Friday, June 7, 2013

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Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Marketing Communications - The Cornerstone of a Growing Business

Successful businesses today must be extremely aware of their marketing communications. Reaching your customers is the most important step in growing your business, and in today's 24/7 information society there are more marketing options available than ever before.

From television and radio commercials, to e-mails and banner ads, to product reviews and sponsorships, public relations is just as much about what medium you use to spread your message as it is about the message itself. A good strategic marketing plan should begin with an analysis of the best ways to reach your potential customers, and will end with a successful marketing campaign. For some businesses, the internet is the bread and butter of their strategic communications plan.

Many businesses have found that direct email campaigns to qualified leads is the most effective form of marketing communication for them. Potential customers receive an e-mail about a product, service or event that may interest them and they react positively. Other businesses may find that having their business or product promoted on another website is the most strategic marketing campaign for their customers.

Marketing Communications - The Cornerstone of a Growing Business

Having someone else sing your company's praises is often more enticing to a potential customer than praising yourself would be. Still other companies have found that simply advertising on popular websites is enough to generate additional business. Public relations firms specialize in determining what the most strategic marketing communications plan is for their clients. They know that in order to promote their client's business, they must find the best way to reach their client's potential customers.

A good firm will do extensive market research and determine what mediums their client's competitors are using to reach potential customers. They will then develop a strategic communications plan that is custom tailored to their client. This plan may include running print ads in publications that their client's potential customers are likely to read or buying advertising slots on TV or radio programs that the competition is currently appearing on or some combination of these different approaches.

Whatever the medium used is, the goal of marketing communications is always the same. To get your company's name in front of your potential customers and to cultivate a public image that will help to turn all of that potential into reality. With a good strategic communications plan in place, your business will grow. Maintaining that growth requires constantly perfecting your marketing communication plan and managing your public relations every day.

Marketing Communications - The Cornerstone of a Growing Business
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Virgil W. Magee is the Deputy Director of Media Analysis for Strategic Communications for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, Afghanistan. In his position he is responsible for the identification and analysis of local, regional and global media trends pertaining to multinational ISAF and North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) alliance missions and strategic objectives for 42 partner nation defense and foreign affairs ministerial-level organizations, NATO and United Nations mandated missions.

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Project Communications - How to Keep Your Team Engaged and Informed

Communications are a critical deliverable of every successful project and a key project management soft skill. You may not have thought of communications as an actual project deliverable, but it is. It may not be the one your client or customer places the most emphasis on, but that's because every client and customer will take good communications for granted.

Project communications is one deliverable that you are personally responsible for and it's one that has a large influence over your project's success or failure. I say this because personal experience has taught me that the best managed projects, delivering on all their promise, on time, and on budget can still get a bad reputation and be perceived as failures. The reason: the project manager did not do an adequate job of communicating project success to their stakeholders.

We hope that the information and template in this section will help guide you to choose the right information, schedule, and communication vehicles for your project.

Project Communications - How to Keep Your Team Engaged and Informed

The Major Elements of Project Communications

Who to Communicate to
You could just say that it's important to communicate with all the project's stakeholders and leave it at that but this approach would guarantee failure. Each individual stakeholder has a different set of requirements for project information, and prefers different ways of receiving their communications. It will not be possible to define a unique set of communications and communication vehicles for each stakeholder in most projects so the best you can do is identify the different category of stakeholder and define the required information and communication methods that best suits the group.

Executive Sponsor/Business Sponsor Probably the most important customer(s) of your project's communications. It's going to be worth your while to define a custom set of communications for each person in this category. Generally speaking, these are busy people who don't have a lot of time to read a lot of detail. Charts and graphs that tell the viewer a lot about the project at a glance will probably work best for them.

Take the time to interview them about their preferences: what they need to know, how they want to be communicated with, and how often. Keeping them informed about project performance is critical because they sign the cheque for the project (including your salary). They also need information so they can keep their peers apprised of the project's performance. Remember, they are your project's champions so the better armed with information they are, the better job they can do promoting your project.

Tip: don't report a problem to them without suggesting a solution. For example, if you're reporting an SPI of less than 1.0 for the 2nd week in a row, you need to include a corrective action with the report.

Project Team Members This is the single most populous group in your list of stakeholders. You may want to subdivide the group into sub-groups based on their roles. For example you may want to have a different set of communications for the Business Analysts and Software Developers, or for the Electricians and Plumbers on your project. This group has a different perspective on project performance than sponsors: the sponsor views the project as work being done for them. The team member views the project as work being done by them and therefore reports on project performance are a reflection on them. A good report pleases everyone - project sponsors and team members. A bad report will cause the sponsor to worry but may negatively impact team morale.

