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Lack of communication is a major cause of conflict. In feature films, no communication equals conflict and conflict means a possible Academy Award. In business, no communication equals conflict and this means a possibility of no profit and no business.

The great filmmaker Stanley Kubrick constantly used communications as his element of conflict in his feature films. The Shining (a man goes mad in a closed-up hotel cut off from the outside world), 2001 A Space Odyssey (a moon base has been out of phone communication for ten days), Full-metal Jacket (during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam a military patrol is unable to communicate with headquarters), and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb (U.S. bombers are sent within the Soviet Union and out of communication) are all examples of communication problems leading to conflict and box office popularity.

With communication and conflict, the problem is: someone knows something, but is unable or unwilling to tell someone else and problems arise. This happens between characters in novels or feature films, between members of an organization, between husbands and wives, and almost every day between management and employees under their supervision.

One of my favorite business communication training videos is called Best of Motives: Informing and Involving. The aim of the presentation is to ensure managers inform and involve their teams in order to improve motivation and productivity.

“Research shows that the two most common complaints in organizations worldwide are ‘nobody ever tells us’ and ‘nobody ever asks us’. The Best Of Motives consists of two videos which tackle each of these issues.”
– Ad copy for The Best of Motives Communication Training Video

The video uses humor to illustrate the problems that surface when communication doesn’t happen.

Everyone always has a reason for not communicating. “You’re not seeing the bigger picture” and “We operate on a need to know basis” are popular excuses from management for not communicating. They are not good excuses. “I didn’t want to bother you” and “I thought we could handle it” are popular excuses from employees on all fronts for not communicating. Again, they are not good excuses. Communication needs to flow equally between management and employees – both up and down the ladder as well as between employees and between management.

Forget about winning an Oscar. Leave conflict to feature films. We need communication to survive. Communication is like oxygen. Without it we suffocate. Communication breathes life into business.

Author Don Doman: Don is a published author of books for small business, corporate video producer, and owner of Ideas and Training (http://www.ideasandtraining.com), which provides business training products. Don also owns Human Resources Radio (http://www.humanresourcesradio.com), which provides business training programs and previews 24-hours a day.

In my training practice one of the biggest complaints we get is our persistence in requiring our students to know their shortcuts and to practice in class using the keyboards. To become truly effective and productive in using any of the Microsoft Office Applications you must know the shortcuts.

See, what many people don’t realise is that if you rely on using the mouse only, you waste an incredible amount of time because each time you want to use the mouse, you must first stop. Take your hands off the keyboard. You then go to the mouse and then use it. You stop using the mouse and then go back to the keyboard and keep typing. If you do this you will find that you are only 20% effective compared to somebody who uses the keyboard only.

Why? Well, it is quite simple. All the time spent moving from the mouse to the keyboard is lost time or non-productive time, so people who use the shortcut keystrokes exclusively will often be five times more effective then somebody who doesn’t because they don’t have that lost time moving from the keyboard to the mouse and back again.

In some jobs, like call centres you will find that knowing your shortcut keystrokes compared to not knowing them can mean the difference between keeping your job or not. I have noticed in many telecommunications call centres throughout Australia and overseas they are now converting their systems to windows based software. What they have also done in these jobs is set some key performance standards that are really quite amazing. For example one telco I know of, in their faults departments, require that all fault calls be actioned and concluded from the moment they take the call to the finish of the call within 3 – 5 minutes. This is an awesome requirement and many of the call centre staff who were not familiar with the shortcut keystrokes found their jobs were in jeopardy simply because they couldn’t get all the data into the system within the allotted time frame. Essentially it was found as I mentioned before that those people who were reliant on the mouse were only 20% as effective as those who used the keyboard exclusively.

So … What Shortcut Keystrokes Should I Know?

This is a challenging question as many of the common applications we use in today’s market place have different shortcut keystrokes. One thing I have learnt since my wife won an Apple computer is that many of the shortcut keystrokes we use in windows don’t correlate to other operating systems, but also in the same breath. Many Do!

