Hyperloop

 With the emergence of the technology from the times, Humans have covered a long journey of crawling on the earth to flying in the space. From the foot, bullock carts, cycles to modern high-speed bullet trains and fighter jets covering all modes from roads, waterways to air. With this advancement human race also has suffered the drawbacks of these technologies in the parallel. Among accidents, pollution in terms of air, water, noise, etc. have also created a havoc in the modern society. The innovation of the IC-engine has completely changed the paradigm of transportation but the various pollution due to these forced humans to turn towards cleaner and electricity-based vehicles.

Virgin Hyperloop One slighting modified the concept given by the Elon Musk in the following two steps:

1.      Magnetic levitation (or "MagLev"): Technology already used in monorails to lift the passenger pods and move them along their rails. Magnetic levitation uses two sets of magnets. one to repel the train from the track and lift it upwards and the other to move the floating train along the track at considerable speed with reduced friction.

2.      Low Pressure use: Vacuum sealed environment helps the pods face little to no resistance as they move. Air pressures in the tubes is somewhat like flying 60 km above sea level. the pods to reach speeds of over 1200 kmph.

Current progress of Hyperloop in the world :

Arguably leading the pack having constructed the world’s first full-scale test track in the Nevada desert, Virgin Hyperloop One saw their proposal to build a USD $10BN route between Pune and Mumbai declared an official “public infrastructure project” in 2019.

Saudi Arabia is also in talks with Virgin Hyperloop One, with the company preparing to build a manufacturing plant and 35-kilometre test track north of Jeddah. It is the first country to carry out the pre-feasibility at national level anywhere in the world. With the solar panels on the tube’s exterior it will strategies the 50% clean energy.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) is also planning a system in the Middle East for 150-kilometre route between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, that would cut the travel time to just 15minutes.The firm, which has its own full-scale test track in France, has announced plans to begin passenger trials later in 2020, with work on commercial operations expected to commence in 2023.

Middle Eastern proposals look promising, HTT’s best chance of winning the race lies in the United States (US). A hyperloop journey from Chicago to Cleveland would take just over half an hour and people can in one city and can work in the another. The project in under Environment impact assessment and route will be operational by 2028.

North America, proposals to construct a hyperloop between Mexico City and Guadalajara – cutting the six-hour car journey down to 38 minutes.

Hardt Hyperloop is leading the way with its own European Hyperloop Centre in Groningen, with construction due to complete in 2022.According to Hardt, the centre will house the first high-speed test track in Europe and a laboratory where developers can share knowledge on standards, safety and passenger experience. Hardt also plans to have its own 10-15-kilometre pilot route built by 2023 and aims to operate commercial lines by 2028 – a target that it admits is ambitious. Hardt envisions a future where every major European city is connected by hyperloop and where journeys between key hubs such as Amsterdam and Frankfurt become easily commutable.

India currently:

In India it was proposed to build its 1^st hyperloop from Mumbai to Pune to cut down the journey time from 3.5hrs to just 35minutes for distance of 117.5km by 2026. The idea was put on hold due to change in govt. but not scrapped completely. Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson has recently met with India’s Union Transport Minister to propose another route connecting New Delhi with Mumbai.

Prygmallion Effect

 The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is a psychological phenomenon wherein high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area. The effect is named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved, or alternately, after the psychologist Robert Rosenthal. Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, in their book, applied the idea to teachers' expectations of their students affecting the students' performance, a view that has been undermined partially by subsequent research.

In this phenomenon the higher expectations leads to higher performance. Our beliefs about the other person's ability influence our actions towards the other person. this action has an impact on the others beliefs about themselves. The belief about themselves cause the other's actions towards us. Which again reinforces our beliefs about that person and the cycle repeats again and again.

Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson's study showed that if teachers were lead to expect enhanced performance from children then children's performance were enhanced. The experiment goes like this:

All students in a single California elementary school were given a disguised IQ test at the beginning of the study. These scores were not disclosed to teachers. Teachers were told that some of their students (about 20% of the school chosen at random) could be expected to be "intellectual bloomers" that year, doing better than expected in comparison to their classmates. The bloomers' names were made known to the teachers. At the end of the study, all students were again tested with the same IQ test used at the beginning of the study. All six grades in both experimental and control groups showed a mean gain in IQ from before the test to after the test. However, First and Second Graders showed statistically significant gains favouring the experimental group of "intellectual bloomers". This led to the conclusion that teacher expectations, particularly for the youngest children, can influence student achievement. Rosenthal believed that even attitude or mood could positively affect the students when the teacher was made aware of the "bloomers". The teacher may pay closer attention to and even treat the child differently in times of difficulty.