Customers/Clients These can be internal to your organization, or external to it. These people may profess no particular interest in project communications until the final product or service is delivered. You need to overcome this disinterest and pique their interest in project progress. The more informed they are on the project as it progresses through its lifecycle, the more likely they are to accept the resulting products or services.

Partners These are people who are doing work that is in some way affected by the work of your project. You may both be working on projects that are part of a program, or your projects may simply affect one another without further integration. For example, you may be managing a software project that requires a corresponding database project - the database project team is your partner. Or, you may be working on a software system new software system that will utilize an existing web portal for customer access - the portal team is your partner despite the fact they aren't performing a project.

Community Stakeholders These are an increasingly important category of stakeholder. As more emphasis is being placed on organizations ethical behavior and social responsibility, there is an increasing demand for projects to be performed ethically. One of the ways this is done is by treating those who don't belong to the performing organization, or to the customer/client organization, as project stakeholders. Consideration of these stakeholders must go beyond communications, but project communications constitute an important part of your ethical dealings with them.

Project Manager Don't forget to include yourself as a stakeholder. Your need for project information is perhaps the most important for the project. If you aren't receiving the information you need to run the project, you won't be able to share it with other stakeholders. Your needs will stem from the need to be updated on the progress of the individual tasks of the project so that you can keep the project plans up to date and identify preventive or corrective actions.

Project Management Office (PMO) Your PMO may have requirements for project information that will enable it to identify opportunities for process improvement. While these needs are very much like the needs of sponsors, customers, and clients to know how the project is progressing to plan, its focus is on the project processes, tools, techniques, and best practices it supports. Your PMO may also be tasked with reporting on project progress to the organization. Reports which the PMO is responsible for should provide very specific requirements for information.

What to Communicate
What project information to communicate to a stakeholder group is inextricably tied to the information that is available for communication. After all, you can't communicate what you don't know. On the other hand, if the need for the information is real and gathering the information is feasible, you should make every effort to make it available. The choice of the information to be communicated cannot be made without considering the project's tools and techniques for gathering the information and vice versa.

Project communications is not a key deliverable of the project, but it should be treated as a project deliverable. Start with your Project Charter: does the project charter contain any requirements for information? If it does, the information and its target audience ought to be included in your Communications Management Plan. Your Scope Statement may also include requirements for project communications. The Statement of Work (SOW) may also have captured requirements for project communications. When you are performing a project for an external customer or client the SOW is your bible and any project communications that are part of the legal contract should be specified there.

After identifying all the needs already expressed in the project documentation to date, you need to solicit requirements from the various groups of stakeholders. This solicitation should be done in the context of what is feasible for the project to deliver. Be prepared to meet with your sponsor to identify their requirements. Be specific as to presentation: should the SPI (Schedule Performance Index) be shown as a bar graph with a rolling 6 week tally? Should it be shown as a line graph with the benchmark line of 1.0 and a rolling 6 month tally? You may even want to mock up some sample reports to let them choose the format.

A project dashboard is a popular instrument for communicating project progress to sponsors and other senior executives. The dashboard is meant to show the status of your project at a glance and may consist of the project's SPI, CPI (Cost Performance Index), SV (Schedule Variance), CV (Cost Variance), PV (Planned Value), AC (Actual Cost), and EV (Earned Value). As a rule, you shouldn't mix schedule indicators with cost indicators, but you can show schedule and cost indicators in any combination your sponsor would like. You may also want to include such things as the top 5 risks, top 5 outstanding issues, metrics on change (number of change requests, number accepted, number of rejected, total costs, etc.), and quality (number of tests, number passed, number failed, outstanding bug reports, etc.). You should try to keep your dashboard to a handful of slides and provide supporting detail in text, or Excel format as backup.

You should repeat the requirements gathering exercise with each group of stakeholders, weighing their need for information with the project's ability to gather and communicate it. Tip: share as much of the information reported to the other groups with the project team (the people actually doing the work of the project), as is possible. Your organization may have policies or guidelines around what can and cannot be shared outside executive offices; share as much information with the team as possible without violating these policies. You'll find sharing positive reports will boost morale, while sharing negative reports will stop the rumors that will further erode morale.

