Even though I have taken the MBA communications class, I still don't feel comfortable speaking in front of an audience. I don't speak in front of groups generally at work and it has been a while since I have taken that class. Of course, I didn't expect that taking that one class would instantly make me comfortable speaking in front of people. In my communications class, I did notice that some people just seem more comfortable speaking in front of an audience than others. Giving the 2 presentations in front of our class did refresh some of the public speaking skills that I learned such as engaging the audience by asking questions and paying attention to body language and trying to maintain eye contact.
A lot of the success of speaking in front of audience comes from a comfortability factor. While it is not easy to make yourself comfortable if you are not naturally comfortable, I suppose the more you do it, the less difficult it is. Also, being more prepared should help a speaker become more comfortable as well. Although, it is also possible, in a sense, to be too prepared as that makes the presentation sound too rehearsed, which can be dry.
Other tips that I found (tonight, after I did both my presentations) are to speak with conviction, address the person in the audience who is the farthest away from you, maintain sincere eye contact for 3 seconds and make eye contact with a few different people during the presentation. Do not mumble, do not read from notes extensively or read from slides. Make sure to vary the tone of your voice and use humor where appropriate. I only have 1 year left in my MBA program (yay!), but I most likely will be speaking in front of a class again before I'm done. I hope and expect that my skills in public speaking will continue to improve.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
identity theft
well, tomorrow is the last MBA 8125 class. The summer semester is finally coming to an end. In my opinion, this class has been more work than any other class I have taken.
Our group presentation (last night) was on the topic of identity theft. A last-minute addition that I added to my part of the presentation (on prevention) was the idea of contacting a credit reporting agency to get a credit report. If you live in Georgia, you can get two free credit reports a year. I don't think I have had my credit checked since I bought my house about five years ago, so I figured I would take advantage of the service. Trying to practice what I preach...
I wanted to make sure I went to a legitimate site so I went to ftc.gov and typed in free credit report in their search engine and that took me to this site: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt156.shtm and that site told me to go to www.annualcreditreport.com. I have heard the ads (quite creative) on TV for freecreditreport.com, so I went there, but, as I expected, you have to sign up for some service with a monthly charge. So, I went to the site mentioned by the FTC and signed up. It didn't end up being free, as there was an offer to get my score for $7.99 and I figured as long as I was doing this, it was worth the $8 to get my score to have an idea where I stand. Hopefully after I get my mba and get a new job (hopefully), I'll be able to buy a new house or at least a new car, so I need to make sure my credit is decent. My credit score did come back decent, not great, but I felt better knowing that I am not an identity theft victim and that my credit is not horrible.
At work today, I told a number of my coworkers about the site, and a few of them have gotten theirs checked out. No one has told me that they found out they were an identity theft victim yet, but I'm sure the people who checked are glad they did. After all, as we said in our presentation, 80% of identity theft victims don't know they are victims. One of my co-workers told me that he was rejected for a credit card, got his credit report and there was $70,000 of credit card debt that was on his account that didn't belong to him. It wasn't a case of identity theft, it was a case of erroneous record keeping, but things like that do happen as well and they will also prevent you from getting a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card etc..., so get your credit checked out!
Our group presentation (last night) was on the topic of identity theft. A last-minute addition that I added to my part of the presentation (on prevention) was the idea of contacting a credit reporting agency to get a credit report. If you live in Georgia, you can get two free credit reports a year. I don't think I have had my credit checked since I bought my house about five years ago, so I figured I would take advantage of the service. Trying to practice what I preach...
I wanted to make sure I went to a legitimate site so I went to ftc.gov and typed in free credit report in their search engine and that took me to this site: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt156.shtm and that site told me to go to www.annualcreditreport.com. I have heard the ads (quite creative) on TV for freecreditreport.com, so I went there, but, as I expected, you have to sign up for some service with a monthly charge. So, I went to the site mentioned by the FTC and signed up. It didn't end up being free, as there was an offer to get my score for $7.99 and I figured as long as I was doing this, it was worth the $8 to get my score to have an idea where I stand. Hopefully after I get my mba and get a new job (hopefully), I'll be able to buy a new house or at least a new car, so I need to make sure my credit is decent. My credit score did come back decent, not great, but I felt better knowing that I am not an identity theft victim and that my credit is not horrible.
