Leave Your Mark Here

Introduction
Better communication skills; not a term usually associated with technology types. Perhaps you've heard the story about the man who asked the engineer what time it was, and the engineer told him how to build a watch?

Exaggeration?
Perhaps, but there is many a true story about firms meeting with clients, and the client asks the IT guy if the system will work. The IT guy's response goes something like this: "It certainly should. We did all our design reviews, held code walk thrus, tested it in system test, user acceptance test, load test. Yeah, we're feeling pretty good at this point."
The right answer, of course, is "yes, we guarantee it".

To be fair, it's not easy for tech pros these days. Many of their business counterparts are relatively tech savvy. They don't know if the VP of Marketing that they are talking to has detailed knowledge of web technology, or if they don't know their browser from their Bowzer (that's for you Sha Na Na fans).

Tips for Tech Pros
Technology professionals who don't want to be treated like mushrooms, who want direct involvement with clients and the chance to participate in decision making, need to develop better communication skills. It's not too hard if they focus on four key behaviors:

• Adapt to your audience. Figure out where they start from on the technical knowledge scale. You don't want to lose them, and you don't want to talk down to them. If you're not sure, ask. They'll usually give you a straight answer.
• Listen for intent. If the client wants a high availability customer database solution, and the customer billing info is on a separate database, then they probably need high availability for that other database as well.
• Be tolerant and value differences. It's ok if the lawyer can't turn on his laptop. You probably don't want to be his opposing counsel in front of a judge.
• Don't try to impress. The tech knowledgeable members of the audience won't be, and the tech averse already are.

Managers and Leaders
You stand to gain credibility with clients and partners when you can bring your tech pros along to answer questions and gain a stronger understanding of the business. Of course you can suffer if they commit crimes of miscommunication. Here's what you need to do:

• Decide which members of your staff just don't have business communication in their DNA. Be honest with those people, and define their roles accordingly. You don't have to keep them in the dark like mushrooms, just make sure you know who's around before you let them into the daylight.
• Highlight the strong communicators in your technology teams. Give them access to clients and other business leaders. Make it clear that they are demonstrating role model behavior.
• Invite business experts (internal, external, client) to share their knowledge and feedback with your technical teams. You'll get a better sense of who "get's it", and your staff will appreciate your efforts on their behalf.
• Take every opportunity to reinforce for technology professionals the reasons why they are asked to do what they do. Help them keep perspective. Encourage questions, and provide individual feedback about more than their technical skills.

The organization that isn't changing is probably dying. For more information about managing change and developing leaders, please visit http://www.thomasjodea.com

Tom O'Dea has more than 20 years of senior leadership experience in companies ranging from startups to multi billion dollar corporations.

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Viral marketing is the latest trend in online marketing tools, also known as "pass-along," "friend-tell-a-friend" and "evangelism" marketing. Consumers tell one another about a product, service or Web site. The so called word-of-mouth marketing phenomenon saves companies of huge costs on advertising.

The promotional effort in viral marketing is designed to encourage visitors to an online site and makes them pass along a marketing message for a product, with an attractive incentive. The incentives vary from a free product to a discount coupon. One of the most effective ways to spread enthusiasm about a product is, though, games. Games are not only fun, they are powerful viral products used for traffic generation, training and education.

Viral marketing games are fast gaining popularity. Such online game contests allow the user to play a game online with a free product as the prize. At the end of the game, the user is re-directed to your product site. This ensures a constant stream of visitors to your site and also encourages repeat visits the two goals of viral marketing.

There are award winning viral games. Original and addictive games have been played by millions and have massively increased brand awareness and customer acquisition for brand owners. A good example are the very popular Simpson games that are made for the new Simpsons movie and Extreme Pamplona, a game made for Rexona, which has been played millions of times. MTV is going to spend millions of dollars on online games for promotion. The range of these campaigns proves that viral is not limited to entertainment brands or games for teenagers and adults. Big brands from Levi Strauss and Fox Television to traditional warhorses, such as The New York Times, Sports Illustrated or Lucky are popping up everywhere in the blogosphere and on message boards.
Viral advertising bounces like crazy on the Internet. Yes, its 2007 in the viral marketing world and Internet users arent so easily impressed with just any game, contest or video clip. As technology evolved, the online games also went forward for the better. Since the earliest invention of games in computers there has been advancements in leaps and bounds in terms of the technology and programming software's used to develop games.

New games appear on the viral market every day. These online games cover all categories and needs of the consumers. Any demographic can be targeted - moms, dads, teachers, primetime TV loyals, city dwellers, rural folk etc. Just name the game and you can find action games, action games, arcade games, board & card games, classic games, fighting games, puzzle & word games, car & racing games, shooting games, skill games, sports games and strategy games.

Most of us, who use computers for different purposes at present, would admit that playing games was the first reason of attraction towards computers. Almost everyone would admit that his or her first interaction with computers was through playing a game on it. Even now among millions of individuals, who sit in front of a computer, a vast majority would acknowledge that they are still addicted to gaming experiences on computers for long hours at a stretch.

Recent high-speed Internet connections make downloading a faster process and one can easily enjoy a full range of levels and degree of difficulty for the game. No experience can be more entertaining than of playing a flash computer game.

Welcome to the Games site, offering a variety of free online games. Free online games site: http://www.gamenode.com/

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