In this session, we will explore how a well-structured and organized company wiki can be a crucial asset for your business’s scalability and adaptability. Learn how to alleviate growing pains by implementing knowledge structures that can evolve along with your organization.
By the end of the webinar, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to use a company wiki as a tool for growth and expansion, allowing you to make informed decisions for your organization.
Importance of Scalability: Understand why a scalable knowledge base is vital for a growing business.
Organizational Structure: Learn how a well-organized wiki can streamline internal communication and facilitate information sharing.
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Knowledge Management: Gain insights into how a wiki can serve as a centralized repository for crucial company information, saving time and reducing redundancy.
Case Studies: Get real-world examples of companies that have successfully integrated wikis to facilitate growth and expansion.
Best Practices: Learn actionable tips for setting up and maintaining an effective company wiki.
Chinese technology giant Huawei has had it with European Union officials calling it a “high-risk” supplier.
The firm, a leading manufacturer of telecoms equipment, filed a complaint with the European Ombudsman office last month after the bloc’s industry chief Thierry Breton described Huawei and its smaller Chinese rival ZTE as “high-risk suppliers” at a press conference on June 15.
Breton was presenting a report reviewing the EU’s policies on secure 5G, which allow member countries to restrict or prohibit “entities considered high-risk suppliers, notably because they are subject to highly intrusive, third countries laws on national intelligence and data security,” the commissioner said, naming both Huawei and ZTE in his statements.
Huawei told POLITICO in a statement Friday that the company “strongly opposes and disagrees with the comments made by the European Commission representatives publicly naming and shaming an individual company without legal basis while lacking any justification or due process,” confirming the firm is the one behind the complaint with the EU Ombudsman.
“We expect the European Commission to address our claims and rectify their comments for the sake of Huawei’s reputation,” the spokesperson added.
The European Ombudsman found “insufficient grounds to open an inquiry into the comments themselves” but it has asked the Commission to send Huawei a reply to its complaints by November 3, Michal Zuk, a communication officer for the EU watchdog, told POLITICO.
The Shenzhen-based company has been fighting restrictions on the use of its 5G kit for the past few years. It has fought and lost a court challenge in Sweden against the country’s telecoms regulator and more recently filed a lawsuit with a Lisbon court against a resolution by Portugal’s cybersecurity regulator.
At the core of Western concerns surrounding Huawei is whether the firm can be instrumentalized, pressured or infiltrated by the Chinese government to gain access to critical data in Western countries.
The Commission didn’t immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
As AI investment soars, financial institutions that share their AI strategies publicly are performing better than those keeping their efforts under wraps. A report released this month by research company Evident Insights found that banks with strong AI communication strategies outperform their peers in stock price performance. The survey uses four indicators including strategy, communication, […]
Top officials from the United States and the EU met with their Russian counterparts for undisclosed emergency talks in Turkey designed to resolve the standoff over Nagorno-Karabakh, just days before Azerbaijan launched a military offensive last month to seize the breakaway territory from ethnic Armenian control.
The off-diary meeting marks a rare — if ultimately unsuccessful — contact between Moscow and the West on a major security concern, after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 upended regular diplomacy.
A senior diplomat with knowledge of the discussions told POLITICO the meeting took place on September 17 in Istanbul as part of efforts to pressure Azerbaijan to end its nine-month blockade of the enclave and allow in humanitarian aid convoys from Armenia. According to the envoy, the meeting focused on “how to get the bloody trucks moving” and ensure supplies of food and fuel could reach its estimated 100,000 residents.
The U.S. was represented by Louis Bono, Washington’s senior adviser for Caucasus negotiations, while the EU dispatched Toivo Klaar, its representative for the region. Russia, meanwhile, sent Igor Khovaev, who serves as Putin’s special envoy on relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Such high-level diplomatic interaction is rare. In March, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came face to face on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in India — but Moscow insisted the exchange happened “on the move” and no negotiations were held.
In a statement provided to POLITICO, an EU official said “we believe it is important to maintain channels of communications with relevant interlocutors to avoid misunderstandings.” The official also observed Klaar had sought to keep lines open on numerous fronts over the “past years,” including in talks with Khovaev and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department declined to comment on the meeting, saying only that “we do not comment on private diplomatic discussions.”
However, a U.S. official familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters explained the discussions came out of an understanding that the Kremlin still holds sway in the region. “We need to be able to work with the Russians on this because they do have influence over the parties, especially as we’re at a precarious moment right now,” the American official said.
Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19, sending tanks and troops into the region under the cover of heavy artillery bombardment. Karabakh Armenian leaders were forced to surrender following 24 hours of fierce fighting that killed hundreds on both sides. Since then, the Armenian government says more than 100,000 people have fled their homes and crossed the border, fearing for their lives.
Azerbaijan insists it has the right to take action against “illegal armed formations” on its internationally recognized territory, and has pledged to “reintegrate” those who have stayed behind. European Council President Charles Michel described the military operation as “devastating,” while Blinken has joined calls for Azerbaijan “to refrain from further hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh and provide unhindered humanitarian access.”
Booming social media application TikTok needs to pay up in Europe for violating children’s privacy.
The popular Chinese-owned app failed to protect children’s personal information by making their accounts publicly accessible by default and insufficiently tackled risks that under-13 users could access its platform, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) said in a decision published Friday.
The regulator slapped TikTok with a €345 million fine for breaching the EU’s landmark privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The penalty comes amid high tensions between the European Union and China, following the EU’s announcement that it plans to probe Chinese state subsidies of electric cars. European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová is also set to visit China next Monday-Tuesday and meet Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing to discuss the two sides’ technology policies, amid growing concerns over Beijing’s data gathering and cyber espionage practices.
“Alone the fine of [€345 million] is a headline sanction to impose but reflects the extent to which the DPC identified child users were exposed to risk in particular arising from TikTok’s decision at the time to default child user accounts to public settings on registration,” said Helen Dixon, the Irish data protection commissioner, in a written statement.
The Irish privacy regulator said that, in the period from July to December 2020, TikTok had unlawfully made accounts of users aged 13 to 17 public by default, effectively making it possible for anyone to watch and comment on videos they posted. The company also did not appropriately assess the risks that users under the age of 13 could gain access to its platform. It also found that TikTok is still pushing teenagers joining the platform to make their accounts and videos public through manipulative pop-ups. The regulator ordered the firm to change these misleading designs, known as dark patterns, within the next three months.
Minors’ accounts could be paired up with unverified adult accounts during the second half of 2020. The authority said the video platform had also previously failed to explain to teenagersthe consequences of making their content and accounts public.
“We respectfully disagree with the decision, particularly the level of the fine imposed,” said Morgan Evans, a TikTok spokesperson. “The [Data Protection Commission]’s criticisms are focused on features and settings that were in place three years ago, and that we made changes to well before the investigation even began, such as setting all under-16 accounts to private by default.”
TikTok added it will comply with the order to change misleading designs by extending such default-privacy settings to accounts of new users aged 16 and 17 later in September. It will also roll out in the next three months changes to the pop-up young users get when they first post a video.
The decision marks the largest-ever privacy fine for TikTok, which is now actively used by 134 million Europeans monthly, and the fifth-largest fine imposed on any tech company under the GDPR.
The platform popular among teenagers has previously faced criticism for insufficiently mitigating harms it poses to its young users, including deadly viral challenges and its addictive algorithm. TikTok — like 18 other online platforms — also now has to limit risks like cyberbullying or face steep fines under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The costly fine adds to TikTok’s woes in Europe, after it saw a wave of new restrictions on its use earlier this year due to concerns about its connection to China.
The social media app, whose parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing, has struggled to quash concerns over its data security. The company said this month it had started moving its European data to a center within the bloc. Yet, it is still under investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commission over the potentially unlawful transfer of European users’ data to China.
The social media app, whose parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing, has struggled to quash concerns over its data security | Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images
The Irish data authority in 2021 started probing whether TikTok was respecting children’s privacy requirements. TikTok set up its legal EU headquarters in Dublin in late 2020, meaning the Irish privacy watchdog has been the company’s supervisor for the whole bloc under the GDPR.
Other national watchdogs weighed in on the investigation over the summer via the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), after two German privacy agencies and Italy’s regulator disagreed with Ireland’s initial findings. The group instructed Ireland to sanction TikTok for nudging its users toward public accounts in its misleading pop-ups.
The board of European regulators also had “serious doubts” that TikTok’s measures to keep under-13 users off its platform were effective in the second half of 2020. The EDPB said the mechanisms “could be easily circumvented” and that TikTok was not checking ages “in a sufficiently systematic manner” for existing users. The group said, however, that it couldn’t find an infringement because of a lack of informationavailable during their cooperation process.
