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By Jonne Laiho
December 12th 2016

Blossom floristry chain has announced that they will replace their diesel-powered vans with electric powered vans. Blossom will start using the new vans in 16th December 2016. They chose to use the Nissan E-NV200 vans, which are 100 % electric powered.

The idea behind this switch is that, well first of all the old vans were starting to be very worn out so they had to be replaced. The company thought it will be a better image for a floristry store to start using electric vehicles. Using electric powered vans is also financially more beneficial in the long run. Electricity is much cheaper than diesel and taxation of electric vehicles is much lower.

The company hopes that this will attract new customers and that current customers are pleased with the decision Blossom wants to be an up-to-date company. There will also be some room for sponsor stickers in the new vans.

Using electric vehicles is also beneficial environmentally. There are no carbon dioxide or any other emissions at all. And if the electricity is produced with renewable energy, there is no additional stress towards the environment. Electric motors don’t require oil like traditional combustion engines so there won’t be any harmful oil leaks either.

If you want to find out more here is the contact information:

XXXX XXXX

XXXX XXXX

XXXX XXXX

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Comparing Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (group assignment)

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Comparing Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (group assignment)

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Comparison of leadership styles

After landing billionaire lists several times, it would be easy for Gates to become prideful. But in fact he has highlighted his efforts to improve on his communication and public speaking skills. Gates has commented that Warren Buffett has a “brilliant way of looking at the world”. Gates tries to learn from his mentor in order to become a better leader.

Bill Gates is a man with vision. It was vision that inspired him to pursue the creation of a graphical interface that became Microsoft software. Gates has said that he always knew he wanted to have more than a single product. The company wanted to hire in more software people and develop a full product line. From the beginning, he recognized potential for growth and opportunity. His abilities to envision and strategize make it easy for others to follow him.

Gates also has a foundation with his wife, Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, which says “All lives have equal value”. To put it briefly, Gates’ leadership includes growing and learning, having vision and caring about people.

Jobs was a different kind of leader. Focus was ingrained in Jobs’ personality. He filtered out what he considered distractions. Colleagues and family members would at times be exasperated as they tried to get him to deal with issues they considered important. But Jobs just gave them a cold stare and refused to shift his focus until he was ready.

Jobs aimed for the simplicity that comes from conquering complexity. Achieving this depth of simplicity, he wanted to produce a machine that felt as if it deferred to users in a friendly way, rather than challenging them. “It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions”, he said.

Part of Jobs’ compulsion to take responsibility stemmed from his personality but it was also driven by his passion for perfection and making elegant products. He was a control freak.

Characteristics

Steve Jobs took his work very seriously, and he was quite a workaholic. Once he set his mind on something, he did not want to give up. Steve Jobs never stopped believing his own views and he was a visionary.

Steve Jobs was also known for not consuming most animal products. It is revealed in his official biography that his family life wasn’t exactly an idyll he wanted media to believe.

Co-workers and colleagues have described Jobs with the following words: an inspirational leader, passionate, charismatic, visionary, workaholic and at one point, he was known to be very demanding towards his employees.

When comparing Bill Gates and Steve Jobs you could say that Bill Gates is a little bit more ‘’down to earth’’ kind of person. Bill Gates is known for being a happy person and he for example enjoys donating money for charity, whereas Steve Jobs has not officially donated money to charity.

It can also be said that Gates wasn’t as creative as Jobs, Jobs had a very clear vision about the design of Apple products, and Gates on the other hand focused more to the practicality of Windows products.

Jobs was a little bit more charismatic than Gates as he enjoyed the fame and speaking to the audience.

In conclusion, it could be said that Steve Jobs is more selfish person than Bill Gates.

Path they followed

Steve Jobs experimented with different pursuits before starting Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak. While Jobs was always an intelligent and innovative thinker, his youth was riddled with frustrations over formal school. Later when Jobs was enrolled at Homestead High School, he was introduced to his future partner Wozniak.

After high school Jobs started studying at Reed College in Portland, Oregon but lacking direction he dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes at the school.

In 1974, Jobs took a position as a video game designer with Atari. He was there only for a few months and then left the company to find spiritual enlightenment in India. A few years later, in 1976, when Jobs was just 21, he and Wozniak started Apple Computer. At first the duo started in the Jobs family garage, funding their entrepreneurial venture by Jobs selling his car and Wozniak selling his scientific calculator.

