How To Probe for More Information from your Client

The art of probing or rather questioning someone, requires you occasionally to get into deeper detail about some particular issue or problem. You must also spot the signals they are sending that there is more here than meets the immediate eye. 

 Before you begin probing (in this case a client), you need a road map, and the only way to get that information is to extract it from your 'initial' conversations. Unfortunately, if you come right out and ask, it can sound like you're being nosy and, worst case, you can end up sounding like a police interrogator.  

These are some steps to put in consideration when probing:

• Do your research. Never ask a client a question that you can get answered somewhere else.   

• Ask creative questions. To keep the conversation from sounding like an interrogation, sprinkle it with questions that have built-in, positive assumptions. 

• Listen. Really listen. Listening is not a part of questioning; questioning is a part of listening. Listening -- completely and intently -- shows respect for the contact's knowledge and provides an opportunity for the contact to expound upon his or her experience. The more carefully you listen, the more you'll learn.

When seeking more detail from your client, there are a number of types probes you can use, depending on what they are saying and what you want to discover. Remember... you do get what you ask for!  

Here are some probing questions:

1. Seek for Clarification

When they use vague or unclear language, or when you just need more detail, seek to further understand them by asking for clarification. What exactly did you mean by 'XXX'? What, specifically, will you do next week? Could you tell me more about YY? 

2. Purpose

Sometimes they say things where the purpose of why they said it is not clear. Ask them to justify their statement or dig for underlying causes. Why did you say that? What were you thinking about when you said XX?

3. Relevance

If they seem to be going off-topic, you can check whether what they are saying is relevant or salient to the main purpose of inquiry. Is that relevant to the main question? How is what you are saying related to what I asked?

4. Completeness and accuracy

You can check that they are giving you a full and accurate account by probing for more detail and checking against other information you have. Sometimes people make genuine errors (and sometimes deliberate), which you may want to check. Is that all? Is there anything you have missed out? How do you know that is true? How does that compare with what you said before?

5. Repetition

One of the most effective ways of getting more detail is simply by asking the same question again. You can use the same words or you can rephrase the question (perhaps they did not fully understand it first time).

Where did you go?... What places did you visit? You can also repeat what they have said ('echo question'), perhaps with emphasis on the area where you want more detail. He asked you to marry him??

6. Examples

When they talk about something vaguely, you may ask for specific examples. This is particularly useful in interviews, where you want to test both their truthfulness and the depth behind what they are claiming.

Sorry, I don't understand. Could you help by giving an example? Could you give me an example of when you did XXX? Tell me about a time when you ...

7. Extension

When they have not given you enough information about something, ask them to tell you more.

Could you tell me more about that, please? And what happened after that? Then...

8. Evaluation

To discover both how judgmental they are and how they evaluate, use question that seek evaluation:

How good would you say it is? How do you know it is worthless? What are the pros and cons of this situation?

9. Emotional

Particularly if they are talking in the third person or otherwise unemotionally and you want to find out how they feel, you can ask something like: And how did you feel about that?

When you do this, do be careful: you may have just asked a cathartic question that results in them exploding with previously-suppressed emotion.

Asking questions is a fundamental part of finding information and for subtle (and otherwise) persuasion. Use positive words and be energetic and enthusiastic in your delivery, as you need to motivate someone to consider the questions you are asking. Ideally you want to inspire them to respond in a likewise manner and to open up the call into a conversation rather than a set of questions and answers.

Again, use your voice to project professional confidence as your client needs to have confidence in you.  Always write down what you want to say and recite this so that you are prepared. Attention should be given to ensuring that conversations are natural and not forced. Listen to what your client has to say and link the answers into the next question.

GRAMMAR for Television and Film enthusiasts

Television and film use certain common guidelines in audiovisual media often referred to as the GRAMMAR to convey meaning through particular camera and editing techniques.

 Grammar of the Shot helps you learn how to use the basic grammar of making films and videos. Designed as an easy-to-use reference, this book shows you in no uncertain terms what you absolutely need to know to put together your own film or video, shot by shot. Whether you are just learning how to frame a shot, or if you just need a refresher, this book gives you a basic toolkit of how to build a successful visual story that flows smoothly. Grammar of the Shot begins with an explanation of the essential visual language of film-making. The book takes you from the basic shape of a shot, to different types to shots, to composition of visual elements within each frame. You will be given the basic building blocks essential for successful shot composition, shot lighting, screen direction, 3D elements, camera movement, and many general practices that make for a richer, and not least multi-layered visual presentations. 

Most importantly, you will be given crucial background information to expand your visual vocabulary and help jump-start your career in film and video. Each topic is covered succinctly and is accompanied by clear photographs and diagrams that illustrate the key concepts presented in the book. Grammar of the Shot is simple, elegant, and easy to use with clear overview of the principles of shooting... timeless information that will improve your work.

