Newsletter Issue 104, October 2005

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 104, October 2005

Hi guys,

How well would you cope with a multicultural workforce? Get some ideas from Multicultural Communications Tips below.

If you are stuck on Finding Your USP, here are a few simple steps to help. 

Excel's COUNTIF Function Part 4   TLAs for SMEs        Tips, Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

Multicultural Communication Tips

In the US according to the 2000 census, only 82% of the population has English as their first language, 11% have Spanish, 4% Indo-European, 3% Asian / Pacific Island.

In 2001 in New Zealand, 70% of our population was European, 8% was Maori, 6% was Asian and 4% was Pacific Islander. The remaining 12% was unspecified or 'mixed'.

While mindful that European is not necessarily synonymous with 'English', we have pretty homogenous origins in Kiwiland, with only 10% of New Zealand's population not having English as their first language.

Not only do global trends suggest that this percentage will rise in the coming years, but we have very low unemployment in New Zealand (3.9% nationally, 2% in Nelson). As one in ten of us does not have English as a first language, employers who are short of employees may be best advised to put strategies in place so that they can work well with non-English speakers.

Robert Rosen, American author of "Partnering, the New Face of Leadership", feels that to thrive, businesses "must develop a multicultural perspective, an international knowledge base and a global imagination—in other words, cultural literacy”.

An interesting phrase, cultural literacy. It conveys the flavour of learning the basics in cross-ethnic communications. And we must communicate to effectively get the message across to all our team members, excluding no one, and offending no one through unintended cultural gaffes.

So how can you grow in cultural literacy? Here are some simple tips:

• Keep your language simple (remember Winston Churchill's low "fog factor" in his speeches. If you don't, go to http://dns1.sslmit.univ.trieste.it/~katan/Modulovarieta/2005/KISSy%20%20writing%20handbook.doc)
• Make instructions active. "You take the folder to James in Accounts" not "The folder should be taken to Accounts"
• Avoid negative questions. “You aren't coming, are you?” can be answered affirmatively either way - “No” I'm not coming (English) or “Yes” I'm not coming (German) ...as well as "No" I am coming and "Yes" I am coming...
• Have a good induction policy that explains where key information can be found and who to ask. Consider assigning a Buddy to each new person
• Make sure that all important staff messages are in a consistent format that makes key information easy to pick up
• Communicate important messages via different media to ensure that they are received (and initially, check personally - or get the Buddy to check - that the message has been received and understood)
• Develop a list of company-used technical terms, jargon, acronyms and abbreviations. Advise all personnel where they can access - and add to - the list
• If you are not understood, don't repeat more loudly - people are not deaf. Repeat slowly, rephrase or write it down
• If you do not understand, ask people to repeat slowly, to rephrase or to write it down
• Foreign team members’ ideas and logic may be different from yours - be patient and you just might learn something new from them
• If you think you have made a gaffe or if you have been embarrassed by another's actions, keep calm and clarify meanings and/or intentions. Avoid emotional responses; people will generally be mortified to find they have unwittingly caused offence
• Get yourself a mentor who can guide you through a culture's social mores at functions and social occasions, or employ "Monkey See, Monkey Do"
• Adapt your space requirements whenever possible. You can judge someone’s comfort zone by the distance to which they extend their hand when shaking hands
• If all else fails, ask why someone took a particular action, and let them know what your initial reaction was. That way you can both learn

There are also a number of websites that give a guide to how to work with other cultures. They are:

• To find a consultant to work with you, go to http://www.blis.org.uk/consultancy_search.aspx
• How to guide on international work at http://www.cilt.org.uk/publications/pdf/howtoguides/interculturalskills.pdf and http://www.thetask.org/students/pdfs/other_cultures.pdf
• Check out Muslim cultural differences at http://www.askasia.org/teachers/Instructional_Resources/FEATURES/AmericasCrisis/BG2/Islam/CulturesofMuslims.htm
• Check out how American ex-pats view living overseas cope in their articles at http://www.escapeartist.com

Finding Your USP

As we looked at in issue 101, USPs - or unique selling propositions - answer the consumer's question "What distinguishes you from similar products, services or businesses?"

However, it can be difficult to uncover the uniqueness of your products and services. But, by using (a) information about your product (b) information about your competitors' product and (c) comparing the offers, it gets a bit easier.

The steps:

1. Make a list of your product's features and benefits.
2. Now you need to know your competition, by selecting a couple of equal - or very closely matched - competitors; be careful to choose organisations whose product offer shares your product characteristics very closely. If you are offering a new service or seeking new markets, find an organisation which is established in the area you want to get into to use as your competitor.
   Then gather all the competitor's product information and materials that you can find. Add to the list of your product's features and benefits; matching features and benefits where they occur.
3. Compare your products. Look for differences. Ask yourself if any of the differences could be expanded into a USP?