The United Kingdom’s data regulator in April fined TikTok £12.7 million (€14.8 million) for letting children under 13 on its platform and using their data. The company also received a €750,000 fine in 2021 from the Dutch privacy authority for failing to protect Dutch children by not having a privacy policy in their native language.
Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to disable Starlink satellite communications near the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea last year to sabotage a planned Ukrainian drone strike.
Musk was worried the drone submarine attack, which was targeting the Russian naval fleet in Sevastopol, would escalate tensions and potentially lead to a nuclear war, according to an extract from historian Walter Isaacson’s upcoming biography “Elon Musk.”
Musk on Thursday evening painted a slightly different picture to the one described by Isaacson. He said satellites in those regions were never turned on in the first place and he simply chose not to activate them.
The extract, published by the Washington Post on Thursday, shows Musk’s journey from eager supporter to reluctant ally of Ukraine.
Isaacson writes that Musk reportedly panicked when he heard about the planned Ukrainian attack, which was using Starlink satellites to guide six drones packed with explosives towards the Crimea coast.
After speaking to the Russian ambassador to the United States — who reportedly told him an attack on Crimea would trigger a nuclear response — Musk took matters into his own hands and ordered his engineers to turn off Starlink coverage “within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast.”
This caused the drones to lose connectivity and wash “ashore harmlessly,” effectively sabotaging the offensive mission.
Ukraine’s reaction was immediate: Officials frantically called Musk and asked him to turn the service back on, telling him that the “drone subs were crucial to their fight for freedom.”
But Musk was unwavering. He argued that Ukraine was “going too far and inviting strategic defeat” and that he did not want his satellites used for offensive purposes.
This was the beginning of a well-documented cooling of relationships between Ukrainian forces and the billionaire entrepreneur, who had been helping keep Ukraine online since the beginning of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion through his Starlink satellites, as Ukrainian infrastructure was severely damaged by Russian attacks.
But as Ukraine moved on the offensive, Musk started restricting the Ukrainian military’s use of Starlink in Russian-controlled regions and for drone control, while also warning he would stop financially supporting of the service. His argument was the same: He wanted to prevent the conflict from escalating into a world war.
“There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol,” Musk said on X (formerly Twitter). “The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”
Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday praised Musk’s choice to shut down Starlink during Ukraine’s strike attempt.
“If what Isaacson has written in his book is true, then it looks like Musk is the last adequate mind in North America,” Medvedev wrote on Musk’s X. “Or, at the very least, in gender-neutral America, he is the one with the balls.”
“Elon Musk,” a biography by historian, professor and former Time magazine editor Isaacson, is set to be released on September 12.
This story has been updated with comments from Elon Musk.
KYIV — Ukraine’s long-range Beaver drones seem to be making successful kamikaze strikes in the heart of Moscow, but Serhiy Prytula is coy about how much he knows.
“We are not sure whether we are involved in this,” he says with a charming but inscrutable smile, when asked about these mysterious new weapons.
Prytula rose to fame — just like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — as an actor, TV star and comedian, but is now best known for his contribution to the war, running a foundation that acquires components, helps support domestic arms production and supplies front-line forces. Tracking down parts for drones has proved to be one of his fortes.
Whether or not Prytula played any role in finding parts for the Beaver, it has now joined the ranks of other homegrown creations such as the Shark, Leleka and Valkyrie.
From the outside, his foundation looks like any other nondescript five-story apartment block in the quiet side streets of Kyiv. Inside, it is a chaotic human hive of volunteers, preparing packages and dispatching deliveries to soldiers on the front. On August 9, the team packed 75 drones for military units. That’s barely a drop in the ocean, given the needs of Ukraine’s forces across a 1,000-kilometer front, but every extra eye in the sky can help save dozens of lives.
The crowd of young, energetic volunteers at Prytula’s headquarters epitomizes an important dimension of the war: Ukrainians are increasingly taking matters into their own hands when it comes to weapons supply. With the defense ministry and the traditional state arms sector widely criticized for inefficiency and tarnished by corruption scandals over past years, the country is now witnessing an explosion of private enterprise to deliver kit to the front lines and to ramp up domestic production in the most hazardous of conditions. With arms-makers being prime targets for Russian cruise missiles, factories are spreading their manufacturing over numerous secret locations.
This sense that Ukrainians need to take the initiative at home both by scouring the global arms bazaar for hi-tech gizmos and by making more of their own heavy armor and shells is only amplified by the looming threat of a return to the White House by Donald Trump, who argues that America should not be “sending very much” to Ukraine and that Kyiv should sue for peace with the invader. Other Republican candidates have only heightened Ukrainians’ fears that the next U.S. president could sell out their young democracy to the Kremlin.
In addition to the aerial drones, there have been other homegrown success stories — Ukrainian-made armored vehicles are on the front lines beside U.S. Bradleys and locally made maritime drones have hit Russian ships in the Black Sea.
Not that anyone reckons going it alone is an option. Ukraine cannot even begin to match the vast military expenditure of Russia — Kyiv is expected to spend €24 billion on defense over 2023, while Russia is probably splurging well over €80 billion — so foreign assistance will always prove vital to keeping Ukraine in the fight.
But that’s no reason to sit idly by. Almost an entire country has mobilized for national defense, and there are many ways in which entrepreneurial private suppliers are now proving nimbler than state behemoths and bureaucrats in getting soldiers what they need.
When it came to the key question — on every Ukrainian’s mind — of continued Western support, Prytula stressed the efforts that Ukrainians were making to defend themselves made it less likely that outside aid would diminish. “I am convinced that they will keep supplying us with weapons because the world sees the war efforts of Ukrainian society.”
Beaver blitz
The back story of the Beaver is a closely guarded secret.
Last year, Ukrainian blogger and volunteer Ihor Lachenkov announced he was aiming to collect 20 million hryvnia (about €500,000) to produce and buy five Beaver drones for military intelligence, and later posted pictures of himself hugging one. Since then drones that looked like Beavers have hammered Russian oil depots and other military targets deep inside Russian territory and even hit Moscow’s business district. Officially, Ukraine is saying nothing about where this kit is coming from, and men such as Lachenkov and Prytula provide a useful smokescreen.
The country is now witnessing an explosion of private enterprise to deliver kit to the front lines | Sergey Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Prytula in late July also showed off grinning pictures of himself walking past three Beaver drones on a landing strip, quipping ironically: “We have no idea what can fly to Moscow.”
Since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Prytula’s foundation has raised $135 million, which has been used to buy more than 7,000 drones, 1,200 vehicles, over 17,000 communication devices and much more.
When asked about his role in getting the Beaver drones, Prytula diplomatically said a volunteer’s job is to buy what the military needs and hand it over. “But it is not always necessary to talk about it. We honestly always say that we have nothing to do with it. When we see oil bases are exploding somewhere in Russia, or that there are some attacks on military facilities, we are glad that our army has learned to take out the enemy outside the country,” Prytula said.
Indeed, Prytula’s volunteers play a key middleman role in acquiring components more quickly than the state bureaucracy can.
China is a key part of the puzzle as the Ukrainian defense ministry cannot buy Chinese-made civilian drones directly. Shenzhen-based drone maker DJI no longer openly sells to Russia or to Ukraine, so the key trick is to acquire their wares quickly from third countries, or pick up parts and components internationally that can be assembled by Ukrainian technicians. There is a boom in small Ukrainian arms producers, with more than 100 companies active in the field.
“For the Russians, it was always easier to get [the Chinese products] in the never-ending race. So, when I hear Ukrainians managed to snatch up 10,000 components for … drones from Russians, I am happy,” Prytula said, sitting in his office, beside a giant wooden map of Ukraine.
This sense that Ukrainians need to take the initiative at home is only amplified by the looming threat of a return to the White House by Donald Trump, who argues that America should not be “sending very much” to Ukraine and that Kyiv should sue for peace with the invader | Brandon Bell/Getty Images
“The defense ministry also can’t buy [drones] that are not in serial production yet. But we can, and the producers can reinvest the money to increase the number, if soldiers’ feedback from the front was good,” Prytula continued. “So, by donating money people are not only helping the army, but also stimulating domestic military production.”
The game-changing role of drone producers has also made them a target. Over the weekend, Russia attacked a theater in the center of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, where drone producers and volunteers had organized a closed meeting with the help of the local military administration. Most of them managed to escape to shelter but people walking around the theater on the central square did not, with seven killed and 129 injured.
Bringing it all back home
While almost everyone now wants to get involved in the defense business, that wasn’t always the case. Just as Russia was building up its military from 1991 to 2014, Ukraine neglected its own arms factories. In the wild years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, illegal networks smuggled out arms. While the country remained a heavyweight military producer, it focused on export earnings rather than tailoring weapons for Ukraine’s own forsaken troops.