How to use Pygmalion Effect in Management:

1. Stay mindful of your perception:

 If you work on a team made of different skills, qualities, and personality traits, you can appreciate what each individual brings to improve productivity and make work enjoyable. Instead of identifying weaknesses, focus on strengths and opportunities for individuals to grow. This strategy can encourage others to perform at their best because you believe they can.

2. Identify positive qualities:

Seek out positive traits and notable strengths in your employees. Look for the areas where they’re most talented and have the greatest potential. Discuss these strengths with your employees and let them know what you believe they’re capable of. Give them high expectations that encourage them to exceed what they’ve accomplished in the past.

3. Present your Employees with challenging tasks:

Employees exhibit greater growth when they are empowered to reach ambitious goals. Assign your employees tasks that challenge their capabilities and encourage them to achieve more than they have in the past. Emphasize the fact that you know they’re equipped to handle these jobs skillfully. An individual who can overcome challenges is likely to be a stronger collaborator on group tasks.

4. Use confident language:

Make it clear to your employees that you believe they are exceptionally qualified to complete the task you are asking them to do. Compliment your employees on their performance and identify the strengths they have shown. Those who believe they are among the most talented in the company are more likely to feel confident and, as a result, exhibit exemplary skills.

5. Allow for discussion and self-expression:

In early studies of the Pygmalion effect, those who were given greater opportunities to express their thoughts during discussion saw more personal growth. These opportunities can come in the form of an open-door policy, time set aside during general meetings or even specific meetings just for employee feedback. Give your workers the same opportunity to discuss your team or company’s growth and make an impact in your organization.

6. Provide Detailed Feedback:

Use constructive feedback for areas where employees are struggling, and offer actionable advice on how they can do better. If an employee is struggling with one certain task, encourage them to keep working on the task and assure them you know they are capable of completing it. You can also provide them more specific feedback on how to properly complete the task so it is a learning opportunity.

7. Promote positive Gatherings:

The Pygmalion effect can have the greatest impact when it’s used by everyone in the organization. Leaders are uniquely positioned to influence a workplace culture that publicly celebrates individual team member’s successes and strengths.

Communication

 What is the communication cycle exactly? It basically involves the conveying and receiving of messages between two individuals or entities in an easy-to-understand format. Talking and even listening are all methods of communication.

Our ability to assign values to sounds, signs, and symbols makes us different from all other animals on earth. Author and professor Yuval Noah Harari in his book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, laid emphasis on the importance of language in making humans "the smartest animals" on this planet. Thanks to communication, we are now able to do many things that were unimaginable to our cave-dwelling ancestors.

 

The language was developed as a means of surviving and thriving and that is true even in present times. You may be an acclaimed artist, programmer, engineer, or business person and excel in your field, but if you can’t communicate effectively, you won’t be able to thrive.

What is the communication process?

The communication process starts with the formation of ideas by the sender, who then transmits the message through a channel or medium to the receiver. The receiver gives the feedback in the form of a message or appropriate signal in the given time frame to continue the communication cycle.

 Recall any conversation you have had in your life—be it enquiring about a brand new computer your friend just bought or your relatives asking you about your examinations—and you will find that it follows this process.

There are seven important elements of the communication process. Here are the details:

1. Sender

The process of communication starts with the sender. This is the entity that will use the means of communication to share her thoughts. The sender starts the communication cycle by deciding to convey her thoughts and chooses the format to use.

The sender manages her thoughts, seeks clarity, and decides what exactly she wants to put forth. The sender needs to gather the required information and relevant ideas in order to communicate. For example, a writer begins with an idea and transforms it into a book.

 2. Encoding

Encoding is the step in the process of communication where the sender decides how she wants to convey her thoughts. Selecting the right words, associated symbols in verbal communication or gestures, tones and sounds in non-verbal communication are ways of encoding a thought.

To make encoding easier, it is imperative to know who is the receiver. For example, Ruskin Bond writes clean and short sentences that invoke visuals to instill wonder among his readers, children.

3. Message

A message is formed after the sender decides what she wants to put forth and how she wants to convey it. It’s also known as encoding. The nature of the message can change depending on the medium you use and the audience for which it is meant. Always remember that for a communication to be successful, it is important that the listener or reader understands the message.

4. Channel or medium

In order to better explain the process of communication, one has to pay close attention to one crucial wheel of this cycle, which is the medium. This screen that you’re reading this article on, the newspaper that slides in every morning through your door, the television you watch your favorite movies on are all mediums. It’s imperative to consider the medium used for information transmission while encoding the message or it fails to reach the audience effectively.  

5. Receiver

The process of communication is incomplete without a receiver to ‘lend an ear’. Whenever a sender writes, or says or sings or expresses anything, it’s meant to be read, or experienced. The receiver is a crucial part of this process.

