Many years of running voice messaging and electronic mail, we have lost sight that essential communications happens during real time and not differed time. Although, we've all had the occasion to experiment with direct communication technology like: audio-conference, videoconference and WEB conference.

Each of these technologies presents advantages accompanied by their disadvantages. Audioconferencing transports voices to many while leaving us in the dark. Videoconferencing gives us color but it is not useful for collaboration around a presentation or a document. For the most part, WEB-conferencing is designed to collaborate with screen sharing and sometimes giving the impression of talking into space.

Today, unified conferencing integrates audio, video and WEBconference onto one interface for PC. It replicates in the domain of conferences what unified messaging has realized while integrating vocal messaging with email. Although, it's the screen sharing that changes everything making participants in a WEBconference, actors and not just spectators. That constitutes the most important catalyst of collaboration and source of synergy in the organizations.

Tele-efficiency also releases, Accessware, a bi-directional remote screen sharing add-on for Conferenceware, its unified conferencing solution. During a WEBconference with Accessware, the presenter could show the screen of a participant to all. Inversely, he or she could give control of his/her screen to another participant, which then becomes a co-presenter.

It sounds a little like a telephone on ice, but the cold call is actually an important tool of networking. Cold calling is calling a person or business without prior contact in order to inquire about employment opportunities. For many, the idea of cold calling is chilling. Dialing up a complete stranger doesn't seem like a logical way to carry out a job search. Yet when done correctly, a cold call can showcase some important professional traits, including resilience, determination, and interpersonal skills. In the best-case scenario, it can also lead to an interview.

Cold calling is a salesman's device. The premise is that the more people you contact, the better your chances of scoring a deal. In a way salesmanship is integrally connected to the job search, only instead of selling a product or service, you're selling yourself. Specifically, you're selling the notion that you would be a valuable addition to a company's team. And therein lies the key to the cold call. When you pick up the phone, you must think of yourself not as a nervous jobseeker eager for a lead, but rather, as a confident professional who has the qualifications that would benefit an employer.

How do you make this leap? It's not easy, admits one woman in retail who had taken off several years to raise two children and wanted to rejoin the workforce. She admits the cold call took some practice. "I was much smoother on my eighth or ninth attempt than I was on my first.... I called up many businesses, and the majority of them didn't take more than fifteen seconds to decide they weren't interested. Finally, I caught one man who asked me where I'd gone to school. As it happened, we'd gone to the same college. He took a liking to me after that. I was asked in for an interview the following week."

This woman's example shows that it helps to make a connection with the person you are cold calling. However, this is not always possible. The plain truth about cold calling is that the failure rate is high. Yet the rewards can be great if you encounter even one person who recognizes your potential. Below are some techniques for making the cold call a little warmer.

* Write a script for your cold call, outlining one or two of your most valuable Key Selling Points (see chapter 7). Remember that you are trying to impress the person on the other end of the line. Modify your script so that these selling points are in sync with each company's specific needs. A customized delivery is crucial.

* Be clear on your goals and what you have to offer. Nothing will turn off an employer faster than a person who is not clear about his objectives.

* Introduce yourself in a way that will spark interest. Saying your name immediately followed by your area of expertise might do the trick.

* Work on your voice-make sure you sound professional, sharp, and cheerful, but never insincere or calculating. It helps to practice both your voice and your script on a trusted friend who can offer you feedback and suggestions.

* Figure out who is on the other end of the line. Receptionists and other gatekeepers will usually pick up the phone before hiring managers will. Be prepared to answer gatekeeper-type questions such as "What is the reason for your call?" and "What company are you with?" A confident answer and an assured tone might allow you to pass through this initial screen. No matter who picks up the phone, be professional. Treat everyone with equal courtesy and respect.

* Use the "rule of three." If you've tried calling three times, or left up to three messages with no response, throw in the towel. Calling any more than that will only irritate the person you are trying to reach. Says a senior human resources consultant with a wellknown mutual insurance company: "Candidates can call me and leave a voicemail message, but it's hard for me to do callbacks due to the volume of calls I receive." She goes on to say she does follow up with many people who leave inquiries, but that repeat messages "are more burden than value."

