Filed under: Business Tools,IT — admin @ 9:54 am
People have different technological learning curves. Some pick up new things incredibly quickly and are always on top of the latest tech trends. Others lag behind, learning new things long after the general populace. Companies are quickly becoming more and more tech savvy and firms which were once late adopters are now becoming trailblazers. This has manifested itself in the use of great services like conference calls with Powwownow by companies all around the world.
Small companies are very much leading the way in this respect, for quite obvious reasons. New technology often allows businesses to perform complicated functions while avoiding significant costs. For instance, companies use sophisticated conference call programs to cut down on travel and allow people to work from home. Small firms are very adaptive and can quickly adopt new technology, overhauling their entire function in just a few days.
These days it is not just the nimble small companies adopting new technology, and corporate giants are starting to get involved. Indeed, huge companies are experimenting with cloud computing and other advanced stuff. These kinds of changes take time and a great deal of money to implement, yet these firms are seeing huge benefits. Indeed, when administrative costs are cut down in a big company it can translate to millions of dollars off the bottom line. Given the savings that are available, we can only expect this to increase and we will soon see major corporations leading the way with new technology.
In the past it was individuals and very small companies which pushed us forward with technology. This is likely to persist for a few years, yet it seems that a sleeping giant has woken and major corporations are soon going to start adopting their practices to cutting edge technology. This is a great thing for many workers as they will see their jobs streamlined and benefit hugely from improved technology. It is likely that some of these companies will move too fast though – we all know how trying it is when a new system functions wrong, this happening for a huge company will multiply this level of chaos many times over. Nonetheless, fast adoption of technology will only spur innovation further, and that cannot fail to be a good thing.
Filed under: Business equipment,Business Tools,IT — admin @ 12:47 pm
The stage is set, you have that fateful interview with Van Morrison. You know fine well that he’s a grumpy and does not suffer fools gladly, if there is any issues he will probably hang up. So how do you make the call go as smooth as possible?
1. Remember the ‘holy couplet’ of conference calling. Dial the right number and be on time/early! Furthermore remember to familiarise yourself with the phone conferencing system you will be using beforehand.
2. Introduce yourself and encourage others to do the same. Participating in a meeting on the phone is a little un-natural to some people and a little introduction will help them get involved from that start.
3. Names are extremely important in a conference call. Learn everyone’s name beforehand and use them regularly. This will help to prevent callers answering the same question at the same time and talking over one another.
4. Use a quiet, undisturbed room with no background noise. A quiet room is exactly what it says. The only thing that should have the capacity to make unrestrained audible noise is you. In an ideal world your audience will find it amusing to hear you tussle with Fido screaming expletives at him. However in reality your audience would find it much more amusing to watch Hamsters surfing on You Tube but can’t because their boss said they have to talk to you.
5. If at all possible do not use mobile or cordless phones. Remember when the 3G network was being touted about with people proclaiming that everyone would have crystal clear connection wherever we were. It didn’t happen. If your goal is to trick your fellow callers into thinking you are Stephen Hawking in the midst of a sneezing fit go ahead, otherwise use a land-line.
6. Be cautious with the mute button. If you must use mute in order to make a private comment to the people in the room for your sake be careful. The reality is that a conference call, like everything else we encounter in our lives, follows sod’s law. You may be well versed when it comes to how to mute conference calls effectively and you may even have done it before. But you know as well as I do that when you use it in order to have a moan about one of your callers it won’t work. So, if you must use it be careful.
7. If you must nip out to relieve yourself during a conference call make sure that using your hold button does not commence your novelty on hold music. Everyone loves a novelty jingle but it may be distract Dave from accounts in his final year financial analysis. He doesn’t participate in much human interaction, so be nice and don’t ruin his time in the sun.
Take these tips on board and go forth and conquer phone conferencing in all its glory.