Be prepared to capture and report information by stakeholder group, department, or sub-project. The individual groups on your team will want the ability to view their progress in isolation from the rest of the team. Tip: make sure that you break the work down so that tasks performed by individual groups or departments are identifiable. This will enable you to report performance group by group or department by department and still roll totals up to report for the entire project.

The information you plan to communicate will drive your activities throughout the project. Your plans should include the metrics that must be gathered in order to support the information you plan to communicate. You will need to identify who is responsible for providing the information and where the information is to be stored and reported from. There are 2 questions you need to ask yourself before you commit to providing a report:
1. How do I get this information? (i.e. what metrics do I need to capture and where will they come from)
2. Where will I store the metrics?
A failure to answer both questions will mean that either you have to alter your plan to task someone to gather the metric, identify a tool to capture and retrieve the metric, or drop the requirement.

Finally, don't forget individual accomplishments and rewards when reporting project progress. There's nothing like a good news story to keep team morale high and the celebration of a team member's accomplishment is something most sponsors enjoy hearing about.

How to Communicate
There are many different means of communication available to you - face to face, e-mail, intranet, internet, regular mail, phone, video conferences, etc., etc. These can be grouped into 2 groups: "push" communications and "pull" communications. Push communications requires you to push the information onto the recipient as the name would suggest, while pull communications requires the recipient to actively retrieve the information from a central source. Web sites and centralized repositories are examples of pull communications, while e-mail and meetings are examples of push communications.

Preference for either push or pull communications is typically a personal preference. Some people deal with information best when it's presented to them and some prefer to retrieve it at their own convenience. Be prepared for conflicting requirements from individuals in your stakeholder groups. You may have to make the final decision on which method to use if there are conflicting requests. Alternatively, you may be able to identify a spokesperson for the group who will be empowered to identify the group's requirements. The exception to this rule is your project's sponsor. Because there is only one or two of these people, you need to ensure that your communication methods suit their requirements.

Tip: If you determine that the project must have a new tool, such as a web site, to satisfy a stakeholder requirement, you'll need to justify the cost with a business case. State the benefits to the project in business terms that justify the costs. You can also include benefits that supersede your project. For example a web site or tool such as Lotus Notes could benefit all projects your organization performs, and may even provide a benefit to operations. You may also want to explore having the PMO, or Operations bear the cost of the new tool.

When to Communicate
Your communication schedule will be driven by the needs of your audience and the availability of the information to be communicated. For example, if you had the bandwidth, you could report on any metrics managed by your MS Project file daily. On the other hand, you can't report on the results of your Gate Meeting until the Gate Meeting has actually been held. There is also no reason that a report communicated to one stakeholder group bi-weekly, can't be communicated to another group every week.

You need to use common sense in addition to capturing your stakeholders' requirements. If you choose to use a "town hall" to communicate to all stakeholders, don't schedule the meeting to occur weekly. Tip: when planning a meeting that involves you (or another team member) communicating information to an audience, count the audience, multiply that number by the number of hours the meeting lasts and multiply that number by the loaded labor rate for that group. Avoid spending large amounts on frequent communications.

Other meetings, such as status review meetings with project teams must be done more often to avoid the project going off the rails. I find that when the project is on track, weekly status review meetings are sufficient. When your project encounters problems, you might want to increase the frequency to better control the work. In extreme cases such as a project rescue, you may need to hold them daily. Tip: when the project is running smoothly and you have an alternate means of identifying completed tasks, don't be afraid to cancel a status review meeting and give the team an hour off!

Remember that communications is part of the project work. You should manage that work in your MS Project file like other project tasks, but be sensible - don't overload yourself by tracking every meeting in MS Project. You should be using the "walk around" style of management if your team is collocated, you needn't track each informal meeting you have with individual team members. Use MS Project to help you control the project, not overload yourself with work.

Tools and Techniques
Tools and techniques include tools you'll use to convey the information, tools you'll use to gather the information, and tools you'll use to store and retrieve the information. Conveyance tools will include e-mail, web sites, web casts, conference calls, video conferencing, public directories, town hall meetings, and graphical tools such as Excel. What you're communicating, how you need to communicate it, and your communication budget will determine which of these tools you'll use.

There is one tool that you'll rely on more than any other to manage information about your project: MS Project (or Primavera, if that's the tool your company has selected for use). These tools are referred to as Project Management Information Systems (PMIS) by most PMP Exam preparation courses and in the PMBOK. These tools are capable of capturing, manipulating, and reporting most of your project's relevant information so you need to be very familiar with their use. There are many excellent courses available that will ground you in the fundamentals of their use.