Jobs was pushed into a more marginalized position in Apple and he left the company in 1985 to begin a new hardware and software enterprise called NeXT Inc. Jobs also purchased an animation company which later became famous Pixar Animation Studios. Apple eventually bought NeXT Inc. and Jobs returned to his post as Apple’s CEO.

In 1970, at the age of 15, Bill Gates went into business with his friend, Paul Allen. They developed “Traf-o-Data”, a computer program that monitored traffic patterns in Seattle. After graduating Gated enrolled at Harvard University, originally thinking of a career in law, but he was more enthusiastic about computers.

Gates remained contact with Allen, who showed Gates an edition of one magazine featuring an article on the Altair 8800 mini-computer kit made by a small company called MITS. Gates and Allen contacted the company, proclaiming that they were working on a BASIC software program that would run the Altair computer. In reality they didn’t have an Altair to work with or the code to run it but MITS was interested, so Gates and Allen spent the next two month writing the software. At the end it worked perfectly and they were hired at MITS.

Microsoft started off with a shaky footing. At first Microsoft's BASIC software was popular with computer hobbyists, who obtained pre-market copies and were reproducing and distributing them for free.

Gates's acumen for not only software development but also business operations put him in the position of leading the company and working as its spokesperson. He personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, often rewriting code himself when he saw it necessary.

In November 1980, IBM was looking for software that would operate their upcoming personal computer (PC) and approached Microsoft. The only problem was that Microsoft had not developed the basic operating system that would run IBM's new computers. Not to be stopped, Gates bought an operating system that was developed to run on computers similar to IBM's PC.

Between 1979 and 1981, Microsoft's growth exploded, and staff increased from 25 to 128. Revenue also shot up from $2.5 million to $16 million. In mid-1981 Gates and Allen incorporated Microsoft, and Gates was appointed president and chairman of the board. Allen was named executive vice president.

Comparison of their companies and company vision

In 1974 Microsoft was set up used for writing software. With companion Paul Allen was always with Bill Gates. In late 1980's he had a cancer and retired. They made an operating system and started licensing their Software. Company grew very fast because PC became more popular. Microsoft actually helped Apple to develop its Macintosh. That is why Microsoft had full rights for their technology later. Microsoft licensed everything Apple did not. Microsoft office 1990 is what has changed the software more useful for Company usage. There were several lawsuits against Microsoft and most of them were settled. Later the internet became the new thing to conquer. Bill and Melinda Gates also have a foundation for helping people in need. Bill Gates retired in 2008.

Apple built home computers for more than a decade. The mouse was the thing that made computer easier to use, which was the thing Jobs was pursuing. After getting successful with next. He came back to Apple and they made iPod. That music player fitted in every pocket. However, their greatest invention is the iPhone that was the first smartphone. It could do so much more than every other phone and it was easy to use. Jobs created new business models. In the iTunes selling music was getting the illegal downloads down and also made money. In the Business world both Jobs and Gates thought what could happen and played their cards by it.

Personally, I think Apple nowadays has lost its values after Jobs died. Microsoft software have also changed after Bill Gates stepping down. It’s said that the new Windows 10 destroys computers and is too hard to operate.

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Worldwide communication is very easy these days. Internet made it easy to access a lot of information despite your location. And after the invention of smartphones it became even easier to communicate and access information.

There are lots of means of communications now days, for example: Smartphone applications, computer software (Skype for example), cloud services and you can even attend seminars via internet.

I believe that vast communication network is very important in a modern society. The sheer amount of digital information keeps growing and growing, so means for handling all this data must be in-vented.

Personally, I think that modern tools of communication are very useful. They are very easy to use, and you can work basically everywhere you want to. Smartphone applications are also very useful. Let’s take a look at WhatsApp for example. WhatsApp can be used in the pastime and at the work. You can reach large number of people easily and the best part is that the application is free to use.

Cloud services are also very handy. They make working in a group very easy, because other peo-ple have an easy access to the documents and they can modify them if necessary.

However, there are some downsides in the modern tools of communications. For example smartphone applications: Not all people have smartphones, especially the elderly people. And if you decide to use smartphones for communicating, you must know who can use the application and who has smartphones in use.

In addition, these days you can also attend seminars or masses via internet streaming services. I don’t think it’s the same as actually being there and I think you could learn much more if you are present at the premises.