“No one predicted any military conflicts either with Russia or other countries,” Maksym Polyvianyi, acting director of the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries, told POLITICO. “In a way, Russia’s 2014 invasion boosted our defense industry. Dozens of defense companies appeared and started the modernization of Ukrainian armory and the army.”
Still, the old scourge of corruption held the country back, even after Russia seized Crimea in 2014. Under the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the state arms industry was rocked by scandals in which money was siphoned off, even as the country faced open conflict against Russia in the east.
Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 forced another change, however, accelerating diversification from the state industrial complex. “As of 2022, Ukrainian armed forces buy up to 70 percent of defense products from private military companies,” Polyvianyi said.
Under the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the state arms industry was rocked by scandals in which money was siphoned off, even as the country faced open conflict against Russia in the east | Chris McGrath/Getty Images
With the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s defense producers became primary targets for Russian missiles. Many were bombed. But others managed to relocate to western Ukraine and spread out production.
“You have to be creative to survive nowadays. Two months after the start of the invasion, we resumed our work,” Vladislav Belbas, director general of Ukrainian Armor, told POLITICO. Since 2018, Ukrainian Armor produced the Varta and Novator armored vehicles, as well as 60mm, 82mm, and 120 mm-caliber mortars for the army. “We recently restarted production even though we’ve lost an important components contractor. It is now located on the territory controlled by Russia.”
Secrecy is also crucial. “We do everything to protect our staff, hide information about our production whereabouts. We move and test equipment at night, when it is more difficult to track us. We try not to concentrate equipment in one place,” Belbas said.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister, stressed output was rising dramatically but that it was inconceivable to match Russia without major foreign support. “In seven months of 2023, we made 10 times more artillery and mortar ammo than in the entire 2022. But we are still very far from what we need,” he told POLITICO. “Today we have a war of such a scale that the entire capacity of the free world is not enough to support our consumption. We definitely cannot do this without help.”
Ministry malaise
The defense ministry — the main supplier of weapons, food, uniforms and other necessities — is struggling to shake off a reputation for graft and inefficiency.
In a high-profile profiteering scandal earlier this year, it transpired the ministry had paid absurdly inflated prices for soldiers’ rations to a contractor. The ministry denies violations, but keeps hiding behind military secrecy.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister, stressed output was rising dramatically but that it was inconceivable to match Russia without major foreign support | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Other more recent scandals and procurement hiccups have focused on the ministry’s failure to secure delivery of everything it paid for. In private, Ukrainian officials admit the defense ministry is not up to scratch in supplying the army, and some Ukrainian lawmakers openly criticize the minister, Oleksii Reznikov, over his record on procurement.
The Ukrainian government has found alternative ways to cover some of the needs of the Ukrainian army, with the digital transformation ministry engaging in drone supplies, using state donations platform UNITED 24, and liberalizing customs and production rules for drones in Ukraine.
“President Zelenskyy took domestic defense production under personal control,” Kamyshin said.
Prytula, the founder of the foundation, said it was hard to judge the defense ministry during war. “They are quite successful when it comes to accumulating help in the international arena, but have some troubles at home. I think the defense ministry is doing what it can in terms of its responsibility. But with such a war it is never enough,” he said.
But Polyvianyi noted that’s where volunteers were coming into their own as parallel supply lines, filling the gaps left by the ministry. “The task of the state today is to provide heavy equipment. Without help, the state cannot provide all the needs of each army unit. Charitable foundations work in close connection with the ministry of defense and other structures.”
That’s a partnership in which Prytula is one of the most important players. But he is among the first to admit that all of Ukraine’s Herculean efforts at home will amount to nothing without the support of the international coalition.
“So it is hard to imagine we can win if we’re left on our own. As in the war of two formerly Soviet armies, the one with more people and weapons will win. Only better technology can help change the situation,” Prytula said. “It will be very difficult for us to fight alone with such a huge monster. But the civilized world has two options: to help us restore our 1991 borders, or to throw away all claims of shared values and just watch us bleed.”
KYIV — Russia’s missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv at the weekend not only killed seven people and injured 120, it also scored a second hit for the Kremlin by stoking internal anger against drone-makers, who are accused of turning the city into a target with a security blunder.
On a bright holiday morning, as Ukrainians were returning from church on Saturday after celebrating the Apple Feast of the Savior — a harvest festival of the Orthodox church — a Russian Iskander-type ballistic missile exploded over the theater in the center of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, only some 70 kilometers from the border with Russia.
The prosecutor’s office has started an investigation into a war crime that led to a mass murder.
Online commentators, however, are already pronouncing guilty verdicts on an unexpected group of former national heroes, blaming not only Russia, but also Ukrainian drone producers and military volunteers who organized and advertised an event on the same day at the theater that was ultimately targeted, with the help of local military administration.
“Is Russia to blame for the fact that it struck the theater in Chernihiv and killed civilians there? Of course. But didn’t the organizers have to turn on their brains and think that such an event is highly likely to become a target for Russian missiles? Especially if they constantly say that drones are a weapon of victory? This is about responsibility,” Sergiy Fursa, deputy director of Dragon Capital, an investment company, said in a Facebook post.
Ukrainian military volunteer Roman Sinicyn chimed in, adding that by organizing their event in the city center so close to Russia, Ukrainian military producers, soldiers, and volunteers, as well as the local military administration, demonstrated supreme recklessness. “However, we should not shift all the blame on a specific and effective volunteer organization. The event was approved by officials, not volunteers. And quite specific representatives of ministries, special services, and the military were aware of the event,” Sinicyn said.
Maria Berlinska and Lyuba Shypovych from the Dignitas Fund, a Ukrainian military volunteer organization that has pushed for systemic changes in Ukraine’s drone production and supply industry as well as the training of drone operators, are now taking most of the online hate from Ukrainians.
Dignitas Fund was among the organizers of the “Angry Birds” event, together with Chernihiv’s regional military administration and Ukraine’s defense innovation cluster Brave 1.
The event organizers publicly announced the time and date of the meeting and said what city it was happening in, but revealed the exact location only to participants some four hours before the start.
Someone then leaked that information to the Russians or Russia intercepted the communication. Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Russian forces were targeting a military meeting and even published an invitation with detailed maximum-security measures for the attendees who were not supposed to wear their military uniforms.
Both Shypovych and Berlinska are declining to give any comments to the media as they are now taking part in the investigation of the event, Shypovych told POLITICO.
Residents of Chernihiv clean up after the missile attack | Paula Bronstein /Getty Images
According to social media posts by both volunteers, the participants in the event survived the attack, as most of them were able to escape to a shelter. The security services are now investigating the information leak that triggered the Russian missile launch, Shypovych wrote.
After the wave of online hate, many members of Ukraine’s military, NGOs, and cultural sphere wrote posts in support of Berlinska, who has been a vocal critic of Ukraine’s defense ministry, and who has raised awareness of the Ukrainian authorities’ initial neglect of the crucial role that military drones should play in Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion.
“Believe me, I would want to die instead of those people,” Berlinska said in a statement.
Speedy implementation of a combination of measures such as face masks, lockdowns and international border controls, “unequivocally” reduced COVID-19 infections, a major review has shown.
The report published Thursday by the Royal Society looked at findings from six evidence reviews that analyzed thousands of studies to assess the effect of masks, social distancing and lockdowns, test trace and isolate systems, border controls, environmental controls and communications. It found evidence that each of these measures — which are called “non-pharmaceutical interventions” — were effective, albeit to varying degrees, when looked at individually. However, the evidence in favor of using these tools was stronger when countries combined several measures.
The report could have significant implications for decision-making in future outbreaks, with Mark Walport, chair of the report’s expert working group and foreign secretary of the Royal Society, saying that “having protocols in advance is really important.” He said what policymakers should take from the research is “there is evidence that non-pharmaceutical interventions are effective, but … they have to be applied as packages, and they have to be applied as early as possible.”
The most effective measure, according to the review, was one of the most controversial — restrictions on movement and social interactions through lockdowns, distancing and rules around the size of gatherings. These were repeatedly found to be associated with a “significant reduction” in transmission of the virus, with the more stringent the measure, the greater the effect.
For masks, 75 studies were assessed, with 63 of these finding positive effects. Unlike the January Cochrane review, which only looked at randomized controlled trials, this review also included observational studies. The Cochrane review was unable to find conclusive evidence that masks helped stop respiratory viruses.
Chris Dye, professor of epidemiology at the University of Oxford, who led the review on masks for the Royal Society, said if they had only looked at randomized controlled trials they would have come to the same conclusion as the Cochrane review. But the researchers behind the paper released Thursday chose to analyze a larger body of studies and found strong evidence that masks work.
A key finding from the research was these type of measures were most effective when implemented early on. Dye said that while there is a 100-day mission to develop drugs, therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics for a future pandemic, “it would be marvelous” if there were a 100-day vision for non-pharmaceutical interventions. He said this would mean countries could “put in place the necessary mechanisms for preparedness, which would be to implement [non-pharmaceutical interventions] when some unknown new pathogen comes along.”
