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Virtual Meetings Cut Travel Costs
A majority of companies have higher travel expenses than they need," says Alisa Jenkins, senior director at Bredin Business Information, a business consulting firm. "This doesn't mean you have to cut out all travel. There are still many cases where meeting face to face is best. But there are also good ways to meet virtually that can make many of your business trips unnecessary."Alternatives to business travel - such as web conferencing with Microsoft Office Live Meeting or similar products - continue to improve with advances in internet and related technologies, most agree. We'll address the options, including video conferencing, teleconferencing, online collaboration tools and the web conferencing in detail below.But first: When do you absolutely need to meet? Here are some scenarios mentioned by experts:You are meeting a new client.You are introducing new people - perhaps your replacement - to an ongoing but important business relationship.You are attempting to close a significant sale or cut an important deal.

ether for basic entertainment or for network communications. Let’s look at the existing telecom tool bag for assets. Verizon Broadband Wireless, SBC broadband, DirecTV – or an enterprising start up company using a Gobi Desert style wireless campus hub. All could deliver a service equal to or better than services formerly riding on top of the copper infrastructure – or for areas which are simply “Greenfield” sites with no existing cable plant or telephone infrastructure. Surprise, all are available in our reconstruction zone.

You might say “well, you know wireless and cable have little c

Strategic Planning: A Must for All Organisations
Strategic planning, the what and the why of planning, is often overlooked by organisations who concentrate on tactical planning, the how of planning. The resultant business plan is overwhelmed by tactical initiatives and pet projects. Alignment with a strategy to attain the organisation's goals is achieved by accident.Strategic planning is often seen as unnecessary or at times, not even contemplated in an environment benign to the organisation, e.g. high levels of market growth or monopoly situations. In my experience, a strategic plan based on basic critical thinking is a precursor to developing a competitive advantage where often none has previously been seen.The dotcom boom and bust during the last decade is the clearest example of the adage, “failing to plan is planning to fail”. A Boston consulting study in 2000 revealed that the key problems resulting in failure of companies were 59% poor revenue cost and profit model, 55% no competitive advantage and 34% lack of consumer benefit. It is clear from the study that many fewer dotcoms would have started

At first glance the project appeared impossible. Here we were, in the middle of the desert, 500 miles from the nearest real city – and we needed to install a campus telecom network covering an area of about 150 square kilometers. Objective was to make campus communications function at the same level as a city-based industrial campus. Memories of military leadership exercises came to mind, where with a limited number of tools you faced an expectation that with a bit of tenacity and creativity under the right conditions your team could make sea shells do HF radio.

We go back to basic telecom engineering. Your task is to take a budget, existing or emerging technology, a relatively clear set of objectives – and then design a flexible solution that completely meets and exceeds everybody’s expectations. Of course this must be ahead of schedule and under budget. Simple, right?

So in the middle of the desert we incorporate new technologies, such as wireless bridging to connect major campus locations, VoIP to take advantage of lower startup and operating costs for both internal and external communications, a VSAT link to the home office, and then gateways for network connectivity and voice transit/termination. Using a numbering plan provided by the upstream VoIP provider, and voila! You are now an extension of the office PBX located 3000 miles away in the comfort of your company home office.

Only fixed lines in the scenario are LAN connections within campus buildings, and that is only really useful for connecting file servers to the LAN/WLAN, or VoIP phones to the LAN. This is for those old folks who still mentally find themselves attached to a desktop handset – not those of us using a wireless PDA with a softphone, or WiFi handset.

Surprise – in 2002 we built a model very similar to this for a mining company in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Details on demand.

Shift to Seoul South Korea. Walking along the street you see a lot of phone booths. Funny thing is there are no wires connecting to the phone booths, and you see a little antenna sticking up from the top of the booth. Explanation is wireless DSL. Cool.

Shift to New Orleans, Morris Point (Minnesota), or Long Beach. New developments going in, old developments being demolished as part of post storm reconstruction. All needing high performance communications infrastructure – whether for basic entertainment or for network communications. Let’s look at the existing telecom tool bag for assets. Verizon Broadband Wireless, SBC broadband, DirecTV – or an enterprising start up company using a Gobi Desert style wireless campus hub. All could deliver a service equal to or better than services formerly riding on top of the copper infrastructure – or for areas which are simply “Greenfield” sites with no existing cable plant or telephone infrastructure. Surprise, all are available in our reconstruction zone.

You might say “well, you know wireless and cable have little ca

Cold Call Now & Good Results Will Follow
This morning I wrote about my cold calling reluctance, spawned by five easily changeable conditions.Now, it’s exactly 5:12 p.m. and the official calling day is over.Did I make myself make calls, and if so, how did I do?You might recall I was dragging my derriere because of an overactive weekend filled with hiking, karate, swimming, and resistance training.But instead of wallowing in my sloth, I got up and did 40 reps each with my Soloflex machine and dumbbells, and it really got the blood pumping. I placed the zillion odds and ends and bills and coupons that had been littering my desk into neat piles.And I told myself it was stupid to guess what prospects would say, the ones I was following up with, when I could KNOW, simply by dialing and smiling.Let me cut to the chase for you.I got GREAT results today, closing two new seminar sponsors, which had been my goal.Of course, there is coordination work to be done, but they AGREED to work with me, and in so doing they triggered an insight that I’d like to share with you

om engineering. Your task is to take a budget, existing or emerging technology, a relatively clear set of objectives – and then design a flexible solution that completely meets and exceeds everybody’s expectations. Of course this must be ahead of schedule and under budget. Simple, right?

