Forecast Fun

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Teleseminars cost money for you and others to attend. One way to help bring more people into a teleseminar is to create streaming audio of your teleseminar over the Internet. Unfortunately, most methods of streaming audio over the Internet can be expensive, difficult to setup for the average user or both.

The good news is, you can now broadcast a streaming audio of your teleseminar very affordably, in a secure and private manner so you won’t find any gate crashers if you sold access to the call. Here’s how.

First, get a web conference room. Web conference rooms vary a lot from company to company but to broadcast your teleseminar you’d want to look for:

Good streaming audio quality. This is a given. While every technology is not perfect — even telephones have a lot of annoying beeps and static — many web conferencing services today have little problem with streaming audio. Often, issues with audio come from user inexperience or computer settings but this can easily be remedied with a little bit of help documentation and education.

The next biggest consideration is a room that’ll give you flexible or good number of number of seats. You’ll want this because it’s often difficult to anticipate number or attendees. You can ask people to confirm and send reminders but there will always be a certain percentage of no shows.

This will be a little challenging because most web conference rooms sell by number of seats or per minute or both. Look for flat rate options instead.

Don’t get distracted with the rest of the services like video if you’re only looking for streaming audio. These usually bog down the system because of the huge amounts of bandwidth required to transmit video. Most web conferencing systems will have video conferencing capabilities already built in. Does that mean you shouldn’t go with them even if everything else is right? No, because often you can ‘turn off’ the video or simply not use it and performance won’t be affected. The point is it shouldn’t be a major factor in your consideration unless you plan to transition to web conferencing and reduce the use of the telephone bridge.

Once you’ve nailed down the web conferencing service provider of choice, you’ll need a key piece of equipment that’ll pipe your telephone audio into the computer and vice versa. One of the best we’ve seen is the Dynametric TMP 636 or TMP 636S. Once you have this, hook it up and you’re ready to broadcast streaming audio of your teleseminar online.

Now, you may ask why go through all that trouble when you can simply look for a web conferencing service who has built in telephone and streaming audio capabilities. That’s a good question and can only be answered by you. Consider the cost for these integrated phone and streaming audio solutions? They will naturally cost more but beyond dollar amount, are there any limitations? Compare them with the cost of your existing teleconference call line, your (preferably fixed rate) web conferencing plan and the one time telephone patch.

So there you have it. One last pointer, consider how often you conduct teleseminars and the number of people attending as these are the biggest variables affecting cost. As a rule of thumb, if you don’t conduct that many teleseminars or you have less people calling in, it’ll work out better to have an integrated solution. After all, why buy a piece of equipment for streaming audio that you’ll use infrequently. Given this information, you’ll be able to easily figure out which is best for you.

Lynette Chandler helps entrepreneurs recognize and apply the power of technology and its trends to their marketing. Learn to leverage web conferencing in your business www.meetingonnow.com/web-conferencing-course.html

Cable and telephone companies, both large and small have been offering discounted bundled services for years. Bundled local and long distance, or cable TV and Internet have saved consumers thousands on elective utilities.

With the outbreak of new broadband Internet technologies, emerges a new market for bundled services. You may have noticed your local cable company offering telephone service, and your telephone company offering satellite TV services in their bundled packages.

These bundled services do in fact provide consumers a reduction in monthly service cost, and the big pitch is you get it all on one bill, and all from the same company. To the average consumer this looks to be the “beat all to end all” deal in bundled services.

The frugal know better. Satellite TV and VoIP are both Independent services one can find and use outside the restrictions of your local cable or telephone companies bundled prices. When you start to figure in your own choice of broadband Internet it takes on a different light.

There are many satellite TV, VoIP, and broadband Internet companies to choose from and you do not have to be bound by the rates of your local providers anymore. Do the research and you’ll find you could be saving a pretty good chunk each month by bundling your own services.

Sure, you won’t get it all on one bill, but if that’s what you want, you are likely over paying for those services. You’re really paying for the convenience of having everything on one bill. Shave ten or fifteen dollars off each service, and it really starts to add up.

Saving twenty five or thirty dollars a month might not sound like much, but try multiplying that figure by twelve months. What you’ll save in a year paints a whole new picture and is probably worth taking 5 extra minutes each month to pay a couple bills separately. That’s an hour a year for those with their calculators out.

