Corruption, sexism and thrift

Hello, dear Lyudmila Vladimirovna, my colleagues and other readers of the Blog. The audio record given to us comprises some problems about which I want to tell further. So:

            1) Sexism.

            Despite of our progressive time, there are still many cases of sexism in the world. If we consider the best 250 world companies it is possible to notice that the part of the women working there constitutes only about 7 %. Banker Devis says that if in companies worked more women, business could become better and more productive.

            It is described the case of the disrespectful behaviors to woman Joe Dikson in the record. It is when one of heads has been surprised, having seen her at the meeting and has taken an interest that Joe there did. «This company has being managed by men 300 years, and people like you must be at home with your children» - words of this man. But Joe answered that the firm future would be provided with such people as she and if more women worked here the firm would function better (more flexible schedule etc.).

            Also it is IKEA enterprise example resulted. It is said that the company could do a lot more for environment and to the values: how to work with ethnic minorities, how to let women a chance to reach the higher positions on the company.

            2) Corruption.

            The annual corruption barometer from Transparency International was published this week. In this reporting the opinion of usual people is considered. The majority of the interrogated said that corruption in their country became worse.

            The transport logistics expert Gari Bosh which worked in Africa and in Russia, says that the greatest problem of corruption is that bribes take those people who work in the government. He is sure that if people want to struggle with corruption, they should change the government. As he says, people should bear responsibility for their job and for that they particular do.

            3) The problem of a toxic sludge of the enterprise in Hungary.

             Salton Iesh estimates financial and legal consequences of the spill at the mark of 150000000 or 200000000$. This incident has been investigated by police and authorities.

            Lawyers of the Hungarian enterprise say that it doesn't bear responsibility for the incident as the company had followed all rules and instructions. Moreover, the company claims that the state environmental monitoring agency carried out the most recent examination just 9 days before the disaster and found nothing wrong.

            In this situation only careful check will help to understand who is guilty in this incident and who will pay.

Richard St. John: "Success is a continuous journey"

Hello, dear Lyudmila Vladimirovna, my colleagues and other readers of the Blog. My sixth message like the previous one will be connected with the topic «Success». It is the continuation of the first Richard's speech. Here is the reference: http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_st_john_success_is_a_continuous_journey.html

            This time, unlike the previous Richard's speech, I listened to the tape only once. Surprisingly, but I’ve got everything what was said by this man. Animation, jokes etc. all of this was the same like during the first Richard's speech. As you have already guessed I understood 100% of information from this tape.

            “Why do so many people reach success and then fail? One of the big reasons is we think success is a one-way street” - Richard starts his speech. People do everything to achieve the success. But after they reach it they just stop to do something else (that made them successful). And it does not take long to go downhill. The same situation happened to Richard:

            He worked hard and so on but after his success he just stopped. Richard was enough good at coming up with ideas but after he had stopped doing anything hi lost this ability. “Reaching success I always focused on clients and projects and ignored the money. Then all this money started pouring in” - says Richard. Reaching success he always did that he really liked, but after the reaching success Richard got into stuff he did not like. His business got worse and “it did not take long for business to drop like a rock”.

            But this was it for Richard. He went back to doing the projects he really liked. It takes him 7 years to make the business grow bigger than ever. He understood that success isn’t a one way street, it is a continuous journey.

            If we want to avoid “success to failure syndrome” we just keep following these 8 principles (about which was talked in the previous Blog) because it is the only how we can achieve our success.

            Thanks for attention.

Richard St. John's 8 secrets of success

Hello, dear Lyudmila Vladimirovna, my colleagues and other readers of the Blog. My fifth message will be connected with the topic of the fourth lesson «Language of small business». It is «Success». Though the record heard by me lasts only 4 minutes, I like it so much and completely going to tell you about it.

Here is the reference: http:// www.ted.com/talks/richard_st_john_s_8_secrets_of_success.html

            Richard's speech was very fast for me; so I had to listen to this record 3 times. The animation helped me completely understand all that has been told by Richard. Without the animation I wouldn't understand approximately 10-20 % of the text. By the way, after the second and third listening I wrote down the basic thoughts of the man that helped me to retell the story.

            Richard tells that «Richard 8 secrets of success» have arisen some years ago. He was flying in the plane to TED conference. The schoolgirl was sitting near him and she asked how to achieve the success. Richard couldn't answer this question. After that the man arrived to TED conference and started to ask all successful people «what exactly leads to success». So, «8 secrets of success of Richard»:

            1) Passion. You should be engaged in affairs, do the business with love instead of for the sake of money. If you do the affairs with love, money will come to you.

            2) Work. It is necessary to work assiduously. Nothing comes without the effort. You should take pleasure during the work.

            3) Good. Alex Gorden tells: «For being successful, you have to choose something one and become the best in it». Practice, practice, practice.

            4) Focus. You should concentrate on the most important thing.