* Substitute your e-mail account for your phone. These days many businesspeople are more apt to answer e-mails than voicemail messages anyway. E-mailing requires less effort on both ends because people don't need to think and speak on the fly; they can actually take the time to word their correspondence carefully if you're better at written communication than you are at oral communication, consider sending "cold e-mails" rather than making cold calls. In this case, though, you'll need to address your e-mail to a single person. Consider calling the company gatekeeper, who may be more inclined to pass along the e-mail address of the hiring manager than the phone number. Blindly e-mailing a company at a general address can pretty much guarantee a lack of resultsunless the company happens to be very small.

* Keep track of your phone calls. If you leave a message, you'll want to know the name and title of the person who is returning your call and what information you've already provided.

* Be prepared for standard responses from human resources personnel and other hiring managers. You will probably receive some brush-off responses like, "The only thing you can do is send your resume to our HR department," or even, "We are not currently hiring." However, some responses will allow you more opportunity to sell yourself Be prepared to sell yourself if you hear a question such as "What kind of experience do you have?" or "What attracts you to our company?"

* Don't become discouraged. Cold calling isn't easy, and a few hang-ups can make even the most stalwart person question himself Take breaks and keep in mind that the process isn't personal.

* Remember that your ultimate goal is to get an interview. To that end, if you do speak with someone who has hiring power and if you establish a rapport with that person, ask outright if you can come in for an interview. The question might seem presumptuous, but it's been known to work.

Surprisingly many businesses fail to create such an essential item; the reality is that these types of businesses and entrepreneurs who don't create a documented system usually spend lots of time training and supervising employees. Often they forget that the reason an employee or

other person was brought into the business was to help it grow yet spending time on re-training or needing to quality check work constantly is not growing the business and it is a huge waste of time.

The standardized procedures do not need to be extravagant, often times the simpler the better. Get a piece of paper or type up each step involved in performing a specific task or process. Employees, contractors, temps and so on should also be involved in this process. Take the completed

documents, print them up in binders or other media and hand them out to all the people in the organization.

Once the business has been thoroughly documented and the work standards created make sure that they are regularly followed, no exceptions. If there are any problems with a document simply get feedback from the employees, then go back and revise the standards.

Once an area or process has been formally documented begin continuous improvement efforts, go out and look for simple commonsense ways to improve each and every process to become more efficient. Greater efficiency ultimately leads to the business becoming more profitable.

We have problems needing solutions.  We have people investigating these problems.  They research.  They investigate what other researchers have discovered.  They perform original research examining new views and new data.  They make hypothesis, perform experiments, and test the new information.   New processes and technology move from the laboratory and into practice; however, the new processes do not receive acceptance and enthusiastic implementation.  Our naive model is we learn, we apply knowledge, we improve, and we become more effective and more efficient.  The real life situation is far different from our naive model.  Rather than the smooth transition from concept to implementation, rejection is inevitable.  If outright denial is not apparent, then subtle subversion is almost certain.   Psychological and neurological research presents some insight into why people do not accept obvious improvements.  It shows why people work hard at keeping the status quo.

Our information transfer model starts with knowledge arising out of research, research develops into a useable technology, new technology becomes part of the curriculum in universities and schools, graduates carry their new technology into the workplace, then methods and processes face rejection in work life.   What causes the difficult entry into the work situation?   For example, why did statistical process control, developed by Dr. Walter Shewhart in May of 1924, have such a difficult time finding acceptance in modern American work?  It has considerable rejection even in 2007!   Most of us have the naпve notion we can learn new ideas, which are perfectly sound, then put those ideas into practice.   All we need is to present the concepts, prove its value, and enjoy the fruits.    The reality is a significant impediment exists between useful ideas and successful implementation.   Normal human behavior will revolt against productive transformation.   Individuals and groups relegate significant advances to the trash heap.   Understanding the rejection behavior is the key to negotiating the implementation hurdles successfully.   Understanding the behavior of people and groups is necessary to move Dr. Shewhart’s very simple ideas into broad practice.

Every person has a personal "theory of everything".   We exist in a world where reality is only a perception.   From our birth, we intake data then try to make sense of it with respect to previous data we collected.  The Scientist in the Crib by Alison Gopnik et al., documents how this process begins at birth.  Eventually we individually fit all this data into a grand mosaic of the universe, our own personal "theory of everything".

So long as we are alive, we are inside a meteor storm of new data.   We have plenty of receptors to recognize new information.   Upon discovering a new idea, we have only three options:  We can accept the new data as accurate; we can examine the new data for relevance and applicability; or we can reject the new information.