Your organization may employ a time tracking system in which case you have an additional source of information. Your time tracking tool should allow you to report on labor costs for your project (i.e. support the charging of time to your project code). It should also support the reporting of these costs by group and by type of work. For example it should tell you how much time was spent last week on analysis of your software project. You should reconcile the metrics from the time tracking system with your MS Project file to ensure they tally. Tip: if your time tracking system is used to generate the pay cheque for your team, make it your bible. A discrepancy means your MS Project file may be inaccurate.

MS Project comes complete with a selection of "canned" reports ready for your use. I have found that it's most useful feature for reporting project progress is its ability to export data to an Excel spreadsheet. Because Excel has been around so long it's feature rich and supports just about any type of graph or chart you can imagine. The trick here is to export the information you need to base your report on, then edit it in Excel. MS Project contains ample help facilities on how to export data.

I mentioned the 2 different categories for distributing information: push and pull. Many of your project's communications will lend themselves equally well to both methods. For example, if you communicate you can review your dashboard report with the project executive steering committee during a meeting, push it to the project team via an e-mail broadcast, and archive it on a public directory or the project's web site.

Lastly, remember that the accuracy of the information you communicate about the project will have a profound affect, either good or bad, on your reputation. You need to do your utmost to ensure the information you communicate is accurate. Measures such as the reconciliation between time sheets and your MS Project file can save you from making claims about project progress that aren't supported by the facts. Even with that degree of scrutiny your information can still be misleading or out of date. Be open and honest with your communications: tell your audience where the information comes from, how it was compiled, and how old it is. Be forthcoming with any information that could impact on the accuracy of your reports and let your audience form their own opinions of the accuracy and value of your communications.

Project Communications - How to Keep Your Team Engaged and Informed
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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Leadership Lessons From Apollo 13

You might be surprised to know you can learn valuable leadership lessons from watching the Apollo 13 movie popping up on various cable channels these days. Wanting success did not get this spacecraft back to earth. True leaders have strategies they employ to make sure failure, as they say in the movie, is not an option.

The first step is, of course, communicating that you have a problem in the first place and "Houston, we have a problem" did just that. Let's continue our journey to find out what else the Apollo 13 movie can teach us about leadership:

o Don't Wait to Call in Your Support Team. Build a back-up support team into your project. At the first sign of trouble, ask for help. Call them up; get them out of bed just like in the movie. Think of your support team as understudies for the project. They know what you know.

Leadership Lessons From Apollo 13

o Work the Problem. Defining the problem is the hardest part of problem solving. They didn't solve part of the problem with the spacecraft and then congratulate themselves--this is common and usually creates additional work. Don't make the problem worse by guessing what is wrong.

o Know When to Cut Your Losses. Listen to the experts on your team. It didn't take much time to decide they weren't going to moon. They didn't dwell on it. They kept going; and so should you.

o Stay Calm. In the movie, multiple people write down coordinates, check them and report results to the leadership. They remain calm despite the life-and-death situation. If they could do this on Apollo 13, you can do it at your office.

o Keep Communication Avenues Open. In the film, one character turns off his television and takes his phone off the hook, costing valuable time and input in solving the crisis. Make sure you can get in touch with people on your team. Create a policy if you must.

o Work with What You Have---Not What You Wish For. Many leadership teams waste valuable time and effort discussing what could have been. Remorse, like other regrets, accomplishes nothing. In the movie, one team dumps actual items they have to work with in the spacecraft to correct oxygen levels on a table. Enough said.

o Be Creative. In the movie, one character despairs at how the items on the table can solve the oxygen problem--they weren't designed for this, he declares. The leader responds: "I don't care what it was designed to do. I care what it can do."

o Never Stop Practicing. Simulate success at every opportunity. Try it out. In the movie, the astronaut on the ground works the test chamber until the process is successful. Test your theories.

o Stick to Tried-and-True Procedures. Don't throw everything out the window. You probably had good reason to come up with your procedures. They worked for a reason, and will do so again.

o Restate Your Vision. Leaders need to remind people why the work needs to be done in both positive--and sometimes dramatic terms.

When Apollo 13 occurred, America was facing its first serious space disaster. It didn't happen. The team leader told them it wouldn't--inspiring success.

