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Walking, listening, hearing, reading, understanding: they are all part of the process of communication and if one goes awry then the whole process breaks down.
Although we’ve been bombarded with new methods of communication in the last few years (e mails, websites, twitter, facebook etc) the essence of communication is still a 2 way communication – an exchange.
Now looking at the process, it seems so simple but it contains many places where the flow of information can and does break down.
However, lets look at the crafting of the initial or outgoing message.
- it has to be in the right language -
- ever tried to talk with someone who doesn’t speak your language or for that matter different cultures. In Jamaica they speak a dialect very close to English but to the untrained ear it is gibberish – it is called Patwa (apologies to Jamaicans).
- many elderly people think that twitter is what some birds do when sitting on a wire.
- The message has to be clearly expressed
- mumbled speech is almost impossible to understand
- words without a logical sequence don’t often mean much
- The message needs to be understandable by the person its intended for.
- all to frequently I’ve said something that I think conveys what I mean but the person hearing it might infer or understand something way different from my intended meaning.
- sadly this is often a feature of communication within relationships that are struggling
Our entire fabric of social interaction involves communication. Governments, families, friends, lovers, all depend upon some form of communication and the noise of aimless communication in the world right now is a symptom of the breakdown of the fabric of society itself. We need to become better communicators, better listeners and better at hearing.
I’d appreciate your views on the whole communication subject.
A short but interesting note I hope on healthy living. Our youngest daughter has Down syndrome, and she is now 12 years old. Over the last 12 years I have tried to watch her diet and tried to give her good healthy food. This is not always the case as children have their own minds as to what they like to eat, and one of her problems is crisps.
I not wanting to go into a lot of details about her diet, but what I wanted to draw your attention to is healthy eating . Children with down syndrome have an lot of free radical being produced, but we all have free radical which can cause a lot of damage to our bodies.
Looking at Doctor Steve Nugent recent flyer he draws our attention to the fact how fruit and vegetables have declined dramatically over the years in nutrients. Today we would need to eat 53 peaches to 2 peaches in 1951. Wow ! That is where vitamins and mineral supplements come into being.
Please add you comments and we can have a chat about it in our call on Monday.
For more information about Down Syndrome and Nutrition click here
See you then Hazel (one of the team)
Having rebuilt the aspexsoftware website and and posted it on-line we weren’t surprised to experience a few teething problems which needed quick attention. But one unexpected problem had us puzzling for hours and it’s remedy should be of interest to anybody who is using a Firefox or Chrome internet browser on their computer.
The Firefox and Chrome browsers are promoted by their makers as being safer, faster and easier to use, and these are compelling reasons to use them on your computer.
However, we’ve been disappointed with the quality of TEXT displayed within both these browsers and especially on the home page of our new website!
So how did we resolve the problem and start getting great quality text using the Firefox and Chrome browers?
The solution:
It turns out that there is a feature Windows XP that enables something called ClearType on your computer. I think Macs have been using this for years, but on Win XP the feature is switched off.
Of course, Microsoft get their Internet Explorer Browser to switch it on when you are surfing the web their browser!
So how can you switch activate the Clear Type feature on your computer and change your Firefox and Chrome text from ‘It’ll do’ to ‘amazing clear to look at and easy to read’? Continue Reading…
In these days where change appears to be the watchword, and it often arrives without warning, we need to have a mind that is tuned to look for minute signs that change is just around the corner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman. By the way, I did not create this video! Search on the names above if you want more info – they are responsible.
If you recognise that for most customers to be able to phone on a freephone number will increase your response rate by as much as 7 times. These numbers only cost a few pence to run each month and the best place to get them is resource utilities
OK those of you who know me, and I mean really know me, know that there are some things that I really love. Apart from food and wine and beer I love things that are free and help people communicate and develop relationships. I started using Skype about 8 years ago in its early days and immediately fell in love with the concept – free communications over the internet. I hated spending money on phones and calls and Skype seemed to be a gift from God. Today Skype is much more than a simple way of making calls over the internet – it allows you to build relationships in business, in family and all sorts of other really neat ways. In fact I’d go so far as to suggest that if you are in the business of talking to people then Skype is probably the best way to go. By the way I don’t just use Skype – its just that i love the way it allows you to see when people are on-line and that helps build relationships.
Let me give you a real example that occurred just yesterday (names changed to protect the innocent). I have a friend and business colleague in a middle eastern country who suddenly dropped of the scene, I knew she was moving house and she had 4 children so had her hands full. The months went by and e mails were returned and then – she popped up as on-line on Skype. A quick text message via Skype and we are back in contact – she’d changed her e mail as well. In my book the ability to see when someone is on-line is priceless.
Needless to say Skype is a cornerstone of our business and personal lives and helps us keep in contact. By the way I love Twitter but thats another story.
on this morning’s call we talked about the Niche Market phenomena – any successful company today is operating in a niche market. In fact I would go so far to suggest that any company holding it’s own or growing in this current environment must be operating in a niche market. Find me one that isn’t and I’ll eat my words. A few examples of company’s operating in niche markets being:
- Shelia’s Wheels – women’s insurance
- Swift Cover Insurance – low risk motoring cover
- Lidl/Aldi – low cost food shops
- Maplins – hobby electronics
- Coast – well styled semi formal women’s wear
- Coca Cola – young people’s image soft drink
- Top Gear TV programme – petrolheads
- Lakeland – active and passive gadgets for the home
- Primark
What Niche are you operating in – if you don’t know what your niche is – better find out fast.
Secondly we talked about how to get customers/potential customers to stay on your sites for longer and a few ideas came up in discussion:
- pictures – especially of real people
- bright and clearly presented sites – not confusing
- video
- audio
- address – preferably physical – with picture if possible
- telephone number
- e mail contact form – avoid the use of e mail as often harvested by spam bots
- live chat facility – one free option that works is from Voluvision – for a live example see www.pabarton.com
By the way this is not difficult to set up and it takes less than 10 minutes.
Maintaining a healthy diet and a clean lifestyle would help to improve fertility. You would find out that you have more energy and are more alert when you are eating healthy food particularly those free of pesticides, sugar and other processed ingredients.
so that in turn your body can treat you right and help you conceive. Age is the greatest barrier to conception, and every single month your eggs age right along with you.
How easy smart eating can help you to conceiveSociety sometimes over look mothernature and natural tools we have to help us with our fertility and pregnancy experiencies. Choosing certain foods and drinks as a way to influence your ability to become pregnant sounds more like folktale wisdom than medical advice.
If you are trying to become pregnant, Try eating foods that would boost your fertility. This would improve your fertility environment as well as create the best nutritional foundation for fetal growth and developement.
I’ve been a quiet fan of Seth Godin for a couple of years and a post that he made last week just struck me as profound. If I could only work with 10 people who would they be – who would I choose, who would join me. This post is all about working with people who we really appreciate and who we can have fun with – http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/04/first-ten-.html
“You can no longer market to the anonymous masses. They’re not anonymous and they’re not masses. You can only market to people who are willing participants. Like this group of ten.
The timing means that the idea of a ‘launch’ and press releases and the big unveiling is nuts. Instead, plan on the gradual build that turns into a tidal wave. Organize for it and spend money appropriately. The fact is, the curve of money spent (big hump, then it tails off) is precisely backwards to what you actually need.” Seth Godin