While a future pandemic could be transmitted sexually or gastrointestinally, Salim Abdool Karim, a member of the working group on the report and pro-vice-chancellor for research at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said the biggest concern was a respiratory virus. “The lessons of SARS-CoV-2 have to feature in our thinking as we prepare for a next pandemic that would be a respiratory virus of which we’ve got no prior exposure and so we don’t have a pre-existing immunity. The lessons of this report are going to feature strongly in anyone’s deliberations,” he said.
However, responding to the report, Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University cautioned that impact on virus transmission is not the only factor that should be taken into account when deciding to use such measures. “The report does point out explicitly that NPIs can impose a great number of costs and burdens, in terms social and economic impacts, and indeed of increasing ill health … but makes it very explicit that this piece of work isn’t going to consider any of that.” “I think that limits quite severely its effectiveness in helping decisions on what should be done in the next pandemic, whenever it arises.”
The first Russian lunar mission in nearly half a century ended with a bang.
The Luna-25, which left earth on August 10, crash-landed on the moon nine days later after an incident involving the pre-landing maneuvers malfunctioned, Russian space agency Roscosmos said late Saturday on its Telegram channel.
According to Roscosmos, the last communication with the spacecraft was at 2:57 p.m. Moscow time (13:57 CEST) on Saturday. Efforts after that to get back in contact with the craft did not produce any results, the agency said.
A specially formed commission will now look at why the Luna craft malfunctioned, Roscosmos said.
Russia’s Luna-25 mission was sent to scope out the lunar south pole, where scientists believe there is a plentiful supply of water locked in ice in the perpetual shade of mountain ridges. Firming up water reserves is a critical requirement for supporting life on the moon with breathable oxygen, drinking water and even rocket fuel, which would then help space-faring nations further explore the cosmos from any lunar outpost in the future.
Other countries are also eyeing the moon’s southern region. The U.S. plans to send a mission to the south pole later this decade as part of its Artemis program supported by Canada and European countries.
More immediately, India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled to land on the lunar surface on August 23 to explore the south pole. An earlier Indian mission crashed in 2019.
BRUSSELS — It’s officially August, which means the last Eurocrats are heading out of town to their favorite summer retreats, and most of Brussels is “out of office.”
But a few commissioners have the questionable honor of being on the summer roster, staying behind as the person on duty should an emergency arise. Former Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker introduced the system in 2017 to show that the EU never sleeps, and his successor Ursula von der Leyen continued it. A rota is set up at the start of each five-year Commission term and covers all holiday periods, with each commissioner holding down the fort for 13 days. Von der Leyen and top EU diplomat Josep Borrell are exempt.
The official job description for the commissioners on duty recalls the theme of “Designated Survivor.” The assigned commissioner will be in charge if there’s an unexpected crisis and will maintain the “continuity of the Commission’s core tasks,” a Commission spokesperson said, adding that these include “coordination, decision-making processes and communication.”
But in practice, not much decision-making goes on in Brussels in August. “They’ll be sitting in the Berlaymont watching the rain from their windows,” said a Commission official who was granted anonymity to discuss internal matters.
Environment CommissionerVirginijus Sinkevičius (who at 32 is the youngest member of von der Leyen’s team) holds the keys to the Berlaymont this week following agriculture chief Janusz Wojciechowski, who was on duty last week.
Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides will have to tear herself away from the beaches of Cyprus from August 5-11; then home affairs boss Ylva Johanssontakes the reins from August 12-18; and finally Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli will wrap up the roster for August 19-27.
Commissioners also rely on a core of officials from the EU executive’s key units, including the secretariat-general, legal service, communication department and spokesperson’s service. Everyone else is expected back in town for the next College of Commissioners meeting, scheduled for September 6.
Despite Brussels’ best efforts to preserve the sanctity of summer holidays, sometimes the outside world does come knocking — as the commissioners know all too well. Wojciechowski, Dalli and Johansson were on duty during the summer of 2021, when the Belarus migration emergency and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan set EU capitals into motion.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Modern business society places a progressively greater emphasis on establishing a unified corporate culture as a way of boosting the performance of employees. Scaling your company takes both intelligent and skilled personnel and the right chemistry between them. Workers should be able to get along with each other and with the company’s management if they are to work towards the same goals.
Surveys identified senior executives as the party that primarily influences an organization’s culture and development. 76% of respondents indicated that founders and CEOs impact corporate culture the most.
From a C-level executive’s perspective, building a strong team is not only about hiring capable people who can be trusted to do their job in a quality fashion. It is also about properly communicating the company’s mission and values to these people.
In this article, I will share some thoughts and tips on building and managing a strong team based on my personal experiences as a business and team leader.
1. Convey your strategy and motivate employees to reach transparent goals
One of the first steps when it comes to communication with your workers is being open with them about where your company is going. When everyone in a team can share a common objective and an understanding of what they are working towards, it creates a sense of unity and purpose. It allows individual employees to put their efforts in alignment, fostering collaboration towards the same goals.
Additionally, having a rational and well-defined strategy provides structure and direction to the team’s actions. Having a clear roadmap with outlined steps, responsibilities and timelines helps team members understand their roles and contributions, minimizing any potential confusion and conflicts. They can prioritize tasks and make collective decisions aligning with the objectives and target milestones.
As such, communication with team members must always be open, and the company’s plans and strategies must be transmitted to everyone in a transparent fashion. It is crucial to foster mutual understanding between employees and company leadership.
2. Trust your people to manage things without supervision
When you are a business leader, you can’t afford to take the time necessary to keep a close eye on the day-to-day workings of your company. Nor should you, really. A crucial aspect of fostering healthy leader-employee relationships is being able to trust your people to complete the tasks you give them without oversight.
When a team leader demonstrates trust in the abilities of his or her subordinates and provides them with autonomy, it promotes a sense of responsibility. It means the leader acknowledges their competence and expertise, thus boosting their confidence and motivation.
From personal experience, I can say that if you don’t have that kind of trust, you will have to micromanage every little thing yourself, leaving you with little to no time or energy to focus on the more strategic aspects of running and scaling your business.
A culture of trust also encourages open communication within the organization. When employees feel trusted by their superiors, they are more likely to reach out with ideas, share concerns and seek guidance when needed. This serves to cultivate a positive-minded work environment that promotes creativity and productivity.
3. Promote relationship-building in your company
Encouraging a sense of community and fostering deeper relationships among your employees can easily be a cornerstone for strengthening team bonds. When coworkers can connect personally, it helps build a sense of trust, empathy and collaboration.
Organize team-building events, create spaces for informal interactions (physically or online) and strive for an environment where employees feel comfortable and motivated to build relationships with their colleagues. When they have established relationships with their peers, people are more likely to share ideas openly, ask for help when needed and work together, leading to increased efficiency and productivity.
Not only that, but stronger team bonds also improve employee satisfaction and job retention. Workers who feel seen by and connected to their colleagues are more likely to enjoy their work environment than when they are simply considered cogs in a mechanism.
Overall, fostering relationship-building within a company is a win-win situation as it encourages teamwork and can contribute to higher levels of engagement and loyalty within your company.
Bottom line: Better communication supports individual and organizational success
Effective communication is the foundation of pretty much everything that your team does. It is a fundamental part of any work-related activity, workforce performance and output your company demonstrates.
This is why any leader who seeks to improve their business and push it towards greater heights must emphasize the people who support all their endeavors and take time to build mutual trust with them. Some of it might come naturally; some of it will take time and effort. But if you can get it right, the results will be worth it.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In startups’ fast-paced and ever-changing landscape, achieving success goes beyond merely offering a groundbreaking product or service. While innovation undoubtedly plays a significant role, there is another critical factor that often goes unnoticed but holds immense power: communication.
Effective communication is crucial and can be the determining factor in the trajectory of a startup. In this article, we will delve deep into the subject and explore why communication is paramount in the startup ecosystem.
To truly grasp the significance of communication in startups, it is essential to first establish what we mean by the term in this context. In the dynamic environment of a startup, communication extends far beyond the mere exchange of words. It encompasses transmitting information, ideas, goals and feedback, both within the team and to the outside world, including investors and customers.
The role of communication in a startup
Communication assumes many roles within a startup, each contributing to its overall success. At its core, effective communication sets the tone for the company’s culture, fostering an environment of transparency, trust and collaboration. It serves as the lifeblood that enables efficient problem-solving and facilitates sustainable growth. Moreover, when communication flows seamlessly, it enhances teamwork and ensures that the entire startup operates as a cohesive unit.