I don’t think it’s necessary to change anything in the current situation, since technology advances so rapidly, I think we always have access to best possible communications technology.

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Influencing techniques mentioned in the video, I mostly use repeating and complimenting. I think repeating is effective way of influencing people because u can build a better communication between you and the one you are influencing that way.

Complimenting is also effective because people want to hear that they are good at something and that you care about what they are doing.

The techniques mentioned in the article I use logical appeal the most. Because I am a logical person myself and for example if you are arguing about something it is very easy to refer to some study, etc. and end the argument that way.

Sometimes I use the emotional appeal, for example if the logical appeal does not work in a given situation. Cooperative appeal is a little unfamiliar to me.

In our culture, I think the logical appeal works the best in most situations, because Finns tend to be reserved so the emotional appeal for example may not work.

Also, I’ve noticed that listening and using people’s names work very well in Finnish culture. Because in Finnish culture we don’t interrupt other people, so easily and on the other hand using names makes the situation a little more personal.

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BRIEFING

Dear employees of our company.

As you probably are aware, our company’s turnover has been steadily decreasing in the past few years.

Due to the bad economic situation, people are no longer able to buy as many products as before. Unfortunately, our current sales does not cover company’s expenses. I have to inform all the employees that we must start co-operation negotiations as soon as possible. This briefing affects everyone in the company and unfortunately, we must discharge 200 employees due the productional and economic reasons. Dismissing concerns employees from customer service, sales and production departments.

Conversations related to dismissing and other changes will be held personally with each dismissed employees.

Negotiations will take place on 25.10.2016 at 12 o’clock. It takes place in the negotiation room 213. All the company’s management will be summoned there. If one will be dismissed, we will obey the regular notice laws.

This discharching will affect the whole working community in our company. Employees have been doing their work with great success. We will write good recommendations to every dismissed employee and we can only hope that other companies has not been struck by the recession so badly.

Those employees who are dismissed will receive their salaries normally and in addition, the company will pay the salaries for the last remaining days of the month. In the future, when economy recovers we have a duty to hire former dismissed employees back to our service.

The appendix contains the schedule for the negotiations.

Best regards

Chief executive officer

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1. Conversational marketing is a new way of marketing, which happens in the internet and especially in the social media. It is more of a discussion between the customers and companies. With conversational marketing companies can easily target customers who has expressed their interest towards the product.

Companies example make their own Facebook pages and then people who like the pages also get news from the company.

2. Facebook has been planning to monitor actions beyond its own site. For example, if you buy something from web store this information can be seen on the news feed of your friends. Some people may find this a little creepy.

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Are podcasts suitable for business communication?

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Are podcasts suitable for business communication?

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Businesses use podcasts for a variety of purposes, including sharing information about new products, company information, or general information related to the industry. Incorporating podcasts into your marketing plan offers numerous benefits to the company.
allow you to inject your enthusiasm and speaking skills to add an air of authority to the information that is often lacking in the written word.
Hearing the voice of the presenter gives the audience a stronger connection than simply reading the information on a web page.
A podcast is easy to produce, whether you have a commercial location or a home-based business.

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Blogging for business: visit the website Xerox blogs and try to evaluate
 the quality of the blogs there. If you have other examples, use them as
 well.

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Blogging for business: visit the website Xerox blogs and try to evaluate
 the quality of the blogs there. If you have other examples, use them as
 well.

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Blogs are written with good english.
They have included pictures in text.
Texts are kept short enough.
sometimes there is a bit too difficult terms that outsiders may not understand.

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Instant Messaging or Text Messaging? Pros and cons

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Instant Messaging or Text Messaging? Pros and cons

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Business Text Messaging

Pros

It’s Available and Easy to Learn: Most smartphones have the ability to send and receive texts, so there’s a lot of built-in ease of use. No one needs to be trained on how to text, and no one’s surprised to get a text. This really helps with adoption, especially in situations where it’s difficult to agree on an instant messaging tool.

Security Is Better: Nothing is ever perfectly secure, but text messages are one of the more secure methods of communication. Because of the way they are sent, it’s harder to eavesdrop on a text, which can make them better for more sensitive information. However, texts are saved on servers so privacy is not always ensured.

It’s Easier to Schedule: There are many ways to schedule tweets for marketing or important work reminders. It’s more difficult to schedule an instant message, which tend to be more…well, instant.

