Meeting Preparation

Meeting Preparation

Despite the digital revolution, the business meeting remains a place where billions of dollars of revenues change hands every year. Indeed, meeting in person enables you to build a strong personal relationship with people who can become a very useful part of your network. Whether it is a client meeting, or a job interview, performing well is important. Your behavior increases greatly your chances and pre-meeting preparation can be crucial to success in business.

The rules are quite simple:

Pre-meeting preparation:

– Before the meeting send an e-mail confirmation, or an invitation confirming the meeting. Do so as early as possible to all concerned and involved.

– Carry out market research on the company and executives.

– Diligently work on anything that has been asked of you and respond to any request of information.

– Canvass people you know who have knowledge of the company or the sector in advance for advice. Use this information to begin forming key messages to communicate in the meeting.

Times Square is always crowded. Photo by Elena.

– Prepare a presentation on your company, and try to anticipate anything else that the client may find useful.

– Plan an agenda for the meeting: (add location, attendees, date, start and end time. Introductions – 10 min., briefing of project – 5 min, proposed project methodology – 10 min., questions and answers – 10 min., agreement on next stops – 10 min., etc.)

Arrive 10-15 minutes early for the meeting, so that you are calm and have not had to rush to get there. Give a summary of that a going to be talked about and briefly go over the points of the meeting.

On a sales meeting, take notes on everything the client says, which will give you a full understanding of the client’s needs that you can refer back to later.

Following the meeting, write up your notes and store them. Then send a summary to all attendees, highlighting the key points discussed and the next steps to be taken.

At the meeting never be pushy, but politely and courteously prompt people into action. Busy professionals have many priorities and you will need to remind and prod them toward your objectives. If they reject your offer, be gracious in defeat and politely thank them for their consideration, leaving the door open for another opportunity in the future.

Record everything you do. During your life you can build a database of thousands of contacts. Record every single interaction you have on a Client Relationship Management system (CRM).

The Endless Sink

The Endless Sink

By Damien Ober

I woke to complete darkness. The wind that roared around me had been in my dreams too. It was the sound of the edge of my rock, but endless now. There was no quiet to step back into. We had left sold land behind and were off on the sink. Little lights clipped to our belts were turned off. In all directions, I could see nothing. Everything was gone. Everything but the wind and the black void.

I felt the sinker’s hand on me and could then maje out the rough shape of her. She was peering through some sort of device, off at something far below us. Her shout reached me through the roaring howl, «Risers!» And then I could see them, two glinting specks coming towards us.

The sinker unhooked the tether which kept us from drifting apart. «Give me some space.» I didn’t know what she meant and so she shouted, «Spread your arms and legs! Rise a little!» The specks had grown into people, coming up fast. Two men it looked like, each with a small light on the front of his helmet. The sinker straightened her body and went diving toward them.

As the three forms converged, there was a flash in the dim light of the risers’ headlamps. The risers were still, rising limply toward me. As they passed, I saw one’s face, frozen in a controrted grimace. Little droplets of blood hung around them in strange shifting patterns. Up they went, just dead bodies now.

The sinker flated back to me as I sank down to her. She was wiping and sheathing her sword. «They find you sleeping and you never wake up. Take everything you have to trade at whatever pueblo they land on next.» She recliped our tether.

The Endless Sink. Photo by Elena.

«Sorry,» I shouted back.

The sinker smiled. «We all fall asleep, kid. You have to.»

«Where is it?»

The sinker went into her pack, pulled out a roll of paper. She spread a stretch of it between her hands.

«What’s that?» I shouted.

«A map.»

«A map?»

«We’d be lost out here without it.»

Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2015.

Space

Space

Magic, Illusory and Parallel Worlds

Some artwork (images) inspired by space. Scientific information on the subject, as well as real photos taken by telescopes, can be found here.

Aside from the Multiverse physics theory, much of fantasy and science fiction literature and cinema rests on elements from magic or paranormal realms, often taking place expressly in dissimilar, alternate realities. Consequently, the pictures below represent some fictional alternatives, while other thematic images can be found here.

Space has fascinated human kind for millenniums. The Ancient Babylonians, Sumerians, Mayas, Egyptians and other civilizations all mentioned celestial bodies in one way or another. While the Ancient Greeks and Roman believes the gods of the Pantheon resided on top of the Mount Olympus, they still had stories explaining stellar movement. For example, it was believed that Appollo, brother of Artemis, made the Sun get up each and every day in the East and rising in his immense carriage through the sky settle in the West each night.

All below pictures have been taken by Elena.

An artist's rendition of a planet similar to Jupiter with one of its 64 moons (drawing not to scale). Jupiter is a gaseous giant and the proportion is closer to the that of planet Earth compared to Jupiter. 

Space art. Stellar bodies (a star, albeit not a red giant or hypergiant to judge by the scale of surrounding planets, moons and debris). Background stars, galaxies, comets and intergalactic gas omitted from the illustration. What we once called the physical universe, the universe of ordinary experience, is seen to be only a tiny part of a much greater complex.

Man, and in turn, the earth, the solar system and the entire galaxy of stars, shrink almost to nothing. What we once thought was a long period of time in human affairs is seen to be no more than a fleeting moment. In astronomy a million years is as brief as the tick of a cosmic clock.

"Two things fill my mind with ever new and even greater wonder and reverence, the oftener and the longer I allow my mind to dwell on them – the starry heavens above, and the moral law within me.” (Immanuel Kant)

A spaceship looking for a castle from the Middle Ages. Celestial objects (terrestrial and gaseous planets, asteroids and moons or dwarf planets - depending on interpretation and characteristics).

