The Importance of Eye Contact

The Importance of Eye Contact

In Communication, just how important is eye contact?  Only 10% of how we understand what is being said comes from the actual words spoken.  That means roughly 90% of how we understand each other is derived from non-verbal cues including body language, tone of voice, inflection and context.  Medical scientist have confirmed that the human brain is anatomically hardwired to "read" the face.  More and more we are realizing the important role eye contact has in how we understand the message.

Here are some very real and useful tips for mastering eye contact.

1.  Use eye contact to make initial contact:  Keep in mind that communication between people happens simultaneously and begins once a person perceives that they are BEING perceived.  In other words, once I notice that you are noticing me, we are officially in communication (even if we never speak)!  This can happen seconds, minutes or even hours before a word is ever spoken, so eye contact is often instrumental in establishing the "starting point" of communication and can create a doorway to a smoother introduction between people.

2.  Observe eye messages:  One of the single most important aspect of communication is knowing your audience and what better way to gauge your audience than to utilize eye contact?  Is your audience paying attention to your message?  Is your message effective?  Are your opening jokes funny?  Does your audience seem confused or unresponsive?  Observing eye messages will allow you to determine the answers to these questions and adjust your message midstream to make it more audience friendly.  

3.  Know When to make direct eye contact:  While direct eye contact can be great, in American society direct eye contact is a nonverbal signal that encourages talking.  Thus, when asking a question of the group, look only at those whom you wish to answer.

4. Sustained eye contact is just creepy:  Nothing makes a person more nervous or uncomfortable than sustained, prolonged eye contact.  Observe people talking and you will notice that people often "check in" with each other by making direct eye contact for a few seconds and then look elsewhere.  Also, people tend to re-establish eye contact when an important point is made, a question is asked or a vocal inflection elicits a response.  Perfect this technique through observation of others.

5.  Creating Rapport:  Often, establishing eye contact can generate a kind of rapport; a subconscious feeling of being "in sync" with another person.  This feeling can often make you seem "likable" or create a feeling of ease and comfort.

6.  Treat others as you would have them treat you:  In other words, just as you utilize eye contact to make sure your message is being received, use it to show you are attentive and/or that you understand what is being said.  It is also a good way to show confusion or elicit an answer to a question without interrupting the speaker mid-sentence (assuming they are practicing good eye contact habits as well).

7.  "Watch your eyeballs":  Of course this is physically impossible, so ask a friend or co-worker to critique your use of eye contact during the preparation phase of your presentation or interview.  

8.  Dramatic Effect:  In public speaking, nothing is more effective than asking a rhetorical question and then looking at someone as if you expect them to have an answer or making a powerful statement while making eye contact with an individual.  Use this sparingly but methodically and you will have a captivated audience.

*Warning!  American audiences value eye contact and generally regard it as showing confidence and trustworthiness (attributes valued in American culture).  Rules and Etiquette regarding eye contact are very much culturally based and these suggestions are for American Audiences only.  Remember to adjust your message to your audience and take this into account in all cases.

Joke of The Day

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I Wonder if He's Insured for This...

The wonderment of Apple

By John Carroll | December 2, 2010, 10:55am PST

Summary

Apple’s current success is truly astounding when you consider the state of the company in 2000. Today, they are the company that essentially owns that segment willing to pay most for client device customizations.

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The protagonist in the book “Looking Backward,” a 19th century novel by utopian author Edward Bellamy, awakes sometime late in the 20th century and proceeds, over the course of the book, to recount what he sees there. In Bellamy’s case, the protagonist saw a socialist Utopia well entrenched in the year 2000. Clearly, prognosticators have a hard time making accurate predictions about the future (and have a tendency to project their own desires into what they see there, just ask this guy).

The world of IT moves a lot faster. Imagine a programmer hit by a bus on the way to work in 2000. He goes into a 10-year coma, awaking on November 30, 2010 with a raging desire for Chicago stuffed pizza (and who wouldn’t). Given that his memory of computers stops at 2000, he might be forgiven for assuming that Microsoft ruled not only desktop computers, but cell phones, tablets, tables, refrigerators, cars, and any other device that can make use of CPUs and memory chips (though he might have thought there would be several Microsoft’s at the time, as he couldn’t have known that Penfield Jackson’s break-up ruling would be overturned by Collar-Kotelly).