Why let the local cable or telephone companies decide what features you get with your bundle ? You’re paying for it. You should choose exactly what you want, and what works best for you. When you self bundle your elective utilities you’ll not only save a few dollars, but get what you want too.

Editor at Cheapest Service www.cheapest-service.com/

The Bacardi family has continually improved and perfected its rum so much so that it thrived throughout seven generations since the 1860s. Bacardi, a leading spirits and wine company, is widely famous for its rum. They also offer other wines and spirits like vodka, gin and tequila among others. If you enjoy drinking, they have a wide array of labels in their portfolio to choose from: Bacardi rum, Cazadores tequila, Martini vermouth, Eristoff vodka, Bombay Sapphire gin, Dewar’s Scotch whisky and Grey Goose vodka.

The founder, Facundo Bacardi, was a great innovator. During his time, rum was not a very popular drink and it was cheaply made. Facundo attempted to improve the taste of rum. The Bacardi family bought a small shop in a distillery that had nothing more than an alembic made up of cast iron and copper, and a colony of fruit bats. Facundo experimented on different blends and used charcoal to get rid of the rum’s impurities. He stored the end product in oak barrels, which eventually gave him refined quality rum.

Today, Bacardi sells over 200 million bottles a year in more than 100 countries. The Bacardi family has extended its people to more than 6,000 all over the world.

For a few years now, the calling cards business is booming. Everywhere you go, everywhere you search you might find one: in WallMarts, grocery stores, newspaper stands, vending machines in coffee shops. But the place you can find the most of these long distance alternatives is the internet. A quick search on Google, Yahoo or other search engines will reveal thousands of websites that sell calling cards. So, it’s an easy pick, one might say.

Well… not quite. According to the FCC, almost 70% of the calling card businesses are fraudulent. Meaning mostly that they get your money but you don’t get the calling card. That means that you have to be very careful when choosing a website to buy from. On top of that, calling cards vary in number and features, so you have to choose the one appropriate to your needs. Their low rates however, come with a price at times.

Companies selling calling cards use VoIP technology and other third party carriers to complete their calls. While not as expensive as a satellite connection (hence the low rates), this technology is at the beginning, so problems may occur from time to time.

This is why calling cards are not usually recommended for emergency calls. For calls within the United States however, calls made with calling cards (also known as phone cards) have a good quality and connection rate, given that you have found a good supplier.

So here are the steps you need to take to get the best out of your calling card purchase:
- Find a reliable website (this means no weird pop-ups, no advertisement of Viagra on the website - you get my point).
- Take a look at the available calling cards and rates.
- Check out any details of calling cards: usually, next to or underneath the picture of the calling card there is a link that will take you to a “Details” page. Look for maintenance fees, rounding, any other surcharges, expiration dates.
- If you intend to make a lot of long calls over a short period of time, choose a card with a maintenance fee. This means that a certain amount will be deducted from your balance each week/month until you use up the card. But if you plan to make so many calls, you’ll probably use the card up by the time the maintenance fee is deducted. Calling cards with maintenance fees also tend to have lower rates.
- If you use the card just once in a while, choose a card with no maintenance fee. These cards usually have higher rates, but you don’t have to worry about your balance going down if you do not use the card.
- Look for a Customer Service number. Reliable companies have Customer Service, in case their customers have questions or problems.

After this, get the card you this is best for your needs and wait for it to arrive in the email. Unless otherwise specified, you should be able to use it immediately. Good luck!

Robert Mann is the owner of Calling Cards Home , offering prepaid calling cards and long distance service to and from over 150 countries

These days with more and more of us working from home, working on the road, and generally dealing with multiple suppliers, contractors and business partners in locations all over the world, the conference call is supplanting the face-to-face meeting. Here are some tips on getting the most out of your conference call…

Tip One: Send Out an Agenda

The key to an effective meeting is an agenda - this applies to any kind of meeting, not just a conference call. With a conference call, always make sure you have the instructions on how to access the conference call at the top of the agenda, preferably in a box or with some other text decoration to make it stand out.

Another option is to send a meeting request from within your calendar application, whether it be Microsoft Outlook or Apple’s iCal, or some other scheduling tool. The meeting request is sent as a specially formatted email, so you can add attachments just like with a regular email. Attach the agenda, and repeat the instructions on how to connect to the conference call in the body of the email.