If we accept new data as accurate on its face, then we are unable to form a concept of the universe around us.   New data would just replace old data.  Let us use the analogy of a large jigsaw puzzle.  By blindly accepting new data, we would never find a starting point.  The jigsaw pieces could never relate to each other.  Even though all the pieces would be on the card table, we would never be able to distinguish the edge pieces for the interior pieces.  We would not be able to group pieces by having a common relationship with an adjacent piece.  We would not even be able to determine if we had seen this particular piece before.

The most prudent action is to consider the new data in relationship to our existing data bank.  Again, the puzzle analogy, we try to find a relationship to the already investigated portion of the picture.   Is it the edge?  Does it have a color relationship with the photographic theme?  Does it have a shape relationship with other pieces?  Perhaps we do not understand the real significance of its different attributes. Perhaps we will assemble the whole puzzle only to determine this in an errant piece.  Perhaps it came from a puzzle on an adjacent table.  Perhaps it is a malformed aberration.   Perhaps we need to reconsider our "theory of everything" and adjust the theory to account for new information.

By far the most dominant option is to reject the new data as incongruous with our "theory of every thing".  The new information could not possibly be correct, other wise it would fit into our personal theory, "You must be wrong otherwise we would not be arguing!"  A fundamental truth is reordering our personal "theory of everything" causes considerable anxiety.  For a great share of the population, having a comprehensive view of the universe, which accounts for all the observed data, is much less important than being at peace.    Rejection of new data is a much-preferred option to the intellectual rigor of forming a new "theory of everything" and enduring the emotional distress of the task of reformulation.   Psychological experiments support the notion most people prefer to be on the firmness of the ship’s deck even though in just a few hours the Titanic will sink.

Technology is simple enough to understand.   Great bodies of knowledge exist in every field.  Significant study, experiment, and refinement have moved every expertise far forward.  The twentieth century was the age of enlightenment.  Yet, it seems to be the age of greatest superstition.   The resistance to productive improvement is the subject of its own study, experiment, and refinement.  Steady research into the process of resistance provides some illumination.

At the core of the acceptance and integration of new work methods is a theory of dissonance postulated by Leon Festinger in 1957.  In his Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, he shows by experiment that new information and new ideas cause cognitive dissonance in individual minds.   The serene position is consonance where all is tranquil, when all data fits the personal "theory of everything."  Cognitive dissonance raises anxiety and other disturbing emotions.  People will work obsessively to reduce dissonance and restore consonance.    Perhaps an individual’s tolerance of dissonance relates to McGregor’s X and Y theories.

The naпve notion is management can introduce all the Lean Six Sigma concepts then the work force will stand up and cheer like the French when the Allies liberated Paris.   The real world situation is methods such as: Measure Define Analyze Improve and Control (DMAIC); Visual Factory; Kaizen; Kanban; Poke Yoke; and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) introduce significant dissonance.  Management has disrupted all the individual workers’ "theory of everything".  Substantial rebellion; some overt; some covert; and all real; will result from the dissonance.   This rebellion will have a considerable impact on the effectiveness of teams and Kaizen.   For Lean Six Sigma to work, we all need to understand the Festinger Theory of Cognitive Dissonance effect.  Understanding this psychological phenomenon will allow us to formulate strategies for successfully overcoming the rebellion.

As the mornings turn crisp and the days get shorter, it's time to begin thinking about the upcoming holiday season. While you may not be ready to start your gift shopping, it's not too early to consider how you are going to express holiday greetings to friends and family, business associates, and customers and clients.

Why Buy Greeting Cards Online?

Christmas cards and holiday cards serve purposes ranging from giving you the opportunity to update family members and friends about life events to marketing your business to customers and potential customers. But whether you send personal greeting cards, business holiday cards, or both, buying them online has several distinct advantages.

The first such advantage is selection. Whether you're looking for business Christmas cards, Thanksgiving cards, or other holiday cards, you'll find many more choices online than you will at a local card store. The second advantage is the ability to save money. Because online greeting card stores don't have the overhead expenses of brick-and-mortar stores, they're able to pass along the savings to their customers. Third, online stores typically offer personalization, both in the form of printing your family's name or the name of your business on the cards, and in printing your return address on the envelope. Fourth, you can usually get steep discounts if you order your Christmas cards early (by mid-October), before the holiday season is in full swing.