Some of the most common keystrokes we do have in Microsoft Office are these

[Ctrl] + [N] – New Document
[Ctrl] + [O] – Open Document
[Ctrl] + [P] – Print Document
[Ctrl] + [S] – Save Document

[F7] – Spell Check

[Ctrl] + [X] – Cut
[Ctrl] + [C] – Copy
[Ctrl] + [V] - Paste

[Ctrl] + [F] – Find
[Ctrl] + [H] – Replace

[Ctrl] + [K] – Insert Hyperlink

What you will find is that the shortcuts I presented are the most common ones are the same regardless of which Microsoft Office Application you are working with.

One of the other things you will notice is that in many of the Microsoft Office Applications some of the shortcut keystrokes are similar.

For example in Microsoft Word to get to the start of the line you can press the [Home] key, to get to the end of the line you press the [End] Key. In Microsoft Excel to get to the start of the row you press the [Home] Key, to get to the end of your data you simply press the [End] Key. There are even similarities with other Microsoft Office Applications like Microsoft Access. In a table in Microsoft Access, to get to the first field of a record you press the [Home] key and to get to the end of the record you press the [End] key.

These similar shortcut keystrokes also apply in other non-Microsoft office Applications. For example if you are writing an email in Microsoft Outlook Express. You can get to the start of the line by choosing the [Home] key and you can get to the end of the line by using the [End]

The really cool part about many of the applications that run on Microsoft Windows is that the software development guru’s have maintained which shortcuts are used to do certain functions which means we users have a much easier time of it, learning the shortcut keystrokes.

Some of the more common shortcuts for moving the Insertion Point in Microsoft Office are –

[Home] – Moves to the start of the line
[End] – Moves to the end of the line
[Ctrl] + [Home] – Moves to the First Character first line of the document
[Ctrl] + [End] – Moves to the Last Character last line of the document
[Ctrl] + [Left Arrow] – Moves one word to the left
[Ctrl] + [Right Arrow] – Moves one word to the right
[Page Up] – Move up by one screen
[Page Down] – Move down by one screen

Learning the shortcut keystrokes for the Microsoft Office Application Suite should be mandatory for any computer training course. If you don’t know these keystrokes you will never be as effective as someone who has. Often when you go to job interviews or to recruitment agencies they will test you to see if you know these using systems like those from Self-Test Software. Many a time, I have heard stories where people have missed out on job opportunities simply because they were too slow during testing at the recruitment agencies.

The bottom line is this, if you want to be more effective in using the computer you must learn your shortcuts. If you know them, passing certification exams like the Microsoft Office Specialist program will be much easier as well.

Chris Le Roy is the Managing Director of One-on-One Personal Computer Training in Townsville Australia. He has written a number of Cheat Sheets that are available from his website to help you in learning your shortcut keystrokes. You can access these cheat sheets by visiting his website – http://www.1-on-1.biz He also has a daily Microsoft office Hints and Tips list which you can subscribe to by visiting - http://www.1-on-1.biz/WeeklyEmailUpdates.asp

Do you have a favorite golf player? Is it Tiger Woods or Ernie Els? Have you ever thought that your swing looks like theirs? Woods and Els are two great golf players. When you watch them play, you will definitely notice their graceful and powerful swings. Honestly, it is difficult to imitate that just by watching.

Having a good swing needs constant practice. Also, your body needs to be well tuned up for it to perform well. Here are some basic tips to help you improve your golf swing and may help you shoot in the 90s or even 80s.

1. Warm up. Just like any other game or sport, golf players need a little warming up before starting a round. This is what most players, especially amateurs, often take for granted.

It is best to come early at the golf course and take a few minutes to stretch those muscles and warm up. This will make your muscles “know” that they are in for something and that they should be prepared. Taking a few swings in the driving range will also help you get tuned up and perform better.