At work today, I told a number of my coworkers about the site, and a few of them have gotten theirs checked out. No one has told me that they found out they were an identity theft victim yet, but I'm sure the people who checked are glad they did. After all, as we said in our presentation, 80% of identity theft victims don't know they are victims. One of my co-workers told me that he was rejected for a credit card, got his credit report and there was $70,000 of credit card debt that was on his account that didn't belong to him. It wasn't a case of identity theft, it was a case of erroneous record keeping, but things like that do happen as well and they will also prevent you from getting a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card etc..., so get your credit checked out!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
deflation and technology
I'm not sure if it has always been true, but it has been true for as long as I remember, that the first people to buy a technology pay the most and then the technology gets cheaper and better as time goes on. In other words- it pays to wait. One notable example of this is the iphone.
The original iphone was released in June of 2007. The iphone was originally priced at $599 for the 8 GB model and $499 for the 4 GB model and the iphone was only available for people who signed up for a 2-year AT&T service plan. 3 months later, in September, the 4GB model was discontinued and the price on the 8GB dropped from $599 to $399. There was such an outcry, that Steve Jobs said anyone who bought an iphone for $599 would get a $100 credit to use in apple's stores (or online).
Nowadays, the iphone is in its 3rd generation (3GS) and costs $99. Everyone that I have spoken to that has an iphone loves it. I am quite intrigued with it myself. However, even though I already have AT&T, I have a basic phone and have a family plan with my wife and we only pay about $70 a month for both of us. I think if I got an iphone, it would probably cost us about $110 or $120 a month combined, and it isn't worth an extra $40 or $50 a month to me.
Anyway, in terms of deflation, the same thing is true with bluray players, laptops, GPS devices and so on. It wasn't that long ago that a laptop w/ 2 GB of RAM would cost a thousand bucks, now you can get a laptop w/ 4 GB of RAM for $600! I guess it is good in this day and age with wages not increasing much and the price of rent, food, and gas going up, that we can get better and better electronics for less and less $.
The original iphone was released in June of 2007. The iphone was originally priced at $599 for the 8 GB model and $499 for the 4 GB model and the iphone was only available for people who signed up for a 2-year AT&T service plan. 3 months later, in September, the 4GB model was discontinued and the price on the 8GB dropped from $599 to $399. There was such an outcry, that Steve Jobs said anyone who bought an iphone for $599 would get a $100 credit to use in apple's stores (or online).
Nowadays, the iphone is in its 3rd generation (3GS) and costs $99. Everyone that I have spoken to that has an iphone loves it. I am quite intrigued with it myself. However, even though I already have AT&T, I have a basic phone and have a family plan with my wife and we only pay about $70 a month for both of us. I think if I got an iphone, it would probably cost us about $110 or $120 a month combined, and it isn't worth an extra $40 or $50 a month to me.
Anyway, in terms of deflation, the same thing is true with bluray players, laptops, GPS devices and so on. It wasn't that long ago that a laptop w/ 2 GB of RAM would cost a thousand bucks, now you can get a laptop w/ 4 GB of RAM for $600! I guess it is good in this day and age with wages not increasing much and the price of rent, food, and gas going up, that we can get better and better electronics for less and less $.
Monday, July 20, 2009
privacy
I thought I would blog about a topic that we discussed earlier in the semester, the topic of privacy. As mentioned, in the U.S., unlike in many countries, there is no fundamental right to privacy. And with the Internet, it is quite easy to find out a lot about people without them even knowing about it. Some call this internet stalking.
At work, in an effort to learn more about our clients, we sometimes “google” them. You can find out a lot about people this way. We already have their full name, social security number, address, date of birth and that kind of information when they open an account. However, you would not know that they run 10K’s or what companies they used to work for from an account application. Sometimes our clients have started businesses and sold them and the press release of the sale of the company is on the Internet. Some clients have been sued and the lawsuits are online. One client is prosecuting their administrative assistant for the $1 million + that she (allegedly) took from her. One client was the lead developer of Internet Explorer.
Even with co-workers, where you don’t start out with an address, you can find out the address quite easily on whitepages.com. You want to find out how much your boss’s house is worth? Go to whitepages.com and then on to zillow.com. Clearly, there is a lot of information that is out there that people may not be too happy that everyone has access to. I have also heard that you should be careful what you put on myspace and facebook, as you may be looking for a job someday and the HR department may pull up your page. However, I don’t think you can see someone’s personal page unless they give you access, but there may be ways around that. Probably better to be safe than sorry on that one.
