Imagine you're at a networking event or party. Have you ever wondered what to do with your hands? When it comes to social interaction, keep the 4C's in mind.<ol><li>Calm. Keeping your hands relaxed shows that you are comfortable and confident.</li><li>Confident. Display confidence with your hands by putting them in the steeple position where the fingers of both hands touch together.</li><li>Connection. To connect with others, use hand-to-hand touch (if appropriate), hand-to-shoulder touching, or handshakes.</li><li>Clean. Ensure your hands are clean before extending them to someone else.</li></ol>

The 4 C’s of hand gestures

Hand gestures that you can use to help make a good impression: <ul><li>The Lap Desk. Let your hands rest on your lap to appear calm and relaxed.</li><li>Elbows on Desk. If you have a front-facing desk, consider placing your elbows on the desk with your hands clasped. Don't nervously massage your hands.</li><li>The Steeple. Steeple your fingers together with your elbows in the air or on the table.</li><li>The Resting Chin. Rest your chin on your hand to look engaged in the conversation.</li></ul>

What to do with your hands when you’re sitting

<ul><li>The Elbow Bend. Bend your elbows and keep your hands in front of you, especially if you’re dynamically using hand gestures during a conversation.</li><li>Carry a Drink. Whenever you’re at a party or networking event try grabbing a drink. Put your arm slightly to the side, so it’s not blocking your torso.</li><li>Use Charismatic Gestures. Gestures can help you be more fluent and help people to understand you.</li></ul>

What to do with hands during standing conversations

Avoid putting your hands in your pockets. It makes it hard for people to get to know you. If you habitually put your hands in your pockets, try wearing clothes without pockets. Avoid face touching. Touching your face is an anxious cue. You may also look more deceptive to others.

What not to do with your hands

Stashed ideas

What to Do With Your Hands in Social Situations (& What NOT to Do)

Following tips on how to communicate or write well can make it mechanical and boring. For example, "When you're speaking to a crowd, vary the pace and the tone of your speech." It is correct but doesn't necessarily make sense in terms of how you're relating to the people you're talking with. Instead of a using tips, use a process. It can transform you so the tips take place automatically. The source of a pause or the volume of your voice should because you are relating to your audience.

Tips

When you have four or more points to talk about, eliminate them or see if you can add them to other things, so you have only three points.  Three things are all we will remember well without reading them. Your audience will also not remember more than three things, so stick to three.

Try to say only three important things

When you have something difficult to say that will not be easy to understand, say it in three different ways. If you explain a difficult idea from different angles, you have a better chance of getting a three-dimensional view of the idea, so try to say it three different ways.

Say it in three different ways

If you have to talk about a difficult idea, try to say it three times throughout the talk. <ul><li>The first time you hear it, you start to get used to it.</li><li>The second time it sounds familiar.</li><li>The third time you get it.</li></ul>