 Together with its companion volume Grammar of the Edit, these little books are all the beginning filmmaker needs. If you want to get to grips with the editing, either in film or video, this book sets down, in a simple uncomplicated way, the fundamental knowledge you will need to make a good edit between two shots. Its intended primarily for the trainee to the craft of editing, Grammar of the Edit, is embedded in basic, jargon-free, language, illustrated by easy to follow diagrams. The book explains in simple terms the fundamental components of an edit. It lists, examines and explains the conventions and working practices of post-production editing and has been extensively class-tested globally.

Both Grammar of the Shot and Grammar of the Edit are a must have for every filmmaker’s reference library.

CD and DVD Burning Guide

Nero StartSmart: an example of CD abd DVD burning software

To avoid burning unusable, unplayable, incompatible or defective discs observe the following:

1.  Use high quality media.  Defects in the media like scratches, scuffs, stains, contamination, defects in the plastic, will cause defects in your written disc. 
2. Keep your hands off the disc... or at least the underside of the disc. Fingerprints or dirt on the bottom of the disc can cause distortion of the writing or reading laser.
3. Keep your discs dust-free. 
4. Never wipe discs in a circle. 
5. Plan your burn - figure out what kind of disc you want to make.  If you want to make the disc playable in an audio CD player, you can’t format it as a ROM (data) disc.  If you want a DVD to play in DVD Video players, you can’t format it as a DVD-ROM. 
6. Burn using Disc-at-Once mode whenever practical.  Track-At-Once mode is meant to help avoid buffer underruns on slower computers, but causes overlapping sectors in between tracks called "link transitions".  
7. Turn off other programs, including screen savers.  If you have problems with buffer underruns, you should choose a slower writing speed.  You should also turn off virus protection software.  For the best results, don’t run any other programs while you are burning.
8. Keep your hard disks defragmented.  While this is a good idea for better PC performance in general, it is an especially good idea for people who do a lot of audio or video editing, or other multimedia production.  If your hard disk is highly fragmented, it will have to seek to many sections in order to read and write each file.  This will slow down the transfer rate of data to and from the hard drive, and it could cause buffer underruns when burning.
9. While higher speed recording saves time and generally results in great discs, slower speed recordings may give you your best chance for a higher quality disc, with lower error rates. 
10. Always use a felt-tip marker to write on the top of your recordable discs.  Never use a ball-point pen, or roller ball pen.  These pens could damage the recording layer, which is just beneath the printed top layer.
11. Don’t leave open sessions.  Unless you are storing data in increments to a recordable disc (using multi-session recording), you should "finalize" your recording.  This will allow your burning software program to write a lead-out to the end of your session.  This is necessary for compatibility with audio CD players.

CDs and DVDs

Blank CDs on display

CD is short for compact disc. DVD initially stood for digital video disc, then digital versatile disc, but today the term DVD is often used without referring to a specific set of words. Both CDs and DVDs are optical media, meaning media that use light technology (more specif­ically, laser light) for data retrieval. A disc drive focuses a laser light beam into the CD or DVD to “read” the bits (data) in the disc. The drive can also “write” bits by focusing the laser beam into recordable CDs or DVDs. The laser reads and writes data starting from the center of the disc and proceeding in a spiral direction toward the outer edge. A pre-groove is stamped in all blank recordable and rewritable CDs and DVDs to guide the laser as it writes.

 

Usability

Optical discs are differentially identified to designate specific features such as recordability, rewritability, and accessibility. For example, CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R discs are dye-based record­able (write-once) discs—i.e., recordable but not erasable. CD-RW, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW discs are phase-change based, recordable, (rewritable) discs, or discs that permit the erasing of earlier informa­tion and the recording of new material in the same location on the disc. DVD-RAM discs are phase-change based, recordable (rewrit­able) discs formatted for random access, much like a computer hard drive. CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs are pressed and molded, non­recordable, read-only discs.

Used DVDs on display.

CDs and DVDs consist of the same basic materials and layers but are manufactured differently. A DVD is actually like two thin CDs glued together. A CD is read from and written to (by laser) on one side only; a DVD can be read from or written to on one or both sides, depending on how the disc was manufactured. Recordable DVDs (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM) can be manufactured with one re­cording layer on each side. Prerecorded DVDs (DVD-ROM) can be manufactured with one or two recorded layers on each side.

CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW. DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM discs can become unusable in a matter of days. If such a disc is left in an environment that allows direct sunlight and extreme heat buildup (e.g., on the dashboard of a car in summertime, or next to a heater by a window), the organic dye or phase-changing film that holds the data will degrade quickly, causing the disc to become unreadable. A disc is not protected from the effects of heat buildup if left in a case that is exposed to direct sunlight or

other sources of heat. Extreme heat buildup can also cause warping of the disc.