            5) Push. It is necessary to overcome yourself in all vital aspects, to overcome shyness, fear, uncertainty, laziness etc.

            6) Serve. In Richard’s opinion you should serve only to yourself and give something valuable to others. Only in this case you will become successful and will earn a lot of money.

            7) Ideas. There is no magic in the arising of each idea. It is necessary to do the simplest things. Only in this case you will become successful, as Bill Gates, for example.

             8) Persist. It is the most important part of our success. You should pass through failures, through CRAP =)

            As Richard says if you follow these 8 steps, you will become successful without any fail.

            In my opinion, this man is right. These 8 steps are the most important things for the way to you success, especially passion and persist.

            Thanks for attention.

Michael Pritchard's water filter

            Hello, dear Lyudmila Vladimirovna, my colleagues and other readers of the Blog. My fourth message will be connected with the last blog in which about Coca-Cola and world problems was told. How is it possible to solve all these problems? Today I want to talk about possible ways of improvement of people life on the earth. One of the most important problems on the earth is the problem of drinking water. Here the reference: http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pritchard_invents_a_water_filter.html

            I have listened to the Michael speech two times. At the first listening 95 % of the information was clear for me, his speech was accurate enough, not fast and, in my opinion, interesting. All of it has helped me to understand (without any problems) all that has been told by Michael.

            After the second listening I wrote down the basic thoughts and actions of the man. It helped me to retell the story in short way.

            At the beginning of Michael speech he speaks about scales of a drinking water problem. Very big quantity of people suffers from shortage of water, or drink the dirty, infected water.

            The governments of the countries speak a lot about this problem, but practically do nothing for its solving. Michael explains it that scales of this problem are too big and just all people are afraid of it and don't want to be engaged in it. Each 5 minutes four children die because of the use of poor-quality potable water in the world.

            But the man has tried to solve this question and has invented “Lifesaver”. Michael explains from the scientific point of view that through the filter invented by him no deadly and dangerous bacteria can go.

            After that hi passes to demonstration of the invention. Michael takes water from the river, adds dirt to it, sand, seaweed and so on. Then the man drops this water through his filter and receives clean, not infected potable water.

            Such small bottle can be used for 6000 liters of water. This invention will help to save with water deliveries, to avoid a basis of various camps (during natural disasters) and to save a great sum of money for potable water clarifications.

            Also Michael has invented the canister which can contain 25000 liters of water without filter changing. And the running cost of it is only 0,5 cent per day. It will be possible to reduce number of people suffering from shortage of potable water. And all dying people will live.

            In my opinion, this excellent invention is needed to be financed a lot. If it is so the great number of suffering people on the planet will decrease. Governments should develop similar inventions, instead of wasting money for useless actions and things. If struggle with a potable water problem by old methods it will be impossible to save African countries from this drinking "illness".

            Thanks for attention.

What nonprofits can learn from Coca-Cola

           Hello, dear Lyudmila Vladimirovna, my colleagues and other readers of the Blog. For my third message here I have chosen a record from http:// www.ted.com. This record corresponds to topic «international market (Brand)». Here is the reference:

http://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofits_can_learn_from_coca_cola.html

            I have chosen this particular record because the considerable quantity of problems is discussed on it and these problems are very important in our days. For example, it is the poorness of developing countries; the problem of improvement of people living conditions on the planet; brand promotion in the world market and its influence on associates.

            When I had listened the record the first time I have caught the general essence of the woman’s speech and have paid attention to the several facts which are important for understanding the text. It is possible to say that I did not understand only about 20 % of the text because of the fluent speech and some words which were unfamiliar for me. At the second listening I concentrated the attention to those parts of the speech which I haven't understood for the first time.

            And finely, at the third listening I have decided to listen to this tape partially for writing down some aspects of the speech, including things because of which the Coca-Cola Company became a world brand and extended even in the poor African countries.

            I will try to tell the maintenance of the record very shortly as its extent constitutes 16 minutes and it will be very difficult to tall all details of the speech in the Blog frameworks.

            In the beginning of this record the acting woman (her name hasn't been given) tolled that she worked at the Gates Foundation and often traveled all over the world. Onсe she was travelling around the African countries, across India and so on. She saw nothing except poverty. In these countries was absolutely nothing, there was no water, no electricity... BUT!!! There is the Coca-Cola!!! Coca-Cola was absolutely in each country even in such country as Ethiopia.

            The woman is indignant that instead of vaccination, condoms, medicines and etc the harmful Coca-Cola is extended there. She is surprised why the state and whole world allows it to occur. Why in those countries where people die because of shortage of medicines, this drink is imported instead of tablets and so on.

            This woman believes that the success of Coca-Cola is needed to be studied and accumulated into development of other different industries. If to achieve the same success as Coca-Cola it will be possible to save lives of African children, to reduce number of poor people.