Say it three times

3 Ways to Express Your Thoughts So That Everyone Will Understand You Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Join Big Think+ for exclusive videos: https://bigthink.com/plus/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan Alda doesn't want you to take "pro tips" from anyone—not even Alan Alda. When it comes to his area of expertise—public speaking and empathetic communication—there are no hacks or shortcuts; if you want to be a world-class public speaker, you have to earn those stripes through the process of deeply understanding what it is to talk, listen, and connect. Alda calls tips intellectual abstractions; it's akin to the difference between information and knowledge, between parroting a few words in French and speaking the actual language. But, when pushed by yours truly at Big Think, Alda does give up the goods (willingly—we promise no Alan Aldas were harmed in the making of this video). His best tip to become a better communicator is what he calls the three rules of three. Listen to his practical hints for becoming a communication pro but, as he remarks, try to get there organically through the process. Alan Alda's most recent book is If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALAN ALDA: Alan Alda has earned international recognition as an actor, writer and director. In addition to The Aviator, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, Alda's films include Crimes and Misdemeanors, Everyone Says I Love You, Flirting With Disaster, Manhattan Murder Mystery, And The Band Played On, Same Time, Next Year and California Suite, as well as The Seduction of Joe Tynan, which he wrote, and The Four Seasons, Sweet Liberty, A New Life and Betsy's Wedding, all of which he wrote and directed. Recently, his film appearances have included Tower Heist, Wanderlust, and Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies. He helped found the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University where he is a Visiting Professor, helping to develop innovative programs that enable scientists to communicate more effectively with the public. He originated The Flame Challenge, a yearly international competition for scientists in which they compete to explain complex scientific concepts so that 11-year-olds can understand them. Since 2008, he has worked with physicist Brian Greene in presenting the annual World Science Festival in New York City, attended since its inception by over a million people. He has won numerous awards for communicating science from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society, and the National Science Board. Alda was born in New York City, the son of the distinguished actor, Robert Alda. He began acting in the theater at the age of 16 in summer stock in Barnesville, Pennsylvania. During his junior year at Fordham University, he studied in Europe where he performed on the stage in Rome and on television in Amsterdam with his father. After college, he acted at the Cleveland Playhouse on a Ford Foundation grant. On his return to New York, he was seen on Broadway, off-Broadway and on television. He later acquired improvisational training with "Second City" in New York and "Compass" at Hyannisport. That background in political and social satire led to his work as a regular on television's "That Was the Week That Was." His wife, Arlene, is the author of nineteen books, including her latest, Just Kids from the Bronx. An award winning professional photographer, her work has appeared in a number of magazines and books. They have three daughters and eight grandchildren.c ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Alan Alda: I don't really like tips; tips about communicating well, tips about writing. What I would prefer is a process that transforms you so the tips take place automatically. I mean for instance, very often a tip is given: “When you're speaking to a crowd, vary the pace of your speech, vary the volume.” Well, those are two good things, but if they happen mechanically it gets to be kind of boring. Some people are encouraged when they're coached: “At this point leave where you're standing and walk over there and take a pause.” Well, maybe that makes sense in terms of how it's written; at the end of that paragraph you want to make a space before the next paragraph, but it doesn't necessarily make sense in terms of how you're talking and relating to the people you're talking with. That—relating to them—should be the source of a pause, the source of moving, because it comes out of the thought process I'm going through and it comes out of the thought process I sense you're going through. Have you understood that last... Read the full transcript at https://bigthink.com/videos/alan-alda-we-were-built-to-connect-with-other-people-heres-how-to-be-better-at-it

3 Ways to Express Your Thoughts So That Everyone Will Understand You | Alan Alda | Big Think

Having to switch your devices off on airplanes is frustrating, especially when you’re on a business trip and need to stay in touch with the office or flying solo with kids on a long-haul journey. The good news is that inflight WiFi is becoming available on more and more airlines in place of traditional inflight entertainment. But how in the world does it work 35,000 feet up in the air? Well, this is just another piece of <a href="https://www.rd.com/list/airplane-trivia/">airplane trivia</a> you never knew.

Phones On Airplanes: No Longer Switched Off

There are <a href="http://www.connected-altitude.com/services-technology/how-inflight-wifi-works/">two operating systems</a> for airplane WiFi: ground-based and satellite. Air-to-ground WiFi works in a similar way to your cell phone. Airplanes have an antenna located underneath their body, which links up with cell towers. As the aircraft travels, it simply connects to the nearest transmitter on a rolling basis. The airplane becomes a hotspot, so passengers can do everything they would normally do when connected to the Internet, including sending emails, making calls, and even streaming movies.

Two Different Operating Systems

However, this system can’t work when the plane is flying over large expanses of water, like on transatlantic routes. That’s where satellite comes in.Satellite WiFi uses a network of orbiting satellites to allow a connection. The satellite is linked to ground stations, and the airplane connects using a satellite antenna on the top of the fuselage. Again, the plane uses whichever satellite is nearest as it travels. Satellite WiFi operates on two different bandwidths: narrowband and broadband. Both allow passengers full Internet access though broadband is better.