Effective communication is the glue that holds the team together. Promoting a shared understanding and aligning everyone towards a common goal, exponentially enhances teamwork and collaborative efforts. A startup operating with a strong foundation of clear and effective communication becomes more productive, efficient and capable of weathering its inevitable challenges. Furthermore, when a startup can clearly articulate its vision, values and goals to investors and clients, it builds trust and credibility, fostering stronger relationships and solidifying its position in the market.
The implications of poor communication
Despite the undeniable importance of communication, it is often neglected or undermined in the context of startups. The consequences of poor communication can be far-reaching, with detrimental effects on team collaboration and customer relations.
When communication within a startup falters, misunderstandings can arise, leading to confusion, frustration and a decline in morale among team members. The resulting breakdown in collaboration and cohesion can significantly hamper productivity and create a hostile work environment. Ultimately, this impedes progress and stifles the creativity and innovation that are essential for a startup’s survival and growth.
Effect on customer relations
Inconsistent or unclear communication hampers internal operations and directly impacts a startup’s relationship with its customers. In today’s business landscape, customers appreciate and value transparency, honesty and effective communication from the companies they engage with. Failing to deliver on these fronts can erode customer trust and tarnish the startup’s reputation, potentially leading to a loss of business and hindering future growth prospects.
Recognizing the pivotal role of communication is one thing; mastering it is another. Certain pillars must be embraced and nurtured to establish a culture of effective communication within a startup ecosystem.
Clarity and consistency — Clear and consistent communication is the foundation for successful startups. By ensuring that information is conveyed unambiguously, goals are well-defined, tasks are assigned with precision and feedback is provided constructively, clarity and consistency reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings or errors. This facilitates smoother operations and enhances productivity, enabling the startup to thrive in the face of challenges.
Active listening —Communication is not one-way; it demands active listening. By actively engaging in conversations, understanding the perspectives of others, responding thoughtfully and retaining key information, startups foster an environment conducive to collaboration and innovation. Active listening ensures that the voices of all team members are heard, enabling the emergence of diverse and creative solutions to problems.
Implementing good communication strategies — Creating a culture of effective communication within a startup requires intentional effort and a commitment to continuous improvement. It involves fostering open lines of communication, embracing feedback and promoting a learning and growth mindset.
Open and regular communication — Promoting open and regular communication is fundamental to creating a transparent work culture. By encouraging dialogue, sharing insights and soliciting input from all team members, startups foster an environment where ideas can be freely exchanged, challenges can be addressed collectively and solutions can be developed collaboratively. Regular team meetings, one-on-one discussions and open-door policies can all contribute to building a communication-rich ecosystem within the startup.
In conclusion, communication is the lifeblood that fuels the success of startups. It determines how much a startup can harness its resources, adapt to challenges and build strong stakeholder relationships. By recognizing the critical role of effective business communication, startups can confidently navigate the complexities of the business landscape, ensuring their survival, growth and lasting impact.
LONDON — Hundreds of thousands of Britons are facing mortgage misery over the next 12 months. Rishi Sunak is about to feel their wrath.
The U.K. prime minister has been snookered by Britain’s stubbornly high inflation rate, which at 8.7 percent remains the highest in Western Europe. The Bank of England is pushing interest rates ever-higher as a result, creating a crisis for U.K. homeowners not seen for a generation.
Around 800,000 households will need to remortgage their properties next year, the Resolution Foundation think tank calculates, and rising interest rates mean they will pay a staggering £2,900 a year more on average from 2024. With a general election looming next year, the timing for Sunak could hardly be worse.
This is a “huge problem” for voters, Andrea Leadsom, a Conservative member of the Commons Treasury committee and former U.K. business secretary, told POLITICO.
“It’s clear we’re going to lose the next election,” another former Cabinet minister sighed. “These are the voters we need. We can’t intervene or it will get worse, and the Bank of England were too slow to act to head it off. The goose is cooked — but it was cooked long ago.”
Yet both ex-ministers agreed with Sunak and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, that the U.K. government should not directly intervene to support those struggling to pay — despite an awareness they may be battered at the ballot box as a result.
Hunt told MPs this week that mortgage relief schemes would only “make inflation worse, not better.”
“Beating inflation has to be the priority,” Sunak will say in a speech on Thursday afternoon, shortly after the Bank announced rates were rising yet again, to 5 percent — a 15-year high. “If we don’t get a grip on inflation now, the damage will be worse and longer lasting.”
The one thing we didn’t want to happen
The impact of higher interest rates is particularly severe in Britain because of the large proportion of mortgages — 80 percent of existing deals and 90 percent of new ones — propped up by short-term fixed rates.
Britain’s mortgage woes have been further exacerbated by government support packages brought in over recent years to support the housing market, such as ex-Chancellor George Osborne’s Help-to-Buy scheme and Sunak’s own COVID-era stamp duty holiday, which critics say lured people into buying property with an illusion of affordability.
It’s hard to imagine any kind of hit to the nation’s personal finances presenting more of a nightmare for Sunak’s Conservative Party, given a mortgage crisis clobbers those he most needs to win over in 2024.
Younger voters — who have overwhelmingly supported Labour in recent elections — tend to be concentrated in cities in rented accommodation, while the majority of older voters who own their homes outright without mortgages are already locked-down Conservative voters.
Around 800,000 households will need to remortgage their properties next year, the Resolution Foundation think tank calculates | Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images
“Then you’ve got this group in the middle, who have borne the brunt of food price rises, fuel price rises, and now interest rates as well,” says Paula Surridge, professor of political sociology at Bristol University. “They’re the group that both sides ought to be targeting. That’s definitely going to be a problem for the Conservatives.”
Adam Hawksbee, deputy director of center-right think tank Onward, characterizes this group as those who “bought their home on cheap finance, live in towns or satellite cities, and have been used to a good quality of life with a car and summer holidays — they will be most affected.”
While the heaviest burden is expected to fall in London and the south east, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Surridge notes that mortgage rates are a problem not confined to wealthier voters but spread around the country.
A Conservative MP representing a relatively deprived constituency said: “There are poorer people in the seat who will be struggling — but there are more support schemes for them, and their overall expenses might be lower. But this mortgage stuff is going to hit the squeezed middle hard. It’s them I’m most worried about.”
A chancellor in No. 10
The crisis will be keenly felt by Sunak, who launched and eventually won his bid to lead the country with a pitch to steady the economy.
His promise to halve inflation by the end of the year now looks a tall order. But party observers — and Downing Street allies — say his only hope is to stick to the path he set out.
“I feel a deep moral responsibility to make sure the money you earn holds its value,” Sunak will say on Thursday. “That’s why our number one priority is to halve inflation this year … I’m completely confident that if we hold our nerve, we can do so.”
“There’s no one I’d rather have in No. 10 right now, because he’s so economically dry,” says Onward’s Hawksbee. “The government needs to hold the line and resist pressure to step in.”
Indeed, many Conservatives believe the U.K. has become overly reliant on the kind of big state interventions that became commonplace during the pandemic.
The irony is that it was Sunak himself — a politician who revels in his fiscally-conservative credentials — who drew up the multibillion-pound COVID assistance programs while serving as chancellor during the pandemic.
His famous March 2020 pledge — echoing European Central Bank President Mario Draghi — to do “whatever it takes” to shield U.K. households feels a long time ago.
“We can’t bail everyone out every time,” an ex-Treasury minister said. “And in this case, it’d just make things worse.”
Jeremy Hunt told MPs this week that mortgage relief schemes would only “make inflation worse, not better” | Leon Neal/Getty Images
So what can be done?
Sunak and Hunt’s only real action so far has been to summon the biggest mortgage lenders for a meeting this Friday, where they will be “reminded” of their obligations to borrowers.
Further direct action by the banks in the form of forbearance — agreeing to pause or reduce mortgage payments — seems unlikely, as it would merely offset the Bank of England’s efforts to rein in inflation.
The opposition Labour Party published its own five-point plan Wednesday night, urging new requirements on lenders to show leniency for those struggling to pay. But UK Finance, the body that represents British mortgage lenders, argues banks are already working with customers to find alternative solutions.
Mortgage lenders are keen to stress too that more radical measures, such as imposing mortgage holidays, would only kick the can down the road.
“They’re an option that still exists, but the interest does keep accruing so you end up paying back more than you would have done — a lot of people do not realize this,” said an industry communications person who was not authorized to speak publicly.
“The best plan would be to ignore the squealing and point to the decline in inflation everywhere apart from Britain, meaning rate rises here will end shortly anyway even with recent disappointments on inflation prints,” Meyrick Chapman, principal at Hedge Analytics told POLITICO.
This was echoed by Societe Generale’s uber-bear global strategist Albert Edwards, who said: “most economists would say it’s absolutely ridiculous to ameliorate the impact of rising interests on mortgage holders, as that would mean interest rates have to go even higher.”