Leadership Lessons From Apollo 13
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For more information see [http://www.browninglafrankie.com]

© BrowningLaFrankie 2009

Darrell L. Browning is a principal and founder of BrowningLaFrankie, LLC, a Philadelphia-based company specializing in helping companies manage crisis situations, train leaders in media and presentation skills and facilitate strategic change through leadership coaching and organizational development workshops. BrowningLaFrankie are trainers-of-choice for The Wharton School MBA Program at the University of Pennsylvania in crisis communications, media training and business writing. We work with companies and organizations of all sizes both internationally and across the United States. We help companies who need to change--but may not know how--develop strategic plans including assessment, goals and action plans to put you back on the path of success. And if you need specific communication training in media, presentation or leadership skills, we can help. For more information see our website at [http://www.browninglafrankie.com] or contact us by e-mail at info@browninglafrankie.com. To receive articles on a regular basis, sign up for our popular ezine or read past issues by clicking on our Contact page, Past Newsletters (bottom right of page) of our website.

Should you have questions regarding BrowningLaFrankie, you may contact Mr. Browning directly at (215) 627-4811 or db@browninglafrankie.com.

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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

DISABILITY and Relationships = COMMUNICATIONS

One of the most difficult areas facing those of us with a disability, and/or those of us living with a chronic illness, is COMMUNICATION!! We have to communicate with others - family, medical care, friends, strangers, etc. AND, they have to be able to communicate with us. So, the better we can communicate with others, the better off we will be in soliciting, receiving, and giving help. AND, if you are like me, you were raised to GIVE help, not to get it! You were the caregiver; being on the receiving end is very hard to do.

This blog is separated into two distinct areas. The first is a way to assist us better communicate what is going on with us, to others. The second part is information designed to literally "hand" to others, so that they know how to communicate with us as an actual "person" and not as a "disease".

To start off, I found this great website in Australia, designed to "link" folks together who have disabilities and disability needs. The acronym used is "TEAM". It means: Together, Everyone Achieves More! I love this concept, and thought you might also.

DISABILITY and Relationships = COMMUNICATIONS

So, how in the world do you document all about YOU?? Well, if you are intending to use the information in obtaining your disability insurances, I recommend the Workbook that we offer at http://www.disabilitykey.com. The attachments in the Workbook allow you to document your symptoms, and have actual examples of forms and letters that you can use in your process, as well as the actual "How-To" process.

Additionally, I havae found this fantastic website, originating from the State of Washington. It shows you a model of communicating to all about "you". Unlike the disabilitykey Workbook, it does not provide you with the actual forms. However, if you are computer-savvy enough, you can duplicate the pages yourself. Included are the following sections:

Care Teams

About Me

Diagnoses

Next Steps

Health Log

Medications

Reactions

History

Advanced Directives

I'd add one more section, personally, about family, friends, relatives, etc.

Here's the link: [https://www.sharedcareplan.org/Home/Guest.asp]

You now know how important it is to document all the information about YOU. Now you can share it with others. Once documented, all you have to do is update the information, as it changes. In this way, you do not have to rely on memory.

INFORMATION TO GIVE TO OTHERS ON HOW TO TREAT YOU (the person with the disability) as a PERSON, NOT AN ILLNESS

Again, the following information has been gleaned from a variety of sources.

The way a person refers to persons with disabilities shapes his/her beliefs and ideas about that person. Using appropriate terms can foster positive attitudes about persons with disabilities. One of the major improvements in communicating with and about people with disabilities is "people-first" language. People-first language emphasizes the person, not the disability. By placing the person first, the disability is no longer the primary, defining characteristic of an individual but one of several aspects of the whole person.

For example, it is preferred to say, "people with disabilities" instead of "the disabled"; or "Mary has a vision impairment" , or, "Mary is vision-impaired" instead of labeling the person by saying, "Mary is blind."

An exception to this rule is for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. In general, the deaf community does not like to be referred to as having hearing impairments. It prefers deaf or hard of hearing. Use "hard of hearing" to refer to people who have hearing loss but communicate in spoken language. "People with hearing loss" is also considered acceptable. Many people who are deaf and communicate with sign language consider themselves to be members of a cultural and linguistic minority. They refer to themselves as Deaf with a capital "D" and may be offended by the term "hearing impaired." Many Deaf do not believe the condition to be an impairment.

If someone has diabetes, they are a person first, with diabetes. Please do not refer to them as "the Diabetic", unless this is how they wish to be referred to (and you know this because you have asked them ahead of time). I, for example, am a vibrant, wordy person who loves to read and work with people, who happens to have Multiple Sclerosis. It is a condition that I have; it does not define me.

