another frequently conveys a non-verbal message. In some cultures it is a sign of attraction, while in others it may reflect status or the intensity of the exchange.

Orientation.People may present themselves in various ways: face-to-face, side-to-side, or even back-to-back. For example, cooperating people are likely to sit side-by-side while competitors frequently face one another.

Posture.Obviously one can be lying down, seated, or standing. These are not the elements of posture that convey messages. Are our legs crossed or our arms folded ? Such postures convey a degree of formality and the degree of relaxation in the communication exchange.

Physical Contact. Shaking hands, touching, holding, embracing, pushing, or patting on the back all convey messages. They reflect an element of intimacy or a feeling of (or lack of) attraction.

Dynamic features of Non Verbal Communications

Facial Expressions.A smile, frown, raised eyebrow, yawn, and sneer all convey information. Facial expressions continually change during interaction and are monitored constantly by the recipient. There is evidence that the meaning of these expressions may be similar across cultures.

Gestures.One of the most frequently observed, but least understood, cues is a hand movement. Most people use hand movements regularly when talking. While some gestures (e.g., a clenched fist) have universal meanings, most of the others are individually learned.

This portable phone is definitely a text heavy mobile phone for the mass market. Full QWERTY keyboards have always been a characteristic that has been reserved for smartphones mainly for commerce as the full QWERTY keyboard is perfect for long email and text messaging work. However, LG has come with a mobile phone that gives you the messaging ease of a QWERTY keyboard but targeted more at the throng market user. So how does a mass market pulsa elektrik with a QWERTY keyboard fare in our test?

First off, the build superiority of the K360 is astonishingly solid. For a throng market mobile phone, LG has managed to make the KS360 as solid as what you would anticipate from higher market mobile phones. The slider feat did not in anyway feel fragile while I was using it and it did not even feel as if I was using it and it did not even feel as if I was holding a model cellular phone. As unyielding as it is, the KS360 is also pretty light for a mobile phone in its league, weighing in at 108 grams which I presume is due to the lack of finest functions you would usually expect from business mobile phones.

The mobile phone also comes with a pretty large 2.4 inches and 256K color screen which is perfect for media viewing especially video. However, as such you do not get a normal twelve-key keypad as the front of the mobile phone is taken up by the screen, two softkeys, navigation keys, call keys, the cancel key and another key to bring up the digital keypad.

Now you might be wondering how to dial out since there is no twelve-key keypad on the mobile phone. Frankly, dialing with the QWERTY keyboard is quite ludicrous but you should not worry too much on that since there is still a 12-key keypad on the mobile phone, albeit a digital one.

Like I said before, there is an input to bring up the digital keypad on the mobile phone and from there you can dial out pretty easily without having to resort to the QWERTY keyboard. The greatest thing about this is that LG has made it so that you experience every button that is pressed via resistive vibrations. I found that there were practically no errors in my dialing as LG did not make the finger-touch function too responsive.

The amusing thing is though the keypad is touch-based, dialing is the only function that applies the touch role of the mobile phone. When you bring up the menu, you could not really select the applications or options by touching them and had to rely back on the navigation keys instead.

One definite thing that did interest me was that the KS360 does provide you email functionalities, as well. Usually a mobile phone of this price point will lack email functionalities, however since the KS360 come with a full QWERTY keyboard the inclusion of emailing functions should be expected.

You can easily set up your email accounts including Gmail though you will require the natty details of your electronic mail servers and such. I was disappointed with the basic WAP 2.0 browser on the mobile phone though. Although connectivity is limited to EDGE and GPRS, LG could have at least given us a better enhanced browser.

The KS360 mobile phone comes with a two mega pixel camera which is fixed focus. Images taken with the camera on the mobile phone were astoundingly decent in good lighting conditions. In fact, better than what I expected the result would be. Media playing on the mobile phone was also pretty first-class as well with music and video being played with decent sound and display quality. It was a disgrace that a 3.5mm audio jack was not added to the mobile phone as it would have made the media playing functions of the mobile phone more enviable.

However, since it is Bluetooth A2DP, you still can use stereo headsets. Also although you could expand up to 4 gigabytes via microSD, I still felt that the insufficient fifteen megabytes of memory on the mobile phone was rather penny-pinching on LGs side. However, that is a small little exasperation I was willing to let through.

In conclusion, I have to say that I was authentically flabbergasted with the KS360. LG has managed to come up with a mass market mobile phone that is perfect for the messaging market which I think in Asia part of the world is pretty huge. At such a low price, the mobile phone is really affordable almost by everyone and the little niggles aside, I’m pretty sure the text passionate users will quickly take a shine to this wonderful mobile phone.