Yet the scale of the crisis is such that pressure is now building on the government from inside the Conservative Party.
One former minister who worked directly with Sunak said: “Calls [for action] are growing. It’s not a full-on mass campaign or rebellion, but there are growing numbers of MPs who are concerned. I would have expected him to be much more front-footed, given the previous track record during COVID when he was very decisive.”
Former minister Jake Berry this week went public with a call for interest rate tax relief, as a way to defuse the “ticking time bomb.” Housing Secretary Michael Gove urged the banking sector to consider introducing 25-year fixed rate deals, putting the U.K. more in line with the long-term fixes offered to customers in the U.S. and Canada.
But Treasury Minister Andrew Griffith swiftly ruled out the first idea as unaffordable, while saying the second would only be achievable as a long-term project.
Structural factors are very different in the U.S., where long-term mortgages are in part made possible by the de facto underwriting of mortgages by quasi-governmental agencies which guarantee third-party loans. For the U.K. to normalize long-term mortgages, similar entities would likely have to be established — with possible consequences for Britain’s credit profile, and so the pound.
A government official familiar with Treasury thinking summed up: “No-one is advancing a serious, short-term, alternative set of interventions that are meaningfully different. It comes down to who people think is competent and will restrain spending.”
The worry for Sunak is that, post-Liz Truss, and with yet another crisis looming, the fabled Tory reputation for economic competence may now be shot.
As Surridge puts it: “People in the past have perhaps been able to say ‘we know the Conservatives are the nasty party, but they look after the economy.’ Without that, what’s left as a reason for people to choose the Conservatives?”
This story has been updated to incorporate Thursday’s rise in interest rates. Emilio Casalicchio, Geoffrey Smith, Joe Bambridge and AnnabelleDickson all contributed reporting.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In today’s fast-paced professional world, effective communication skills are essential for success. Whether a manager, an employee, or an entrepreneur, our ability to convey ideas, collaborate with others, and build relationships can make or break our career. Our company recently surveyed over 1,200 full-time working Americans and found that 85% of them would be significantly better at their job if they had access to better communication training, yet 75% of those individuals had never even been offered communication training at their current job.
That’s why attending at least one communication training should be a priority for everyone in a professional job. In this article, I will explore why honing our communication skills is crucial and how attending training sessions (free or paid) can benefit our careers.
Communication is the cornerstone of any successful relationship, both personal and professional. Attending communication training gives us the tools and techniques to foster positive and productive relationships with colleagues, clients and superiors. We will learn how to listen actively, express ourselves clearly and assertively, and resolve conflicts constructively. These skills enhance teamwork and collaboration and establish a foundation of trust and respect.
Effective leadership and management
Effective leaders are excellent communicators. They can inspire, motivate, and guide their teams toward shared goals. Communication training equips professionals with the skills to communicate their vision, set clear expectations, provide feedback and delegate tasks effectively. By improving our communication skills, we will become more influential and respected leader, capable of driving our team’s success.
Increased productivity and efficiency
Miscommunication can lead to costly mistakes, wasted time, and missed opportunities. By attending communication training, professionals can learn strategies for clear and concise communication, improving overall productivity and efficiency in the workplace. We can discover effective email and written communication techniques, learn how to conduct impactful meetings and master the art of delivering presentations that engage and inspire. These skills enable us to convey our ideas more efficiently, resulting in enhanced collaboration and smoother workflows.
Networking plays a crucial role in career advancement and opportunities. Attending communication training workshops allows professionals to sharpen their networking skills. We will learn how to initiate conversations, make memorable first impressions and develop meaningful connections. Effective communication opens doors to new career prospects, mentorship opportunities and partnerships that can propel our professional growth.
Developing strong negotiation Skills
Negotiation is an integral part of the professional world. Whether we are discussing project timelines, budgets, or contract terms, the ability to negotiate effectively is essential. Communication training equips professionals with valuable negotiation techniques, teaching them to understand others’ perspectives, communicate their interests persuasively and reach mutually beneficial agreements. By honing our negotiation skills, we can achieve better outcomes in both personal and professional interactions.
Confidence in one’s communication abilities has a profound impact on professional success. Attending communication training provides professionals opportunities to practice and receive feedback in a supportive environment. Your confidence grows as you improve your communication skills, allowing us to present ideas convincingly, engage in challenging conversations and handle difficult situations with poise. Increased confidence in our communication skills translates into increased self-assurance, positively impacting our career trajectory.
How to choose the right communication training for you and your team?
To identify the best communication training, consider the following five criteria:
Reputation and Reviews: Look for training programs with a strong reputation and positive reviews from previous participants. Seek recommendations from colleagues or professionals in your field.
Expertise and Credentials: Ensure that the trainers leading the program have relevant expertise and credentials in communication training. They should have a solid background and experience in the field.
Comprehensive Curriculum: Review the training program’s curriculum to ensure it covers various communication skills and techniques. Look for programs that address verbal and nonverbal communication, listening skills, conflict resolution, presentation skills and emotional intelligence.
Interactive and Practical Approach: The best communication training emphasizes practical application and allows participants to practice their skills. Look for programs that include role-playing exercises, simulations, case studies and real-life scenarios.
Customization and Flexibility: Effective communication training should be tailored to your specific needs and goals. Look for programs that offer customization options or allow you to choose specific modules that align with your communication challenges.
Consistent practice and real-world application are crucial to improving your communication skills. Seek opportunities to implement what you’ve learned from training programs in your everyday interactions.
Which training should I take or offer to my team?
There are many reputable and good communication training programs you can take and offer (from free to paid) that can help you enhance your public speaking and communication skills in the professional world:
Dale Carnegie Training: Dale Carnegie offers a range of courses focusing on public speaking, effective communication and leadership skills. Their flagship program, “The Dale Carnegie Course,” is designed to help individuals overcome the fear of public speaking and develop confidence in their communication abilities.
Toastmasters International: Toastmasters is a worldwide organization that provides a supportive and structured environment for improving public speaking and leadership skills. Members can give speeches, receive constructive feedback and practice impromptu speaking through regular club meetings.
TED Masterclass: TED offers an online course called TED Masterclass, which guides creating and delivering TED-style talks. The course covers storytelling techniques, content development and stage presence to help individuals deliver compelling and memorable presentations.
Executive Communication Coaching: Consider working with an executive communication coach who can provide personalized guidance and feedback tailored to your specific needs. Hired coaches can help you and your team refine your speaking style, overcome challenges and elevate your communication skills in professional settings.
Effective communication has become a non-negotiable skill for professionals in the digital age. Attending communication training can transform your ability to connect, collaborate and lead. By enhancing interpersonal relationships, developing strong negotiation skills and increasing productivity, professionals can unlock new levels of success in their careers.
People use acronyms to save time writing, but sometimes these verbal shortcuts waste readers’ time by forcing them to look up their meaning.
A new study by social media education company How Sociable analyzed Google searches for common internet acronyms to discover the most bewildering ones. To do this critical work, they analyzed the number of searches for each standalone acronym combined with search terms such as “what does the acronym mean,” “acronym meaning,” and “what does the acronym stand for.”
The results: SMH caused the most-head scratching — or head shaking.
SMH, “shaking my head,” is commonly used in chats, texts, and other forums when someone is disappointed or frustrated with the conversation, a situation, or another person. The official definition by Merriam-Webster dictionary says that SMH “is used to impart a sense of bemused incredulity.”
The phrase is often accompanied or replaced with a palm-in-the-face emoji. Variations of SMH include “scratching my head” and the less kid-friendly SMDH (“shaking my damn head”).
The study found that SMH caused 802,858 searches per month on average, or 9.6 million searches a year.
Right behind SMH on the most confusing acronyms list was ‘TBH,’ with 306,085 searches per month across America. TBH stands for “to be honest” and is commonly used to express frankness or honesty.
The third most searched for acronym is POV, which is googled around 284,475 times per month in the US. Content creators have been using this term for years to describe the “point of view” of the camera. POV videos are shot from the first-person viewer’s perspective.
But on TikTok and other social media platforms, POV has been used by some creators to refer to any skit centering around a person in an uncomfortable or awkward situation. An example might be an unfortunate encounter at Urgent Care or the prom.
“With new acronyms popping up all the time, it will be interesting to see which ones stand the test of time and which ones fall out of fashion,” said a spokesperson for How Sociable.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Marketing is a very important part of running a business. To succeed in the competitive world, you need a strong marketing strategy that connects you with your target audience and helps you achieve your business goals.
But it’s important to note that marketing isn’t just about promoting your products or services. It’s about creating a clear and consistent message that speaks to your audience, no matter where they are. That’s where integrated marketing communications (IMC) comes in.
What is integrated marketing communications?