What to Look For When Buying Greeting Cards Online

While there are many online businesses that sell holiday cards, you need to choose the right one. You don't want to take the risk that your business Christmas cards will arrive at the end of December, or that the personalization is incorrect. Here are some services to look for when selecting an online source for holiday cards:

1. Longevity and Satisfied Customers. Look for a company that has been in business for at least three years and that can point to a loyal following of individuals and businesses that are happy with their products and services.

2. Quality and Pricing. If you're ordering in quantity, the company should offer bulk discounts. They should also offer an "early bird" discount if you place your order early. The company should be willing to send you sample cards so you can verify the quality of the card. They should also offer high-quality, coordinating envelopes, such as foil-lined envelopes.

3. Personalization. Look for a company that offers several forms of personalization. You should, for example, be able to select from among several different verses for the inside of your cards. They should also include up to four lines of imprinted text on your holiday cards at no extra cost, and allow you to choose from among at least four colors of ink.

4. Customer Service. The company you choose should make it easy for you to order. This means giving you the ability to order online, as well as the option of printing out an order form. They should also have live customer service representatives who can help you place your order and answer any questions you may have.

It's never too early to start thinking about Christmas cards and holiday greeting cards. Once you find the right online source for your needs, you'll never look back!

Everybody would love to make lots of money quickly, working from home, and only doing a few hours of work per week. I've spent the past two years trying to find a great way of doing this. Only over the course of the past few months have I found any "get rich quick" programs worth buying. I've been trying to make money online for a long time. I had a few small websites, but they never made much more than a few hundred per month. It was easy money and didn't require much work on my part, but I knew there were people out there doing better than I was and I knew I could do as well as them.

Now, I've seen a lot of "get rich quick" programs. Most of these people make claims about earning $2000/day with Google or something similarly insane. Almost all of these people are complete liars. Even if they were making $2000/day with Google AdSense, it'd be because they had high - traffic websites with a lot of quality content. I'd know, because in one whole month, I never even made half of what they promised I'd make daily with their programs. Maybe you've already been scammed by one of these fraudsters. Anyway, I finally got sick of what was being offered.

I decided I'd look through the all of the "get rich quick" programs I could find and see if there were any that were actually legitimate. I found that there were owners selling their programs for well over $100, but the information in them could be found almost anywhere online for free. Additionally, they all contained out-of-date information, had no e-mail support, no money back guarantees, and broken links in the downloads section.

In conclusion, almost all of the programs I found were completely useless. The owners knew it, but they couldn't care less about their customers since they didn't offer refund policies! Amazingly, while looking through all of the programs, I actually did find a few legitimate programs. They were run by ordinary people like you and me, and they had found some great methods of making money from their home by doing very little work.

I spent some time working with those programs, and my income is now ten times what it used to be. These programs provided a large amount of great information on how to make extra money on your computer doing very little work. Numerous customers had provided great feedback and reviews for their products. Many of them have started to make money just days after buying!

When you invest in sports memorabilia, you often don't realize how much the value can climb by the time you choose to sell. Likewise, it could decrease in value as well.

Appraisal is a must for the serious sports collector. People have been sorely disappointed because they didn't get their items appraised for value and then sold them for a fraction of their worth.

Some places to check for appraisals for sports memorabilia include:

1.) All Authentic Sports Memorabilia-professionals who can provide references and offer instant appraisals

2.) Vintage Sports Memorabilia Appraisals-has a sports artifacts library for thousands of vintage sports items, prefers email requests limited to two items, nothing newer than 1980.

3.) Krause Standard Catalog of Sports Memorabilia Price Guide

4.) Robert Connelly-He does clinics on appraisals. He's a member of the American Society of Appraisers and was honored by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

5.) American Legends-Provides paid appraisals, founded in 1992.

6.) Sports Memorabilia Appraisal Expert Witness-Provides an 800 #, volunteers background information to help give reference to its value as an appraisal business.

Besides the importance of appraisals for resale value, you may want to seriously consider having your valuable insured. Insurance companies also may not recognize the value unless you've had an appraisal done. Make sure you have documented proof.

There is a Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice which is recognized in courts and acceptable to banks, insurance companies, auction houses, and the IRS.

Don't just depend on a local sports shop or whatever available appraisal you come across. Also, consider that paying for more than one opinion is worthwhile if a lot of money is involved and if it gives you peace of mind.

Prices will change, so you'll want an updated value before decided to sell. Retired players hold their value better because their status won't change.

Make sure you sell to the right person or business. Just because an item is listed as one amount doesn't mean the dealer will agree to pay that amount.

