How To Use Humor Successfully In Your Business Communications

By Suzan St Maur For generations people have been saying that laughter is good medicine. And now the scientists have taken an interest it turns out great-grandma was right. The boffins have discovered that laughter releases helpful goodies in the body which boost your immune system. In fact the therapeutic benefits of laughter are now being harnessed by academia and the business community into laughter workshops and other formalized chuckle sessions. Get the workers laughing and you raise productivity, so it seems. However it is extremely easy to get humor wrong. And a joke that's sent to someone who doesn't see the funny side will create more ill health through raised blood pressure than a few laughs could ever cure. So what's the answer? How do we harness humor and make it work for us, not against us? People often say that the internet's international nature makes it an unsuitable environment for humor for fear of it not translating across national boundaries - and inadvertently causing offense. But there are a couple of simple rules which - although not universal panaceas that always work - can help you use humor without risk. Use humor about situations, not people. If you think about it, the butt of many jokes and other humor is a person or group of people, so it's hardly surprising that offense is caused. The more extreme types are obvious - mother-in-law jokes, blonde jokes, women jokes, men jokes - but there are many more subtle ones too. Then there are the nationality gags. I remember in one year hearing exactly the same joke (in three different languages) told by an American about the Polish, by a Canadian about Newfoundlanders, by a French person about Belgians, by a French-speaking Belgian about the Flemish, and by a Flemish person about the Dutch. Obviously most humor is going to involve people in one way or another. But as long as the butt of the joke is a situation or set of circumstances, not the people, you're far less likely to upset anyone. And there is an added advantage here. Whoever they are and wherever they come from, people will usually identify with a situation. Take this one for example... Some people are driving along at night and are stopped by a police car. The officer goes to the driver and warns him that one of the rear lights on his SUV isn't working. The driver jumps out and looks terribly upset. The officer reassures him that he won't get a ticket, it's just a warning, so there's no problem. "Oh yes there is a problem," says the man as he rushes towards the back of the car. "if you could see my rear lights it means I've lost my trailer." As the butt of the joke is the broken rear light and the loss of the trailer, not the policeman or the driver, no-one can be offended. And most people can identify with how that would feel. The other key issue with humor is wordplays, puns, and anything else that's based on figurative speech, slang, or jargon. The short answer is they don't work internationally. However if the play or double entendre is in the concept rather than the words, it probably will work. These may be funny to us, but would not be understood by anyone who is not a good English speaker because there is a play on the words: * Deja moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before. * The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. These, however, probably would be understood because the humor is in the concept, not in the words themselves: * You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing. * The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was. Overall, I think it's wise to use humor as a spicy condiment in your business comms. And just as you would with the chili powder, use it in moderation if you don't know the audience well ... and if you know they have a very sensitive palate, don't use it at all! Canadian-born Suzan St Maur is an international business writer and author based in the United Kingdom. In addition to her consultancy work for clients in Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia, she contributes articles to more than 150 business websites and publications worldwide, and has written twelve published books on business writing, marketing, publishing and humor. Check out all her current books here. To subscribe to her free biweekly business writing tips eZine, TIPZ from SUZE, click here. (c) Suzan St Maur 2003 - 2005 Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Suzan_St_Maur http://EzineArticles.com/?How-To-Use-Humor-Successfully-In-Your-Business-Communications&id=1847 cash 1 payday advance
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Review Of Lavalife

By Kum Martin Lavalife is a dating website that has it all. From free features to large member community, one who chooses Lavalife as their dating website of choice may find that they are quite happy with the results. There are a few different factors which make Lavalife quite popular with the singles crowd. Free Profile Individuals who use Lavalife to find potential mates will enjoy the free profile access. Not only is it free of charge to set up ones own profile but it is also free to view others profiles. Therefore, if one sets up a profile and does not feel that this site is working for them, there is no harm done and no money lost. Credit System Most online dating websites require members to pay an annual subscription fee to gain access to certain portions of the online dating experience. With Lavalife, one will only pay for credits when they wish to send someone an email or instant message. This is a great way to utilize the system yet only pay for what you need and how much you need to use. Ability to Save Searches In the online dating world, one is sure to come across quite a few individuals who peak their interest. Another beneficial aspect relating to Lavalife is that the member has the ability to save their searches so they know who they might be interested in contacting at a later time. This is a great option to have in ones back pocket, as it will make the online dating journey that much easier to complete. Check Out More Dating Articles:
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Birthday Invitation - Dinosaur Themed Party

By Stephen Turner Your dinosaur birthday invitation The key here is to unlock your and your child's creativity and produce some really vibrant birthday invitations. You can download dinosaur images from the internet, cut them out and stick them on the birthday invitation. Why not make some foam dinosaurs out of craft sponge to accompany the birthday invitation? Or you could deliver the birthday invitation with some chocolate eggs. Another great idea is to deliver the invitation in person in a balloon so that when the balloon gets popped the message inside is a wonderful surprise! You'll need balloons with a wide neck so that you can fit the birthday invitation inside the balloon. Roll up the birthday invitation and ease it through the gap, then blow up the balloon and tie the neck. Then you are ready to deliver the birthday invitation. Dress the house and the garden Put lots of dinosaur pictures around the house and garden. You could make a nest of eggs out of balloons with a weight inside to ensure they do not blow away, or you could buy plastic eggs. Use your imagination when it comes to dressing up, but perhaps a word of caution if you decide to dress as a dinosaur. A six foot human in dinosaur fancy dress roaring out of the front door can be a little intimidating for some children and may result early tears, so this is perhaps best avoided. Your birthday party activities Pin the tail on the diplodocus is a variation on pin the tail on the donkey. You can draw your diplodocus or get an image off the internet by searching Google for images. Hunt for the dinosaur eggs is a variation on the treasure hunt game. Hide lots of chocolate dinosaur eggs around the garden and then have the children find them. You could also hide plastic dinosaurs to add variation. You can number the dinosaurs so that each is exchanged for a prize. You can give clues if you wish. Set the children to work in pairs,or as you wish. Next you can have a dinosaur relay race, followed by paint a dinosaur. Use all the old favourites but adapt them to the theme. Make a dinosaur cake, or ask your local cake shop to make one for you. You can get aluminum cake pans in a wide range of shapes and you should be able to find a dinosaur shaped pan or egg shaped pan by doing an internet search. Frost your dinosaur or egg cake with bright colours. Use your imagination to make the dinosaur interesting. For example, for a triceratops, you could make the bony back and tail plates out of orange slices. Stephen Turner 2006. Stephen Turner has set up an information and resource website called Birthday Invitation. On the site you'll find loads of birthday invitation information and advice, articles, features, discussion and specially chosen links to other birthday vitation websites, so please take a look. Stephen would also welcome your feedback on the site: click on the contact link on the site. This article may be reproduced in its original form provided that the author's copyright note and this 'author resource box' paragraph are displayed below the article. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stephen_Turner http://EzineArticles.com/?Birthday-Invitation---Dinosaur-Themed-Party&id=168716 guarenteed personal loans
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Smart Investing in Uranium Could Mean ISL

By James Finch Now that the spot uranium price has sustained above $40/pound, after a 20-year drought and a bottom of $6.40/pound at the end of December 2000, hundreds of junior exploration companies have thrown their hat into the ring. Both Canadian and Australian junior uranium companies hope to raise the big money required to bring a uranium property into production. A perceived uranium supply crunch has added to this frenzy. As occurred with previous uranium cycles, only the strong will survive. While numerous Canadian junior exploration companies hope to find a new discovery in various uranium-prospective regions through Canada, a safer investment strategy is to speculate on companies, whose properties were previously drilled during the uranium bull market of 1974-1980). Some of those properties had uranium deposits delineated by major oil and uranium companies, who did not blush at spending tens of millions of dollars in exploration. Some of the newly arrived uranium companies acquired those drilling databases and their properties, which were abandoned by the previous owners. Some companies have been actively moving their projects forward to production, using a more environmentally friendly mining method than an open pit or underground mine. It is called In Situ Leach (ISL) uranium mining, and the operation is much like a water treatment plan. Oxidized, or carbonated, water is pumped into an orebody, and uranium is flushed into a processing plant. These are relatively inexpensive to install, possibly for as little as $10 million. There are pitfalls when investing in those companies which plan to establish ISL operations. During the initial phase of this bull market, a common myth, circulated among investors, had been "pounds in the ground." How many pounds of uranium oxide, or U3O8 for short, does a company have in the ground? The more pounds a company claimed, the higher its market capitalization ran. Once you sift through the companies with very real prospects from those who are cheerleading their "pounds in the ground," you should have a realistic short list. These are the four key questions which must be answered if you wish to minimize your risk when investing in uranium stocks: How permeable are the ore bodies you plan to mine? What is your average grade? Over what area does your rollfront extend? What is the depth of your ore body?