The reality, of course, would be shocking to him. Who would have expected that today, Apple, a company that was nearly on its deathbed in 2000, is now the most valuable company in IT from a market capitalization standpoint, or that they would stand atop the heap in the new device category that is proving the fastest growing segment in computing?

Nobody would mistake me for a fan of Apple products, though it’s hard to discount their success. I recently received a Brookstone catalog in the mail, and was astounded by how much stuff there is that touts its compatibility with iPod, iPhone and iPad. A recent article on Ars Technica touted iPads and MacBooks as this Christmas’ “goods of desire.” It’s all-but impossible to escape the Apple logo around LA these days, whether it glows from the back of a laptop perched on a table in a local coffee bar or is emblazoned on a gigantic ad along the Sunset Strip (though Apple seems to have given up the gigantic 12-story ad along Santa Monica, something you could easily see from the Hollywood sign).

It seems a position that will be difficult for anyone to displace. Google certainly seems to have gained  traction for Android, and as Informa noted in a presentation I saw a few weeks ago in Puerto Rico, Android will balloon in market share in the coming years. Market share, however, doesn’t necessarily translate into revenue for application developers, a point John Gruber made in a recent post on his blog. Apple seems to have collected for itself that segment of phone users who like to customize their phones. That’s a useful trick, and goes a long way towards explaining why Apple continues to have overwhelming dominance in terms of the number of applications available for an iPhone. As Gruber noted, developers go where the money is, and the people who are willing to part with it seem to gravitate around Apple products.

That, to my mind, is not surprising, as the thing that Apple understood long before any other company was that devices that you carry on your person are different. People who like to make statements about themselves tend to gravitate towards products that specialize in cultivating what Thorstein Veblen would call “invidious distinction.” This is why I don’t think Apple should lose much sleep over Android’s market share gains. Apple shouldn’t want to grow its share too high, as that undermines the statement ownership of an Apple product makes. So long as they keep investing their products with that “something special,” people will still want to upgrade their phones to the latest every year, which appears to be a unique characteristic of iPhone users. Shortly after iPhone 4 came out, I was surprised how many people walking the streets in LA converted their version 3 devices to the new platform.

Who would have thought so much could have come from dominance in digital music players?

From hindsight, it makes a lot of sense. Back in the day, I used to argue with proponents of Java (and I counted myself as one at the time) whether Sun would have much success in the client space with its new Java runtime. I thought they wouldn’t, as Sun, as a server company, didn’t understand the needs of client environments very well.

You learn what kinds of things customers need and want by trying your hand at the market. Apple’s experience with the iPod taught them how to make devices that are easy to use and personally identifiable. Well, to be honest, personally identifiable was more part of Apple’s DNA than any other company (candy-colored iMacs could only have come from Apple), but easy to use takes work. The iPod was their laboratory, and iPhone and iPad sprung from its beakers spraying money in all directions.

Cultivating the iPod was an interesting way to displace what everyone thought was Microsoft’s unshakable grip on the world of computers…though I hesitate to say Jobs was completely aware of the potential, even as I credit him for the directions the company took. Apple didn’t invest most of its energies in making a frontal assault on the PC dominance of Microsoft, a space to which the old Apple confined itself almost exclusively. Instead, they created an entirely new market segment, one that didn’t have a well-entrenched competitor, built it into a powerhouse, and used that as a beachhead from which to launch into phones and tablet devices.

I may grumble about it, but it worked. Android might squeeze Apple, but they will never displace it in phones. And in tablets? Heck, they seem on their way to running away with the category the way they did with iPods. De facto standards are hard to displace…just ask Microsoft.

As much as I hate to admit it, Objective-C and Cocoa are going to be important tools in my client development toolbox. Server technologies will always be in demand, and those are far beyond the control of a company that is essentially a force on the client. Web skills are also not to be displaced, as every device must support web apps as a baseline feature. But if you are doing anything more advanced, well, Apple has a right to demand you pay attention to their APIs. Developers know that, and the more that sinks in, the more entrenched Apple and its APIs become in the marketplace.