The receiver gathers the information presented or broadcasted by the sender and begins to understand it. We take turns between being a sender and being a receiver. You are a receiver when you watch a movie, and a sender when you tell your friends how the movie was.

6. Decoding

No matter how well the message is crafted (or encoded), it will fail to make an impact if the receiver does not possess the tools to decode the message. For instance, a nine-year-old may not understand the point of Harari’s book.

While growing up, we also build the ability to decode various messages. Even if the word ‘beautiful’ has one meaning in all the dictionaries, globally, it would undoubtedly mean something different to different people. We decode any message by our own mechanisms, thoughts, memories, and create our own meaning.

7. Feedback

The process of communication is a long one. Communication does not stop afterthought or idea is expressed or a sentence or a word is uttered. It creates ripples through time, like a stone slung in a peaceful lake. Feedback is one of the last stages of communication.

 After a message is encoded, sent over a medium received, and decoded, there is a need for the communication to keep moving. Through feedback, the receiver becomes the sender, broadcasting the views about the information received.

 Another important aspect that is present in this cycle is noise. This refers to the obstructions people face while following the entire communication process. This can mean actual physical noise, preoccupying thoughts of the sender or the receiver, and barriers such as language, comfort, and cognitive precision.

Churchill & Gandhi

Churchill had said:

 

 “It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle [Inner] Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.”

One may also be aware that while in London to attend the Round Table Conference, Gandhi wanted to meet Churchill but the latter had refused to see him, though his son Randolph met Gandhi. And then later in July 1944, Gandhi had written to Churchill a letter saying,--

                “Dear Prime Minister, You are reported to have a desire to crush the simple 'naked fakir' as you are said to have described me. I have been long trying to be a fakir and that [too] naked - a more difficult task. I, therefore, regard the expression as a compliment though unintended. I approach you then as such and ask you to trust and use me for the sake of your people and mine and through them those of the world."

An American scholar, Arthur Herman, who had recently tried to trace quite candidly the period-wise relation between the two in his book ‘Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed the Empire and Forged Our Age’, says about this letter: “This strange, jocular note was classic Gandhi. It was his effort to reach out to Churchill in the aftermath of their epic battle.” But Churchill never received it and even if he had received it, he could not have done anything, “because to the astonishment of the world, on July 26, 1945, the British voters turned Churchill out of office."

Mr. Churchill is incorrigible, hopelessly out of date, and is getting unpopular day by day. His memoirs might be read for their grandiloquent phraseology, bombast, and nineteenth century English, but no student of history will find his version of recent history a safe guide. The odds are that these memoirs, in course of time, will be rescinded to the dustbin. And as for his malicious attacks on Mahatma Gandhi, we are certain that they will deceive no one. Long after Churchill and his memoirs have been forgotten, humanity will continue to regard Gandhiji as a beacon of peace; and cherish his memory with reverence even as they cherish the memory of Jesus, Buddha and Socrates.

For Gandhi, simplicity was the way of life. When the British invited Gandhi for peace talks, Gandhi saw no particular reason to change his attire, which was same as millions of his fellow countrymen. Gandhi met with Lord Irvin with the advantage of having won a moral victory. "I have caused a great deal for trouble for your government. But as men, we can set aside our differences for welfare of the nation" he said to the immaculately dressed viceroy, on occasion of which Churchill is said to have made his infamous comments.
Churchill, who considered himself a true democrat constantly opposed granting freedom to India. In more ways than one, Gandhi was a much  greater democrat, especially in believing in self-determination of people and the universal equality of mankind. Churchill was to be irritated further. The following year, Gandhi met face to face with Churchill during the Indian round table conference -- "...I have an alternative that is unpleasant to you"  he told Churchill and his clan of imperialists. " India demands complete liberty and freedom...the same liberty that Englishmen enjoy... and I want  India to become a partner in the Empire. I want to partner with the English people not merely for mutual benefit, but so that the great weight that is crushing the world to atoms may be lifted from its shoulders".

Winston Churchill loathed Gandhi. Gandhi  loathed none.

Digital Visume

 

In our Business Communication , as part of our assignment we were said to make visume.It was a great experience and I learnt a lot about the visume.

