General Technology

Archive for May, 2010

Satellite is often considered one of the biggest improvements in broadcasting since the introduction of the FM band. Satellite radio is also called subscription radio or pay-radio because it is only available trough subscription to one of the satellite radio providing companies.

Satellite follows a concept similar to cable television by providing a very wide range of programs which are not available in the traditional FM or AM format for a fee.

Satellite uses satellites to deliver radio programs to subscribers. The radio signal is broadcasted from Earth based stations to communicational satellites, which then redirect the signal to satellite radio receivers. The radio signal is broadcasted by communication satellites to a much larger area than traditional terrestrial radio antennas.

For example, satellite is available al across the continental area of the United States. Satellite radio is available now in most parts of the world trough services provided by companies like WorldSpace (in Europe, Asia and Africa), Sirius and XM Radio (in North America).

The signal you receive using satellite radio is digital, which means that it is always clear and static-free, which is one of the great advantages of satellite radio. Another great thing about satellite is that it is almost completely commercial-free.

To begin listening to satellite radio you will need the actual satellite (also known as tuner or receiver), a satellite antenna (which is often incorporated in the satellite radio) and a subscription to the service you choose. There are several types of satellite from which you can choose.

One of them is the dedicated car or home radio, which play trough your car or home stereo. A second option is the plug-and-play radio, which can be used in your car, as well as in your home by paying a single subscription. Your third option is the portable radio, which has rechargeable battery, a built-in antenna and you can listen to it wherever you go using headphones.

The signals offered by different satellite radio companies are proprietary, which means that you will need different hardware for receiving, decoding and playback, depending on your subscription. Each satellite receiver has its own serial number called Radio ID.

When you get your subscription, you will also get an activation code for your receiver. Besides the actual radio programs, satellite transmits metadata that contains the name of the artist, the title of the song or program, as well as the name of the channel. This makes it easier for you to decide which channel to listen to and which program to choose.

Satellite radio services provide the subscriber with more than 100 programs that vary in content from rock and jazz to rap and classical music. But satellite utility reaches far beyond listening to your favorite music without the interruption of those annoying commercials.

Satellite also offers exclusive sports programs, cultural and educational shows, news and talk-shows. Some of the celebrities that have moved their shows from free radio to satellite radio include Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Bob Edwards and Martha Stewart. Unlike terrestrial radio, satellite is not affected by bad weather or even calamities.

At first, many people wondered why they should pay for radio if they can get it free. However, satellite radio attracts more and more people every year due to its great advantages: no commercials, extensive reach, theme programs and exceptional quality of sound.

Best Practices for Your Change Management Communication Plan

Myths, Mistakes, and Must-Do’s

It’s standard practice in most organizations to build a communication plan as part of the overall change management project plan. Most companies understand that communication plays an important part in achieving the change management project initiatives. Not all communication plans are created equally, however, and many miss the mark. Communication should be more than just an occasional, sporadic activity. Here are some key points to remember in making your next communication plan more effective:

Mistake: Confusing communication with implementation

While a solid communication plan is extremely important, communication alone is insufficient. Generating sponsorship, developing a reinforcement strategy, defining the change, and developing readiness are as important—in fact, sponsorship is the single most important factor in achieving project success. Organizations over-reliance on communication is a common mistake in many implementation plans.

Myth: Providing information is the primary goal of the communication plan

In reality, the primary goal for project communication plans is to drive behavior change, not just to provide information-sharing. Even if you successfully communicate information to the target audience, you miss the mark if that communication doesn’t actively promote behavior change.

Mistake: Depending on one-way, top-down communications as the primary delivery method

One of the most common mistakes we see is a dependence on media like newsletters, emails, and even web-sites as the primary method for communication of large-scale, complex changes. Even in large, geographically-dispersed organizations, agents should rely much more on two-way communication than is often the case.We see many communication plans that do a fair job of information-sharing, but fail to have a mechanism for gathering data to be fed back to the project team and sponsors.

Must-Do: Include a feedback loop to check for understanding on every communication

Without some kind of feedback loop, you have no way to gather data on how people are responding to the communication, no way to answer questions, and no way to surface sources of resistance.No matter how sophisticated the delivery vehicle, if you haven’t built in a feedback loop, your communication is missing the “best practice” mark.