At work, in an effort to learn more about our clients, we sometimes “google” them. You can find out a lot about people this way. We already have their full name, social security number, address, date of birth and that kind of information when they open an account. However, you would not know that they run 10K’s or what companies they used to work for from an account application. Sometimes our clients have started businesses and sold them and the press release of the sale of the company is on the Internet. Some clients have been sued and the lawsuits are online. One client is prosecuting their administrative assistant for the $1 million + that she (allegedly) took from her. One client was the lead developer of Internet Explorer.
Even with co-workers, where you don’t start out with an address, you can find out the address quite easily on whitepages.com. You want to find out how much your boss’s house is worth? Go to whitepages.com and then on to zillow.com. Clearly, there is a lot of information that is out there that people may not be too happy that everyone has access to. I have also heard that you should be careful what you put on myspace and facebook, as you may be looking for a job someday and the HR department may pull up your page. However, I don’t think you can see someone’s personal page unless they give you access, but there may be ways around that. Probably better to be safe than sorry on that one.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
virtual assistants
I was looking through the Sunday AJC this morning to try to find something I could blog about and I found an article about virtual assistants.
To put this in context, the paper (on the front page) also reports that the unemployment rate in Georgia has gone over 10%.
The idea behind virtual assistants is that a small or medium-size business had a payroll of employees and the business is now using the Internet to find virtual assistants in order to lay off workers and reduce costs. A virtual assistant is someone who works from their home and does administrative tasks for businesses such as document preparation, paperwork and accounting. Some do bilingual translation or creative services. By using virtual assistants, companies save money on real estate and equipment as well as on benefits as virtual assistants (or VA's) generally do not receive benefits. As expected, there is a great deal of turnover among VA's, so companies can use VA's to supplement their staff, but not replace their entire workforce.
This is not an ideal situation for someone who was recently laid off from full time work as the VA does not receive benefits, including health care. However, it is good for workers who want the flexible of part-time or temporary work. VA's, like all telecommuters, also save money on clothing and commuting costs. VA's are usually contractually employed for a certain period of time and there are many firms looking for VA's to supplement their staff.
There is no agreement about the number of VA's that currently exist. The AJC article (which is actually a reprint from the Washington Post) does not give a number, but a website I found put the number currently between 5,000 and 35,000, which is lower than I expected. I would expect this number to grow in the current job environment.
To put this in context, the paper (on the front page) also reports that the unemployment rate in Georgia has gone over 10%.
The idea behind virtual assistants is that a small or medium-size business had a payroll of employees and the business is now using the Internet to find virtual assistants in order to lay off workers and reduce costs. A virtual assistant is someone who works from their home and does administrative tasks for businesses such as document preparation, paperwork and accounting. Some do bilingual translation or creative services. By using virtual assistants, companies save money on real estate and equipment as well as on benefits as virtual assistants (or VA's) generally do not receive benefits. As expected, there is a great deal of turnover among VA's, so companies can use VA's to supplement their staff, but not replace their entire workforce.
This is not an ideal situation for someone who was recently laid off from full time work as the VA does not receive benefits, including health care. However, it is good for workers who want the flexible of part-time or temporary work. VA's, like all telecommuters, also save money on clothing and commuting costs. VA's are usually contractually employed for a certain period of time and there are many firms looking for VA's to supplement their staff.
There is no agreement about the number of VA's that currently exist. The AJC article (which is actually a reprint from the Washington Post) does not give a number, but a website I found put the number currently between 5,000 and 35,000, which is lower than I expected. I would expect this number to grow in the current job environment.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
we want it free!! (or at least cheaper)
As explained in the Paul Graham article about Web 2.0, in order to be considered part of the next generation of websites (or web 2.0), the sites need to be democratic and free. MySpace, wikipedia, craigslist, and digg.com are mentioned in the article. Clearly facebook would fall into this category as well. Google would count as well. Of course if gmail counts, then why wouldn't hotmail count, they have offered free email for years. Yahoo has too. Yahoo's sites are free and you can create a Yahoo homepage which is customizable as well. Ebay lets you search their site without registering, although you have to pay ebay to sell things.