Prof. T Prasad gave us some valuable tips that were useful for making the visume and these tips are mentioned below:-

• Be professional: Dress as you would for an interview and maintain a professional demeanor. Avoid slang and, of course, cursing. Be cautious when it comes to jokes. What's funny to you may not make others laugh. 
• Find a good background: Pay attention to the background of shots: make sure it looks tidy and that there are no noises in the background. You'll also want to make sure the lighting is good. A shadow across half of your face can be distracting.  
• Prepare a script: Don't ad-lib your video. You want to seem natural and off the cuff, but should have a sense of what you want to say and how you want to phrase it. Do not read directly from a script or from your resume, as that leads to a dull video.
• Know your audience: As you plan your script and filming location, consider who will watch the video and calibrate accordingly. For instance, a video prepared for a position at a bank might differ from a video created for a start-up.
• Show, don't tell: Use visuals to illustrate what you're saying in the video script, ones that showcase your talents and skills. For instance, if you're applying for a job where presentations are a significant part of the role, you can film B-roll of yourself assembling a PowerPoint. If any of your presentations were recorded, use that footage in your video resume.
• Keep it brief: Videos should be between 30 and 90 seconds. Anything longer than that is unlikely to be watched.

What is Blog?

A blog (a shortened version of “weblog”) is an online journal or informational website displaying information in the reverse chronological order, with the latest posts appearing first, at the top. It is a platform where a writer or a group of writers share their views on an individual subject.

What is the purpose of a blog?

There are many reasons to start a blog for personal use and only a handful of strong ones for business blogging. Blogging for business, projects, or anything else that might bring you money has a very straightforward purpose – to rank your website higher in Google SERPs, a.k.a. increase your visibility.

As a business, you rely on consumers to keep buying your products and services. As a new business, you rely on blogging to help you get to potential consumers and grab their attention. Without blogging, your website would remain invisible, whereas running a blog makes you searchable and competitive.

So, the main purpose of a blog is to connect you to the relevant audience. Another one is to boost your traffic and send quality leads to your website.

The more frequent and better your blog posts are, the higher the chances for your website to get discovered and visited by your target audience. This means that a blog is an effective lead generation tool. Add a great call to action (CTA) to your content, and it will convert your website traffic into high-quality leads. A blog also allows you to showcase your niche authority and build a brand.

When you use your niche knowledge for creating informative and engaging posts, it builds trust with your audience. Great blogging makes your business look more credible, which is especially important if your brand is still young and fairly unknown. It ensures presence online and niche authority at the same time.

Blog structure

The appearance of blogs has changed over time, and these days blogs include a wide variety of items and widgets. However, most blogs still include some standard features and structure.

Here are common features that a typical blog will include:

• Header with the menu or navigation bar.
• Main content area with highlighted or latest blog posts.
• Sidebar with social profiles, favorite content, or call-to-action.
• Footer with relevant links like a disclaimer, privacy policy, contact page, etc

Sales Objection

A sales objection is a rebuttal from your current lead during the sales process that explicitly states a reason why they will not be buying from you at the moment. These can include problems with price, usefulness of the product, or a lack of time to engage with you currently, among other things.

Here’s one important thing every seasoned salesperson understands:

Getting an objection from a client is a good thing! It means the prospect has enough interest to at least engage with you, rather than flat out dismissing you. For you, the salesperson, a sales objection is an opportunity to learn more about your prospect’s needs, and find better ways to communicate the value your solution has to offer to them.

10 proven strategies for overcoming objections in sales

1. Really listen to the objection - You might think jumping in with a quick response is the best tactic, but it’s much better to listen carefully to what they are saying so you don’t make assumptions about what they want/what they mean.
2. Take the time to understand the objection - Ask further questions about what they mean, as it’s common that your potential buyer isn’t revealing their real objections. Explore with them to get to the real root of the issue that’s holding them back.
3. Craft a response addressing their biggest objection - Once you understand it, provide a rebuttal to their concerns. If you can overcome this barrier, the call can likely continue with less resistance.
4. Try to resolve their objection in real time - The better you can satisfy their concerns right away, the more likely they are to proceed further in the sales process.
5. Keep responses clear and to the point - A long response where you go on and on isn’t likely to be well-received, but instead, seen as more ‘selling’ and less like addressing their concerns.
6. Don’t wing it - Making up things on the spot is likely to get you in trouble; buyers can sense this and it will create a level of distrust that - in all likelihood - will end the sales call. If you need more information, ask for it, or look it up.
7. Confirm you’ve satisfied the objection - Don’t assume you have just because they accept what you say. Ask your potential buyer how they feel about what you’ve said, or if you’ve alleviated their concerns. This can help you move in for the close, or if necessary, move on to addressing further concerns they have.
8. Create an objection management document- This document should list the top 25 objections you face, along with a 1-3 sentence response for each. If you work with a team, collaborate on this project together.
9. Practice the objection responses and commit them to memory - You don’t have to recite them word-for-word, but you should at least have them in the back of your mind so you have a strong foundation and can deliver confident, compelling responses every time.
10. PRO TIP: Customize your objection list to market - Each market has its own objections, and if you aren’t prepared for those, you’re going to lose deals to someone that is. Sort your objections into groups by market, and add objections you get from only certain areas.