Direct sunlight to R discs is harmful for two reasons: The sunlight’s ultraviolet photons (the higher frequency of the sunlight spectrum) have enough energy to produce a photochemical reaction, altering the optical properties of the dye (recording layer) molecules. The broad spectrum of unfiltered sunlight, infrared to ultraviolet (low frequency to high), can impart heat to the disc. The increased temperature generated by sunlight will accelerate the degradation or breakdown of the dye layer (recording layer) of the disc. The combination of high temperature and high relative humidity will further accelerate that degradation.

Scratches generally cross data lines or tracks on the disc, and how bad (deep and wide) they are will determine the extent of interfer­ence with laser focus on the data. Small or occasional scratches will likely have little or no effect on the ability of the laser to read the disc, because the data are far enough below the surface of the disc that the laser is focused beyond the scratch.

Choosing the best writing speed

Choosing a higher writing speed will result in a faster disc burn, but the optical quality may be lower (less reflective). If the reflectivity is too low to be accurately read when the CD is played back, it may skip or contain unwanted audio artifacts such as squeaking and clicking sounds. For optimal results burn at the media's rated speed. 

New age DVDs; the HD-DVD and Blue-ray Disc

New age DVDs

DVD is still very successful, and will definitely be around for some time. With the introduction of HD-DVD and Blue-ray Discs and their respective media, large media content of upto 25GB on single-layer, and 50GB dual-layer can be stored. Blu-ray and HD-DVD both employ Blue Laser technology which has a much shorter wavelength than the red laser technology used in current DVD). Blu-ray and HD-DVD enables a disc the size of a current DVD disc but, which has much greater storage capacity than a standard DVD, to hold an entire film at HDTV resolution or allow the consumer to record two hours of high definition video content.

New Media Technology in Education

Examples of applications for New-media technology.

 There have been advance improvements in media technology and that has affected immensely on the way we interact, the way we get information, communicate, and the conduct business. More so traditional teaching methods are giving way to new educational approaches as the use of this technology in the classrooms is becoming more widespread.

New media technology is any type of application meant to transfer information via digital techniques, computerized systems or data networks. The forms of this technology are interactive and contain compressed data designed to be accessed in a variety of markets. Wikipedia refers new media as the on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content. 

Creation of media content, its publishing, distribution and consumption is nowadays extensive beyond imagination with increasing real-time generation of new, unregulated content. New media does not include television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or paper-based publications; unless they contain technologies that enable digital interactivity. 

Interactive media must be interactive and easy to and track responses.

As technologies advance, we use these emerging tools to our advantage. Each technology provides potential benefits to help people learn, but at what cost? The changes in how we learn with new technologies can have both positive and negative effects on our ability to learn and on the educational systems at large. 

Social networking sites allow students to explore their interests on a global scale and discuss their interests with a wider range of people. By adding some self development skills through the new media can boost oneself towards success. Facebook is an example of the social media model, in which most users are also participants. This has huge implications for self-learning, as information and resources are much more available than they were previously. However, for students that aren’t skilled at evaluating different content, it can be hard for them to sort through various resources to find accurate and useful information.

It’s not so rare anymore nowadays for entire courses and degree programs to be offered online, where educators and students are using a wide variety of tools to work within these new virtual learning environments.

Find a want and fill it

"The most common mistake entrepreneurs make as they develop their ideas is they take an inward view. Instead of exploring what people may need, they focus on what they themselves want to do. It’s a simple trap. A common mistake. And it’s deadly." Rob Spiegel

Truth is, follow this “find a need and fill it” advice and you are inviting commodity pricing.

Think about it…

People NEED to get their roof repaired … but they WANT on-time, courteous service, clean workers and a guarantee their roof won’t leak again.

People NEED a computer network set up … but they WANT someone who understands their business, will suggest things to make it run smoother before a breakdown prompts it, and won’t make them feel stupid by talking geek to them.
People NEED to have a cavity filled … but they WANT to look good and have a pain-free experience in a friendly office with warm people.

People price shop for what they need, and even that makes them grumpy.

People pay premium prices for what they want, and they love it.
Go to an Apple Store. Play marketing anthropologist. Really observe the people. You’ll “get it” in less than an hour.
Service business, retail business, business-to-business, whatever your business… if your business struggles with commodity pricing or if you have to “justify” your price more than once in a blue moon … betcha an iPhone (ahem, another example) you are focusing on what your customers or clients need, and aren’t paying attention to what they want. And that makes them begin to not want you.

Forget find a need and fill it.
Find a want, touch your market … and lead a movement.