Joke of the Day

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Each man gives a story

Three men were standing in line to get into heaven one day. Apparently it had been a pretty busy day, though, so Peter had to tell the first one, "Heaven's getting pretty close to full today, and I've been asked to admit only people who have had particularly horrible deaths. So what's your story?"

So the first man replies: "Well, for a while I've suspected my wife has been cheating on me, so today I came home early to try to catch her red-handed. As I came into my 25th floor apartment, I could tell something was wrong, but all my searching around didn't reveal where this other guy could have been hiding. Finally, I went out to the balcony, and sure enough, there was this man hanging off the railing, 25 floors above ground! By now I was really mad, so I started beating on him and kicking him, but wouldn't you know it, he wouldn't fall off. So finally I went back into my apartment and got a hammer and starting hammering on his fingers. Of course, he couldn't stand that for long, so he let go and fell -- but even after 25 stories, he fell into the bushes, stunned but okay. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I ran into the kitchen, grabbed the fridge and threw it over the edge where it landed on him, killing him instantly. But all the stress and anger got to me, and I had a heart attack and died there on the balcony."

"That sounds like a pretty bad day to me," said Peter, and let the man in.

The second man comes up and Peter explains to him about heaven being full, and again asks for his story.

"It's been a very strange day. You see, I live on the 26th floor of my apartment building, and every morning I do my exercises out on my balcony. Well, this morning I must have slipped or something, because I fell over the edge. But I got lucky, and caught the railing of the balcony on the floor below me. I knew I couldn't hang on for very long, when suddenly this man burst out onto the balcony. I thought for sure I was saved, when he started beating on me and kicking me. I held on the best I could until he ran into the apartment and grabbed a hammer and started pounding on my hands. Finally I just let go, but again I got lucky and fell into the bushes below, stunned but all right. Just when I was thinking I was going to be okay, this refrigerator comes falling out of the sky and crushes me instantly, and now I'm here."

Once again, Peter had to concede that that sounded like a pretty horrible death.

The third man came to the front of the line, and again Peter explained that heaven was full and asked for his story.

"Picture this," says the third man, "I'm hiding inside a refrigerator..."

10 Winning Techniques for Gaining and Keeping Audience Attention

10 Winning Techniques for Gaining and Keeping Audience Attention

1.  A Promise:  Begin with a promise that keeps the audience expectant. For example, "By the end of this presentation, you will know how you can increase your sales by 50 percent!"


2.  Drama:  Open by telling an emotionally moving story or by describing a serious problem that involves the audience.  Also, a long pause after a key statement, changes in vocal pitch and volume, and high intensity emotions (ie: anger, joy, excitement) go a long ways toward engaging the audience.

3.  Eye Contact:  As you begin, command attention by surveying the entire audience to take in all listeners. Take two to five seconds to make eye contact with as many people as possible.

4.  Movement:  Nothing is more boring than watching a mannequin behind a podium glued to the floor.  Leave the lectern area whenever possible. Try moving towards your audience, especially in the beginning and end of your talk.  Using deliberate movement such as walking to your left and right as transitions between key points within your lecture is also very effective in getting the audience to "follow" you.

5.  Questions:  Keep listeners active and involved with rhetorical questions.  Ask for a show of hands to get each listener mentally engaged. The response will also give you a quick gauge of audience attention

6.  Demonstrations:  Include a member of the audience in a demonstration. Ask for volunteers. Not only will it give a great visual representation of what you're trying to demonstrate; by bringing audience members to the lectern area,  you are more likely to grab the attention of the entire room.

7.  Samples/gimmicks:  If you're promoting a product, consider using items to toss out to the audience or to award as prizes to volunteer participants.  You can also pass around product samples or promotional literature.  Be careful, though, to maintain control

8.  Visuals:  Give your audience something to look at besides yourself.  Use a variety of visual aids in a single session.  Also, addressing audience concerns and questions on a white board or flip chart as you go along is also a great tool.

9.  Dress:  Enhance your credibility by dressing professionally.  Since this is perhaps the first thing your audience will notice about you, dressing professionally makes it appear you know what you're talking about and goes a long ways towards getting your audience to listen to you initially.

10. Self-interest: Review your entire presentation to ensure that it meets the critical "What's-in-it-for-me" audience test.  Remember that people are most interested in things that benefit them.