Myth: Expecting that the production of a large-scale, exciting launch event is the most important element of a good communication plan, or is all that is needed for communicating to the targets of the change

While it can be motivating to produce a creative launch event, or a series of cross-functional meetings, remember that that communication is not a substitute for implementation. As Kenneth Klepper, President and COO of Medco puts it, “You can spend enormous resources on implementation– but if you have failed to build the sponsorship for the change, you can’t spend enough money or have enough cross-functional meetings to be successful.”

Must-do:Put messages in the Frames of Reference of the targets

Keep in mind that messages must be constructed to align with the Frames of Reference for the targets, meaning there will be multiple Frames of Reference and therefore, multiple messages.

Must-do: Use multiple communication vehicles, and communicate on a regular basis

In order to better align with multiple Frames of Reference, a variety of communication vehicles should be employed. Regardless of the vehicle, however, there must be a feedback mechanism. In addition, communication should be planned and done on a regular basis.

By rejecting the myths, eliminating common mistakes, and following the “must-do’s”, you will significantly improve the effectiveness of your change management communication plan.

In delivering a customer communications management system, there are extra considerations in respect of the development of a marketing communications plan.



The marketing communications plan can provide a clear guideline as to how to execute, the expected costs and the expected return. Customer communications management will increase the ease with which a multi-channel marketing communications strategy can be executed. It will also increase the sophistication with which a company can communicate in a relevant manner with its customers.

In the context of discussing the plan I will use Philip Kotler ‘P’s framework as this is the standard study for virtually all marketers.

First off, lets establish the Four P’s of product marketing in context with customer communications management:

Product – Which products are you looking to promote? Today’s customer communications management platforms mean that you can market more than one product in an individual campaign based upon an individual users profile. Therefore Product Range Selection is an additional component in the customer communications management driven marketing communications plan. Place – Customer communications management processes give the marketing communications plan complete freedom to choose from a wide range of communications methods. These include voice, Direct Mail, Transactional Mail, Email, Social Media oriented email, social media direct, SMS, mobile and web. Therefore channel flexibility is a key advantage for the marketing communications plan. Promotion – Specifically what is your promotion and what are the promotion objectives? To garner new customers? To market more to your existing customers? To raise awareness of a product launch? To build brand appeal through a news advisory about your company’s efforts in the community? To raise funds for a charity that your company sponsors? The options are wide and varied. The key thing to note again here is that with an integrated customer communications platform, you will have promotion flexibility.

I’ve highlighted four key phrases here that I feel should now be implemented within the marketing communications plan. Lets review these individually.

Product Range

A good customer communications infrastructure will provide significant data analysis and extraction capabilities. A good propensity to purchase analysis model will allow not just a single product to be promoted to an individual customer but, a range of relevant products that will appeal.

Remember that each customer can be communicated with on a genuine one – one basis. Therefore the scope of products that you wish to promote should be considered – They may not be in the same category but you may desire to push certain products in certain categories harder.

Price Elasticity

Not all customers are born the same. The data analysis process within customer communications management will allow you to build price elasticity into your marketing communications plan. You may know for example that keener customers may only buy when a promotional offer is in place. Other customers may buy only when the product is the newest item available. The marketing communications plan may need to consider price elasticity and the targeting of offers on a one to one or customer segment basis.

Channel Flexibility

The ability to deliver a standard but relevant  message, in a synchronised way to virtually any customer communication channel has always been a holy grail. My list reveals 9 communication channels here. Each has its merits and with the ability to systematically deliver consistent messages across each, the power of these systems is as yet unexploited by marketers.

Certain channels bring the capability to target the consumer 24 hours a day. Others such as mail have the benefit of longevity and time in front of the customers eyes. The scope for ever increasing sophistication in marketing is increasing all the time.

Whilst this level of flexibility is new in the market, I can see that the next few years will reveal much interesting data about the use of these channels and their performance in different customer and product segments. The ability to analyse the performance of campaigns using data from a single system is a new feature that works in support of the marketing communications plan.

Never before have companies had such a choice of communications channels combined with the ability to manage them effectively. The next decade is going to offer some very interesting insights in communications channels and their relevance in different market segments.

Please visit the Document Projects website for more information relating to this topic.