Artificial Intelligence, Innovation, MyOrbit Blogs

Robot With Biological Brain

A multidisciplinary team at the University of Reading has developed a robot which is controlled by a biological brain formed from cultured neurons.

(Yes, this is called cutting-edge research)

Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and biomedical engineering.

“This new research is tremendously exciting as firstly the biological brain controls its own moving robot body, and secondly it will enable us to investigate how the brain learns and memorises its experiences. This research will move our understanding forward of how brains work, and could have a profound effect on many areas of science and medicine.”

A robot with a biological brain

This is the first step to examine how memories manifest themselves in the brain, and how a brain stores specific pieces of data. The key aim is that eventually this will lead to a better understanding of development and of diseases and disorders which affect the brain such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, stoke and brain injury.

The robot’s biological brain is made up of cultured neurons which are placed onto a multi electrode array (MEA). The MEA is a dish with approximately 60 electrodes which pick up the electrical signals generated by the cells. This is then used to drive the movement of the robot.

Every time the robot nears an object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by means of the electrodes. In response, the brain’s output is used to drive the wheels of the robot, left and right, so that it moves around in an attempt to avoid hitting objects.

The robot has no additional control from a human or a computer, its sole means of control is from its own brain. Click here to read more…

Here’s a Zdnet article that discusses this project.

Sales Coaching

Sales Coaching – Sales Phone Follow Up and Email Follow Up Methods

I am often asked the question:

“How do I know If and How I should follow up with a prospect that showed some moderate interest, but I have not heard back from them recently?”

It depends on each individual situation. In some cases it will be best to let it go immediately and in others it will be best to have a clear follow up process. Each situation needs to be evaluated. I have witnessed sales professionals/business owners chase after opportunities way too long, and I have also helped them implement a highly professional follow up method to eventually do business with very large clients. It is essential that your follow up process does not put the prospect on the defensive or cause any pressure at all.

In general, when someone is not responding to a voice mail or phone call after they showed mild to moderate interest, it means something may have changed. Or it means they realized they showed some interest, but have a hard time saying,”No” and they don’t want to have to tell you that they don’t want what you have to offer. Hence, they just choose to ignore the sales person, knowing eventually they will go away. This sometimes is easier than saying,”No thanks, we have no interest in your product or service.”

So, what can you do? First, in your meeting or conference call where they showed mild to moderate interest, it is essential that the next meeting and next step is clearly covered.(Before you leave!) Ensure it makes sense for your business and for *their business goals* most importantly. Don’t leave the meeting without next action steps in place. That will help prevent all of this. Yet, if it is too late, and that step was missed or steps were canceled or there was a major delay,

Here are some other ideas:

Make it easy for them to say “No.” Let them know, it is ok, if you don’t want and need this, it is not for everyone. You can even tell them,”It is OK to say ‘no’ and that you don’t want this.” Guess what happens when you do this? They respect you, and feel no pressure to say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ You are not trying to push anything on them either way, you are just trying to find out if there is a mutual fit or not to do business. You clearly explain that it may not be for them, and that is ok. Make it easy for them to say,”No thanks,” and you will quickly filter out those prospects who are a good mutual fit, and those who are not. You will then find yourself spending more time with those who may be a good fit, versus chasing those who are not a good fit.

So, to tie this back into the question, think about how you can implement this philosophy into your selling, your voice mails and emails when you get to this stage(If you failed to set next steps or the actions plans changed)

Example:”Mr. X, I know we spoke 3 weeks ago about your specific ‘marketing goals’ and how our ‘ABC Service’ can help you achieve them this quarter. I have not heard back yet on the information we needed to finalize the program. I just want to let you know, it is ok, if you are no longer interested or if you don’t need this service any more, but if you could kindly let me know, either way, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.”(The script should take 25 seconds which is a short enough voice mail and very appropriate) You could also tie this messaging into an email.

Jeremy J. Ulmer, Professional Sales Coach

For more information on Sales Coaching [http://coachwithjeremy.com/] please visit: Sales Coach [http://coachwithjeremy.com/] Website

If you are considering working with a sales coach or a sales mentor, please contact me to learn more about my sales coaching and sales mentoring programs.

Jeremy J. Ulmer, Professional Coach and Sales Expert

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1404187

5 Questions, Aerospace, Business Strategy, Capital Markets, FAQ, Finance, Industrial, Innovation, Insurance, Jobs & Careers, MyOrbit Blogs, People, Start-ups, Venture Capital

5 Questions With Warrent Buffet

1 Comment

Warren Buffet doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone because his performance numbers speak for themselves. And that’s what makes it so interesting to hear him take Q&A: “The nastier the better”… as he says!