However, if you still feel that you are stuck, give me a call - there are a range of tools to use to help you get through the process of identifying your USPs.

Excel's COUNTIF Function Part 4

Last time we looked at criteria using the dates and wildcards. This time it is mathematical operations and vote counting.

Mathematical Operations

You can use a CountIF statement as part of a mathematical expression. If you use =COUNTIF(A1:A8,"<2")+COUNTIF(A1:A8,">13"), you will add any values less than 2 (2) with any values greater than 13 (1), which will return 3:
         Column A

1. 1
2. 1
3. 2
4. 3
5. 5
6. 8
7. 13
8. 21

You can also use letters, wildcards or dates; eg =COUNTIF(B1:B10,"<b*")+COUNTIF(B1:B10,">x*") on the names list we used in issue 103 would return 2 (Aaron & Zachary).

 

Vote Counting

Excel's help file has a COUNTIF example calculating voting percentage results. The formula to count the votes recorded from B2:B99 for 'Aye' would be =COUNTIF(B2:B99, "Aye") and 'Nay' =COUNTIF(B2:B99, "Nay").

However, to obtain the "Aye" vote percentage, you use simple division and the formula =COUNTIF(B2:B99, "Aye") / COUNTA(B2:B99). Format the cell to show percentages. Just swap out the "Aye" for "No" if you need to show both.

Excel's help file also uses a more convoluted option to count non-blank cells ROWS(B2:B99) - COUNTIF("<>"&"*").

Thanks to Woody's Office Watch for the background for this series. View what the Office Watch team have to offer at http://office-watch.com/

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you;

• DWDM, Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing. A technology that exponentially increases the carrying capacity of fibre optic cables

Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Tips, Short+Hot Keys

Continuing our Outlook hot key list, this time we look at all you can do with the plain old alphabet keys with Alt, Shift, Ctrl. In this newsletter we take letters K to P;

• Outlook "Check names or (in Word as email editor mode only) insert a hyperlink " Ctrl & K
• Outlook "Create a new Task or open an existing one" Ctrl & Shift & K
• Outlook "Left align text" Ctrl & L
• Outlook "Add bullets or distribution list" Ctrl & Shift & L
• Outlook "Check for new mail" Ctrl & M
• Outlook "Create a new Message or open an existing one" Ctrl & Shift & M
• Outlook "Open a new message" Ctrl & N
• Outlook "Create a new Note or open and existing Note" Ctrl & Shift & N
• Outlook "Switch to Outbox or convert an HTML or RTF message to plain text" Ctrl & Shift & O
• Outlook "Display the Print dialog box" Ctrl & P

Hot Linx

How good do you think your internal clock is? Test yourself over ten seconds against the clock at http://www.brainbashers.com/games/ten.asp

If you want a satirical take on the news of the day - in America - then head over to the Onion for a bit of a laugh at http://www.theonion.com/content/index

Do you remember the Max Headroom series? If you remember the series fondly, then perhaps you will enjoy a visit to "Blank James" labour of love at http://www.maxheadroom.com/mh_home.html

There's a new web thing happening for you to store your favourites; you can keep 'em, share 'em, find 'em and get recommendations. It's a cool idea and you can find it at http://del.icio.us/

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                                Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here

read more "Newsletter Issue 104, October 2005"

Newsletter Issue 101, September 2005

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 101, September 2005

Hi guys,

Do you know what your Unique Selling Proposition is? If not, read on learn how to find out about USPs & how the concept can benefit your business.

If you haven't heard of Excel's CountIF Function, then now is the time to learn all about it in Part 1 of our series on this function. 

Seeking Truth on the Internet   TLAs for SMEs        Tips, Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

Unique Selling Proposition

Have you heard of Unique Selling Propositions? Usually known as USPs, the idea behind unique selling propositions is that good advertising/promotion/PR should identify and communicate a point of difference that is so compelling that it drives consumers to purchase your product or service. In other words, a USP should clearly convey "When you buy, you will receive THIS benefit".

So how do you find what your USP is? Simple - just answer three questions:

1. What is unique to your product or service? This should answer that "What makes your firm different?" question. This is your 'angle' or hook to catch your customer... and you may need to ask your customers what it was that made them buy your product or service to really find out what this is. Focus on benefits, not features - like intangible returns to the customer such as happiness; or tangible ones such as increases in profits (features describe your product or service; benefits are a solution to a problem). If you can't find a completely unique benefit, consider one that your competitors don't promote.
2. Which target market will gain most from/be most likely to purchase your uniqueness? Your target market is a cluster that you want to buy your product.
3. What USP is already used by your competitors in this target market? Think about your strengths and your competitors' weaknesses; or create a USP around elements such as quality, service, style, price, selection, location, delivery, budget, terms or accessibility.

