For those of you that can remember back to your school days, when you were learning about Adam Smith and the invisible hand of a free market economy, you will know that the best products are supposed to rise to the ‘top’, enjoy growth and profitability, and the weaker ones are meant to flail, and eventually go out of business.

Flexible working is fast becoming the hot topic in office space. Offices now come complete with elaborate break out areas, collaboration points and informal meeting spaces. BYOD is also on the rise with some startling statistics warning that not only is BYOD here to stay, it is increasingly popular.

New technology is often misunderstood. Even those that have a decent understanding of the basics are rarely aware of the nuances or differences between providers.

Take something like digital radio. Digital radio (DAB) became available in the UK in 1999 and has become increasingly popular over the years. A tech-savvy person will likely be able to tell you that digital radio is a compressed analogue audio signal transmitted using a digital modulation scheme. But that same tech-savvy person will likely be unable to tell you which DAB radios you should buy, or what to look out for when shopping for one. The same is true for VoIP. Most people know it stands for voice over internet protocol—a form of telephony in which your voice travels over a network (such as the internet)—but few know much about the differences in systems, or whether the general assumptions are true or not. Here we dispel some common myths about VoIP phone systems.

‘You can do anything you put your mind to,’ or so goes the age-old expression.  For most of us these words have lingered in the back of our mind since the time we were children, planted by parents hoping we would have the confidence to pursue our dreams.  But what does ‘putting your mind to something’ actually mean?
 
Virtually all explanations of the idiom lead to the same answer: it means focusing.  The expression might as well say, ‘You can do anything you focus on.’  When you focus on something, you put all your creative and intellectual energy into it.  You, in essence, make it happen.
 
But we all know it is hard to focus sometimes.  Someone walks in.  The phone rings.  Or worse yet, you just stare at the phone hoping it will ring.
 
The keys to success-creating focus however are within your reach.  Here are a few tried and tested methods from the most focused members of our team here at VTSL.

At VTSL we are constantly learning from others, and not just from those in the telephony industry. We learn from people across a whole range of technology companies—from the most obscure start-ups to the most powerful international corporations.  We, probably like you, are particularly inspired by those rare people who pursue an idea against all odds, build it to success… stumble, fall, get back up, and build again… all with a drive, focus and dedication that put them in a league of their own.
 
We have compiled a list of talks and interviews with these incredible people that continue to influence us as we endeavour to build VTSL to be an even bigger and better telephony company.  Listening to these individuals is as humbling as it is inspiring, and bound to leave you feeling more motivated than ever.

The logic goes like this: If you are great at your job, you will like it more, and if you like what you do more, you will be a happier person.

So the question is, how can we be better at our jobs?

The trials and tribulations of a small company are constant and unique. Many in fact never get past being ‘small’.  Those that do however, do so not sheerly through luck or hard work, but in large part by doing specific things.  Below we offer some insight into the common traits of successful small businesses.

A couple weeks ago LinkedIn hosted their SalesConnect Conference in San Francisco where over 500 sales leaders came to learn more about leveraging LinkedIn to drive revenue.

Ctrip, China’s largest travel agency, ran an experiment.  They asked the 996 employees in the airfare and hotel departments of the Shanghai call centre whether they would be interested in working from home four days a week, with the fifth day in the office. Approximately half of the employees (503) were interested and began what was a 9 month experiment on home working.

Negotiating.  It is one of life’s most valuable skills.  Not just in buying a house or a car, or getting a better paying job, but in little things that we do week in and week out.

The trouble is, as Eldonna Lewis-Fernandez, the author of Think Like a Negotiator, “You have to go out and learn to negotiate–it’s not a natural skill.  It’s like playing baseball; you have to do it to get good at it.”