There are a lot of misconceptions floating around about computer technology. These misconceptions normally come from sources such as a poorly trained sales person or that “computer guru” who lives down the hall from you. Lately, however, I have been seeing more and more shocking misconceptions coming from major technology web sites.

I read an article recently, on a prominent tech web site, which touted how necessary it was for me to own a wireless router. The article left me with the overall impression that wireless networking was way better than wired. A shocking and misleading misconception. Here’s three good reasons why wired networking is better than wireless:

Reason one, speed. Although, wireless data speed standards (like the newly ratified 802.11N standard) are getting faster, they cannot presently beat the data transfer speeds on a wired connection. Moreover, most wireless routers currently in use only go as far as wireless 802.11G standard (54 to 108 Mbps) – and in some cases can’t handle high data transfer rates well. So, for example, if you’re trying to stream a movie, you may encounter playback stuttering (even if you have very high speed broadband) because of your wireless network. As well, data transfer hiccups on a wireless network can occur even when you have features enabled to prevent them, like quality of service (QOS.)

Another factor which can affect wireless network speed is that your wireless router and computer may not like each other. In other words, either due to subtle incompatibilities in hardware, software, firmware or whatever, your wireless router and computer may have trouble communicating. When they do manage to communicate, it is usually at a slower speed than what the devices are rated to communicate at. For instance, I have two netbooks (an HP and a ASUS) which use the same wireless router. The HP netbook connects fine with the router with no problems whereas the ASUS often has issues and sometimes refuses to connect at all. Even though I’ve upgraded the router’s firmware to the latest version, upgraded the wireless device drivers on the ASUS to the latest versions, the problem still exists. This incompatibility factor is not often talked about in regards to wireless networking, but it often can rear its ugly head in exasperating, inexplicable speed issues.

One other major issue that may affect wireless network speed are the types of devices attached to it. Let’s say that you’ve have a 802.11N router with devices attached that are mixed 802.11G/N. There’s a high probability that the router will slow everything down to G rates including the N devices. This is because the router has to best manage the data pathways to all the devices attached to it, which, in some cases, is accomplished by slowing down. Even if everything on your wireless network is N standard, your router may slow itself down to G. This is because some of the newer N routers can detect the close proximity of G networks. If the G networks are too close, your N router may go into a “good neighbor” mode and slow down to G standard.

First bottom line, if you are doing anything which involves moving a lot of data around from computer to computer, a wired connection is the best way to go. As of this writing, there is no consumer wireless networking technology that can beat the speed performance of a 100 Mbps or 1000 Mbps wired network. Wireless networking technology that outstrips wired networking may exist in some government black ops facility (and that would be a secret, so shush) but it does not now exist in the consumer world.

Reason two, stability. A wireless network can be affected by several factors such as distance, radio frequency congestion, etc that can cause anything from slowdowns to dropped connections. Even though your wireless router states its speed as 108 Mbps, the actual speed you get may vary. Many times the actual connection speed may be up to two thirds less than than the rated speed even if you are relatively close to the router. More often, wireless connection speeds may become unstable and vary wildly throughout a computing session. The reasons behind why wireless networks can be unstable are obvious as well as hidden.

A major factor that can affect a wireless network stability is what the routers radio transmission has to travel through to get to you. If, for instance, there are a few walls between your laptop and the wireless router, you may encounter issues such as slow speeds or dropped connections. In other words, you could have a scenario such as this; your wireless router is in your basement and the computer that connects to it is in the den above the basement. Due to the construction of the basement, the router’s signal may be bouncing of the ceiling, barely making it to the computer, and thereby causing connection problems.

What your wireless router has to compete with also affects wireless networking stability. Most wireless routers transmit on the 2.4 GHz radio frequency. This is the same frequency that Bluetooth, many cordless phones or devices such as microwave ovens emit RF on. So, for example, if someone in your house turns on the microwave to pop some popcorn, your wireless network may drop dead in the process! To overcome this, you may be tempted to try the 802.11A standard which uses the 5.8 GHz radio frequency. You would quickly find (as have I) that this may not work either. Although, your 802.11A network would be safe from your microwave oven, it still would suffer from stability problems. The 5.8 GHz radio frequency has shorter wavelengths than the 2.4 GHz frequency. Simply put, a shorter radio wavelength means less distance traveled and more difficulty penetrating things (like walls) by the radio signal.  Consequently, you’d still be stuck with stability problems, no matter which standard was used, A or G.