Doesn't Work On Water

The number of <a href="http://www.letsflycheaper.com/blog/airlines-2/airlines-that-offer-inflight-wifi/">airlines offering inflight WiFi</a> is increasing rapidly. You may need to book directly with the airline, and some operators require a <a href="https://www.gogoair.com/list-all-products">single-use pass or package</a> from a provider such as Gogo. This is also a useful option if you fly frequently with different airlines. The price is usually higher for greater bandwidth, but for your company, it may be worth the investment. Keep an eye out for these <a href="https://www.rd.com/list/airplane-features/">hidden airplane features</a> you had no idea existed either.

Book WiFi Directly

Inflight WiFi connectivity is poised to improve across the board. Technology such as Gogo’s 2Ku system is steadily improving reliability, which is enabling more airlines to introduce WiFi for both domestic and international flights. <a href="https://www.jetblue.com/flying-with-us/wifi">JetBlue</a> offers standard <a href="https://www.rd.com/article/how-to-get-free-wifi/">free WiFi</a> service on all domestic flights, and Air Alaska offers <a href="https://www.alaskaair.com/content/travel-info/flight-experience/inflight-entertainment/text-messaging">free texting over WiFi</a> on all flights as well as the promise of <a href="https://www.alaskaair.com/content/travel-info/flight-experience/inflight-entertainment/wifi">expanded, faster WiFi</a> with Gogo’s 2Ku system through 2020. As of now, most Air Alaska flights offer basic WiFi services on flights in North America.

Improvements To Come

Ever wonder how cell signals travel to 30,000 feet so your child can watch 'Frozen' for the hundredth time? Here's how inflight WiFi can keep you connected.

How Does Inflight Wifi Work, Anyway?

A firewall is an online security measure to protect your computer from viruses and other malicious attacks.You can use the internet to communicate with around 4.9 billion people worldwide.The downside is that everybody also has access to you. This includes hackers and viruses that want to steal your data, take control of your computer or even destroy it.To stop this from happening, a firewall controls the data flowing between your computer and the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/internet">internet</a>. A firewall inspects data to make sure it has the right permissions. If it does, it can pass through.

The Firewall

A firewall works at your computer's ports. When we're talking about computer networking, a port isn't the same as a jack or socket you plug your monitor into. Rather it's a virtual entry point where your computer exchanges information with other networks. Every computer has lots of ports, each of which handles different kinds of data. For instance, according to the <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1177080.1177123">Internet Measurement Conference (IMC)</a>, emails often go to port 25 while webpages go to port 80 — even though they both come through the same internet connection

A Virtual Toll Gate

When a firewall checks if data can enter your network, it'll read a message that comes with it called metadata. This will list a string of numbers indicating where the data has come from (known as the source address), where it's going (the 'destination address' aka your PC) and over which port.Whether the data has permission will all depend on a set of rules known as a protocol. These rules can be set to prevent you — or any other particular user – from uploading certain files to the internet.

How The Technology Works

A video file isn't sent from YouTube to your computer as a single file. Instead, it's broken down into smaller pieces called data packets, which reassemble once you receive them, according to the website security company Cloudflare. Packet-filtering firewalls will check each data packet to make sure it has permission to pass through your network.

Data Packets: The Atoms Of The Internet

Learn how a firewall filters out cyber-threats, while still letting you access everything you want to look at online

Firewall: Definition, technology and facts

There are so many benefits to speaking up at work and making yourself heard: You gain visibility, increase your influence, and enhance your credibility and social capital — all of which are needed to succeed at work. Yet, many young professionals don’t speak up.But as a newcomer, you also want to prove that you aren’t completely raw. From understanding how meetings are run to reading your boss — being new requires a level of focus to unlearn the norms of your former job and train yourself on “the way things are done” at this organization.