            Our business woman allocates 3 things which have helped Coca-Cola to be promoted in such way and become a world brand:

-         they take real-time data and immediately feed it back into the product;

-         they tap into local entrepreneurial talent;

-         they do incredible marketing.

            It is very interesting that the woman gives an example an official hymn of the World Football Cup 2010 in Africa. Where are words like «give you freedom, give you fire, give you reason, take you higher» and so on… It seems that this song is about football, but it is an embedded advertizing of Coca-Cola too and it is possible to apprehend ambiguously the words of this song.

            In the conclusion of the speech, the woman says that it is very important to direct the energies and "advertizing" in the write way and then (it is possible) a lot of world problems become less.

            To tell the truth, I hate the Coca-Cola Company and their drinks. It is very unhealthy. So I absolutely agree with the opinion of this woman.

            Thanks for attention.

Credit cards

            Hello, dear Lyudmila Vladimirovna, my colleagues and other readers of the Blog. It is time to write the second message here and I am going to do it with big pleasure.

            I have chosen an audio record from BBC Learning English site which most of all corresponds to topic «international market», it is about сredit cards. Here is the reference: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/2010/02/100211_6min_creditcard_page.shtml

            This audio record is silly a bit (if it is possible so to say so) because a lot of determinations of very simple words are given in the record; the words like "credit card", "cash", "profit" and etc. It is obvious that the tape is made especially for people who only start to study business English. But on the other hand, this audio record is interesting enough from the history point of view, how and when the first credit cards and cash machines have appeared.

            It was enough for me to listen to the audio record once. The words and the text of all people, who were on the tape, were clear enough; it was not so fast and easy for understanding. 99 % of the record is absolutely clear to me. The exception was only the small time interval in which girl Kate told about credit cards (in the beginning of the tape). Her speech was very fast, but I had paused the record, thought the words over, and all became clear for me.

             At the beginning of the tape Dan and Kate (if I am not mistaken in their names) made clear the word "credit card" and told for what it is used (for purchasing in shops and so on). Kate assumed that the first credit card appeared in 1962.

            After that the conversation about pros and cons of credit cards has begun. There were examples that credit cards are easy in use and more convenient, than cash and so on. But it was noticed that many people consider that using credit cards takes much more money than just using cash. Then the reporter Mark who was talking about the first cash machines joined to Dan and Kate's conversation. Mark told us the first cash machines had appeared in 1967, and the first credit card had appeared not in 1962 (as Kate believed), but in 1951 (this information Dan has added).

            In summary Dan told the story (some kind of "baize") about the creation of the first credit card. As he said, certain Frank had a supper at the restaurant with his lawyer and they didn't have enough money to pay off. So Frank sent his wife for money. It was a shame to him and Frank decided to "think up" credit cards. In my opinion, it is pretty cheerful and lovely history. But truth it or not, I can't say.

            I can add that the audio record was very easy, but interesting from the historical point of view.

            Thanks for attention.

Business Language To Go

            Hello, dear Lyudmila Vladimirovna, my colleagues and other readers of the Blog. I want to complain that I have some difficulties with a choice of BBC news, these news don’t correspond to topics which was given to us. So, I have listened to an audio record from BBC Learning English site (the topic is «communication»). Here is the reference: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/talkaboutenglish/2009/02/090211_tae_bltg.shtml      (Part 10).

            I have chosen this audio record because the theme «Business Language To Go» is really interesting and will be very useful to all of us at communication with colleagues, clients, heads and so on in the future.

            When I had listened the record the first time I understood approximately 90 % of all information. The difficulty was constituted by separate phrases of the first girl-manager speaking by phone, because of her fluent speech and original accent. Also it was hard to understand the men in the second and the women in the 4^th dialogues (possible it is because of the muffled sound).

            At the second listening I have paid attention to these three dialogues and have understood everything about the girl-manager and everything that was said by the man. I can say that only about 2-3 % of all audio record was difficult for understanding for me (it was difficult to sort out fluent English speech through the sound of audioplayer).

            In the beginning of the record it is told how important to be able to communicate with "difficult" clients. The men on this tape David (if I am not mistaken in his name) results expression as an example that «the client is always right» and that it is necessary to remember about it even if this client is malicious or in a stressful condition. So, for this purpose it is shown some situations and paid attention to correct choice of words and language. In the first dialogue the unsatisfied woman is calling to the travel agency and telling her problem. In this situation it is accented attention to phrases «would you like», «I understand» and so on. The worker of the travel agency is trying to look on the situation from the calling women’s point of view. "It is very important to apologize in every similar situation" - says David.

            Also it is told about the importance to say «we’ll do everything we can» during conversation with the client (dialogue «№2» about the problem with delivery). It is very important to try to persuade the aggressive client that there is no sense to be angry and that you want to help her/him (I’ll take your point etc).

            In my opinion, this audio record was easy enough for listening, but useful in point of improving the colloquial skills.

             Thanks for attention.