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Printer cartridges are one of the most commonly bought items of office stationary, but also one of the most expensive. Whether you have a laser printer or inkjet printer the cartridges you need can often set you back quite a lot of money.

The answer of course is to buy cheap printer cartridges, but as you probably know the quality of some of the cheapest printer cartridges is pretty dismal. Poor color range and printout quality is quite common. The answer then is to find a balance between price and quality so that the color range is accurate and the printing is good, yet you aren’t paying over the odds.

Cheap printer cartridges may not last as long as you’d expect also. Some of the unbranded cartridges may be the lowest priced, but as with many things, you often get what you pay for. For this reason, you may want to consider buying discount ink cartridges from known brands like Epson, HP, Dell, Canon, Xerox, and Lexmark.

Your local computer store may have all the cartridges to fit any type of printer, but buying online is often the better option. Internet prices are almost always less than any offline retailer. However, you should make sure that the cartridge you buy is compatible with the printer that you have.

Laser printers are generally faster than inkjets at printing. They also print at a cheaper price per page, and for this reason laser toner cartridges can be more expensive. Remanufactured printer cartridges are worth considering as they can offer great value, and the printouts can be sharp and clearer than you might expect.

No matter what price you pay for printer cartridges the results should be clear and represent what you see on your PC screen accurately. There are many computer suppliers online so take a bit of time to browse for the cheapest deals. If you regularly need printer ink cartridges you can even consider buying in bulk. This is often an easy way to reduce the price you pay per cartridge but the initial cost will be higher obviously.

Depending on what printer you have you will probably have a number of printer cartridges available that are compatible. Make sure you know which cartridges are available for your printer before purchasing. This is a good way to find discount printer cartridges as you might not be as limited on choice as you first thought.

Go to our website for information on cheap printer cartridges and advice on HP, Dell, and other inkjet printer cartridges.

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Is the 16F84 too old for your electronic projects?

If you don’t know what a 16F84 is then you have never heard of Microchip(R) - a company that creates powerful stand alone microcontrollers. A microcontroller is simply a very small computer but unlike standard computing systems everything is contained within the device itself. There are no external peripherals such as RAM, EPROM, I/O devices.

If you are looking for an easy way to create your own projects then microcontrollers fit the bill because they:

• Are very Small (some have 8 pins and even smaller have 5).
• Have many internal peripherals.
• Are based on reprogrammable internal memory
• Have built in timers.
• Have internal RAM.

In short they are ideal for controlling your projects — all you have to do is program them.

This is one of the spectacular advantages over doing discrete designs since if you make a mistake in a discrete design you will have to debug and re-wire. With a microcontroller you can just re-program the device in circuit (having simulated the code to figure out the mistake first).

Even better is the fact that you can make advanced projects, because internally the peripherals operate quite fast e.g. you could create a 50MHz frequency counter using no external components (except a display).

Languages

In fact you can program them in many different languages but the most popular is machine code. The reason for it’s popularity is the fact that MicroChip(R) created all the tools necessary for development of a machine code program for free so you will find many many examples of assembler code on the internet.

Personally I don’t like machine coding in assembler (although I can use it if needed e.g. for speed) because it takes a huge amount of time compared to using a high level language. In fact I would say it takes 10 times as long with assembler. Also assembler is a totally unstructured language; meaning that it is very hard to maintain i.e. if you want to add a module then you probably have to review the whole of the code whereas with a high level language areas of code are protected saving you from making mistakes.

Microchip has released many hundreds of different devices (now vastly improved over the 16F84) but the fundamental operation of each one is based on the original design and even if you only studied the original 16F84 (OK there was a 16C84) you would have a pretty good idea of how all of the range of devices work.

That is the great power of the MicroChip(R) devices i.e. you learn something using one device and you are adding to your knowledge for the whole range - for instance to program a 12F675, 16F84, 16F88 or 16F877 you need to know only about ICSP because that interface is shared across the whole range. This means your learning curve is greatly reduced.

Of course there are some specialized peripherals that are for professional developers such as driving the pins of a dedicated LCD but you only need to concentrate on the standard peripherals (good examples are in the 12F675, 16F88, 16F628 and 16F877).

Peripherals

In fact there are about 15 standard internal peripherals for the modern (16F range) device whereas the 16F84 has only one.

This is why I believe that the 16F84 has had a good running but it’s now time to say goodbye to it. Other reasons for this are that it has a quarter the memory size of a 16F88 and now costs about 5 times as much.

Note The 16F88 and 16F628 borrow heavily from the 16F84 even having the same pinout so you won’t have any trouble if you are already used to a 16F84.

Summary

The 16F84 is probably too old for serious design because there are newer (backwards compatible) devices that will allow you to create far more capable projects.

John Main’s website provides microcontroller resources and free projects which are fully documented and include schematics and source code.