Spaced out, literally. A timely reunion.

Two star sisters, or close friends, casting spells.

A fictional world with wildly colored marble.

Space travel trough distant starfield - artist's impression. Random darkness.

Depending on one's opinion, black holes may be the most interesting elements in the Cosmos. The mystery continues to fail to be completely understood, despite significant progress with telescopes such as Hubble, Voyager and theoretical advances in knowledge.

Astrophysicists and astrobiologists study the stars and life on them, respectively, while astrologists try to predict people's destinies according to stellar positions (an art, not a science, a pseudoscience at best - i.e. horoscopes, believed at one's own risk).

On the scientific side, complex calculations abound and impressive observatories (such as the one in Chile) allow gazing at spectacular views. Likewise, stargazing has been around for a very long time.

Sky at night in a non-starry location (LoL). Obviously, theoretically it is virtually impossible to look upwards on any part of the planet Earth, and not have a star, however distant above. Nonetheless, these can only be seen under certain circumstances and given appropriate conditions (light pollution, technology, distance, locations, clouds and other atmospheric interference, and so on). 

Another galaxy.

Wallpaper Style Fantasy Drawing.

Elf Ears Flower Pixie.

The Long Haul

The Long Haul

From the Annals of Transportation, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009

By Ken Liu

It was easy to see the zeppelins moored half a mile away from the terminal. They were a motley collection of about forty Peterbilts, Aereons, Macks, Zeppelins (both the real thing and the ones from Goodyear – Zeppelin), and Dongfengs, arranged around and with their noses tied to ten mooring masts, like crouching cats having tête-à-tête tea parties.

I went through customs at Lanzhou's Yantan Airport, and found Barry Icke's long-hauler, a gleaming silver Dongfeng Feimaoutui – the model usually known in America, among the less-than-politically-correct society of zeppeliners, as the Flying Chinaman – at the farthest mooring mast. As soon as I saw it, I understood why he called it the American Dragon.

White clouds drifted in the dark mirror of the polished solar panels covering the upper half of the zeppelin like a turtle's shell. Large, waving American fags trailing red and blue flames and white stars were airbrushed onto each side of the elongated silver teardrop hull, which gradually tapered towards the back, ending in a cruciform tail striped in red, white, and blue. A pair of predatory, reptilian eyes were painted above the nose cone and a grinnig mouth full of sharp teeth under it. A petite Chinese woman was suspended by ropes below the nose cone, painting over the blood-red tongue in the mouth with a brush.

Long Haul. Photo by Elena.

Icke stood on the tarmac near the control cab, a small, round, glasswindowed bumb protruding from the belly of the giant teardrop. Tall and broad-shouldered, his square face featured a tall, Roman nose and steady, brown eyes that stared out from under the visor of a Red Sox cap. He watched me approach, flicked his cigarette away, and nodded at me.

Icke had been one of the few to respond to my Internet forum ad asking if any of the long-haulers would be willing to take a writer for the Pacific Monthly on a haul. «I've read some of your articles,» he had said. «You didn't sound too stupid». And then he invited me to come to Lanzhou.

Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2015.

Break! Break! Break!

Break! Break! Break!

By Charlie Jane Anders

Sally fell in love with a robot guy named Raine, and suddenly he had to be big in every movie. She found him painted silver on Main street, his arms and legs moving all blocky and jerky, and she thought he had the extra-touch we needed. In our movies he played Castle the Pacifist fighting Droid, but in real life he clutched Sally’s heart in his cold, unbreakable metal fist. He tried to nice up to me, but I saw through him. He was just using Sally for the Yangar fame.I’d never been in love, because I was waiting for the silent-movie love: big eyes and violins, chattering without sound, pure. Nobody had loved right since 1926.

Ricky Artesian came up to me in the cafeteria early on in eleventh grade. He’d gotten so he could loom over and around everybody. I was eating with Sally, Raine and a few other film geeks, and Ricky told me to come with him. My fist thought was, whatever truce we’d made over my arm-bone was over and gone, and I was going to be fragments of me. But Ricky just wanted to talk in my boy’s room. Everyone else cleared out, so it was just the two of us and the wet TP clinging to the tiles. The air was sour.

«Your movies, they are cool,» he said. I started to explain they were also Sally’s, but he hand-slashed. «My people,» he gestured at the red bandana. «We’re going to take it all down. They’ve lied to us, you know. It’s all fucked, and we’re taking it down.»

Break! Break! Break! Photo by Elena.

I nodded, not so much in agreement, but because I h’d heard it before.

«We want you to make some movies for us. Explaining what we’re about.»

I told him I’d have to ask Sally, and he whatevered, and didn’t want to listen to how she was the brains, even though anyonle looking at both of us could tell she was the brains. Ricky said if I helped him, he’d help me. We were both almost draft-age, and I would be a morning snack to the military exoskeletons. I’d seen No Time For Sergeants – seventeen times – so I figured I knew all about basic training, but Ricky said I’d be toast. Holman had been telling me the same thing, when he wasn’t trying to beatme up. So Ricky offered to get me disqualified from the Army, or get me under some protection during training.

When I told Sally about Ricky’s offer, the first thing she did was ask Raine what he thought. Raine wasn’t a robot that day, which caught me off-guard. He was just a sandt-haired, flag eared, skunny guy, a year or so older than us. We sat in a seaside gazebo/pagoda where Sally thpught she could film some explosions. Raine said propaganda was bad, but also could Ricky get him out of the Army as well as me? I wasn’t sure. Sally didn’t want me to die, but artistic integrity, you know.

Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2015.