• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Voice tips

D. Murali

USING your voice well means three things, according to Michael McCallion. One, you should be able to produce your voice without ever hurting yourself in the process. Two, you should be able to use your voice fully and energetically for several hours a day and have it as free and flexible at the end of your day's work as at the beginning. And, three, your voice must be capable of conveying all the nuances of meaning your work demands; it must be a completely flexible and accurate instrume nt of expression and communication which remains absolutely under your control.

In The Voice Book -- which McCallion offers for everyone who wants to make the most of their voice -- he explains that voice is an expression of what is going on mentally and physically in the speaker. It follows that we must find a way of t raining the mental and physical processes involved so that we produce in our voice and speech what we really choose to produce, so that we communicate what we wish to communicate.

A good tip for professionals who want to make their point at tax hearings or other presentations.

Playful bytes

THE Biotech Century, by Jeremy Rifkin, is about how genetic commerce will change the world. While talking about electronic communication, Rifkin points out that it organises knowledge differently than print technology, with hypertext replacing the more l imited and narrow kind of print referencing.

As a result, a self-contained book, with a set number of facts and references, gives way to an open-ended field of information, as footnotes and references are expanded indefinitely, creating new sub-texts and meta-texts.

Electronic communication is unbounded, open, integrative. On the other hand, it lacks the clarity that boundaries create. It is a form of communication that is closer to the flow of the unconscious mind, jumping from one thought to another, dwelling on p arallel tracks, juxtaposing ideas one on top of another, straying off into unrelated or marginally related topics. It is less structured, less rational and analytic and -- interestingly -- more playful.

Too sophisticated

THE process of establishing evidence involves skills of fact analysis and management, states Philip A. Jones in Lawyers' Skills. There is no single correct system for analysis and management. In essence, there are a variety of narrative and charting tech niques.

The most sophisticated of these involves procedures derived from Wigmore's chart method. This is used in a variety of professional training programmes.

Ever heard of that in any professional accountancy training programme?

Using ABCTHE PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for The Business of Government has brought out a report entitled ``Using Activity-Based Costing to Manage More Effectively'', by Michael H. Granof, David E. Platt and Igor Vaysman of the Universit y of Texas.

In this report, it has been shown how ABC can be applied to a single department of a major institution of higher education and thereby provide more management-oriented information than the systems currently employed.

ABC's advantage over traditional accounting systems is that it allocates `overhead' costs to programs and activities in a way that is more reflective of the factors that influence them.

The case study presents several lessons that are applicable to both governmental and not-for-profit organisations.

If you wish to obtain the report in Adobe Acrobat format, the link is http://endowment.pwcglobal.com/grants/ mgdpiv.asp.

Do one, take two

FOLLOWING up their recent agreement to partner in developing an MBA syllabus, ACCA and Oxford Brookes University have signed an agreement that will give ACCA students who complete the first two parts of ACCA's new professional examinations the opportunit y to gain an honours degree in applied accounting.

Oxford Brookes will award the degree to students who pass the ACCA examinations and also complete a 5,000 word research and analysis project.

According to ACCA, this is the first partnership of its kind, linking a global professional accountancy body with a leading university -- enabling thousands of accountancy students worldwide to have access to a UK degree which could help them in their chosen career.

If only the ICAI could offer something more alongwith the ACA tag for those who pass its exams...

*******

Tailpiece

``Shall we start the interview?''

``Is this the first question?''