The Newcomer And Speaking Up At Work

What you don’t realize is that when you’re early in your career or new to an organization, you are often a great source of information, as you can more easily identify inefficiencies that longtime employees overlook.<ul><li>We believe we are novices and don't want to rock the boat.</li><li>We believe speaking up is just a one-time event. In reality we have to speak up every day to make any real change happen.</li><li>We believe our ideas have to be new and innovative for us to be heard.</li></ul>

What We Get Wrong About Speaking Up

The first step to effectively speaking up is doing pre-work. Think about who needs to hear your idea or opinion, and why would it matter to them. Speak with other team members, peers, or mentors who have been around longer to gain their perspective before bringing your idea to your boss (or another stakeholder).

Do Your Homework

Not all ideas have to be shared at a formal meeting. Sometimes, a lunch with the team member or a coffee catch-up with your boss is a better option. When considering the time and place to speak up, think about the following: <ul><li>What frame of mind is the other person in? </li><li>Are they working on a project that may have them thinking about the issue that you want to speak up about? </li><li>Are they having the mental bandwidth?</li><li>Who else needs to be around to amplify your ideas and to give it credibility? Are they available?</li><li>Is it the kind of idea that will catch your boss by surprise, or would it be 'on topic'?</li></ul>

See The Idea From All Aspects

<ul><li>To speak up and make it count, you need to do some pre-work. Think about who needs to hear your idea or opinion, and why would it matter to them. You could also speak to your peers to gain perspective.</li><li>Next, think about the time and place to bring up your idea, as well as your tone. Should you speak up during the meeting, or have a one-on-one instead? Is your manager tied up with other critical issues?</li></ul>

Take Action

Learn how to strategically frame your suggestions. Are you pointing out everything that’s wrong or suggesting ways to improve upon a process or system?Share your idea not as the “only perfect solution” but as an alternative perspective.You could say:<ul><li>I would like to build upon/add to what you said…</li><li>I would like to present another perspective that might help us refine…</li><li>I see the benefit in what you’re suggesting, but maybe we could consider making the following additions to that and here is why…</li></ul>

Framing Your Suggestions

Present your idea as an alternative, sharing the pros and cons, and connecting it back to the larger team goals.An inclusive voice shows both confidence and humility.  Confidence portrays that your arguments and logic are backed by supporting rationale, evidence, facts, and persuasive examples. Humility, on the other hand, is shown by presenting your idea as an alternative, sharing the pros and cons, and connecting it back to the larger team goals. To practice humility, use collective pronouns such as “we/us/our” versus personal references such as “I/my.”

Humility

You were hired for your “new” perspective

Don’t Let “Being New” Stop You From Speaking Up

Some professionals argue that the onboarding process is not easy. Basically, it is easy. However, the process of perfect onboarding, where the customers are happy, is tough!  When you make the onboarding experience smooth for the customer, they are most likely to continue with your brand for a long time. That easily translates into continued recurring revenue for your business.  Now, to tackle the difficulties in the process, a ‘Playbook’ can come to your rescue.

A Perfect Customer Onboarding

A playbook is a series of time-bound activities. It is a detailed checklist or blueprint of steps prescribed by the Head of Customer Success (CS) which should be followed during the customer journey.  Also, it contains the best practises that you must follow while dealing with your customers to improve their overall experience with the product. An onboarding playbook is, similarly, the detailed sketch of the onboarding process and the time required to complete the same.  With playbooks, you will get a real-time view of which customers are in which step of onboarding.

