Unified Communications

 

     Communication has been a very basic need of humans since the beginning of their emergence as the dominant species on earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. Later, technological advances and scientific discoveries such as the invention of printing press, telephone, telegraph, radio and television marked significant milestones of man’s journey towards more effective methods of communication, both one to one and one to many. The advent of computer and internet, appropriately named Information and Communications Technology (ICT), resulted in a gigantic boom in the field of human interactivity giving birth to novel forms of communication such as email, instant messaging and video conferencing and making some of the traditional forms of communication obsolete.

     The latest development in this very fast-paced process is Unified Communications (UC), which denotes the seamless integration of real-time communication methods with non-real-time communication methods making it possible for a message to be sent from one end using one medium and the same message to be received on the other end through another medium. Here real-time communication methods mean such services as IM (instant messaging or chat), telephone (including VoIP telephone) and video conferencing. Non-real-time communication methods include fax, e-mail, voicemail and SMS.

     Let me show you how UC works through an example. Suppose someone receives a voicemail message. With UC he or she has the freedom to access it through e-mail or a cell phone. And then, if the sender of the message is online according to his or her presence information and if his/her status shows that calls are currently accepted, the response for that voice mail message can be sent immediately through IM or video call. Or else, if the receiver’s status is ’Unavailable’, ‘Busy’ or ‘Do not disturb’, the response can be sent through a non-real-time service like email or fax to be accessed at the receiver’s convenience.

     Presence Information is a key component in real-time communication services and it shows the availability status of a person for communication, and sometimes also the location of the person. The hectic and competitive nature of the corporate world today demands the freedom from being bound to a desk and chair inside an office. Many individuals need to be mobile workers or telecommuters who operate from home or while travelling as well as from the office. Presence Information is a very useful feature which informs his or her team-mates, co-workers, managers or supervisors and clients of the individual’s availability and whereabouts.

     A Unified Communications application is an essential requirement of any business organization today; whether small, medium or large, since the ease of having all your voice, video and text based messaging services on one single platform saves a lot of time, money and frustration. According to a survey made by Sage Research, the average organization uses about 6 different types of communication devices such as mobile phones, desk phones etc. and 4-5 types of communication applications such as instant messaging clients, email applications etc.

     The integration of these different communication methods to one single user interface using a UC application helps to streamline the business process by providing smarter and more effective communication facilities; thus increasing the productivity of the organization.

Emotional Intelligence at Workplace

One of the key elements in Project Management is ‘people management’. The ability to understand and manage people is extremely essential to be a successful Project Manager. That is why Emotional Intelligence (EI) is of paramount importance in Project Management.

EI is a relatively new term in the field of psychological study. It became widely known and popular with Daniel Goleman’s 1995 Book called Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Peter Salovey and John D.Mayer also did a lot of research in defining EI and its importance.

EI means the ability to understand, evaluate and control emotions like love, hate, jealousy or fear etc. These emotions can be very strong or just mild but they play a very big role in our day to day lives. They decide the way we act, react, judge and make decisions.

They are a main deciding factor which defines the type of relations we have with our family, friends or co-workers. Psychologists say that our emotions, not our IQ, experience or technical knowledge, decide whether we succeed or fail at our work places.

Emotional Awareness and EI are more important at work than it is at home or at school. At workplace our relationships can be more ‘brittle‘ than in our personal life.

Therefore, it is extremely important to have the ability to pick up emotional clues from people we meet at work if we are to succeed there. Emotional understanding and empathy help us to build up the right relationships with them and to avoid difficult and sometimes disastrous situations.

At workplace, EI can be extremely essential in successful Project Management. It is helpful in planning human resources, job profiling, recruitment interviewing and selection, management development and many other areas.

There are about 25 major skill areas related to EI but all of them cannot be measured accurately. However, many tests have been devised to measure EI such as Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI), Emotional Intelligence Appraisal and Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-I). More and more companies apply these tests in their recruitment and selection process these days.

A recent study conducted by a Dallas Corporation found out that the production of the employees who scored high marks at EI tests were 20 times higher than those of low scoring employees.

The US Air Force once used the EQ-I in selecting recruiters and found out that the most successful HR personnel in the USAF got higher marks in the EI competencies. Seeing these results Secretary of Defense ordered that all branches of the armed forces should use this procedure in their recruitment of personnel in the future.

In a study in 2002 Goleman found out that usually high ranking managers don’t get a proper assessment of their performance due to the fear of their subordinates. This is because the senior managers, though they are well educated, qualified and experienced, have very low emotional literacy.

This proves the theory that in most occasions people become unsuccessful at work not because they are technically incompetent but are socially incompetent; they fail in their relationships with co-workers, superiors and subordinates.

Some project managers may be overly authoritarian and their conflict management skills may be very poor. They may generate fear instead of respect and devotion which is not very healthy for the success of a project.