It’s a long video… if you are in a rush, here’s our summary of the various Q&A:

Q1. What do you look for in the people you like to work with?
WB: I like to work with people I like. I don’t look at their CVs or Grades to decide who can do what. In fact, I don’t even look if they have a degree. If you are working with people you don’t enjoy, please do yourself a favour, and leave the job and work with people you like. You’ll do better.

Q2. What kind of businesses do you like to invest in?
WB: I want to invest in businesses that are stable and where I can visualize it 10 years from now. Companies like Coke (soft drinks), Gillette (mens shaving blades) are examples of my investment choices. There are many others like GEICO (automotive insurance), Nebraska Furniture Mart (maximum sales from a single store location in the US), Iscar Metalworking Company (an industry leader in metal-cutting tools from Israel). I don’t have the understanding of technology-intensive business like software etc, and I stay away from them.

Q3. How do you do business valuation? How detailed is it?
WB: I like to invest in businesses where I have great comfort with the business owner. A paragraph is often sufficient to know the business value. The example being Nebraska Furniture Mart owned by Mrs. Rose Blumpkin, who recently turned 101 years, who has no formal education but has great common sense.

Q4. Tell us some of your bad decisions and what you learned from them?
WB: I invested in US Air though it was a difficult sector. Call it Temporary Insanity. I have learned that my bad decisions have happened when I had more cash than necessary. The airline industry is one step forward for mankind, a giant step backward for capitalism! And then there are other mistakes that conventional accounting does not capture, like the selling of 5% stake in Walt Disney (at $6m) within a year of buying it (at $4mn) in the 1960s. Today that stake is worth over a billion dollars.

Q5. Why not split the Berkshire Hathaway share to make it more affordable to investors?
WB: I think of my investors as a club or an audience in my presentation and we want long-term investors not traders. I don’t want high trading volumes for our shares. In fact, I will be happy with no trading at all. Our share price ($25k per share in recent times) has helped us maintain that seriousness and attract long-term investors.

Thanks for coming by!
MyOrbit Team

Sales Coaching

Sales Action Plan – Building Your Own Self-Development Plan Using Your Customers

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. I have a sales coach that supports me, helping to analyze my actions during the sales process. It’s very focused on what we are doing now and what we should do next. But I just realized that I should know what has worked best in the past and what has not worked. I can sit down and write out what went right on the project I won, what went wrong on those same deals and then I can write out what went wrong on the deals I lost (most everything…) but won’t that yield an entirely biased list?

So, I started to think about every time I call on my customers, asking them questions on their progress, their roadblocks, their strategies. Everyone of them loves to talk about the product, their project and how things are progressing. So this is where the connection happened.

Now that I personally have a number of customer projects that I have lead the sales effort, it would make the most sense to query those people on how I did. What went right, why they selected my company, what I could have done better. That might also yield a positively biased reaction (we would hope). So, I thought I should include some prospects that didn’t select me because of some obvious reasons.

Now, I put together a scenario of how I would contact each customer, introduce my coach and then lead the coach into an assessment interview. All of my customers are from the organizational effectiveness and development space. So, they should get the fact that I want to conduct a peer review using them.

This is the email I laid out.

Dear Customer of Mine,

I am trying to create some development actions and improve my performance (boy, those words sound very familiar). I obviously sell talent management software and certainly feel the need to have my own talent plan. Since you are I have had a close vendor/client relationship that has lasted for quite some time, I was hoping that you might be able to participate in my performance improvement program.

I have been working with a sales coach for quite some time conducting mentoring and coaching sessions. To expand my program, I thought some peer reviews would be of valuable to my coach and allow some different perspectives (I am sure he is tired of hearing my own assessment!) So, I have asked him to contact you (with your permission) to provide some input to about 5 assessment questions that he has created . In respect of your time, this will only take 10 minutes on the phone.

Can I ask him to contact you directly for this short interview session?

Signed,

Jamie

How does that sound?

Here are my set of questions to pose….the question is “Will I gather the information I am looking for, some unbiased third-party opinions of me, my selling process, my attitude and how I compare to others doing the same thing???

1) (FOCUS ON THEM) Overall, how much impact on your final selection did the product have or did the salesperson have? (maybe percentages, maybe preferences)

2) In looking at this buying process, could you describe some best practices that you uncovered that will help you in future buying decisions?

3) (FOCUS ON ME) What did the salesperson do that was particularly effective and helped to differentiate him from his competitor’s salespeople? maybe ONE top of mind example that sticks out?

4) Could you describe your experience (in a couple of sentences) in the process of buying a product from Jamie in comparison to other corporate purchase decisions you have been involved with?

5) What could the salesperson have done differently to help you along in the selection process or towards a buying decision?

6) From a best practices standpoint, what could you recommend to the salesperson? maybe doing something better that might have changed the buying process – made your life easier, made things simpler?