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is a powerful strategy that allows entrepreneurs to bring together all of their marketing efforts into a unified and consistent message. So, instead of having disjointed and confusing messages, IMC combines advertising, public relations, sales promotions and digital marketing to create a seamless and cohesive brand message.
This strategy helps businesses connect with their target audience and build brand awareness, ultimately driving more sales and revenue. Therefore, by implementing an integrated approach to marketing, entrepreneurs can create a memorable brand experience for their customers and stand out from the competition.
Benefits of integrated marketing communications
There are several benefits to using an integrated marketing communications approach for your business. Integrated marketing communications help create a consistent brand message that resonates with your target audience. And by delivering a consistent message across all channels, you can increase brand recognition, build trust with your audience and improve customer loyalty.
It also helps you save time and money by combining all marketing efforts into a cohesive strategy. You can streamline your marketing efforts and avoid duplicating efforts. This can also help you save money by eliminating the need for multiple marketing agencies or vendors.
Elements of an effective IMC strategy include messaging, brand identity, audience segmentation, media channels and data analytics. However, implementing a successful IMC strategy involves several steps.
Here are the steps to follow:
Define your target audience — Identify and understand your target audience to create a successful IMC strategy. You need to fully understand who your audience is, what they want and how they want to be communicated.
Develop your brand identity — Develop a strong brand identity that represents your business and resonates with your target audience. This involves creating a brand style guide that outlines your brand’s tone, voice and visual identity.
Create your messaging — Create messaging that resonates with your audience and is consistent across all channels. This includes messaging for advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing and digital marketing.
Choose your media channels — Select the appropriate media channels for your marketing efforts to reach your target audience. Choose the channels your audience uses most that align with your brand messaging.
Measure success — Measure the success of your marketing efforts using data analytics. This will help you track your results and identify areas for improvement to make informed decisions for future campaigns.
Tips for creating a successful integrated marketing communications strategy
Creating an effective integrated marketing communications strategy can be overwhelming, but there are several tips that can help you succeed.
Here are some actionable tips that can help you create a powerful IMC strategy:
Create a compelling message: To create a powerful IMC strategy, you need a compelling message that resonates with your audience across all channels. Your message should be clear, concise and aligned with your brand identity.
Understand your audience: Knowing your target audience is critical to creating messaging that connects with them. Conduct market research and audience segmentation to identify your target audience, their needs and preferences.
Stay ahead of trends: Keep up with the latest trends and technologies in marketing to stay ahead of the competition. This includes staying updated on social media trends, email marketing best practices and emerging technologies like AI and machine learning.
Collaborate with your team: Collaboration is essential to creating an effective IMC strategy. Work closely with your team and vendors to ensure a cohesive message and consistent branding across all channels.
By following these tips, you can create an integrated marketing communications strategy that resonates with your audience, drives results and helps your business succeed.
In conclusion, integrated marketing communications is a powerful strategy that entrepreneurs can use to build a strong brand identity, connect with their target audience and ultimately drive sales and revenue.
By creating a consistent message across all channels and using data analytics to measure success, businesses can save time and money while creating a memorable brand experience for their customers.
By following the steps and tips outlined in this article, entrepreneurs can develop and implement an effective IMC strategy that helps their businesses stand out from the competition and achieve their marketing goals.
It’s essential for entrepreneurs to understand the importance of IMC and invest in a robust marketing strategy to succeed in today’s competitive marketplace.
LONDON — Britain’s tough new plan to police the internet has left politicians in a stand-off with WhatsApp and other popular encrypted messaging services. Deescalating that row will be easier said than done.
The Online Safety Bill, the United Kingdom’s landmark effort to regulate social media giants, gives regulator Ofcom the power to require tech companies to identify child sex abuse material in private messages.
But the proposals have prompted Will Cathcart, boss of the Meta-owned messaging app, whose encrypted service is widely-used in Westminster’s own corridors of power, to claim it would rather be blocked in the U.K. than compromise on privacy.
“The core of what we do is a private messaging service for billions of people around the world,” Cathcart told POLITICO in March when he jetted in to London to lobby ministers over the upcoming bill. “When the U.K., a liberal democracy, says, ‘Oh, it is okay to scan everyone’s private communication for illegal content,’ that emboldens countries around the world that have very different definitions of illegal content to propose the same thing,” he added.
WhatsApp’s smaller rival, Signal, has also said it could stop providing services in the U.K. if the bill requires it to scan messages — echoing claims from the tech industry that date back more than a decade that they can’t create backdoors in encrypted digital services, even to protect kids online, because to do so opens the products up to vulnerabilities from bad actors, including foreign governments.
“We can’t just let thousands of pedophiles get away with it. That wouldn’t be responsible or proportionate for a government to do,” Science and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan told POLITICO in February.
Ministers are keen to lower the temperature. But doing so will prove challenging, two former ministers told POLITICO on the condition of anonymity, given the likelihood of pushback from MPs, the complexity of the technology and the emotiveness of the issue.
Easier said than done
Finding a compromise is unlikely to be easy — and the row mirrors similar debates that are underway in the European Union and Australia over just how accountable tech platforms should be for potentially harmful content on encrypted services.
The debate over whether the requirements of the bill can be met while protecting privacy centers around “client-side scanning.”
While leaders at Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre and security agency GCHQ said last July they believe such technology can simultaneously protect children and privacy, other experts dispute their findings.
A raft of cryptographers criticized the technique in a report called Bugs in Our Pockets in 2021 prompting tech giant Apple to abandon plans to introduce client-side scanning on its services. In Australia, the country’s eSafety Commissioner recently published a report highlighting how the likes of Microsoft and Apple had few, if any, mechanisms to track child sexual abuse material, including via their encrypted services.
“This is not only companies really taking a blind eye to live crime scenes happening on their platforms, but they’re also failing to properly harden their systems and storage against abuse,” Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told POLITICO. “It’s akin to leaving a home open to an intruder. Once that bad actor is inside the house, good luck getting them out.”
WhatsApp’s smaller rival, Signal, has also said it could stop providing services in the U.K. if the bill requires it to scan messages | Damien Meyer/AFP via Getty Images
Hacking risk
Cybersecurity experts agree the U.K. bill’s demands are incompatible with a desire to protect encryption. They claim that privacy is not a fungible issue — services either have it or they don’t. And they warn that politicians should be wary of undermining such protections in ways that would make people’s online experiences potentially open to abuse or hacking.
“In essence, end-to-end encryption involves not having a door, or if you want to use a postal analogy, not having a sorting office for the state to search. Client-side-scanning, despite the claims of its proponents, does seem to involve some kind of level of access, some kind of ability to sort and scan, and therefore there’s no way of confining that to good use by lawful credible authorities and liberal democracies,” Ciaran Martin, the former chief executive of the government’s National Cyber Security Centre said.
Ministers insist that they support strong encryption and privacy, but say it cannot come at the cost of public safety.
Tech companies should be researching technology to identify child sex abuse before messages are encrypted, Donelan said. But the government also appears to be searching for a way to cool the row, and Donelan insisted the measure would be a “last resort.”
“That element of the bill is like a safety mechanism that can be enacted, should it ever be needed to. It might never be needed because there might be other solutions in place,” she said.
One official in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), not authorized to speak on the record but familiar with government discussions, said DSIT wanted to find a way through and is having talks “with anyone that wants to discuss this with us.”
Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s chief executive, told POLITICO that any efforts to break encryption in the name of safety would have to meet stringent rules, and such requests would be made in only the most extreme situations.
“There’s a high bar for Ofcom to be able to require the use of a technology in order to secure safety,” she said.
Lords debate
Peers in the unelected House of Lords, the U.K. parliament’s revising chamber, waded into the issue Thursday.
Richard Allan, a Lib Dem peer who was Facebook’s chief lobbyist in Europe until 2019, led the charge, saying tech companies will feel they’re “unable to offer their products in the UK under the bill.” He said undermining encryption opened the doors to hostile states and accused the government of playing a “high stakes game of chicken” with tech companies.
But Beeban Kidron, a crossbench peer who has been leading much of the work in the Lords around child safety, said although she had some sympathy for Allan’s arguments, Big Tech companies had to do more to protect users’ privacy themselves.
Wilf Stevenson, who is managing Labour’s response to the bill in the Lords, said he was not convinced the government’s plans were “right for the present day, let alone the future.” He added that under the bill “Ofcom is expected to be both gamekeeper and poacher,” with power to regulate tech companies and inspect private messages.
But Stephen Parkinson, who is guiding the bill through the Lords on behalf of the government, defended the legislation. “The bill contains strong safeguards for privacy,” he said, echoing Donelan’s statement that powers to inspect messages were a “last resort” designed to be used only in cases of suspected terrorism and child sexual exploitation.
Convincing ministers
Messaging services including Signal and WhatsApp are hoping for a ministerial climbdown — but few see one coming.