Once you identify your USP, you can better communicate with your target market about your product or service, so that your offer will stay in their minds and remind them about what makes you different from the competition.

In addition, your USP can give the media an easy angle for stories. Once you have been featured in a media story tied to your USP, your brand profile starts to grow. It is then up to you to ensure that all your PR is linked more and more strongly linked to your USP to push that advantage. Additionally, word of mouth about the uniqueness of your business will spread more quickly because others will understand why your business is different from your competitors.

If you are old enough, think back to Hertz Rental Cars campaigns. As a rental car company, they weren't the best. They weren't the cheapest. They weren't the most modern. Their point of difference was that they "tried harder". So they told that to their customers, who rented Hertz cars in droves. And that USP made Hertz the largest rental car company for a decade.

So consider your USP. Think carefully and well; then use it to grow your business. Good luck!

 

Excel's COUNTIF Function Part 1

Excel's COUNTIF function provides a quick and easy way to count the number of times a specified condition or character string appears in your data. It is just what you need to identify how many times James made a sale, how many orders were over $1000 or how many times you bought stamps. Over the next few issues we will look at what you can do with COUNTIF.

A COUNTIF function looks like this '=COUNTIF(range, "criteria")'. It is much easier to understand from an example. To see how many times 5 appears in the following data range:

          Column A

1. 5
2. 7.5
3. 5
4. 5
5. 7.5

Key in the formula =COUNTIF(A1:A5,"5"). The formula will return a value of 3 (NB: Enter the COUNTIF criteria in double quotes.

Next time we will look at greater than and less than criteria. Experiment and enjoy.

Thanks to Woody's Office Watch for the background for this series. View what the Office Watch team have to offer at http://office-watch.com/

Seeking Truth on the Internet

I was sent an email recently, relating a story called "Socrates' Triple Filter". When reading the piece, the story sounded like it could be true, but I felt that it read too glibly.

So I did some digging, and found that the version that I had been sent - ironically, about truth - had been doctored. Following is what I believe is the 'real' version of this story. This is worth relating & remembering.

A man wearing red met a man in white and said to him, "Do you know what I just heard about one of your friends?"

"Hold on a minute," said the man in white, "before you talk to me about my friend, have you made sure that what you're about to say is true?"

"No," said the man in red, "I just heard it and thought you'd want to know."

"So you don't really know whether it's true. Well, is what you're about to tell me about my friend something kind or good?"

"No, on the contrary, it's bad."

"So you want to tell me something bad about my friend, and you're not certain it's true. Well, is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful in any way?"

"No, not really," replied the man thoughtfully.

"Well," concluded the man in white, "if what you want to tell me about my friend is neither true nor kind nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

This famous conversation happened more than 2,000 years ago. It's interesting to note that no one remembers the name of the man wearing red. The man in white was Socrates.

Keep this philosophy in mind the next time you either hear, or are about to repeat a rumour.

And if you want to view what I was sent - effectively a rumour of the original tale! - go to http://www.positivethoughts.com/filter.htm

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you;

• KMD, Kazaa Media Desktop. A decentralized Internet peer-to-peer software that has lots of embedded spyware in it. While "free music" is attractive, you should avoid this programme at all costs.
• PUP, Potentially Unwanted Program. A programme that may be unwanted, despite the possibility that users consented to download it (like all the spyware that comes with Kazaa.

Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Tips, Short+Hot Keys

Continuing our Outlook hot key list, this time we look at all you can do with the mouse or Enter with Shift and Ctrl;

• Outlook "Edit the web page URL in text body or note" Ctrl & Left Mouse Button
• Outlook "Specify a Web browser" Shift & Left Mouse Button
• Outlook "Send/post/invite all (NB: doesn’t work in Word Mail)" Ctrl & Enter
• Outlook "Move to the previous field without leaving the active card" Shift & Enter

Hot Linx

Check out the NZ labour market & social policy at http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/index.htm

If you want to see some amazing flooring, check out this link at gizzmag http://www.gizmag.com.au/go/4219/

For a neat history of Impressionism, the artists and their times, check out this site at http://www.wetcanvas.com/Museum/Impressionists/?GXHC_GX_jst=8258c07950ea6165

See this site a very good article on where languages come from at http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/language/language_article1.html?GXHC_GX_jst=8258c07950ea6164

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                                Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here

read more "Newsletter Issue 101, September 2005"