When people lack EI it is difficult for them to adapt themselves to changing situations. They find it extremely difficult to be team players. Without a good EI it is hard to develop good interpersonal relations.

While a good awareness in EI can help to be more successful and productive in Project Management, the lack of it can cause many problems. Sometimes it can even lead a company towards bankruptcy.

Hackers Waging the Third World War…

Check and strengthen your defences…!

“I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth – rocks!”
—Albert Einstein

Even though the Greatest Scientist of the 20^th Century could not even guess, now we know how the World War III is going to be fought.   The battles of the Third World War will take place not on land, not in the sea, nor in the sky or even the outer space; these battles will be fought in the Cyber Space and the Hackers will be the war heroes…

During the recent past many incidents have been reported which justify the above statement.   Chinese government agencies were said to be behind the hackers who attacked Google and 33 other software companies such as Adobe.

State sponsored Cyber Attacks are on the rise according to reports from various news agencies like CNN and BBC.  The Stuxnet worm which was first discovered in July 2010 was said to be aimed at the nuclear facilities of Natanz, Iran and that reveals the political nature of the attack.  Then there was the Agent.btz worm that attacked Pentagon computers in 2008; it took the Pentagon 14 months to clean their compromised computers.  

You may be well aware of the commotion caused by recent Wikileaks incidents among the political circles across the globe.  Even though Wikileaks is not known to be sponsored by any particular country or state, the classified information exposed by the website created a severe turmoil in the whole world, which might even lead to war…

In any war it is the civilians, the unsuspecting innocent general public, who pay the ultimate prize.  In cyber warfare it is more so.  With lots of personal information stored in social media sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, more and more people using Gmail or Yahoo mail for their correspondence, world citizens are exposed to the threat of hackers and it is not something to be taken lightly.  With the spreading of internet to every nook and cranny on earth people rely almost solely on the internet based systems and computers for their communications, financial transactions and socialization.  This is an ideal situation for cyber-thieves and cyber-terrorists.  Driven by misguided political motives, greed, pride or hatred; these maniacs can cause havoc in the lives of the world population. 

There are many organizations in the world, belonging to both government and private sectors, which have been formed to fight against this cyber-terrorism.  Many programmers, strategists, intelligence analysts and all sorts of experts are working day and night making preparations to act proactively to minimize the threat.  However, in a border-less world, a cyber-village in which all the individuals, businesses and organizations are inescapably entangled in “The Net”, it is an extremely difficult battle to win unless you are well prepared in advance. 

So we should do just that.   It is the duty and the responsibility of all of us to prepare ourselves for the World War III, arm ourselves with knowledge and technologies to defend our personal lives, our businesses, our countries and, in due course, the whole world. 

Don’t wait, start now…!  Start learning about how we might become the targets of hackers and what we can do to prevent their attacks and secure ourselves against them.

Delegating Responsibilities

Very often people talk about delegating responsibilities.  I don’t think that is possible at all.  You can delegate some of the work involved, but if it is your responsibility, then it will always be your responsibility.  You can’t dump it on somebody else.  You have to take responsibility for your work, whether you perform it yourself or not…

Taking responsibility does not necessarily mean being there to take the blame if and when something goes wrong.  Your superiors or the organization they represent are not interested in blaming somebody for the work not done or badly done.  They   are interested in getting the work done.  Therefore taking the responsibility by taking the blame bravely is not the same as being careful to finish the tasks entrusted to you correctly and on time.

Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks…

Life Long Learning in Corporate Business World.

There was a time when learning was considered to end after leaving school or university.  That was why the saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” was so widely accepted as an axiom expressing a universal truth.  Prasanna Perera, a prominent Management Specialist and an Educator with over 17 years of experience, does not agree.  “You can teach an old dog new tricks; provided the dog is willing to learn…” he says.  The following article is based on a discussion with Prasanna on ‘Life Long Learning’

Life Long Learning is the continuous learning and development over the lifespan of an individual.  Learning is a non-stop process that continues from the cradle to the grave. 

Why Reading is Important…

Well, we’ve been talking about why writing is better than speaking as a mode of communication. That was from the writer’s end or productive end. On the other hand, when you look at it from the receptive end, it is again more convenient to read something and understand than to listen to a speech. Let’s see why…

When you read you can…

Read anytime (You can read anytime of the day you prefer. You are free to choose when you read; at night, in the morning or evening; whenever you are most comfortable and you can concentrate well on what you are reading.)

All About Writing…

I created this blog to write about writing.

I am going to talk, or write, about my writing, your writing and writing in general. I will share some tips and tricks of good writing with you. I will help you develop good communication skills and learn to write effectively; clearly and beautifully.

And what’s more, if you are too busy or too lazy (or both) to do your own writing, then I will do it for you; (let’s take a commercial break…)

… At a very reasonable and affordable price…!

Well, back to writing…

What is writing anyway…?