There is little prospect of large swathes of MPs, who will have the final say on the bill, riding to their rescue, according to two former ministers who have worked on the legislation.
“People are scared if they go in and fight over this, even for very genuine reasons, it could be very easily portrayed that they’re trying to block protecting kids,” one former Cabinet minister, a party loyalist, who worked on an earlier draft of the bill, said.
The second former minister said MPs “haven’t engaged with it terribly much on a very practical level” because it is “really hard.”
“Tech companies have made significant efforts to frame this issue in the false binary that any legislation that impacts private messaging will damage end-to-end encryption and will mean that encryption will not work or is broken. That argument is completely false,” opposition Labour frontbencher Alex Davies-Jones, said in a debate last June.
The widespread leaking of MPs’ WhatsApp messages has also undermined perceptions of the platform’s privacy credentials, the former Cabinet minister quoted above suggests.
“If you are sharing stuff on WhatsApp with people that’s inappropriate, there’s a good chance it’s going to end up in the public domain anyway. The encryption doesn’t stop that because somebody screenshots it and copies it and sends it on,” they lamented.
WhatsApp does have one ally in the former Brexit secretary and long-time civil liberties campaigner David Davis, though.
“Right across the board there are a whole series of weaknesses the government hasn’t taken on board,” he told POLITICO of the bill.
And on WhatsApp and Signal’s threats to leave the U.K., Davis thinks a point could be made.
“Well, I sort of hope they do. The truth is their model depends on complete privacy,” he said.
Update: This article has been updated to include comments from the latest House of Lords debate on the Online Safety Bill.
BRUSSELS — The EU’s high command is calling on European governments to keep talking to China amid deepening tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The European Union’s diplomatic arm wants member countries to “be prepared” for a potentially critical escalation in the crisis over Taiwan, warning that a military conflict would upend the vital supply of microchips to Europe.
But while there’s a need to reduce risks to Europe, it may not seal itself off from China, according to an internal document drafted by the European External Action Service and seen by POLITICO.
The document, which will be discussed by the bloc’s foreign ministers at a gathering in Stockholm on Friday, comes at a crucial time for the EU as it navigates an increasingly complex relationship with China. The U.S. is doubling down on its hawkish stance toward Beijing, while European leaders have not yet agreed on a unified approach.
The paper triggered immediate backlash from some of Europe’s more hawkish governments. “With all possible alarm lights flashing, we seem to prefer hitting a snooze button again,” one senior EU diplomat said on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive issues.
In the document, prepared by the EU executive’s diplomatic officials, the bloc’s 27 member countries are urged to seize “a window of opportunity” to reduce the risk of China’s growing influence over economic and security matters.
A chance remains for Europe to speak directly to President Xi Jinping’s government, the paper says. “China and Europe cannot become more foreign to each other. Otherwise there is a risk that misunderstandings will grow and spread to other areas,” according to the draft.
“Systemic rivalry may feature in almost all areas of engagement. But this must not deter the EU from maintaining open channels of communication and seeking constructive cooperation with China […] Such cooperation can serve to break through a growing self-induced isolation of the Chinese leadership but most importantly should advance the EU’s core interests,” the paper continued.
Friday’s debate at an informal meeting of foreign ministers in Sweden will fire the starting gun on a discussion over the EU’s relationship with China that is expected to dominate policymaking in the coming months, with a more comprehensive debate expected at an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels this June.
De-risking Beijing
The paper calls on member countries to speed up plans for “de-risking” and reducing overdependence on China.
“De-risking can ensure predictability and transparency in our economic and trade relations, while promoting a secure, rules-based approach,” the paper says.
The call for de-risking comes as Beijing appears increasingly impatient with the narrative that it poses a threat to the West. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, speaking in Berlin this week, criticized European politicians for attempting to “get rid of China” in the name of de-risking.
The paper also tackles the politically sensitive issue of Taiwan, with ministers due to discuss this issue as well on Friday. French President Emmanuel Macron told POLITICO in an interview last month that Europe should avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own.
On Taiwan, the paper says: “The EU is […] adamant that any unilateral change of the status quo and use of force could have massive economic, political and security consequences, at global level, especially considering Taiwan’s primary role as supplier of the most advanced semiconductors.”
The document continues: “The EU needs to be prepared for scenarios in which tensions increase significantly. The risk of escalation in the Taiwan Strait clearly shows the necessity to work with partners to deter the erosion of the status quo in the interest of all.”
Some 90 percent of advanced semiconductors imported into the EU come from Taiwan, according to the bloc’s own estimates.
Taiwan’s semiconductor giant TSMC has been under pressure to relocate some of its manufacturing capabilities, but so far it has only moved in the direction of Taiwan’s two presumed security providers — the U.S. and Japan.
On Ukraine, the EU is not impressed with China’s latest diplomatic show, marked by President Xi Jinping’s belated first call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“China’s ’12-point position paper on the Ukraine Crisis’ […] confirms its firmly pro-Russian stance,” the document said. “Direct dialogue between China and Ukraine would be the best opportunity for China to contribute to a fair political settlement,” it continued.
EU member countries should keep warning Beijing to refrain from supporting Russia, including by circumventing sanctions, the same paper added.
The paper also casts gloom on the outlook for China’s domestic development, saying the Asian superpower “is likely to face unprecedented economic and political challenges internally” due to the deceleration of economic growth and demographic change.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
With the help of technology, business leaders today are accomplishing what once took ten months in 10 days. Innovation is happening faster than ever. The pandemic instigated a rapid shift to digital tools, which have sped up processes, enabled more people to make better decisions and helped companies stay agile amidst greater uncertainty. To keep up, businesses have been racing to adopt new technologies.
In a rush to stay competitive, it can be easy to assume that new technology will improve everything. But communication is more complex. Modes of communication have expanded, and our communication needs have changed. Social media and digital platforms have largely challenged face-to-face interactions as a dominant source of social connectedness. Communicating effectively now depends on more variables, and how we manage it can have vastly different outcomes. Effective communication boosts productivity, but poor communication can be disastrous.
As we move forward in a remote and hybrid world, there are ways that technology can facilitate healthy communication. Still, some situations will require the effectiveness of meeting face-to-face. The key is using all available tools and finding the right balance to meet each need.
Face-to-face communication is more valuable than ever
Before COVID-19, most of us took the act of meeting in person for granted. Since lockdowns and safety regulations forced offices and schools to close, in-person meetings became rare. People worked at home, learned they liked it, and proved they could be more productive. Now, most employees want to keep some degree of flexibility, and in-person interactions are unlikely to return to their pre-pandemic popularity.
But humans, as social beings, thrive in the right group environments. Connectedness to loved ones and peers positively impacts our mental well-being, and face-to-face communication best fulfills those needs for social connectedness. In-person communication is usually the most effective method of strengthening or repairing connections and developing relationships. Positive company culture has become critical to attracting and retaining talent, but building that is more complicated over digital means.
Leaders and employees can easily fall into the trap of only ever replying to emails and chats, neglecting face time with specific team members. In a recent survey, one of the top reasons employees left remote or hybrid jobs was how disconnected they felt from the company. Most executive respondents agreed that their remote team members were at a disadvantage in culture and connections.
While each individual is responsible for employing the most effective communication method in a given situation, leaders can be more intentional about enabling team communication that keeps more people engaged.
Effectiveness determines what type of digital tools to use for communication and what situations warrant face-to-face or in-person discussions. Even face-to-face, we need to consider the best way to communicate to achieve our desired ends and choose the method that would be most productive. For some, long periods of silence during a difficult meeting might make them uncomfortable and cause them to fill the space with lighthearted humor. Someone else might appreciate the silence for a moment to gather their thoughts.
Team members will have different communication preferences, so to best connect with our desired audience, leaders can be proactive in getting to know them. Be direct: Express how you want to receive communications and model the same behavior in communicating with others. Invite them to be direct in return about the kind of communication that works best with them. Then, be intentional. Pause and reflect on the most effective form of communication for the given person to improve the likelihood of controlling their reaction. Consider the message you want to send first and let the method follow.
To deliver messages that count, we must be prepared to deliver them. The extra lifting of having a meaningful in-person conversation can be a struggle. We might need to do extra work or seek additional input before meeting face-to-face. When I have a difficult message, I write it out in bullet points and, instead of rushing to send it through in a chat, save it and go back to review it the next day. If I still feel the same way about the message, I plan my approach to deliver it in the way most likely to resonate.
Often, we miss out on face time because we have little time to spare, and a chat is a much quicker way of communicating, even on the go, but some situations need to be more personal. An instant message is not usually the best solution for serious conversations, constructive coaching or an apology. Some situations warrant looking another person in the eyes and seeing how our message is received. The best way to communicate a message may not always be the one we’re most comfortable with, but it should be the one that best facilitates reaching the ends we want to achieve.