Most conference service providers require participants to dial a special number (which may be different depending on where the user is, or it may be a national number), then enter a conference “room” number, followed by a security code or PIN. Make sure all the necessary details are included on the agenda and the meeting request.

If the conference call is a regular status update, ensure you also send out the meeting notes from the previous call, since the first item on the agenda should be chasing people up for the actions they’ve agreed to be responsible for.

Tip Two: Take Care of Housekeeping

At the beginning of the call, call off the roll and ensure everyone is on the call. Introduce any newcomers to the rest of the group and invite them to spend a couple of minutes describing themselves and their role on the call. If anyone is missing from the participants list, immediately call them (preferably on their mobile) to get them onto the call as soon as possible. If they can’t get on the call within a couple of minutes, proceed without them. Nothing detracts from a good conference call more than making everyone wait at the beginning.

Next, ensure everyone has a copy of the agenda, and that they can all hear one another OK. If you are not going to be the one taking notes, make sure everyone is clear who is. This serves two benefits: firstly, the person taking notes is going to be careful and accountable, and secondly, a single set of meeting notes will be distributed after the call. If this is not made clear, you may end up with several versions, which is both redundant and confusing.

Finally, lay out the rules for interaction on the call. Because it’s audio-only, the usual cues we use to indicate that we wish to take a turn at speaking are not present. Therefore it’s worth stating at the outset what the rules will be. These can be as simple as “Please make a note of any questions and we’ll deal with them in turn after each agenda point”, or as sophisticated as listing the order of speaking of the participants, and asking each participant only to speak at their particular time. This last is called “round table” conferencing, and is particularly effective once people are used to it. It has the dual effect of keeping all participants engaged, and speeding up the time it takes to get through each point.

Clearly it’s unrealistic to expect people to stick to the interaction rules for the duration of the call, but laying them out at the outset will help ensure things run quickly and smoothly.

Tip Three: Turn Off Speakerphone

Unless you have a majority of participants all in one room together, you should turn off speakerphone. Speakerphone and conference calls are a bad combination, unless you have a high-quality dedicated speakerphone. In order to prevent audio feedback, speakerphones automatically mute the speaker when a sufficiently loud sound is heard at the microphone. Unfortunately, few speakerphones do this particularly well, and often the speaker will mute because of its own output feeding back into the microphone. This means annoying dropouts and missed words and sentences.

Because it’s a conference call, often these dropouts can go on for some minutes before someone has the opportunity to pipe up with “We missed all that!” Needless to say, having to constantly repeat yourself can be very time consuming and irritating for all the non-speakerphone participants.

Even if you’re in the same room as someone else, it can sometimes be an improvement to use two handsets rather than use speakerphone.

Tip Four: Send Out Meeting Notes

You should ensure everyone on the conference call gets a copy of the meeting notes no later than the following morning, while the call is still fresh in everyone’s minds.

There are many helpful guides on the web for effective note-taking, but in essence:

• Don’t try to write down absolutely everything; just the items where an action needs to be taken
• Keep track of who has agreed to be responsible for each action
• Keep track of the deadlines for each action item
• Don’t forget to note the time and date of the meeting and who was present

If the conference call is a regular status update, ensure you note in the meeting notes the time and date of the next meeting. If possible, deadlines for action items should correspond to the dates of status meetings so that the notes can be quickly scanned (or even sorted) for items that need to be chased up in a given meeting.

Tip Five: Keep it Brief

Studies have shown that people start to suffer a number of unpleasant side-effects after holding a telephone receiver to their ear for longer than about an hour. In any event, forty minutes is about the limit of most people’s concentration span.

If you find the call is starting to drag on beyond an hour, it’s a good idea to wrap things up and continue either later that day, or preferably the following day. If you find this is a regular occurrence, it may be an indicator that you need to revisit the agenda, or possibly split the group up into separate, more focussed groups. A particular time-waster is having engineers and businesspeople on the same conference call. A better way to handle this is to have three shorter meetings - one with just the engineers, one with the businesspeople, and one with single representatives from each group to present the results and take any feedback to the next department meeting. With practice, you can keep the length of each meeting down to around twenty minutes.