You can find example of a 50MHz Seven segment here: Frequency counter circuit. This uses a 16F877 as the microcontroller.

Vist this site for more: http://www.best-microcontroller-projects.com

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Samsung has launched some popular mobile phones available in the market today. Their name is trusted by millions for their technology, features and designs. The blend of all such criteria in their mobile phones make lifestyle simple. Samsung has introduced a mobile which makes other sophisticated models enviable of it. Its Samsung G600. The phone give stiff competition to superior mobiles like Sony Ericsson k850i and Nokia N95.

Samsung G600 is a sliding phone that has been much adored by tech-savvies for its facilities for communication and multimedia features. With this phone the leader has created a distinct position in the industry of mobile phones. G600 falls in the line of Samsung kitty phones. Just slide out the phone to discover its advanced features. Before we glance at the features of G600 lets see how this phone is available to UK users. There are some innovative offers and deals with this mobile phone in UK. The cost effective contracts are being offered by service providers. These offers let you get the high priced G600 phone at a price much less than market price. Users can get less call tariffs, free SMS options and roaming facilities.

Lets find out the functionalities of Samsung G600 and see what the phone has to offer. First the dimension of the phone is 102 x 47.8 x 14.9 mm and it just weighs 105 gm. A light phone comparative to other phones of such caliber. The TFT 2.2 inch screen has resolution of 320×240 pixels. The best part of the phone is its photography features. The phone has 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and digital zoom. You can click images of high quality with this phone and upload them to share with your friends. Other features include photo caller ID, SMS, MMS, email, predictive text, photo settings, music player, video player, inbuilt stereo FM radio, Bleutooth with A2Dp, Mp3 and ploy phonic ringtones, Java games, downloading of games, 55MB internal memory to store music, videos and data along with microSD card slot for memory extension.

Samsung G600 is a quad band phone which supports GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800 & GSM 1900 frequencies of network. Its has WAP 2.0/XHTML provision for Internet connectivity and good battery back up for talk time and stand by options.

Samsung G600 Black and Samsung G600 Silver is the Latest mobile phone from Samsung Mobile Phones and these mobile phones are available on Cheap Mobile Phone Contract UK.

Faith Hill is Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Cheap Mobile Phone Contract UK.

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There have been a number of successful research and developments taken place in the last century. One of the most revolutionary inventions is Mobile phones. It has totally changed the way of communication. The mobile manufacturing companies are introducing many new technologies in their handsets. In the result, we are getting a huge variety of the devices coming at a very reasonable price range.

We can see the constant supply of new mobile phones these days mainly because of the extraordinary development in mobile phone technology and insatiable demand for it. The leading companies are providing some amazing series of new handsets, equipped with multiple functions and fashionable designs. Now, the mobile devices are not only a medium of communication but also a source of entertainment. You can listen to your favorite music, play games and shoot the unforgettable moments by having a modern handset.

With the increasing demand for latest mobile phones, the manufacturers are coming with various attractive mobile phone deals. You can avail contract mobile phones which give you the liberty to buy a modern instrument with the choice of making the payment in installments. There are 12 installments made and you can enjoy the all new features and functions of a new generation phone. The contract mobile phones are easily available in the UK market. You can also go online for searching such handsets offered by several retailers.

The various functions available in the modern phones are high mega pixel camera, MMS option, web accessibility, infrared & Bluetooth adaptability in almost all the handsets. Apart from this, a number of dazzling colors and attractive shape are also drawing attention of the users. Most of these features are available in many cheap mobile phones too. You can visit different websites or dedicated portals for getting attractive mobile phone deals.

There are some mobile phones which are having many advanced features and so their cost is high. However, you can find several cheap mobile phones available in the UK market online mobile phone shops give you the latest brands from the prominent manufacturers at a very competitive price offer. Enjoy your favorite device that connects you with your friends.

The success and acceptance of mobile phones have been tremendous all over the world. Nokia is the market leader and it is coming up with a number of featured, high end handsets. People love to wait for Nokia mobile phones mainly because of its unique features and functions.

The Finland based mobile manufacturing giant Nokia Corporation has produced millions of phones touching the new milestones. With several ranges of handsets, Nokia is a well known brand name among the mobile lovers. Now, it has launched the 3G phones which boast of having all the new and advanced technologies with it.

N series phones offered by Nokia are a huge success in the market. N72, N73, N 90, N91 and N95 are some of the prominent members of this family. These handsets have been designed in a way that gives a complete experience of fun, entertainment and communication. You can enjoy photography with high resolution camera and can make your collection of your favourite moments. For example, N95 comes with a 7.2 mega pixel camera which gives a tough competition to the quality of a digital camera. The music player and FM radio functions of N series phones are unmatchable. The quality of music it produces is truly a feat.