Competition that your wireless router has to contend with, and which again affects stability, comes in forms other than a microwave. If you live in a typical neighborhood, like mine, there may be upwards twenty other homes that have wireless networks. Your network as well as your neighbor’s network are competing for the same radio spectrum space and radio channels. To put it in another way, your wireless data is doing a commute from a to b, similar to your commute back and forth to work. Just like there is sometimes roadway congestion often times preventing your timely arrival to work, the same thing happens in the wireless networking world. Also just as the weather can affect your real world commute, weather can affect wireless networking. Weather conditions can actually boost the effective range of a wireless signal. When this happens in a already wireless congested neighborhood, chances are that you will encounter stability problems.

Second bottom line, wired networks provide consistently better stability and are much less prone to slowdowns or dropped connections. As well, a wired network suffers none of the issues that wireless does, like radio frequency congestion or interference. So in other words, with a wired network, your kids can use the microwave to pop popcorn while you do your computing in peace. As well, you don’t have to worry about your neighbor crowding you out radio spectrum wise when the weather conditions are just right.

Reason three, security. A wireless network, because of its very nature, is easier to hack than a wired network. Although, a wireless router may be properly set up in terms of it’s firewall, security encryption and MAC filtering, it’s still broadcasting over the air. Anyone with a laptop loaded with the appropriate software can detect and hack wireless signals. Moreover, every current wireless security protocol can be now overcome by a hacker. In another analogy, a wireless network is like a wireless door to your house. As with the physical doors to your home, a determined hacker can kick in your wireless door. And once a miscreant gains access to your wireless network, they have access to everything attached to your network, wired or wireless. For instance, your neighbor who lives three doors down from you (who has successfully hacked into your wireless network), may be using your web-cam to spy on you! That same deviant, hacker neighbor of your’s (who may not be thrilled about how you look on the webcam), may also be stealing your broadband bandwidth for sole the purpose of surreptitiously downloading something like porn. Due to their illegal activity, on your wireless network, you get stuck with angry emails from your ISP – and – quite possibly a visit from the police! Consider too, that your wireless network can be hacked by someone who does not live in your neighborhood. Some of the more recent commercial data breaches happened due to someone driving around in a car and detecting wireless signals. In one case, the criminals just simply sat outside of stores in their cars with laptops and hacked into the wireless networks of the businesses where they detected a signal. The same type of thing is being done in residential neighborhoods – so yes, it can happen to you!

Third and final bottom line, a wired network is harder to break into. Since again, nothing is being broadcast over the air, the only access point that a hacker can try is the firewall in a wired only router. I’m not saying that a wired router can’t be hacked, it’s just that it’s more difficult to do so.

So if you’re considering setting up a computer network, and have to choose between wired or wireless, go with wired. Particularly, again, if you are doing anything that involves moving a lot of data around, like streaming movies from your media server to your home theater computer. If you do need wireless for a device like a iPod touch, consider getting a wireless access point for your wired network. BTW, if a wireless access point cannot be had, a wireless router can function as a AP, just by disabling its router functionality.

I know that there are cases where a wired network is impractical, thus, leaving you with wireless as the only option. As with anything in life, that’s the breaks, and you go with the only option that is available to you. If, however, the opportunity presents itself for you to construct a wired network (either through a new home construction, house rewire, or plain Jane do it yourself sweat equity) by all means take that opportunity. While you’re going about the business of building your wired network, remember also to ignore the naysayers who complain about the mess of wires. Again, as with everything in life, there are solutions to make a wired network neat while maintaining its functionality.

Which ever way you go, wired or wireless, make sure everything is setup properly security wise. Also, don’t be lulled into thinking that wireless is better than wired networking, no matter which prominent technology web site says so.

Since we launched ALTADYN 9 years ago, we regularly hear the above question. Why Virtual Events Look Like In-Person Events? Why Meeting in a 3D space ? Why using AVATARS? Why not having Virtual Events user-interface as simple as buying a book on AMAZON or renting a movie on NETFLIX ? Etc…

A few consultants who covered this space have done a decent work answering to these questions, including FROST & SULLIVAN (who predicts more “presence” will be required in Virtual Events), and THINKBALM (who has published several reports on this matter).

We see a few reasons why Virtual Events NEED to look like in-person events if they want to become mainstream:

    * 3D immersive creates the Sense of Presence, and the Feeling of the Space
* Avatars lead to more « Human » Interactions, more engaging, more networking among attendees
* Avatars and 3D immersive lead to stronger Visual Memory of the Meeting
* Importing 3D objects improves communication and collaboration on 3D virtual products

Have you ever questioned why corporations have always spent so much time and money in building well designed and greatly architect-ed headquarters, and reception areas? Do you have the same feeling when you walk in an underground dark railway station hallway, compared to when walking in a bright glass bridge with a green landscape around your meeting room? Are you familiar with the emotions that environments create in you?