2. Exercise. This is really important, not only for golf. Constantly exercising your body and muscles will keep them toned and ready for any activity. This will also prevent common body aches and pains that you usually feel when playing golf.

Getting into the habit of exercising, especially tuning up your muscles will have a great impact on your swing. It will help you have a good stance and increase total balance and control on your swings.

3. Do not swing too hard yet. It is really tempting to give your swing that extra effort. However, it is not recommended unless you already have the control of your swing. The key to a powerful and graceful swing is the balance and control that you have, add to it the proper form and stance.

So how do you get to learn to control your swing? Again, it’s tip number 2. Regular exercise will, in time, allow you to have a faster, more controlled swing.

Aside from these simple steps to do, it is also best to ask help from the pros, personally or thru online methods. They can give good advices as they already have learned a lot from their experiences. Keeping updated with the latest about golf will also help.

Also, most players tend to be so conscious in their desire to improve their swing that their minds are focused on every aspect of the swing itself; doing that will only make your swing look awkward. Instead, it is best to keep your mind off your swing. Try to focus on something else and the good swing will just follow.

Try to do these things when you play golf again. And do these regularly, then notice the change it will make on your next golf swing.

This article can be freely published on a website as long as it’s not modified in any way including the author bylines, plus the hyperlink must be made active just like below.

Please visit my site for more Golf Tips On Breaking 80

The holidays are fast approaching, and for many acne sufferers they’re dreaded because of the cofines of friends and family. With that many people close, it’s hard to get excited when you know they’ll get a close glimpse at your acne prone skin.

The natural inclination is to smear loads o concealer and foundation over blemishes to hide them from a close examination. But drugstore foundations that are manufactured by big brands such as CoverGirl, Maybelline, Loreal and others are ridden with oils, chemicals, preservatives and other pore clogging unmentionables.

Caking on these foundations can be more trouble than it’s worth because they cause further blemishes and most times major break outs. That’s not a scenario that most acne sufferers would associate with “happy” holidays. So what’s the average sufferer to do to avoid this dreaded scenario?

Mineral Makeup is the most popular trend - recommended by dermatologists the world over and used by hollywood celebrities because of it’s many benefits to acne sufferers. Mineral makeup is an all natural makeup that is made with minerals from the earth. The minerals are highly water proof so they help to dehydrate and thus kill off the bacteria in your pores that causes cystic acne.

Dermatologists are calling mineral Makeup the “skin care” makeup because it is so gentle to the skin that you can actually sleep in it. The mineral are ground so fine that they are too small to clog pores. instead they “lay” on the skin as little flakes that interlace to protect the skin from moisture getting in and feeding acne causing bacteria. The overlying flakes still allow the skin to “breathe” while shielding off this moisture.

The two primary ingredients in mineral makeup are Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide. If you read makeup labels then you probably recognize these two minerals. That’s because they appear in virtually every sunblock on the market for their full range UV sunblocking abilities. That’s right, Mineral Makeup is a natural sunblock as well, which means all that sunlight reflecting off the snow as you build snowmen and go sleding this holiday season is blocked by your mineral makeup. Sumblock is just as important to your skin health in the winter as it is in the summer.

And Mineral Makeup looks fabulous when you wear it. It is delivered to you in powder form and goes on very smoothly, it is so light weight that many people forget they are wearing it. This light weight quality helps it to blend seamlessly into the skin for a beautiful natural look.

Considering the many benefits of using mineral makeup could really help to turn your holidays into the “happy” holidays we all dream of.

Look fabulous this holiday season with our Natural Mineral Makeup Complete 9 Piece Starter Kit…

One of the most frustrating events you can experience as a
webmaster or writer is finding your work has been copied without
your permission. I’m sure that just about every writer and every
webmaster has been horrified to find his own work somewhere else
under a different person’s name. The thankfully few times it has
happened to me I felt a mixture of blind fury and complete hate.

