Another option is to buy a cheap international phone. STA Travel sells international phones for $39, with $20 worth of call time.

But these days, “most kids don’t actually talk on their phones,” observed Patrick Connor, a vice president of SYTA and president of Director’s Choice Tour & Travel, which coordinates performance tours for student musical groups. Instead, many teens prefer to text and post updates on Facebook, Foursquare or Twitter.

That’s a great way for parents to see what they’re up to – as long as you don’t mind not hearing their voices. Just make sure you inquire about international data rates for cell phones to cover texting and Internet service overseas.

“If someone doesn’t get an international data or texting plan, they can end up with a multi-hundred dollar bill,” Connor said…

Link To The Full Story

Without a doubt, the training that we received provided us with an entirely new way for our sales team to help our customers consider and navigate through their buying decisions – providing a fantastic vehicle for us to better serve our customers. Thanks to Sharon Drew’s fantastic work, her visionary ideas, a well-thought out coaching plan and a tireless effort by our eager team, I am excited to report that we have already begun reaping measurable benefits – just a few days after being immersed into a concept that was totally foreign at the outset. I cannot wait to see how our skills will progress over the next 7+ weeks, but I feel confident that we are headed for a level of success that was previously unattainable!

In addition to the application of Buying Facilitation® as a sales concept, it became immediately apparent that this ideology could – and will – weave its way throughout our entire corporate culture. In fact, we have already applied this decision-facilitation methodology to several aspects of our business with great success. Indeed, Sharon Drew also taught us how Buying Facilitation® can be used as a leadership/decision-making tool for us to us internally (team building, executive decision making, etc.) and with our clients (customer service, negotiation, problem solving, etc).

Isn’t it great when the right team, information, and presenter collide to create excellence in a form that helps to provide students with positively-life-changing experiences!!

Unlike some other topics to which I have been recently drawn, I have been able to find much helpful material written on this subject.

One of my favorite resources for professional learning, the Harvard Business Review, has a great collection entitled Effective Communication. Contained within are a number of articles regarding the skills and goals required for effective verbal communication. Out of this collection, two articles stand out. The first is How To Run A Meeting by Antony Jay, which talks about the functions of meetings and offers advice for planning and implementing a successful meeting. The other is Listening to People where authors Ralph G. Nichols and Leonard A. Stevens discusses the importance listening and how each of us can work to improve our listening skills.

Additionally, I have found myself reading and rereading Robert’s Rules of Order – Simplified and Applied. While found the expected detailed explanation and examples of Parliamentary Procedure contained in this text, I also found it to offer a tremendous insight to human communication and interaction.

So now what? If you have any ideas for must-reads on this or other topics, please let me know. Otherwise, I am off to Amazon.com to find new material with the intent of satisfying my growing curiosity of verbal communication.

Wait. Let me Tarentino this for you…

In January our entire family decided to take golf lessons at golfTec. To this point, it has been a great experience! Bobbie Jo, Courtney, and I have all been diligent at attending lessons and practicing (except for me during the swine flu season – I mean travel season). When we review the videos from our lessons, it is easy to see the improvement that has been made. While we have been out to the driving range a few times, we have been cautious about actually playing a round of golf for fear that it might be frustrating and detrimental to the learning process.

So today…

Gary Rector and I teed off at 3:00 PM and had a blast. While I still have massive room for improvement, most of the shots I hit went in the basic direction that was intended and traveled the distance that I expected (So I don’t sound boastful, you should know that I drive an astonishing 185 yards). I had 1 par, several bogies, and found myself with a long par opportunity on about 15 holes.

Now for the exciting part – I only lost four golf balls. While that may sound like a lot to you, the last time I played I lost about two dozen. According to my math, this means that if my “hot” streak continues, I will be saving $30-$50 per round, which means I might be able to play golf more than once every ten years.

How cool is it to spend 4 hours, $30, and actually have a good time!?!

SYTA Youth Foundation Golf Tournament – watch out – here I come!

While it was torture spending a few days doing nothing but moving, purging, labeling and filing, I am amazed at how it has improved my ability to get my head above water.  For example, I can now locate every active project and/or task which might require my attention with minimal effort and without moving my chair.  I now have things where they need to be WHEN they need to be!

Once I completed this organizational transition, I bought multiple copies of the book and made them available to every member of our team – offering to purchase the required materials for the transition upon the completion of the book.  After a few days, Trey Caliva (our Director of Information Technology) had read the book and reorganized his file system.

Trey immediately brought to my attention a web application called Remember The Milk (RTM) which is a fantastic tool for managing projects and tasks both on your own and as part of a team (suggested to Trey by Jonathan Stark).  As I researched RTM, I found that a number of blogs discussed the use of RTM in concert with GTD.  After 2 more hours of setup and task shoveling, I now have RTM synched to my Blackberry so all of my tasks are always at my fingertips.

I am currently ten days into this lifestyle change and I must say that I feel like my grip on both my professional life and personal life is better than ever.

• When I go to the store, I know what groceries I need
• Before a meeting, I am able to review all tasks and projects pertinent to attendees
• My inbox (both real and email) is EMPTY!
• I have not once in 10 days sat at my desk wondering what to do next
• I have not missed a deadline (even a self-set deadline) in 10 days

While most of the world may be perfectly organized and able to keep up with their lives without a system such as the one mentioned above, I know that my family, my team, and I will all be better off thanks to this recent organizational paradigm shift.