As far as the internet connectivity is concerned, these phones are very fast in that. It gives a new meaning to Data transmission and instant messaging. Now, you can rely on your phone for doing your professional works too. Nokia mobile phones have changed the way of perceiving the communication process between two people. Its phones are capable of making a video conferencing call so that you can join, talk and see more than two of your friends simultaneously. GPS navigator, Bluetooth with A2DP and TFT screen are the other features that are being included by Nokia.

Mobile phones are taking the place of basic phones very quickly. Now, a large number of people are having access to it in the UK. Nokia has certainly played a pivotal role in expanding the horizon of mobile telephony. It is assuring a lot more in the time to come. We can certainly expect an array of handsets loaded by amazing features and outstanding technologies.

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The history of fiber optic telecommunication deserves a book by itself since it took several generations to get the industry today.

Optical fiber is a long thin cylindrical fiber made from glass or plastic, as tiny as one tenth of a human hair. A standard telecom optical fiber is composed of three cylindrical layers, counted inside out: fiber core (diameter 8~10um), cladding (diameter 125um) and buffer coating (diameter 900um).

Fiber core and cladding is made from glass or silica. Fiber Core and cladding layers work together to confine the light inside the core without leaking. Fiber buffer coating is made from acrylic or plastic and provides handling flexibility and physical protection for the fiber.

Optical fibers utilize an optical phenomenon called total internal reflection. When light is injected into the fiber from end face, it is confined inside the core without leaking outside and losing its energy.

Then light is digitally modulated to represent 1 and 0 just like a computer, so information can be carried from one site to another site which may be from San Francisco all the way to New York.

What are fiber optic connectors and how do they work?

Now you know how optical fibers work. So what is a fiber optic connector and what’s its function in a fiber optic telecommunication network?

Put it simple, a fiber optic connector’s function is just like an electric power plug, it connects light from one section of optical fiber to another section of optical fiber.

Since optical fibers are so tiny, fiber optic connectors have to be made with high precision, at the scale of 0.1um which is one hundredth of a human hair.

Fiber optic connectors align two fibers end to end so precisely that light can travel from one fiber into another without bouncing off the interface and loss its signal.

Besides, fiber optic connectors provide cross connect flexibility for the telecommunication network. So a complicated computer network could be made modular and easy to manage.

Just like any other connectors used in electric industry, electronic industry and computer industry, many different kinds of fiber optic connectors were invented along the development of fiber optic communication industry. Some of them once were very popular in the industry and now have served their purposes and are fading away.

The most popular fiber optic connectors used nowadays are SC, ST, LC, FC, MTRJ, SMA and a few of other less popular ones. Sure you will see new connectors invented with the progress of this industry.

Colin Yao is the sales manager at Fiber Optics For Sale Co. and specializes in Fiber Optic Connectors.

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The inkjet printer is looked upon as an essential computer peripheral that every computer user must have, for whatever purpose he or she uses the computer. The inkjet printer is a very versatile printer that can be used to create hard copies of just about any document, and can even produce high resolution color prints. Many home computer users favor the inkjet printer because the inks consumed by the inkjet printer are relatively more affordable than most types of inks.

The popularity and the versatility of the inkjet printer are such that many big name manufacturers of the inkjet printer have combined a multitude of functions for this machine. Many inkjet printers now double as fax machines with automatic voice response features just like in answering machines, or perhaps as scanners or as copiers.

What are the best inkjet printers today? Listed below are the five best inkjet printers that have recently earned reviewers’ praises.

Lexmark P4350 All-in-One

The Lexmark P4350 All-in-One inkjet printer is machine that is liked best for the excellent quality of the photos it produces, its user-friendliness, and its affordability. On the downside, some reviewers who find this inkjet printer a little slow and somewhat inconvenient when it comes to printing black-only documents - it requires cartridge swapping in these cases.

HP PSC 1510 All-in-One

Setting aside the fact that the HP PSC 1510 All-in-One is classified as a multipurpose printer, this inkjet printer is remarkably versatile. It can be very fitting for use regardless of whether it will be used for home computing or in an office setting. The one thing that most reviewers do not like about this all-in-one inkjet printer, however, is the fact that it does not have an independent fax machine.

Canon Pixma iP4000

Computer users who demand quality, high performance and affordability in an inkjet printer can find it all with the Canon Pixma iP4000. It is a great all-around inkjet printer that won the approval of most reviewers because of its versatility, the excellent quality of its prints and its speedy performance, and all for a very reasonable price.

HP Deskjet 9650

Quality prints, be it document or photo, colored or monochrome, can be expected from the HP Deskjet 9650. This inkjet printer produces truly superb prints.

Epson Stylus C84

The Epson Stylus C84 is another inkjet printer that is well-liked for its quality and affordability. If one is not going to produce a lot of colored photo prints and will stick mostly with documents and prints on regular paper, this inkjet printer is a very good choice.