Sweat stains don't necessarily make a jersey authentic. Anyone can wear a jersey long enough to sweat in it and try to pass it off as the real thing. Watch for smudged autographs, dog-eared pages in books, worn edges on cards. An appraiser should be trained to notice small details that would decrease the value of your collector's item.

There is a system with trading cards called grading. A graded card has a more reasonable guarantee of authenticity. Graded cards are sealed to discourage card switching, a low tactic of some sellers. The appraiser should know to recognize graded cards and their value.

When my daughter was involved in card collecting and bought a box of cards that seemed like a great deal to her, she was soon sorely disappointed. The only authentic card was the one in the display on the front of the box. All the rest were fakes, worthless. It was a waste of her hard-earned and long saved allowance. So beware of this type of scam when you buy a group of items. The appraisal value will be zero!

The holidays are a great time to be a retailer—60% of all retail sales are made during the holiday season. Millions of new online shoppers make their first internet purchases during this season, and their experience there can either erase their hesitancies about online shopping, or reinforce them. This gives you, as an eBiz owner, an opportunity to create loyal customers and generate repeat business.

That’s why you need to be ready when the holidays roll around—don’t get taken by surprise. Most people think the shopping season starts right after Thanksgiving. But Lisa Suttora of http://WhatDoISell.com says, “Holiday shoppers actually come online right about mid-August, when back-to-school-shopping tapers off, and they stay online until the end of January [when] they’ve spent all the extra holiday money.” The best way for you to cash in on the holiday buying season is to be prepared well in advance.

How to Prepare for the Holiday Season:

1. Get your inventory listed early. You don’t want to spend the holidays playing catch-up, so have your goods ready to go.

• Take stock of your inventory. Get it organized, and determine what needs to be listed.

• Systematize your operation. Don’t try to go through the entire listing process with each individual item. First, photograph all your items. Then upload and edit all your photos. Then write all your listings, and compile all your descriptions. By streamlining your processes this way, you’ll save a great deal of time.

2. Have a shipping game plan. The number one concern of holiday buyers is whether their purchases will make it on time, so timely shipping is crucial.

• Stock up on shipping materials prior to the holiday selling season. You can even order your shipping supplies online at http://USPS.com.

• Prepackage your products, whenever possible. This way you can just print a label off and be ready to go.

• You can, in most cases, arrange to have the post office pick up your packages at no charge, rather than standing in line for hours.

3.Customize according to your buyers’ needs.

• Offer gift wrapping and gift-recipient delivery. Customers value their time, especially around the holidays, and they’ll pay extra for the service and convenience.

• Provide them with multiple shipping options. By offering overnight and express delivery, you can make sales all the way to December 24 that your competitors who only offer priority mail will miss.

• Create unique gift packages. For example, put a Curious George stuffed toy with a Curious George book and movie and wrap them together in Curious George paper. Says Suttora, “What you’re doing is… pre-shopping for your customers.”

Customer Service is King

If your customers have a good holiday experience with you, they’ll most likely come again. Be in constant communication with them—you’re letting them know you’re on top of things. Always let them know their tracking numbers and order status. Respond immediately to their emails—not 24 hours later. When the sale is over, send them a thank you note—you’re reminding them you’re there and giving yourself a chance to promote your new products. Follow up on your sales—by building consumer confidence, you’ll produce repeat business throughout the rest of the year.

Millions of people around the world have had the dream of finding the perfect home based business and being able to fire their boss.  One thing that people just don't realize when they decide to take their home based internet marketing business online is that there's a lot more to it than meets the eye.  Most people who have searched for a suitable home based Internet Business opportunity complain about a common illness: They are sick and tired of websites that promote best home based Internet Business opportunities… sick and tired of the false promises, the over-hyped sales pitches, and the downright SCAMS that lurk behind most Internet Business opportunities.

Once you’ve decided what you are going to sell on the internet and how, you venture online to search for profitable home based business opportunities that appeal to you.  If you have finally decided to start your Internet home based business and have done all your home work, the key to making your home office conducive, as a working environment is organization.  Also, start a business that you enjoy, you have to be motivated to wake up in the morning ready to start the day with your home based business, you are your own boss. After you've done your research on how to start your own home based business, you should be ready to be a home based business owner.

An internet home based business can either offer a service that another person may need (like web design or programming) or can offer a service that brings the “have’s” and the “have not’s” together.  After you decide which direction you want to focus your internet home based business the next best step is to start learning how others are making a profit.