Categories
Business

Politics and Outsourcing

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD It seems that “outsourcing” has been politicized. Once a word becomes politicized, as outsourcing was in the 2004 United States presidential campaign, all reasonable thinking stops and logic becomes, well, illogical. Rhetoric steps in and common sense is relegated to lesser important things. Think of any major societal issue and it […]

Categories
Call Center

Be Careful What You Bill For

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Over the years, I have heard ample discussion on a multitude of creative ways to bill clients for call center services. The prevailing goal of each consideration is to maximize billable services and fees. While this is an admirable business objective – since the goal of commerce is to make […]

Categories
Healthcare Call Centers

Putting First Things First

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Perhaps you’ve heard this story. Imagine you’re sitting in a college class. It’s one of those big classrooms with tiered seating, able to accommodate hundreds of students. The class is assembled with eager expectations; what will the professor do today? At precisely 8 a.m., he strides in and, without acknowledging […]

Categories
Business

What Were They Thinking?

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD My wife’s Avon order arrived the other day and… Okay, I confess, the order wasn’t just for her, but mostly. The only Avon product I deign to use is their Care Deeply Lip Balm. It is the ideal combination of firmness and moistness. Some competing products tear your lips off […]

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Hope for the Flowers

By Trina Paulus (Reviewed by Peter DeHaan.) In addition to all my varied writing functions (writing articles, websites, and blogs, publishing two magazines, and way too much editing) I also write an occasional movie review and book review—just for fun. Here’s one of my recent efforts: Hope for the Flowers is a delightful allegory encapsulating messages […]

Categories
Business

Why Area Codes Change

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD As telephone numbers are assigned, the availability of numbers within an area code diminishes. In order to make sure that there are always numbers available, usage is analyzed, number exhaustion dates are projected, and steps are taken to provide for more numbers. Although short-term steps can be taken to deal with […]

Categories
Writing and Publishing

“R” You Ready?

After another post, considering how words are used—and misused—my thoughts turned to how words are pronounced—and mispronounced. I, for one, have a “flexible” pronunciation style. For any word possessing more than two syllables, I am seemingly able to enunciate it in at least two different ways—sometimes within the same sentence. Amazingly, I have not had […]

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Writing Rightly

On my last post, I admitted a struggle with the writing process. Not so much with the end results, but instead with the speed of getting there. Therefore, I will be working on “writing rightly,” that is writing with efficient effectiveness. Along with that, I have established some personal blogging guidelines for “writing rightly.” My plan […]

Categories
Call Center

When Shall I Check Back With You?

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD A few months ago, I was doing research on software designed specifically for periodical publishers. The general promise was that this class of software would streamline and integrate operations, as well as provide the ability to offer new services. With all its promises and pretension, I suspected that it would […]

Categories
Healthcare Call Centers

Fourth Annual National Telehealth Conference Overview

Children’s Health Network hosted the Fourth Annual National Telehealth Conference from September 27th through 29th in suburban Minneapolis, MN. The Conference attracted over 130 medical professionals from twenty-seven states in the US, as well as Canada and Japan. Continuing medical education credits (CMEs) for physicians were offered, along with contact hours (CEUs) for nurses. Over […]