Michael Pollitt is an experienced home-business operator, with several highly successful home-based businesses, including ConferenceOne, a telephone conferencing service, and LB Broadcast Systems, a developer of closed captions software.

Teleseminars cost money for you and others to attend. One way to help bring more people into a teleseminar is to create streaming audio of your teleseminar over the Internet. Unfortunately, most methods of streaming audio over the Internet can be expensive, difficult to setup for the average user or both.

The good news is, you can now broadcast a streaming audio of your teleseminar very affordably, in a secure and private manner so you won’t find any gate crashers if you sold access to the call. Here’s how.

First, get a web conference room. Web conference rooms vary a lot from company to company but to broadcast your teleseminar you’d want to look for:

Good streaming audio quality. This is a given. While every technology is not perfect — even telephones have a lot of annoying beeps and static — many web conferencing services today have little problem with streaming audio. Often, issues with audio come from user inexperience or computer settings but this can easily be remedied with a little bit of help documentation and education.

The next biggest consideration is a room that’ll give you flexible or good number of number of seats. You’ll want this because it’s often difficult to anticipate number or attendees. You can ask people to confirm and send reminders but there will always be a certain percentage of no shows.

This will be a little challenging because most web conference rooms sell by number of seats or per minute or both. Look for flat rate options instead.

Don’t get distracted with the rest of the services like video if you’re only looking for streaming audio. These usually bog down the system because of the huge amounts of bandwidth required to transmit video. Most web conferencing systems will have video conferencing capabilities already built in. Does that mean you shouldn’t go with them even if everything else is right? No, because often you can ‘turn off’ the video or simply not use it and performance won’t be affected. The point is it shouldn’t be a major factor in your consideration unless you plan to transition to web conferencing and reduce the use of the telephone bridge.

Once you’ve nailed down the web conferencing service provider of choice, you’ll need a key piece of equipment that’ll pipe your telephone audio into the computer and vice versa. One of the best we’ve seen is the Dynametric TMP 636 or TMP 636S. Once you have this, hook it up and you’re ready to broadcast streaming audio of your teleseminar online.

Now, you may ask why go through all that trouble when you can simply look for a web conferencing service who has built in telephone and streaming audio capabilities. That’s a good question and can only be answered by you. Consider the cost for these integrated phone and streaming audio solutions? They will naturally cost more but beyond dollar amount, are there any limitations? Compare them with the cost of your existing teleconference call line, your (preferably fixed rate) web conferencing plan and the one time telephone patch.

So there you have it. One last pointer, consider how often you conduct teleseminars and the number of people attending as these are the biggest variables affecting cost. As a rule of thumb, if you don’t conduct that many teleseminars or you have less people calling in, it’ll work out better to have an integrated solution. After all, why buy a piece of equipment for streaming audio that you’ll use infrequently. Given this information, you’ll be able to easily figure out which is best for you.

Lynette Chandler helps entrepreneurs recognize and apply the power of technology and its trends to their marketing. Learn to leverage web conferencing in your business www.meetingonnow.com/web-conferencing-course.html

Telecommunications is the most important physical infrastructure in the modern world. It is more important than roads because it can replace them. It is more important than office buildings because it allows for the formation of virtual offices. It is more crucial than legal and institutional systems because it surpasses national borders and undermines and subverts fossilized political structures.

Telecommunications eliminates distance and allows for the transfer of voice and other forms of information (data) virtually at the speed of light. It is the foundation for the future industries and the industries of the future: information, knowledge and intelligent data processing industries.

Telecommunications today is not limited to handsets, phone lines and telephony equipment. It incorporates computers and other media technologies. All these are an integral part of the new age of telecoms.

Telecommunications was partly responsible to the geopolitical sea changes of the last decade. It is enough to recall the role of satellite telephones in the media coverage of the televised Gulf War - or the anti Ceaucesco revolution in Romania.

These are precisely the reasons why regimes all over the world - in other words, politicians - strove to maintain unmitigated control of the PTT services in their countries and to block foreign and domestic competition. National telecommunication service providers and carriers became monopolistic monsters, operating highly inefficiently, charging exorbitant prices, employing far too many people at unreasonably high salaries and serving to boost the political fortunes of ministers and the like.