The Playbook

While designing an onboarding playbook, you need to understand your existing onboarding process & divide it into various steps.
Once the steps are clearly defined, they can be categorised into either of the following elements. The onboarding playbook, typically, consists of:
<ul>
<li>Tasks- which the Customer Success Manager (CSM) has to perform </li>
<li>Product Adoption Milestones- the crucial product feature that the customer has used and how well the customer has adopted the product.</li>
<li>Outcome- A high-level business outcome that you expect your customer to achieve in this step.</li>
</ul>

Setting Up A Playbook

When you design the onboarding playbook, you need to identify if the process is:-
<ul>
<li>Low-touch Onboarding- It is mostly self-served.</li>
<li>Medium-touch Onboarding- It needs the involvement of CSMs/Implementation Managers.</li>
<li>High-touch Onboarding- It relies heavily on the involvement of your team. </li>
</ul>
This is an important step because the playbook has to be designed based on the intensity of the automation or the human intervention in the process.

Identifying The Process

Playbook can come to rescue in ensuring your customers get the perfect onboarding experience and achieves early value

How can playbook help in Customer Onboarding

Brand Ambassador Programs are done by companies to promote its products by creating buzz through social networks and interpersonal skills of chosen brand ambassadors. Brand ambassadors represent the brand during special events and even in-store making marketing efforts. This includes providing product demonstrations for your customers or giving away free samples, dependent on the type of brand and product they're representing.

Brand Ambassador Programs

<ol><li dir = "auto">They boost and protect your reputation</li><li dir = "auto">They bring your business closer to people</li><li dir = "auto">They provide positive word of mouth</li><li dir = "auto">They increase traffic to yiour site</li><li dir = "auto">They help you build your brand in general</li></ol>This is of course after thoroughly screening your possible brand ambassadors. People pay attention to the reputation of your company plus it's easier to get closer to people with this kind of programs becayse they will provide a personal touch while promoting the products and company in general.

Reasons for Using a Brand Ambassador Program

5 Reasons To Use Brand Ambassador Programs For Your Business - The European Business Review

Many cities use WiFi to provide free or low-cost internet access to people. WiFi networks are easy to set up, inexpensive and unobtrusive.  A wireless network uses radio waves, just like cell phones, radios and televisions . <ul><li>A computer's wireless adapter decodes data into a radio signal and transmits it via an antenna. </li><li>The wireless router receives the signal, interprets it, and sends the information to the internet using a wired ethernet connection. </li><li>The process also happens in reverse.</li></ul>

Understanding WiFi

Radios used for WiFi connections are similar to radios used for walkie-talkies or cellphones - they transmit and receive radio waves. They can change 1s and 0s into radio waves or from radio waves to 1s and 0s.   WiFi radios have some differences.<ul><li>They transmit at much higher frequencies of 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz, allowing the signal to carry more data.</li><li>The 2.4 band can carry over several hundred feet, but the 5GHz band has a max range of 200 feet (61 meters) and is more prone to interference from walls and other objects.</li></ul>

Difference between radios used for WiFi and cell phones

<ul><li>802.11b is inexpensive and the slowest. It transmits in the 2.4 GHz frequency band and can handle up to 11 megabits of data per second. It uses complementary code keying (CCK).</li><li>802.11a transmits at 5 GHz and can move 54 megabits of data per second. It uses a more efficient orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM).</li><li>802.11g transmits at 2.4 GHz at 54 megabits per second. Network congestion makes that it can achieve only 24 megabits of data per second. It uses OFDM coding.</li><li>802.11n can transmit up to four streams of data, and can reportedly achieve speeds of 140 megabits per second.</li></ul>

WiFi uses 802.11 networking standards

<ul><li>802.11ac operates at 5 GHz and is backwards compatible with 802.11n, with n on the 2.4 GHz band and ac on the 5 GHz band. It can transmit on up to eight spatial streams and push a maximum of 450 megabits per second on a single stream.</li><li>802. 11ax (WiFi 6) allows up to 9.2 Gbps. Manufacturers can install more antennas on one router, and accept multiple connections simultaneously without interference and slowdown.</li><li>802. 11be (WiFi 7) is projected to be the standard by 2024.</li></ul>

802.11ac, 802.11ax and 802.11be

A WiFi hot spot is used to refer to wireless networks that are accessible in public areas. You can use your own cell phone to create a mobile hot spot or set up a WiFi network at home. If your computer does not have a built-in wireless transmitter, you can buy a wireless adapter that plugs into the USB port.