Sometimes thieves don’t stop there. They don’t steal a web page
or two and claim it as their own (this is merely a copyright
violation and a completely unethical thing to do). No, what they
do is steal a web page and claim it is YOURS, but with
modifications. In other words, they create a web page which is
exactly like yours, with some changes to do something
undesirable.

Once they have added your page to a different site and made
their changes, they submit it to search engines, advertise it in
ezines and do all of the other standard promotional techniques.
They may also register similar domain names to try and fool
people into going to their illegal site. Their purpose is to
steal your traffic, directing it instead to their own web site
(copies of your pages).

Why do they do this? Well, let’s say you have a page which is
attracting a heck of a lot of visitors. You are making quite a
bit of money from the affiliate links on that page. An unethical
person might make a copy of that page on their own web site, and
replace all of your affiliate links with his. Anyone clicking on
those links would be generating money for the pagejacker, not
you.

Another common thing done by pagejackers is to add dozens or
even hundreds of links to pornographic sites, many of which pop
up automatically. Each time one of these links is displayed the
pagejacker gets paid a small amount, so the more popups they
display the more money they make.

Some pagejackers may go so far as to pretend to sell
merchandise, but never actually deliver anything. In this case,
they are simply stealing credit card information, which they
then resell to thieves at a substantial price.

What can a webmaster do to reduce the chances of this happening?
It’s difficult, but one thing to do is keep an eye on your
server logs. If you see sudden changes in traffic patterns it’s
a good idea to investigate and find out why. You can also search
on your own keywords and make sure that nothing strange pops up
in the search results. If you do find pages which have been
stolen from you, you can be sure that you will have a difficult
time getting them removed. You will need to find out who is
hosting the site, who the domain is registered with and so on,
and submit complaints. Whether or not these are acted upon
depends upon where the site is hosted and what the pagejacker is
doing.

How do surfers get around this problem? Be sure the URL of the
site is the URL that you expect. It’s better to bookmark your
favorite sites than to surf to them via search engines, as you
can have more confidence that a site is real if it appears in
one of your own bookmarks. Typing in the domain name yourself is
another good way to be sure you’ve got the right site. These
tips are especially true if you are going to spend money on the
site. Perhaps most important of all, always use a credit card,
and check the statements carefully for unexpected charges.

A lot of people don’t consider locking their mailboxes, but it should become a usual habit. Every now and again there are some people who decide to go digging through your mailbox. They may steal your phone bill or they may steal something as important as you social security card. That is just one of the reasons why everyone should have locking mailboxes.

Identity theft has become a very big problem for many people around the world. Many people who have gone through identity theft has happened just by unfortunately not having locking mailboxes. If you live in an apartment building, you have probably seen the neighborhood mailman deliver your mail. In the middle of the mailboxes of all your fellow neighbors there is one big lock in the middle that only the mailman has a key for. This prevents anyone else besides the mailman and the post office to have the ability to open everyone’s locking mailboxes.

If you are someone who owns a house and you have a regular mailbox that anyone can open it would be a very good idea to put a lock on it and make sure that only the people that you trust to have the key for it. Another thing you should make sure of is that your locking mailbox is big enough so if you are away for a couple of days you do not have to worry about it sticking out of the slot.

If you are expecting something very important a very good suggestion would be to wait in front of your window until the mailman gets it to you. Make sure that you do not leave it in the mailbox for too long; especially if it does not have a key. If it does have a key still wait for it, you can never be too safe.

Pay attention to where you keep your locking mailbox key so you do not lose it. You may consider it misplacing and you can just get another one, but to some people it may just be the beginning of an identity theft case. No, there are not many people who are willing to walk around to every mailbox and see if the key they have opens it, but there is a lot of technology now that can help them find out what household’s mailbox it belongs to.

Post offices all around the world have been thinking of many possible ways to keep your mail safe. In some states and countries have even set up security alarms on mailboxes that go off when someone besides the mailman opens the lock that opens all the mailboxes at the same time.