But all this is changing. The new World Trade Organization (WTO) set of agreements will force governments throughout the world to privatize their telecoms giants and to deregulate this industry. The deadline is 2003 with a few exceptions (Latvia has until 2013 to do so). There is a new realizations that telecommunications is too important an industry to be left to the devices of politicians - or to the flawed management of state organs.

A few privatization models have evolved over the last 20 years, or so.

In the more developed countries (the West, South East Asia), some countries have chosen to introduce free for all competition. This entails the sale of part or all of the state owned telecoms provider to shareholders through stock exchanges. A small part is usually also allocated to the workers and management of the company at favourable prices. Concurrently the industry is deregulated and licensing requirements are gradually abolished.

Initially, in this model, only certain services are open to competition, mainly the international calls segment and the mobile and wireless telephony (including paging).

But, ultimately, all types of services are opened to competition - both domestic or foreign.

The most extreme example is Finland, where competition is completely free, no licensing is required and 52 companies compete for the heart (and pocket) of the customers. They are all allowed to offer any kind of telecommunications service imaginable.

Still, very much the same situation is developing in Israel, Britain, Australia, Hong Kong and - with the 1996 Telecommunications Act - in the USA. This 1996 Act allows providers and carriers of international phone calls and of local phone calls (until now separated by regulation) to enter each other markets and compete. The result was a major spate of mergers and acquisitions as companies scrambled to offer combined, international and local, services.

The second alternative is to break up the national carriers into functional units, one dedicated to international calls and the other to local traffic. NTT in Japan is undergoing this surgical restructuring now. In the wake of this break-up, competition is allowed in certain services (again, mainly international calls and GSM and mobile telephony).

The other - less efficient - option is to sell minority stakes in the national carrier to investors (domestic or foreign), or, through the stock exchanges - while effectively preserving the monopoly of state owned provider. This was the case in Israel, until lately and is the case in Greece. In Israel, when the British Cables and wireless tried to gain control of Bezeq (the Israeli phone services provider) - it encountered the staunch opposition of the Israeli government, replete with threats of legal action.

Still, the benefits of privatization are enormous.

Prices drop. That is the most evident and immediately visible effect. The prices charged for international phone calls in Israel dropped by 80% in real terms with the introduction of two additional competitors. In Britain, prices went down by 25%.

There is a leap forward in the quality of service: waiting periods for new installations, second and third phone numbers, business dedicated lines, maintenance, fixing problems, times between faults, troubleshooting, hotlines, meter reading, detailed and allocated accounts and so on. The average wait for a new phone has been reduced in Israel and in Hungary, to take two notable examples, from months to days.

Naturally, overall economic efficiency is improved by cost savings and by more productive allocation of time previously spent on tackling bureaucratic hassles.

Last, but by no means least, is the marked improvement in technology, its upgrading and the introduction of novel, low cost alternatives.

In the less developed and developing countries, privatization has been achieved mainly through the introduction of foreign strategic partners - usually other telecoms firms from more developed countries. This necessitates the temporary preservation of the monopolies. No profit minded foreign investor will invest in infrastructure - and let future competitors reap the benefits. An investor wants to be assured that he will continue to rule the market and overcharge the customers for a proscribed period of time. Foreign investors like monopoly situations because this way they have a captive market and thus they can force their clients to defray their development costs through overcharging. But, this can be seen as the cost of modernization and integration into regional and global telecoms alliances. Once competition is allowed, everyone (especially the clients) will reap the benefits of modern information highways.

To my mind this thinking is flawed. The direct and indirect damages incurred by monopolies are immeasurable. Monopolies must be dismantled - and the sooner, the better. The transfer of part of a monopoly from domestic to foreign hands does not alter its economically cancerous nature. Monopolies are guilty of over or under optimal investments, of overcharging clients, of distorting the allocation of economic resources, of market rigging, corruption and other criminal activities, of providing poor service, of selecting the wrong technologies. Only the threat of competition - actual and fierce - can change all that. Even so, long after competition is introduced, monopolies seem to continue to control their markets. British Telecom still controls 72% of its markets - despite more than a decade of competition.

Despite these considerations - and due to rampant corruption and cronyism - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Yugoslavia-Serbia, Estonia, Latvia and Russia chose this path. Bulgaria and Romania will follow them next year and it seems that Macedonia might follow suit, more out of lack of choice of alternatives - than out of careful selection of them.