One industry highlighted in the textbook is the music industry. In the past, only a few artists would get signed, and if one of their albums sold, they would get $1 an album and after the record company, the distributor and the retailer got their cut, the customer would pay $16 an album! Now, more artists get signed, the artists get $3 for each album they sell and the customer only has to pay $10 for an album! This is clearly progress, as the major artists who would have gotten signed anyway are getting 3 times as much, the minor artists are getting distributed (and paid) and the customer is getting access to more music choices at a lower price.
In the Paul Graham article, he calls itunes like web 1.5 because while a lot of music is available, it is not free. I thought of napster when I read this article. With napster, there was even more music available than is available on itunes and it was free. But, since the artists weren't getting paid at all, and this was considered theft of intellectual property and shut down, it may not be fair to use napster as a counter-argument to the idea that we are moving towards web 2.0. However, I would point out that most new songs on itunes cost $1.29 now, not $0.99, so they are moving in the wrong direction in terms of progressing towards web 2.0.
Paul Graham predicted in the article that someone would come out with web-based Microsoft Office platforms and make them available for free. As you probably know, this has happened as Google unveiled their Google Documents a few years ago. To counter Google, Microsoft has announced that they will come out with a web based version of their own Office products. This is clearly a blow to Microsoft's profits that they have been forced to do this and further evidence to Graham's point that web 2.0 is here. Here is a link to Clark Howard's website and an article about the new web-based MS office that is coming out: http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/2009/07/14/16208/
He also says that we will all be able to get broadband access for around $10 a month next year. I hope he's right!!
One industry highlighted in the textbook is the music industry. In the past, only a few artists would get signed, and if one of their albums sold, they would get $1 an album and after the record company, the distributor and the retailer got their cut, the customer would pay $16 an album! Now, more artists get signed, the artists get $3 for each album they sell and the customer only has to pay $10 for an album! This is clearly progress, as the major artists who would have gotten signed anyway are getting 3 times as much, the minor artists are getting distributed (and paid) and the customer is getting access to more music choices at a lower price.
In the Paul Graham article, he calls itunes like web 1.5 because while a lot of music is available, it is not free. I thought of napster when I read this article. With napster, there was even more music available than is available on itunes and it was free. But, since the artists weren't getting paid at all, and this was considered theft of intellectual property and shut down, it may not be fair to use napster as a counter-argument to the idea that we are moving towards web 2.0. However, I would point out that most new songs on itunes cost $1.29 now, not $0.99, so they are moving in the wrong direction in terms of progressing towards web 2.0.
Paul Graham predicted in the article that someone would come out with web-based Microsoft Office platforms and make them available for free. As you probably know, this has happened as Google unveiled their Google Documents a few years ago. To counter Google, Microsoft has announced that they will come out with a web based version of their own Office products. This is clearly a blow to Microsoft's profits that they have been forced to do this and further evidence to Graham's point that web 2.0 is here. Here is a link to Clark Howard's website and an article about the new web-based MS office that is coming out: http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/2009/07/14/16208/
He also says that we will all be able to get broadband access for around $10 a month next year. I hope he's right!!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
a new bubble?
I was working at E*TRADE when technology and Internet stocks were hitting new highs every day and investors eagerly bid up the prices of new companies coming to market that had no reasonable plan to make profits. The companies and supply-side analysts would use metrics such as page views and click throughs and eyeballs and "mind share" to justify valuations that were insane.
Nowadays, the concept of Web 2.0 has created the idea among some that the websites discussed in the UnME Jeans case are overhyped. The websites discussed are facebook, YouTube and Zwinktopia. Some argue that these social networking sites are a fad. The effect of advertising on these sites is hard to measure. And, the Internet is always changing and there will undoubtedly be new sites that capture people's interests, but I think that social networking websites are here to stay. I have a facebook page, and while I have never posted a video to YouTube, I have wasted at least a few hours here or there looking at different videos. I know a lot more about a number of my facebook "friends" than I did before, even when I saw them on a semi-regular basis. Sites like youtube that are user-driven and sites like facebook that promote social affiliation are here to stay and will become more popular in coming years.
Companies should spend money to advertise on these sites and not lose market share to companies that are willing to experiment with these new mediums. The price of these new sites is right (free) and the democratic aspects of the sites have lasting appeal. The term "web 2.0" will go out of style (if it hasn't already), but the concepts of web 2.0 will be used by successful websites in the future.
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