The best types of locks to use for locking mailboxes would be Deadbolt locks. This is not the usual key lock this lock is made up of a combination, key and springs so it is not easy to open. You do not have to worry about anyone breaking into that. These locks are so amazing that you cannot just buy them at your local hardware store you must order them. The companies that sell these locks are usually associated with the Post office.

http://mailboxes-hq.com/
Mailboxes HQ contains information about mailboxes from designer mailboxes through how to keep your mail safe from criminals.

Edward R. Murrow is back in the nick of time, just when we need him the most.

“Good Night and Good Luck” is a feature film account of Murrow’s 1953 and 1954 “See It Now” broadcasts assailing Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the nation’s anti-Communist hysteria.

From the moment in a 1950 speech when McCarthy waved his infamous (and never-identified) “list of 205 Communists working in the State Department,” the senator exploited the country’s Cold War paranoia, relentlessly pursuing those he deemed Communist sympathizers. (San Fransico Chronicle, 10/8/05).

We are once again at this point, blacklisting the American known as the sexual offender. The collective “we” have allowed politicians to exploit our most vulnerable fear, the safety of our children, for personal political advantage. We are all responsible for allowing hysteria driven legislation, at the city, state, and federal level, to remain unchecked due to the manipulation of our emotional bonds to our children by politicians.

Journalists have not asked the hard-nosed questions and have not informed or educated the public about the relative ease of how one becomes an offender. This perpetuates the myth that all offenders are child molesters. The majority of offenders registered have been “convicted” of poor behavior choice offenses which involve no victim-teenage consensual sex, public urination, online “chat” with undercover police officers. Most charged persons lack adequate funding for a legal defense to fight such charges and deplete their personal funds at the median figure of $15,000. The resulting plea bargain is followed by automatic sexual offender registration as decreed by Florida Statute 943.0436 . Our politicians have even legislated judicial discretion, the power of a judge to impose a fair and just sentence. Registration is for life or 20 years, whatever comes first and permeates every aspect of the registrant’s life. I challenge journalists to stop editorializing about offenders and investigate the truth.

Politicians run unchecked with this issue, due to guaranteed press coverage and easy votes. Off the record, many politicians will admit their discomfort with these laws….but to do so publicly will result in political suicide. State Representative David Simmons of Longwood reflects this attitude quite blatantly with his recent comment regarding yet further proposed residency restriction proposals at the state level, “Who’s (going) to complain?” (Florida Today, 10/9/05). Although a group of Americans and their families are being blacklisted, banished, and segregated, our politicians will not come forward to their constitutuents with the truth.

The Palm Bay City Council was presented 10/6/05 with the most current data provided by the United States Department of Justice, which definitively determined in a 10,000 person study, the treated sex offender recidivism rate to be 5.3%.” Instead of tabling the issue for further research, the Council instead opted to schedule the proposed ordinances for second reading and public hearing 10/20/05. These ordinances will impact an offender’s ability to make a living and provide for family, which sets a dangerous unconstitutional precedent.

Voters have not demanded the truth from their elected representatives and have allowed politicians to legislate the safety of our children. Parents, that is your responsibility, not the federal government. Should your family endorse the registry, demand your politicians restructure the registry to reflect a tier level system of risk instead of “lumping” all offenders into one pot. Give them “permission” to revamp a law originally passed with only good intentions.

Should an offender live in your neighborhood, I challenge residents to educate yourself regarding the offense of your neighbor by obtaining a police report. The FDLE registry does not reflect the true nature of the conviction and is often, simply incorrect. Once educated with the real facts, only then are you and your family truly “notified” as the law originally intended.

As Edward R. Murrow indicated in his famous October 15, 1958 “Wires and Lights” speech regarding the duty of broadcast journalism to inform and educate the public,
“There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference….We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.” It is our duty to question authority because without scrutiny, authority remains unchecked and corrupt

Sharon Wilson is a free lance writer and a member of SOHopeful International.

http://www.sohopeful.org