The other way is by selling shares to investors in the stock exchanges - local and foreign. Poland has adopted this path after years of foot-ragging. It will sell shares of its carriers early next year. This, however, is not a solution available to small countries with an undeveloped stock exchange and low liquidity. To float the local PTT in the Macedonian Stock Exchange would be absurd. Even to attract domestic capital in sufficient quantity would be unthinkable.

Some countries avoid privatization altogether. They regard the fix of privatization as a fad, or a passing craze (which, in its more extreme forms, it is). They declare the telecommunications sector to be a matter of national strategic importance (again, to a very limited extent, it is). Slovakia has introduced a law in 1995 to actively prohibit the privatization of its PTT.

But experience disproves the Slovak stance. Admittedly, privatization does have its unpleasant side effects: redundant workers are fired by the thousands and unemployment goes up, for instance. Another result, cutely felt by every potential voter, is the radical increase in the price of local phone calls which used to be subsidized by the outlandish charges imposed on international calls. Once cross - subsidization ceases and more realistic pricing is introduced - prices shoot up.

But the price of all other services drop as sharply and there is a dramatic improvement in the quality and speed of the services provided.

The technological aspect is not to be sneered at, either.

The current infrastructure is insufficient in all Central and East European countries. It is partly incompatible with European Union standards and networks. The existing backbones will, of course, still be used but they will be gradually replaced by fibre optics and digital switchboards.

Technologies like cable TV and broadcasting networks, satellites and above all, wireless and GSM networks will serve to bridge the capacity and compatibility gaps and deficiencies. They will also reduce the dependence of new market entrants on the infrastructure and services provided by local PTTs - and this is good news.

About The Author

Sam Vaknin is the author of “Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited” and “After the Rain - How the West Lost the East”. He is a columnist in “Central Europe Review”, United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com

If you want to purchase discount spectacles on line then make sure you understand one or two essentials before you start. You can save a HUGE amount of money if you recognise how to purchase your eyeglasses wisely and it they will be perfectly safe for you to utilize so long as you become heedful of a few simple rules

Make sure that they fit you properly

If your current spectacles fit fine, then just measure them up properly and you must have perfectly fitting new eyeglasses online.

You need to know 4 measurements:

Total Width - A the Lens height - b The Lens breadth - c Nose/Bridge breadth - “D”

Of these the most important measurement is the total width (A). To ensure that your new on-line specs are a good fit for your face, you only really need your total width. Don’t worry too much if you haven’t got your lens dimensions.

Ensure that you have the correct lens prescription

There are four parameters of your eye prescription that you will need to make a note of:

1. Sphere - This refers to how short or long sighted you are. It is a measure of your lens optical power and is measured in diopters. It invariably has a addition (+) or a minus (-) symbol in front or above it.
2. Axis - this relates to the reference point which denotes the direction of the power of your lens. It only really applies if you have cylindrical lens though.. The value will be a number between 1 and 180.
3. Cylinder - This is the measure for astigmatism. Once Again, there is always a plus (+) or minus (-) sign present. There may not be a value of cylinder in your prescription.
4. Pupillary Distance (PD) - This part of your prescription helps to centre the lens within your frame on your face. Technically, PD is the measurement of the distance between the centre of your pupils.

When you meet someone for the first time, you probably search for some common denominators as a link during the course of the conversation. Why? One reason is to find an issue or topic that will make the first conversation a little less uncomfortable, as the first conversation can be. Another reason is to find a common bond that can serve as the basis for friendship. The more similarities you have with another person the more likely you’ll get along and develop a lasting relationship.

But what if, during the course of a first meeting, you find very little in common with your new acquaintance? Or even worse, the other party has opinions that are diametrically opposed to your political, cultural, and social values? Chances are, you won’t become the best of friends. But hopefully, you won’t become enemies, either. Instead, you might want to try to develop a healthy respect for the other person’s opinions and lifestyle. Being open-minded and listening to someone’s point of view are skills that will serve you well throughout your lifetime as you deal with colleagues, friends, and family members.

Fortunately, cultivating respect for others is a skill you can learn through practice, and it comes also with maturity. For example, a more mature person would say, “That’s an interesting point of view,” while a less mature, less educated person would say, “What a jerk.” Which person would you prefer to talk to? It’s important not to make a judgment about someone immediately.