Joke of the Day:  Ok to Swim Here?
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While sports fishing off the Florida coast, a tourist capsized his boat. He could swim, but his fear of alligators kept him clinging to the overturned craft. Spotting and old beachcomber standing on the shore, the tourist shouted,"Are there any gators around here?!" 

"Naw," the man hollered back, "they ain't been around for years!" 

"Feeling safe, the tourist started swimming leisurely toward the shore. 

About halfway there he asked the guy,"How'd you get rid of the gators?" 

"We didn't do nothin'," the beachcomber said. 

"The sharks got 'em." 

Dress for Success in the Interview

Dressing for Your Job Interview: A quick review of the basics, follow these guidelines for successful interview dress:

Men and Women

• Conservative two-piece business suit (solid dark blue or grey is best)
• Conservative long-sleeved shirt/blouse (white is best, pastel is next best)
• Clean, polished conservative shoes
• Well-groomed hairstyle
• Clean, trimmed fingernails
• Minimal cologne or perfume
• Empty pocketsno bulges or tinkling coins
• No gum, candy, or cigarettes
• Light briefcase or portfolio case
• No visible body piercing (nose rings, eyebrow rings, etc.) or tatoos

Men

• Necktie should be silk with a conservative pattern
• Dark shoes (black lace-ups are best)
• Dark socks (black is best)
• Get a haircut; short hair always fares best in interviews
• Fresh shave; mustaches are a possible negative, but if you must, make sure it is neat and trimmed
• No beards (unless you are interviewing for a job as a lumberjack!)
• No rings other than wedding ring or college ring
• No earrings (if you normally wear one, take it out)

Women

• Wear a suit with a jacket and skirt or slacks; no dresses
• Shoes with conservative heels
• Conservative hosiery at or near skin color (and no runs!)
• No purses, small or large; carry a briefcase instead
• If you wear nail polish, use clear or a conservative color
• Keep your makeup simple and natural (it should not be too noticeable)
• No more than one ring on each hand
• One set of earrings only

On a Budget?

This is not to say that you need to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe. Go for quality over quantity. One or two well-chosen business suits will serve you all the way to the first day on the job and beyond. Then, when you are making some money (and have a chance to see what the standard uniform is for the company), you can begin to round out your wardrobe. For now, no one will fault you for wearing the same sharp outfit each time you interview. If you desire some variety within a limited budget, you might consider varying your shirt/blouse/tie/accessories as a simple way to change your look without breaking your wallet.

The Power of Shoes!

One final note on interview dress: while it goes without saying that your interview clothes should be neat and clean, very few interviewees give the same time and attention to their shoes. Shoes? Yes, shoes. I am aware of at least one Corporate Recruiter who forms first impressions based solely (pardon the pun) on shoes. This person does not have a shoe fetishhe subjectively judges that those who pay attention to details like shoes are also likely to be diligent in their work life. And it is not just that persons opinion. Many have said that you can judge a person by their shoes. You will find that many ex–military officers (many of whom have found their way into management positions in corporate America) are especially aware of a persons shoes. It is not enough to be clean and pressed. Make sure your shoes are conservative, clean, and polished.

Joke of the Day

Wittle Wabbit

A little girl walks into a pet shop and asks in the sweetest little lisp: "Excuthe me, mithter, do you keep wittle wabbits?" And the shopkeeper gets down on his knees, so that he's on her level, and asks: "Do you want a wittle white wabby or a soft and fuwwy bwack wabby or maybe one like that cute wittle bwown wabby over there?" The little girl puts her hands on her knees, leans forward and says in a quiet voice: "I don't fink my pyfon really giveths a thit."

source: http://www.collegegrad.com/jobsearch/Competitive-Interview-Prep/Dressing-for-Interview-Success/

4G Expanding

Clearwire 4G opens in NYC, L.A. and San Francisco on deck

By John Morris | November 1, 2010, 10:01am PDT

Summary

Clearwire reached a milestone today with the launch of its WiMax 4G service in New York City–along with cities in New Jersey, Connecticut and Florida. Looks like it is finally time to trade in my old AT&T USBConnect 3G laptop card.

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4G, Network, Clearwire Corp., Service,Clearwire 4G, LTE,Cellular Phones,Wireless And Mobility,Consumer Electronics,Personal Technology,more +

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Looks like it is finally time to trade in my old AT&T USBConnect 3G laptop card.