WiFi hot spots

You can create a wireless network with a wireless access point. For this, you'll need a wireless router.  A router contains the following:<ul><li>A port to connect to your cable modem </li><li>A router </li><li>An ethernet hub </li><li>A firewall </li><li>A wireless access point</li></ul> When you plug in your router, it should work at its default settings but can be changed using the web interface.

Building a wireless network

Using the web interface, you can select: <ul><li>The name of the network, known as the service set identifier (SSID). The default is often the name of the manufacturer.</li><li>The channel that the router uses. The default is 6, but if there is interference, you can switch to a different channel.</li><li>Your router's security option. It's a good idea to set your own username and password. </li></ul> If you set your router to create an open hot spot, anyone can use your signal. Most people want to keep strangers out.

Changing your router's settings

Use one or more of the following methods to keep your network private: <ul><li>WiFi Protected Access version 2 (WPA2) is the recommended security standard for WiFi networks and involves signing on with a password. It uses either Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) encryption or Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption.</li><li>WPA3 is more complex encryption on the router and client's side.</li><li>The Media Access Control (MAC) address uses a computer's physical hardware to authenticate users, instead of passwords.</li></ul>

Keep your network private

Learn how WiFi networks work, build your own wireless network and find the best prices on wireless routers.

How WiFi Works

Since 2014, World Emoji Day is celebrated every year on July 17. Japanese artist, Shigetaka Kurita, created the first pixelated colour emoji in 1999. These little illustrations paved the way for different types of emoji that were later recognised by Unicode - an international computer encoding standard, enabling them to be enjoyed across different platforms.

World emoji day - July 17

Every day, 700 million emoji's are used in Facebook posts and 900 million emoji are sent without text on Facebook messenger. <ul><li>The most popular emoji of all time the the 'Face with Tears of Joy' emoji. The crying-laughing face is the most popular emoji on Twitter.</li><li>The most 2020 emoji voted by Twitter users at the 2020 World Emoji Awards were the raised fist symbolising the Black Lives Matter movement and the Microbe emoji used to symbolise the Covi-19 pandemic.</li></ul>

The most popular emoji

New updates to the range of emoji are decided by the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee, which regularly reviews proposals from the public. <ul><li>They see if the image will work at a small scale.</li><li>How well it expresses the symbol, mood, or item, it is designed to show.</li><li>How likely a multitude of people will use that emoji.</li></ul>

How new emoji get picked

What is World Emoji Day? When is it and what are the most popular emoji?

All relationships need boundaries, especially those in managerial positions. We believe that being close with our employees is ideal, however, it's actually best if we keep a bit of distance and establish firm boundaries with them.
A good manager should want rapport and respect, not a best friend.

Relationships Need Clarity, Even Managerial Ones

When we don't establish firm boundaries as managers what happens often is that other employees may develop the idea that there is favoritism in play, objectivity often gets lost, and it puts us in an awkward position when their performance issues arise and control is needed.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Alana
@alana_

What to Do With Your Hands in Social Situations (& What NOT to Do)

3 Ways to Express Your Thoughts So That Everyone Will Understand You | Alan Alda | Big Think

How Does Inflight Wifi Work, Anyway?

Firewall: Definition, technology and facts

Don’t Let “Being New” Stop You From Speaking Up

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Alana @alana_

What to Do With Your Hands in Social Situations (& What NOT to Do)

3 Ways to Express Your Thoughts So That Everyone Will Understand You | Alan Alda | Big Think

How Does Inflight Wifi Work, Anyway?

Firewall: Definition, technology and facts

Don’t Let “Being New” Stop You From Speaking Up

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Alana
@alana_