7) If you uncovered a colleague with a similar need to the product or service you purchased, how likely would you be to refer that colleague to Jamie?

8) Finally, Would you be willing to give this salesperson a testimonial? written via email or place directly into linked in?

How To Contact Me: email address is jamie@jamiecorn.com

About Me: Resident on Long Island…Software sales consultant, former business owner, & financial consultant who has provided expertise to corporate HR organizations on their Talent Management and Human Capital Management processes and workflows. Over twenty-five years of previous business experience within manufacturing.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Jamie_Corn/211107

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1399030

Leadership

How Leadership Training Develops Strong Business Leadership Skills

Leadership training must evolve beyond programs of improving basic business leadership skills. While discussing the fundamentals of delegation, running meetings, “motivating” employees and public speaking may be OK for newly minted supervisors, it’s really inadequate for the majority of professionals who rely on executive management training to survive in their leadership positions.

If you do not think we need to change our leadership training strategies, here are a few reasons why we should. Our world enjoys a level playing field which empowers billions of people to attain greater prosperity. At the same time, more people are acquiring and improving their business leadership skills through formal educational programs or their own informal development efforts.

The many advances made in computing, communications and other commercialization technologies offer everybody opportunities to quickly develop and sell their ideas. As improvements in the physical technology arenas continue to capture media attention, most business leadership skills courses and leadership training endeavors fail to improve our expertise in applying social technology.

Some people call this period of human history, the Age of Knowledge, yet still others, like me, say it is the Imagination Age. Indeed, we even find ourselves questioning deeply-held priorities, like our use of natural, human and man-made resources, in response to ever-increasing social pressures.

However, leadership training programs, especially in today’s competitive economy, should prepare executives, management candidates and entrepreneurs to energize their business leadership skills in such areas as:

=> Innovation strategy development
=> Talent management and human capital enrichment
=> Technology portfolio designs and analysis
=> Business systems requirements and analysis
=> Coaching, facilitation and consulting techniques
=> Value-oriented analytics and engineering principles

 

All these subjects and others can help you boost growth and improve your performance on the “bottom-line”. But more importantly, directors, executives and managers who work in non profits, a governmental agency or a service organization simply do not understand the contributions of those same subjects to their future success.

When selecting your next leadership training, business leadership skills or executive management training program use the following three tips.

Tip-1 – What Philosophy Is Being Promoted?

Any leadership training program attempts to help you discover the nature, causes and principles associated with the reality of leading, applying the knowledge base of leadership and the reasoning used by leaders.

That statement defines the philosophy of most leadership development programs. However, it’s up to you to assess, measure and comprehend the scope, depth and intensity of your leadership training courses. You do have to evaluate when the needs of your business leadership skills are not being served by your executive management training program.

Tip-2 – How Does This Leadership Training Strategy Work for You?

These days there quite a few numbers of effective, efficient and efficacious educational techniques, delivery systems and program support strategies available to you.

Obviously, you will want to use your schedule, your learning style preferences and your personal as well as your professional requirements to gauge your leadership training options.

Your business leadership skills will be strengthened, sharpened and stimulated if you employ a long-term (6-12 months or longer) executive management training regimen.

Tip-3 – Why Will These Activities Energize Your Business Leadership Skills?

An excellent leadership training program will include classroom or instructor-led, self-directed or home-study and in-service learning activities. Involving this variety of learning situations increases the energy levels of your business leadership skills.

In other words, the doing, dissecting and developing of your leadership performances enables you to more effectively absorb your ‘lessons’ physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally and psychologically. That’s why world-class organizations give their promising performers executive management training for 2, 3 or more years.

Finally, the last and most critical “Tips” I will share with you are these –

Search for an executive management training program that adds richness, texture, luster, power and scope to the depth, capacity, value, quality and competency of your business leadership skills and experiences on a daily basis!

Invest in leadership training that will help you realize the ideals, opportunities and goals described in these Tips and you will make outstanding contributions to your organization, to your community and to our world.

Copyright © 2008, Mustard Seed Investments Inc., All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Bill Thomas is the author of books, video, and CD-ROM programs, he conducts executive leadership training programs for Awesome Leaders and Innovative Leaders.

Bill helps professionals, managers, supervisors, executives, entrepreneurs, and directors in 75 countries improve their performance by providing in-depth, results-driven leadership development, coaching, and consulting support.

Sign up and receive Bill’s leadership “Power-Tips”, read free ebooks and articles, listen to his weekly radio programs, and get free educational white papers. Bill guarantees his cost-effective services will maximize the returns on your investment.

Awesome Leadership Training Programs and Leadership-Toolkit – Leadership Skills Training

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Bill_Thomas/462