If you don’t know the appropriate words to use, simply ask the person what is preferred.

Lastly, let's talk about "relationships" in general. If you are dealing with a disability, and/or with managing a chronic illness, it is CRITICAL that you NOT cut yourself off from others. Life is very precious, and, as we discussed in the quality of life blog, living well is and should be, the goal of us all.

If you have any additional questions about communications or disability relationships, please comment and we'll tap into our collective wisdom!

DISABILITY and Relationships = COMMUNICATIONS
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About Disabilitykey.com & Carolyn Magura:

Disabilitykey.com is a website designed to assist each person in his/her own unique quest to navigate through the difficult and often conflicting and misleading information about coping with disabilities.

Carolyn Magura, noted disability / ADA expert, has written an e-Book documenting the process that allowed her to:

a) continue to work and receive her “full salary” while on Long Term Disability; and

b) become the first person in her State to qualify for Social Security Disability the FIRST TIME, in UNDER 30 DAYS.

Click here to receive Carolyn 's easy-to-read, easy-to-follow direct guide through this difficult, trying process. If you are disabled, don't let this disabiling process disable you. Read Carolyns Disability Key Blog.

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Monday, February 4, 2013

American Communications Network Review

American Communications Network also known as ACN is a direct response network marketing company that has been in existence since 1993. They have a myriad of products ranging from internet, local and long distance services, satellite TV, along with other telecommunication services.

The objective of American Communications Network is to market products and services using a peer to peer approach. In order for an individual to market these products and/or services, they must become an independent distributor first. The cost can range anywhere from on up to 9, depending on your level of commitment.

Once a distributor, you can sign up for the services yourself and earn monthly commissions on the services that you currently use or you can sign up for the various vendors and utilize their services and get paid as well.

American Communications Network Review

Like all other network marketing companies, there will always be some type of product and/or service involved for it to be a legitimate opportunity. But the issue that I see is that most individuals that start these types of home-based businesses don't have a real clue as to how they are built. The hope of having big money and free time is wonderful, but so many are not able to accomplish due to the lack of proper training.

American Communications Network has great leadership and a wonderful marketing team lead by long term experienced professionals and has had a track record of creating several multimillionaires in the process. Some top income earners have gotten their start with the company and has moved on due to their desire to earn a more substantial income elsewhere.

That too is one of the biggest issues with joining a company and not really have the necessary following (group of distributors) to transition into a new company if you choose to. ACN or any other company should never be a business owner's primary focus if they don't want to be disappointed.

Too many distributors get the "glorified sales rep" mentality and don't think about how they should be working on building a "personal" brand of themselves. There is a reason why most top income earners in American Communications Network are able to transition over to another company and it's because they have done a wonderful job of developing themselves.

You see they aren't known because of the company, they are known because of how they have set themselves up through personal branding. They took the time to sell themselves, their abilities to get you what you needed or wanted, and that over time they were able to master certain skill-sets that will pay them for life.

One rule of thumb that should always be kept close to your heart if you plan on being a leader in any company is that people are not prone to follow companies, products, and/or services, but they are more likely to follow YOU.

If there has ever been any wonder why most of the top income earners in American Communications Network have gotten to the top, it's this secret that they know. For whatever reason, most people are comfortable being a follower because it doesn't take a whole lot out of them. It's the same mentality that most who work a nine to five job has. They can't see themselves being or doing the things necessary to run their own business day to day.

American Communications Network is just a "vehicle" of opportunity just like all the others, but it takes someone to get into the drivers' seat to actually move it forward. If you get the proper, most current up to date marketing training, there is a great chance that you can make it work. You can't rely on the old methods that most of these companies are utilizing to teach their distributors today.

To find out more information, click on the link in the area below.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

History of the Camera

Early cameras of the 16th and 17th century were able to project images onto paper or glass but the study of capturing, processing and printing the images took many more years. Up until the 17th century, scientists believed that light was composed basically of the 'white' that is perceived by the human eye. It took the research done by famous physicist Isaac Newton to discover that light is actually composed of a spectrum of colors. While he made a big contribution to the study of optics (that is at the core of camera advances) with this discovery, Newton did not actually have anything to do with camera development per se.

