Friday, 28 November 2008

Effective communication

• How would you better manage emotions (if you can)?

During a conversation emotions could arise due to several reasons such as misunderstandings, lack of mutual respect, lack of willingness to compromise, lack of concentration and jumping in to conclusions. Sometimes even language difficulties and immaturity also could lead to emotional behavior.

We think that being patient, paying attention, listening actively, having confidence of what one talks and also knowing a little bit of cultural background of the other party in terms manipulating the words and phrases to give different meanings could immensely help managing emotions during conversations. Particularly in video conferencing conversations, listening patiently and actively is vital as body language is not fully observable.


• How would you better manage language?

Emotions can be controlled by using language appropriately, particularly when you feel that the other party has misunderstood or misinterpreted what you have said.

As listening is crucial in video conversations, to convey your message or idea to the other party clearly and accurately, appropriate use of language is important.


• How would you better communicate?

We believe in the saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.

We think, apart from using language properly and listening actively in conversations, showing a right picture or demonstrating how to perform an activity or showing a relevant video-clip would not only save loads of explanation but also greatly help make the other party comprehensible very effectively.


Common Ground:

Common ground in general is basically the relevant background of the parties involved in a communication activity. This background may represent many aspects. It may be a collection of the mutual understandings, the past experiences, the cultural values and the different ways of using language (idioms, colloquialism etc) and more importantly the knowledge level of the subject being discussed.

Similar background exists in organizational communication as well. Organizations always work towards a common goal(s). Therefore, communicating how to achieve these goals to its members is very important. When considering the communication within an organization some important aspects, such as organizational values, the ways of using the language, rites and rituals, must be identified and well understood. But, most of all it is the culture, in which the organization operates that drives the process of communication efficiently.

Wednesday, 5 November 2008

Preparation of Video Conferencing

Location: The video conference equipment will be setup in the conference room as it already has got some equipment to have a discussion for a group of people.

Equipment: We currently do not have video conferencing equipment. Therefore we decided to buy them as we will need them in future as well to communicate with our new parent company. We decided to go with High Definition video communication equipment that gives high quality video and audio as it would help to communicate with a large group of people.
-Two HD video display units for video playback and visual concert
-VC Codec supporting H.323 standard
-Video switching unit
-Wideband stereo audio equipment

We will be using the existing ISDN line for internet and existing PCs and Laptops for data sharing and Net-meeting sessions.


Content: The video conferencing sessions will be scheduled according to the departments involved. Each department will be given two specific time slots. In the first session each individual will be educated about the new job assignments and in the second session any issues related to the new job assignments will be discussed.

Closing: At the end of the discussions each individual is expected to have a good understanding about the new job assignments, the procedures to follow and the functions to perform and will not have any ambiguities or misunderstandings about anything.