The 3D immersive environment and its design by itself creates feelings in each attendee. Now add the fact that you see another avatar in front of you talking and/or chatting. Is it the same sense of communication compared to trying to visualize someone just by their name, in text, in the lower right corner of the screen?

Connecting attendees into a virtual event, so that they can see slides, hear a presenter, watch a video (live streamed or not), or even chat to each other, is a resolved problem since 10-15 years ago ( by Webex and webex like platforms). The same way netflix has done with movie watchers  or Amazon has done with book readers or Facebook has done for friends… a simple easy way to accomplish the needed tasks mentioned above. But why do people still go massively to in-person events?

The demand is now for more HUMAN Interaction, more ENGAGEMENT and for virtual events which are closer to the in-person events. So that the attendee “FEELS” like he/she is “THERE”, and interacts with the exhibitors and with other attendees.

Some book buyers, those who miss the human interaction and the seller’s advice, continue to drive a car and go to Barnes & Noble to buy a book where they spend a lot more time and money than just ordering online. Why do they do that? Because they miss something AMAZON is not offering today.

Now for Virtual Events, the HUMAN aspect is even much more crucial than for AMAZON. The goal of Virtual Events vendors should be to enable attendees participate to more events, get more content, be more engaged, connect more to each other, enjoy the experience and even have fun. All this in less time and at a lower cost than the in-person event. That’s why everyone tries to create that SENSE of PRESENCE. Some do it with background images(full-size 3D generated), and some go further with 3D immersive, avatar based solutions. In a platform like 3DXplorer, you can virtually “walk” on the same floor as other attendees, shake hand with each other, use your laser pointer to point out something on a slide or show an object to someone, see where each person is looking at, etc…you FEEL being in the same place. PRESENCE makes sense this way.

Now, are ALL Virtual Events going to look like in-person events? No. But unlike AMAZON for books, here we have the larger market who has not yet gone virtual, despite solutions being available since 10-15 years. because most virtual event platforms can’t provide that feeling of presence, and they simply don’t facilitate networking and engagement that is effective or fun.

If the Virtual Events market wants to deliver on its growth promises, it needs to develop something fundamentally different than Webex which will capture those in-person events.

3DXplorer is a full 3D platform for virtual events, collaboration meeting conference cloud computing. More Details: Virtual Events, Virtual Conference, Virtual trade-show

When you are choosing the server cabinets for your business or premises, you need to make the right decision in terms of size, cost and function. Your six major considerations when purchasing server furniture should run roughly as follows:

1. Size: Size is clearly the most important factor when you are looking at the cabinets that are going to house the servers that run your business systems and host all your data. The room or area of the building that you have sectioned off for housing your servers will be of a certain height and width – so you can’t buy server cabinets that will not fit in it. Make sure that the cabinets you are looking at are not just capable of fitting into the space you have set aside for servers and computer hardware, but do so with the right amount of room to spare for ventilation.

2. Cost: Every business has a budget and you are no exception to the rule. You need to be buying the server furniture that does the right job at the right price – which means shopping around until you are sure that the server cabinets with the specs you need are going to be purchased for the best possible price. The perfect server cabinet is not the perfect server cabinet if it costs so much that you can’t actually afford to buy any servers.

3. Ventilation: Ventilation is a huge issue in any server installation. One of the most common causes of hardware failure is overheating thanks to a poorly vented server room. Check that the server furniture you intend to buy is capable of allowing enough cool air into your server’s fan ports and air openings – and that there is a provision, space wise, for some kind of extraction or air con based cooling. Your server cabinets are not just there to make sure your servers are housed all in one place – they should also be there to make sure they stay cool.

4. Sound: Servers are incredibly noisy. If you work in a small office space or premises, the noise from your server room can be detrimental to the concentration and comfort of all the people working for you. You must make sure that the cabinets you use to house your servers have enough noise buffering capabilities that you will not be troubled by sound from the server room. Remember, though – server cabinets need to keep servers cool as well as muffled.

5. Protection: A server is not so delicate that it will stop working if you slip and fall against it – but it is not all that tough either. Basically, servers are metal boxes surrounding delicate bits of equipment, all of which can suffer serious malfunction if they receive a sharp impact. Your server cabinets need to be tough enough to protect the servers inside from accidental impact and rigid enough to hold the servers in place.

6. Ergonomics: A server cupboard is something that human beings need to use. Your server furniture needs to be capable of easy access, front and back, so that networks can be routed, servers serviced and new bits added to the system. Never compromise on temperature control abilities – and don’t buy server cabinets that you can’t get into when you need to.