Though it is no surprise–New Yorkers have been reporting service in the metropolitan area for the past few weeks–Clearwire reached a milestone today with the launch of its WiMax 4G service in New York City. The CLEAR 4G service is now also available in cities in New Jersey and Connecticut, and in Florida, Clearwire added Tampa Bay to a list of cities that already includes Orlando, Daytona Beach and Jacksonville. In all, the 4G service is now available in 62 markets in the U.S. (here’s the coverage map), and Clearwire recently said it would meet its goal of reaching 80 markets and 120 million “points-of-presence” by year-end. Next up is Los Angeles-slated for December 1-followed by San Francisco in mid-December.

In addition to its retail service, Clearwire sells its network wholesale to other communications service providers. Sprint, Comcast and Time-Warner Cable offer 4G service using Clearwire’s network. To date, there are only two smartphones available (and for data only), the HTC Evo 4G and Samsung Epic 4G–both sold by Sprint. Clearwire also sells several mobile hotspots, the Clear Spot 4G, Spot 4G+ and iSpot, which make it easy to connect multiple devices to the 4G network using WiFi. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said in aninterview published yesterday that the iPad has boosted sales of its version of the 4G mobile hotspot, the OverDrive. Clearwire also offers USB modems and home modems to access its network, and the company says some 45 laptops and netbooks from Asus, Dell, Gateway, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba offer Intel’s integrated WiMax modules.

Clearwire’s 4G service, which the company claims has average download speeds of 3- to 6Mbps, is still the only 4G service available, but it won’t have the U.S market to itself for long. Verizon recently announced details of its LTE rollout. It plans to launch LTE in 38 markets, including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and at 60 airports by the end of this year. Verizon has said its LTE network will offer average download speeds of 5- to 12Mbps and upload speeds 2- to 5Mbps. MetroPCS launched its own LTE service in Dallas, Detroit and Las Vegas. AT&T has been focused on upgrading its existing network to HSPA+ before rolling out LTE starting in 2011. T-Mobile is the wildcard here. It has been marketing its own HSPA+ network as 4G service because it has download speeds of around 6-7Mbps, but it has yet to announce whether it will build its own 4G network or partner with someone else such as Clearwire.

Clearwire says its significant spectrum holdings allow it to support unlimited data–the average CLEAR subscriber uses a whopping 7GB of data per month. That is a nightmare for the incumbent wireless carriers. In fact other carriers have been migrating to tiered pricing in preparation for the rollout of 4G specifically to try to avoid this (this morning T-Mobile announced its tiered data plans as well as a tethering option). Those tiered plans seem to be working well for AT&T with the iPhone, but they won’t work nearly as well for the wide range of devices that will be accessing LTE networks starting with laptops and tablets.

Clearwire still faces some very tough competition, but if the major carriers do not offer reasonably-priced unlimited plans-or, at the very least, tiered plans with roomy data caps-WiMax could remain competitive for some time.

Joke of the Day

A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "If I show you a really good trick, will you give me a free drink?" The bartender considers it, then agrees. The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tiny rat. He reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a tiny piano. The rat stretches, cracks his knuckles, and proceeds to play the blues.

After the man finished his drink, he asked the bartender, "If I show you an even better trick, will you give me free drinks for the rest of the evening?" The bartender agrees, thinking that no trick could possibly be better than the first. The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tiny rat. He reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a tiny piano. The rat stretches, cracks his knuckles, and proceeds to play the blues. The man reaches into another pocket and pulls out a small bullfrog, who begins to sing along with the rat's music.

While the man is enjoying his beverages, a stranger confronts him and offers him $100,000.00 for the bullfrog. "Sorry," the man replies, "he's not for sale." The stranger increases the offer to $250,000.00 cash up front. "No," he insists, "he's not for sale." The stranger again increases the offer, this time to $500,000.00 cash. The man finally agrees, and turns the frog over to the stranger in exchange for the money.

"Are you insane?" the bartender demanded. "That frog could have been worth millions to you, and you let him go for a mere $500,000!" "Don't worry about it." the man answered. "The frog was really nothing special. You see, the rat's a ventriloquist."