Surprise – in 2002 we built a model very similar to this for a mining company in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Details on demand.

You might say “well, you know wireless and cable have little c

Guy Talk And The Business Women
Women managers, women business owners and other business women must sometimes contend with unenlightened behavior and attitudes from male colleagues.You can either choose to get your dander up each time, which induces stress and health issues that hurt you (not the guy) or figure out how to deal effectively with it.Business Communication That ExcludesWomen in business sometimes find themselves in the situation where the conversation turns to subjects that exclude her, such as sports, hunting, etc. Now, while not all business women will feel excluded from some or any of these subjects, there are certainly times when they do get excluded in male-dominated conversations.What choices do you have in these situations? Clearly, it depends on the situation. If you are traveling with colleagues and they get into a big conversation about Tiger Woods and you couldn’t care less, fine, zone out and re-enter the conversation when it’s more interesting to you.However, if the conversation is taking place over dinner at a res

and voice transit/termination. Using a numbering plan provided by the upstream VoIP provider, and voila! You are now an extension of the office PBX located 3000 miles away in the comfort of your company home office.

Surprise – in 2002 we built a model very similar to this for a mining company in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Details on demand.

You might say “well, you know wireless and cable have little c

What You Must Do for One Whole Day, Every Week for Your Business
Do you experience periods of feast or famine in your business? Do you only think about marketing when you realize you are running low on clients? Do you have some steady clients but you’d love to have more? Or are you still struggling to barely reach your key business goals? If any of these situations describe you, and you are serious about making some changes, I have an idea for you. First, a few more questions.Be honest, how much time do you spend on business development, activities to sustain and grow your business? How often do you take action to develop your business? Do you do it randomly whenever it occurs to you? If you are like many business owners you are planning to do it later, when you have more time, after you have finished all of the urgent things you are doing that keep you so busy. How’s that working for you?It won’t happen unless YOU make it happen. The key is to plan it and do it consistently. You’ve probably heard this quote from Einstein before and it is worth repeating here - “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over an

ilt a model very similar to this for a mining company in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Details on demand.

You might say “well, you know wireless and cable have little c

Friction Favors the Defense Because An Attack Takes Time
One of the reasons the defensive form of warfare is so strong is the difficulty of launching a surprise attack.“In theory,” says Clausewitz, “surprise promises a great deal. In practice, it generally strikes fast by the friction of the whole machine.”In theory, the 1916 battle of the Somme was going to be a surprise attack. But after moving a million men into position and waiting a week for the artillery to do its job, the Allies were left with little surprise.The larger the operation, the less the surprise. A small company might be able to surprise a big company with a new product. But Ford is unlikely to pull any fast ones on General Motors. The friction of the whole machine gets in the way.When you look at case histories of leaders who were taken by surprise, you usually find they had ample warning. Leader gets overrun when they ignore those warnings or pooh-pooh the efforts of the competition.In Mein Kampf, a book that sold some 10 million copies Hitler told England and France exactly what he intended to do. A decade later he did i

You might say “well, you know wireless and cable have little capacity – it is not suitable for the high traffic links needed to run a business or entertainment. Hmm… Looking at marketing materials for companies such as Gigabeam (www.gigabeam.com) it appears we can now sling up to about 10Gbps through the air – that is a pretty healthy bridge. You can sling 10Gbps up to a mile, 1Gbps a couple miles, and other capacities down to 512 Mbps up to about 30 miles line of sight. Probably enough to meet the needs of Morris Point, Minnesota. Probably enough to meet the neighborhood needs of Long Beach, California as well.

OK, the capacity argument is history. Wireless can actually provide much higher “line” capacity than existing copper cable plant, and it is a heck of a lot less expensive. Next argument…

Hmm… starting to run short on arguments for replacing existing models of “land line” communications with wireless? Don’t feel lonely. About the only model of outside cable plant being installed is fiber intended for use by telephone companies to increase line capacity to homes in an effort to compete with cable television companies. Verizon’s FIOS will carry not only >50Mbps Internet access to the home, it will also handle entertainment channels quite nicely. Far cry from plain old telephone service (POTS). So Verizon’s intent is not to deliver high performance POTS, it is to deliver telephone, CATV, and high speed Internet. Also cool.

As a competitive entertainment and telecommunications project, we look forward to more creative and useful ideas coming from all telecom companies. I personally do not care if my entertainment comes from Comcast, DirecTV, SBC, Verizon, or Time Warner – I simply want the most advanced entertainment and communications available. I do not care if it is over fiber, copper, or through the air. I just want 450 TV channels, Internet that provides whatever content I want with no delay, and an effective way to communicate with any telephone or presence device to any point in the world.

However I live in a very technically advanced part of the United States, have not suffered a catastrophic natural disaster, and am not at the mercy of a single telecom provider.

Back to the gulf coast and Morris Point. You need to deliver high performance communications to every addressable home and business in the area. You need to do it fast. You need to do it under a reasonable budget. Do

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The new Blackberry 8100 Pearl cell phone is one of the smallest, sleekest cell phones ever made.

Developing an effective marketing program for your home-based or Internet business can seem overwhelming unless you break it down into managable, bite-size pieces. In addition to staying motivated and constantly attuned to what others are doing in the marketplace, here are some tips that can help establish a strong marketing framework to put your small business on a faster track to growth.

Nearly all trade show displays are shipped in cases that are designed to hold hardware, graphics, display lighting, and other trade show products. Often, these cases can be easily converted to a podium or counter with a simple fabric or graphic wrap to encircle the case.

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