Communicate through technology

One of my favourite blogs is by Guy Kawasaki at  (listed as How to change the World under blogroll). I stopped by there today and found some great information. There is a post about Carol Dweck’s article ‘The Effort Effect’. The article is about what makes some people excel and why others don’t. Kawasaki applies some of Dweck’s theories from her recent book called “Mindset:The New Psychology of Success” to business.

One of the important findings is that it’s better to focus on processes used to complete a task than on talent or intelligence. This means that we need to give some thought to communicating about the task. An example is ‘I can see how much thought you’ve put into that report. I can really understand the issues raised’ which emphases the effort and contrasts with a response, such as ‘Wow that just shows how clever you are’.

For those with an interest in social media and marketing, there’s a post on the Digital Outlook Report 2007.

Another post was for the Microsoft Small Business summit. You’ll be able to attend live via Windows Live. I’ve signed up (a lengthy process but hopefully worth it) for:

• The Art of Innovation by Guy Kawasaki;
• Working as a Team – software to enhance collaboration;
• Avoiding Burn Out – work life balance;
• Buzz Marketing

The one by Kawasaki is on Monday 19th at 11am which translates into Sydney time as Tuesday 20th 6am – mmm, a nice early start for the day. Apparently the US kicks into daylight savings time on the weekend, so I’m hoping that the online time convertor was right.

I attended a virtual conference put on by Avaya last year. I could head down the virtual conference venue and select a talk – this was a pre-recorded video of the presentation and download the relevant paper. It certainly cuts down on time and costs compared to attending a ‘real’ conference.

Just recently we had an online live presentation via Windows meeting and a conference call. The fellow presenting was in Texas (USA) and was supported by a technical fellow in Hong Kong. Windows meeting was used for the powerpoint presentation. Amazing what you can do!

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