Cons

It’s a Little Slow: Both texting and business instant messaging are fast, but IM is considerably faster. You pop open a little window on your computer and start typing – it barely takes a second. Texting requires unlocking a phone, finding the right address, pressing all those little keys, and so on. That’s actually quite a lot of work for a quick conversation, compared to the alternative.

It’s Sometimes Difficult to Tie Into Other Campaigns: Text messaging is very separated from other channels of communication. There’s not much room for graphics, links may or may not work, and people don’t associate texts with promotions (outside of spam or fraud). This makes them difficult to use for marketing or customer service.

It Doesn’t Work for All Contacts: Instant messaging is not much better, but text messages are even easier to ignore and more off-putting when they are used to contact individuals where they not know you well.

Business Instant Messaging
Pros

It’s Very Fast: IM is faster than texting, especially when it comes to responses. This makes it a lot easier to hold a conversation.

It’s More Professional: Texting tends to be primarily social, not professional, when it comes to connotation. You text a friend or perhaps a work partner. You don’t text a client or a boss. Instant messaging apps, however, tends to be viewed as more professional and won’t do damage to your reputation.

It Comes With Additional Tools: Instant messaging tools are often part of larger platforms and come with other built-in applications and features.

It’s Readily Available: The most obvious is that employees are already on those platforms and using them daily, so there’s no need to adopt new software or pick up another device. Apps like YapApp and other services also offer business-oriented features like managing multiple group chats at once, which doesn’t really work with texting.

It’s the Future: Because it’s part of large platforms, quick, and generally viewed as more professional, instant messaging is deeply involved in the future tech of business. It is evolving to be more useful than before, and converging with other technology to become even more relevant.

Cons

You Need a Universal Instant Message App: There are a lot of messaging services out there. You need to find the right one for your business – and then make sure all your employees are actually using it.

It’s Not as Customer-Centric: Because there are so many chat options, it may not be as good of an option for contacting customers. The exception is a web-based chat option for customer service, but this cannot be used for marketing.

Fees May Vary: As long as you follow plan limits, you don’t need to worry about texting fees. But IM fees range from free to expensive, so they can absolutely affect your budget.

A final note about choosing between texting and business instant messaging: It’s a good idea to start with a look around your office – and then your industry. What are your competitors using? What appears to have the most effective ROI? There’s a lot of information out there about the right communication tools, but you should try to customize them to your unique situation whenever possible.

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What are the main principles for writing an email?

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What are the main principles for writing an email?

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- Emails should have clear purpose.
-  The less you include in your emails, the better.
- Keep Introductions Brief
-  In every email you write, you should use enough sentences to say what you need and no more. A helpful practice here is limiting yourself to five sentences.
-Use standard structure.
- Use short words, sentences and paragraphs.
- Dont use emoticons.

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What type of communication email fits better for and what email is not good for?

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What type of communication email fits better for and what email is not good for?

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It depends on the nature of the topic.
For example bills or anything that has personal information about the customer should not be sent by instant message.
Simple messages can be sent with instant apps, questions that require quick answers.

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What are the strategies for Business Communication and Social Networking?

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What are the strategies for Business Communication and Social Networking?

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Modern tools of communications has also changed the business world, there is no doubt about that.
Social media is very effective way to advertise company and its products.
People can for example post comments or questions or give feedback on company Facebook page and get answers almost immediately.
Periscope app is also proven to be useful to some companies, since people can record video example from mess and people around the world can check the new products, etc.
YouTube is another good communicating tool.
Some companies have a lot of advertisements in YouTube.
Companies also post a bit more unofficial and or funny videos to You Tube, so customers can relate more to the company.
Sort of like ''behind the scenes'' stuff.

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1. There are several internal network softwares designed for business use. Example: Tbbr, Jive, Yammer
Yammer
is similar to Facebook and  it was purchased bu Microsoft in 2012.
Companies that use Yammer include Shell, 7-Eleven and Razorfish.
Tbbr
Can be used with regular computer or with mobile devices.  Layout is also similar to Facebook.
Companies that use Tibbr include Macy's, iHealth and InterPortPolice.
Jive
Jive is a mobile-ready ESN with similar profile functions. You can follow people, groups and topics on the site.

Companies that use Jive:

T-Mobile, PWC, UBM and Critical Mass.

Cost: The Essentials package costs $12 per user/month, and the Essentials+ package costs $18 per user/month.