The early camera that first became a phenomenon was a little more than a pinhole camera and can be traced back to 1558. It was called the Camera Obscura. The Camera Obscura was seen as a drawing tool for a clearer and realistic portrayal of objects. It was in the early 19th century that an invention named the Camera Lucida was introduced by Cambridge scientist William Hyde Wollaston that consisted of an optical device that could help an artist view a distant scene or person or object on a paper surface that he or she was using to draw. In other words the artist gets to view a superimposed image of a subject on paper and this image could be effectively used to attempt to draw, trace or paint it. Both the Camera Obscura and the Camera Lucida provided an image that was temporary, which could not be lastingly captured on to paper for later reference.

Studies however continued well into the 1800's on how to actually capture the image onto material. It was during this time, around 1822 that French researcher Joseph Nicephore Niepce, created the first photograph by using paper that was coated with a chemical. The image would not stay permanently on the paper and would disappear after a short while. Even so, despite the short-lived nature of the image, the concept of photography was born with this experiment and paved the way for further study and development in this field.

History of the Camera

Capturing images to retain them longer and permanently became the next big quest for researchers. Another Frenchman Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre partnered with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1829, to develop the process of creating permanent photographs. Joseph Niépce died in 1833 but Daguerre continued with the work and succeeded in 1837 after many long years of experimentation. The process of capturing photographic images that would not fade away, introduced by Daguerre came to be known as the 'daguerreotype'.

The word 'photography' was coined by scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839 and it is actually is derived from two Greek words 'photos' meaning light and 'graphein' meaning draw.

A slightly more advanced version of the daguerreotype called the Calotype process that makes multiple copies possible using the negative and positive method became available very soon after. In fact, it was during the 1840's that the use of photographic images in advertisements first started and cameras made their mark on the power of visual communication. It was not much later, in the 1850's that photographers first started experimenting with underwater photography of seascapes.

Up until 1850, the process of capturing images was cumbersome requiring upto half an hour of light exposure. The discovery made in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer was a blessing since the new method termed the Collodion process called for just 2-3 seconds of light exposure to capture an image.

Prior to 1871, photographers went through a development process where they had to coat the plate with wet chemical each and every time and process the image immediately. With the invention the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process by Richard Leach Maddox, negatives did not have to be developed immediately. This was an important discovery since up until then the captured image had to be processed instantly.

Kodak created in 1888 by George Eastman has been a modern day pioneer of sorts in cameras and photography for the masses. George Eastman and the scientists who worked with him at Kodak developed the photographic film in 1889 and made it available in rolls for the mass use of consumers. An important milestone in our entertainment and communication history was the development of transparent roll film by Eastman. This development led to another key invention - the motion picture camera by Thomas Edison's in 1891.

-->Modern Times

During the 20th century the pace of technology development in cameras and photography continued at an accelerated pace much like many other key technology developments. While several key inventions like car, telephone and the gramophone record happened in the later half of the 19th century, it is the last 100 years that saw major developmental work in many areas of communications technology and as well as in other fields - TV, aircrafts, PCs, digital technology, digital cameras, mobile phones, fax machines and the internet, to name a few.

In the case of the camera, the developments simplified the whole process of photography, making it accessible to one and all at affordable prices and the camera industry denizens of our times made it into a mass phenomenon. The first mass use camera became available at the turn of the 20th century and can be traced back to the year 1900. There are hundreds of models of cameras available today both for the amateur as well as the professional and the camera is an important part of any family's repertoire of must have gadgets.

-->20th century chronology in the history of the camera:

1913: 35 mm still-camera created

1927: The flash bulb introduced by General Electric Co. (The concept of camera flash existed much before but was based on the use of a flash light powder that was invented by German researchers)

1935- 1941: Kodak starts marketing Kodachrome film and subsequently launches Kodacolor negative film. Canon released the Hansa Canon in 1936, the first 35mm focal-plane shutter camera.

1948: The concept of the Polaroid camera is introduced in the market. American scientist Edwin Land developed the process for instant photography. Later Polaroid Corporation developed the 'instant color' film around 1963.

1957: Frenchman Jaques Yves Cousteau invented the first waterproof 35mm camera for underwater photography named the Calypso Phot. The actual camera was developed by the Belgian airplane technical designer Jean de Wouters based on the blueprint and suggestions given to him by Cousteau.

1972: The electronic camera that does not require film was created and patented by Texas Instruments. This is however not the same as a digital camera though you don't require film in digital cameras as well. The launch of the digital camera is still many years away.

1975: Kodak's experiments with digital imaging kicked off around the mid seventies but it will take another 20 years before a digital camera for the home consumer market is launched.