One of the most important factors to consider is the permeability of the sandstone, from which the uranium will be mined. Permeability is the flow rate of the liquids through the porous sandstone. Knowing what the permeability of the orebody will let you know how much water you can get through the sandstone formation. Harry Anthony, an internationally recognized ISL expert, noted, "You need higher grade ore for tight formations. With high permeability, you can space your wells further apart." The make-break point for a formation's permeability is its Darcy rating. How high is the Darcy? A typical Darcy can range from minus 1000 to plus 3. The higher the Darcy, the more permeable the formation. This helps determine how economic the orebody is. An acceptable range would be one-half to one Darcy. What is a Darcy? Uranerz Energy CEO Glenn Catchpole, who is also a hydrologist, said, "It is gallons per day over feet squared." He added a pure hydrologist would calculate the feet per day or centimeters per second to get a more accurate permeability assessment. With low permeability in a tight formation, you may need to space more wells in a typical well field pattern. While explaining that costs are fixed and variable, Anthony computed the cost of a production well for a 500 foot deposit at $15,000. An injection well could cost $11,000 to install. By comparison, in New Mexico, where the deposits are wider and of higher grade, a 2000-foot production well might cost $27,000 and the injection well could cost $18,000, and it would still be economic. Obviously, the deeper the deposit, the more it will cost to extract the uranium. Not only will the capital costs increase, but operating costs will be greater. Uranium grades can be a contentious point. "Grade is the driving force," Harry Anthony shot back. We asked him about companies which said they could run an economic ISL operation with grades as low, or lower than 0.02. Anthony laughed, "They'd be out of business before they started." Strathmore Minerals' president David Miller offered a more technical analysis, "That will not likely have enough recoverable pounds. The operating grade feeding the plant will be too low." What is the best grade? Miller wanted to see properties with deposits that average on the order 0.5, 0.10, or 0.15. Uranium grades can impact the cost of operating an ISL plant. An ISL plant may operate at 5000 gallons per minute. Running 24 hours daily, the plant would process 7.2 million gallons of water. Operating costs are based upon cost per thousand gallons of water. "This includes electricity, reagents and labor," said Anthony. On a daily basis, it would cost more than $21,000 to run an ISL plant, based upon Anthony's calculations of $3.03 per thousand gallons of water. Under this scenario, a plant might produce 2360 pounds of U3O8 every day or 80,000 pounds monthly. The cost to produce each pound would be $8.18. Using that math, the uranium grades would be about 44 parts per million (ppm) or 0.08. Anthony said, "I like to see 70ppm or higher." That comes to a uranium grade of 0.13. Another way to evaluate a company's uranium property is looking at each part of its development costs. In a well field pattern, David Miller can determine the economic viability of the ground. "The keys to what is recoverable include how many pounds are recoverable per pattern and what it costs to install a pattern," Miller explained. "If you have 10,000 pounds in place and can recover 8000 pounds, your well field development cost can be $8/pound, if it costs you $80,000 to install that pattern. The cost to install a pattern also depends over how much territory your uranium deposits run. "Ten million pounds over an area of one-half mile will cost less than those same pounds over an area of two to four miles," explained Terrence Osier, Strathmore Minerals senior geologist. "That means more injection wells and more production wells." Depth of the wells influences installation cost and impacts its daily operating cost. "When uranium costs were very low, a company needed 70,000 pounds per pattern," Anthony commented. "Now a company might only need 20,000 pounds per pattern to make it economic." There are many variables within the above advices provided by these experts. However, the important point to realize is the time of hyperbole and hoopla over "pounds in the ground" has passed. As more uranium development companies move closer to establishing an ISL operation, the go/no-go consideration, as
UR-Energy CEO William Boberg aptly described it, will come down to permeability. After that, the economics of a project will either make it viable or not. Using these criteria, you can avoid the hysteria by speculating with the odds stacked more in your favor. COPYRIGHT 2007 by StockInterview, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. James Finch contributes to StockInterview.com and other publications. StockInterviews Investing in the Great Uranium Bull Market has become the most popular book ever published for uranium mining stock investors. Visit http://www.stockinterview.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Finch http://EzineArticles.com/?Smart-Investing-in-Uranium-Could-Mean-ISL&id=186291 money loans overnight
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