It is important to always make an effort to get to know people regardless of how different they are from you. You must create rapport and make an attempt to understand the other person’s values, or you will always have trouble developing relationships.

The best approach when communicating is to put yourself in the other person’s situation to see his or her perspective. Respecting other people’s perspectives on life is crucial to cultivating working relationships. And a relationship that doesn’t work is counterproductive, especially if the relationship is with someone with whom you have to work closely.

How do you put yourself in the other person’s situation? One of the best ways is to exchange roles with the other person by restating the other person’s position. For example, if you say to a friend that you’re having some kind of a problem, more than likely he or she will say, “This is what I would do if I were you.” It’s like giving advice, and it can be a turnoff. You don’t really get anywhere because you’re busy defending your position; you perceive your idea or position is being attacked. And when you’re defensive, you’re not listening.

When you get into a position in which you have a difference of opinion or conflict of ideas, listen to the other person until you understand the idea. Once you understand, restate the other person’s idea or comments until you’ve got them right. Then mull over them as a viable alternative. They may not be valid. But you have an obligation to try to understand what the other person is saying.

The most important and yet overlooked of all communication skills is the art of listening. Most people are not good at what is called “active listening.” Active listening is when you set aside your own thoughts and pay exclusive attention to what the other person is saying. Most of the us have our own agendas, and when we talk to someone, we are concentrating not on what he or she is saying, but on what our next response will be. Therefore we miss a big chunk of what the other person is trying to communicate.

Although most people don’t receive any formal training in listening and related communication techniques, there are plenty of sources from which to learn these skills. More and more experts are out on the speaking circuit teaching communication skills. In addition there are many books, magazines, and audio programs available to enhance your communication skills.

Verbal communication and listening are not the only elements your should pay attention to in communication. Body language provides an abundance of clues as to how the other party really feels. For example, a person might be saying that he or she agrees with you, but his or her body language my be telling you that he or she is uncomfortable with your idea and doesn’t want to be part of it.

Here are six things you can do to improve your active listening:

1. Seek first to understand, and second to be understood.

2. Listen to, not against. Evaluate; don’t value judge

3. Be alert for what will not be said. Read facial expressions and body language.

4. Grasp feelings with content.

5. Paraphrase what the other person has said back to them.

6. When you respond, match the other person’s tempo and tone.

When you are responding to someone, be aware that some words and phrases are turnoffs.

For example, the technical language of your profession will not be understood by those in other industries. You will alienate listeners, who will find you inconsiderate for using it. Slang and profanity are certain to turn off some people, especially if you use them during a first meeting. Sexist language can be a big turnoff. For example, using “girl” to refer to a colleague will not endear the female gender. They’ll stop in their tracks, form an unflattering opinion of you, and ignore your point.

Most importantly in communication, don’t forget laughter. Laughter is good at relieving tension. If we can’t laugh occasionally, especially at ourselves, we are in trouble. Laughter clears the air and lets you get on with the issue at hand.

Exposing yourself to different perceptions of life can be as simple as reading the editorial pages of our newspaper, where you can see a variety of opinions from intelligent people, that reflect ideas diverse from your own.

We are living in the Information Age where companies must have a constant flow of new ideas in order to grow and prosper. Exposing employees to different perceptions of life may take a little effort. But it is one of the best ways to promote a healthy respect for different opinions in your office and generate new ideas.

Here are some ways you can promote differing perceptions in your company:

* Encourage employees to disagree and question the status quo. Reward them when they do.

* Hire people who don’t think the way you do. But be sure to hire people who respect authority.

* Have someone in your group or staff play devil’s advocate. Hold a meeting in which the participants feel free to identify the problems or pitfalls of a particular plan or idea before it is eventually implemented.

* If you suspect that an employee is afraid to disagree with your idea or plan, coax their opinion out of them.

* Don’t react negatively to bad news. Instead, reward an employee for being a bad-news messenger.

* Place employees in competition with each other, but don’t allow them to sabotage each other.

Diversity is a plus. Differing points of view provide fresh insight, new solutions, and enlightened perspectives. At a time when so much change is exploding in the world, people who are able to respect different points of view will be the ones who reap the rewards and ride the crest of success.

Copyright©2005 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in personal and business development. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many of America’s largest corporations, on the subjects of leadership, self-esteem, goals, achievement, and success psychology.

Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com

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