1978 - 1980: Asian players like Konica and Sony begin to make their mark. The 'point and shoot' automatic focus camera is launched by Konica while Sony starts talking about the camcorder and demonstrates a prototype.

1981: Sony launches a commercially available electronic still camera. Similar to the 1972 invention by Texas Instruments, the Sony electronic camera came with a mini disc on which images were recorded and stored. The recorded images could be later printed or viewed on a monitor using a reader device.

1985: Digital processing technology makes its entry. Digital imaging and processing is introduced by Pixar.

1986: The camera industry becomes even more consumer focused and taps the fun and travel connotations behind camera usage, with the launch of the concept of the disposable single use cameras. Fuji is credited with the development of this concept.

Also in 1986 - 1987, Kodak started taking giant strides in digital development. Digital means, the photographic image is divided into tiny units of dots or squares known as pixels. Pixels are the programmable units of an image that can be processed by computers. Each image could be made up of millions of pixels. The use of pixels in digital technology allows storing large volumes of pixels to deliver high definition print quality.

1990: Kodak introduces Photo CD's. It is a system of storing photographic images on CD and then viewing them on a computer. With this development the user-friendly approach of the camera industry began to take concrete shape.

1991: Kodak introduces a digital camera targeted at professionals and journalists. Kodak is credited with the invention of a pixel based camera technology known to us as the digital camera. Digital cameras don't use film similar to their predecessor electronic cameras but the storage method is entirely different and the final photograph is of much higher resolution. In a digital camera photos are recorded and stored in digital form. This digital data can be transferred to a computer and processed for printing. Kodak and Canon are well known digital camera manufacturers and there are also several other key brands as well.

1994: The Apple QuickTake camera, a home use digital camera is launched. This is followed by the launch of a clutch of home use digital cameras by Casio, Kodak and others in quick succession during 1995 -'96.

-->The digital era:

The development of digital camera technology is considered to be linked to the development of TV and Video technology. The principles of transmission and recording of audio-visual images using digital electrical impulses finds use in camera imaging as well.

Through the 1990's the developments continued in camera technology, the focus now shifting to the field of digital imaging which is where the future lies. Use-friendly features like software that can download digital images directly from camera onto home computers for storing and sharing on the internet is the new norm in the market place.

The camera, the computer, the software industry and the worldwide web are today irrevocably interlinked to empower the user in experiencing the benefits of camera usage to full potential. The innovation that sparked many an invention in the camera industry found its way into the digital world as well and continued among digital camera manufacturers. During 2001, the Kodak and Microsoft partnership ensured that digital camera manufacturers could use the power of Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) standard through Windows. The digital photo experience is a key visual driver in the Internet era. Many of Kodak digital camera models with EasyShare capabilities are compatible with Windows XP. The Kodak EasyShare software enables users to transfer digital camera pictures directly from camera to their computers and then print the pictures or even email them.

Manufacturers in a related industry like the printing industry have adapted their products to be in sync with the images created by digital cameras. Cell phone manufacturers have tied up with digital camera manufacturers to develop new age camera phones in recent years. These camera phones can capture images and share the images through the cell phone.

Among the 21st century digital developments are the advanced product offerings from digital cameras manufacturers and these are sure to occupy an important place in the ensuing history of camera development. For instance, the Kodak Professional DCS Pro SLR/c is a high-end digital camera and the Kodak website calls the DCS Pro SLR models the most feature-rich digital cameras on the market. It has an image sensor that can handle 13.89 million pixels and this makes it the highest resolution digital camera available. High resolution determines the sharpness or level of detail in photographic images. This is just a glimpse of the capabilities that digital technology places in a user's hands. Digital camera sales figures for 2003 show that the two key players Kodak and Canon have recorded impressive growth.

-->What does the future holds for camera users?

The features offered by digital cameras can be quite mind-boggling for the average user and pretty exciting for most pros. Four key ongoing camera developments that are likely to further improve the process of photography:

1. Greater resolution from even the simplest, low cost camera models

2. Usage in any type of lighting conditions,

3. Compatibility across a range of software, hardware and image types

4. Rich colors and tone

While the higher-end digital evolution continues, the prices of the simple camera have crashed to such an extent that even children and teens are proud owners of uncomplicated cameras. The camera and photography interest starts young and this creates a truly large audience base for the camera industry.

And throughout history, it is evident that the endeavor of researchers and developers has been to make the camera available to a wide section of society. Without camera technology and photography, the other key developments of cinema and TV would have been delayed and what a boring place the world would have been without TV and films!!

History of the Camera
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