This Article is written by James Kara Murat, the contributor of Printer Reviews. More information on the subject is at The Five Coolest Inkjet Printers Today, and related resources can be found at PrintCountry FAQ.

Your own fear has a strangle hold on you, and it’s keeping you from insurance sales success. Fear isn’t a logical response it’s an emotional response, and emotional responses have very little if any logic to support them. You’re afraid: to focus on a target market, to ask people for an appointment, no one wants to talk to you, to make phone calls, of marketing yourself, of failing, and of succeeding. You know what you’re afraid, but what you may not know or understand is why you have that fear. So let’s look at the reasons you may be holding these fears.

You haven’t grown into your own skin. Whenever you’re new at anything you go through a phase that I call growing into your own skin. You really aren’t sure exactly what benefit you bring to people. Plus you want to sell anything you can to anyone who has a pulse, so the benefit or value you bring changes with each person you talk to. You don’t know how to make yourself unique, so you’re no different than the other agents in your area. Because you’re just like everyone else you don’t know why someone would want to meet with you. All these self-doubts are visibly obvious to everyone you talk to reinforcing your fear.

You don’t understand your customers. Because you don’t understand your customers you don’t know how to communicate to them in a way that gets their attention, and makes them want to meet with you. When you understand your customers and the top things they want you can create a core marketing message that gets them to ask you how you do that, and as you explain they suggest to you that perhaps you should meet to talk about that. You’re looking at insurance as a boring necessity that people have to have rather than finding a way to make what you have to offer part of the solution for what your customers want. Your product is the emotion your customers want to have.

You expect perfection. You want every phone call every meeting every conversation you have to go perfectly. And by perfectly you mean you either made a sale or you set a sales appointment. What if you made a conscious effort to have at least 10 imperfect conversations each week? And after your imperfect conversations what if you evaluated when, where, and how you could have improved that conversation? Is it possible that if you did that you would begin to have more perfect conversations, and you’d know why those conversations were perfect? Then wouldn’t you be able to have perfect conversations more often?

You haven’t figured out how to adapt everything you need to do to fit you and your strengths. You’ve been shown “systems” for sales and parts of those systems may be working very well for you, and parts of those systems feel like you have your left shoe on your right foot. When you’ve tried a “system” a number of times, and it just doesn’t feel right don’t presume the “system” is right and the problem is you. There isn’t one “system” that’s perfect for everyone because you aren’t everyone you’re you. You have to adapt and develop your own selling style until you’re comfortable with it because it builds on your natural strengths. Tiger Woods doesn’t focus on what he doesn’t do well. He focuses on what he does well and strives to do it better, and that’s what you want to do too.

Enjoy the time and financial freedom you deserve: “7 Secrets Top Producers Know that You Can Put to Use in the Next 9 Days”

Get a daily boost to increase your sales: the blog for Top Producers and Future Top Producers

LCD screens are commonly found in laptops, PDAs, iPods and high definition TVs. If you look around your home, you will probably see 5 or more of these screens in your presence. They are everywhere!

However, anyone who owns any type of LCD screen knows there is one minor problem with them. These screens or displays gather dust and dirt like there is no tomorrow. Just within a few weeks of purchasing your once pristine LCD screen, it starts picking up lint, dust particles, and smudges — ruining your full enjoyment of this technical marvel.

Once you see your favorite LCD screen picking up a bit of dust, you immediately grab a tissue or paper towel and some water to clean it. DON’T! Or you will made a big mistake and you could possibly even do permanent damage to your delicate LCD screen.

LCD screens are not like ordinary monitor screens. LCD screens are NOT GLASS, rather they are made up of a soft film that can easily be damaged by harsh paper towels and the chloride and other chemicals in ordinary tap water. These screens are very delicate, they must be handled with care and very, very gently.

You must proceed with caution if you want to keep all your LCD screens in perfect mint condition. This is one case where a little knowledge could save you a whole lot of trouble and disappointment.

The history of Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) goes back over a hundred years. It was first mentioned by Otto Lehmann in 1904. The first operational LCD was made by RCA in 1968. Each display is made up of countless pixels, with light being filtered through them in a controlled manner. Thin-Film Transistor (TFT) is a form of LCDs which uses an active matrix to improve image quality. LCD technology has found its way into countless displays in laptops, PDAs, and high definition TVs. (Source - wikipedia.org)

LCD Screen Cleaning Tips

Most experts suggest you can use a cleaning solution of 50% distilled water and 50% isopropyl (rubbing alcohol). You should use a soft cloth such as an old cotton T-shirt or handkerchief. Don’t use paper towels, tissues, or ordinary dish cloths, as harsh cloths may damage the soft surface of an LCD screen.

Shut down any devices before cleaning them. Inspect the screen very carefully to take note of any special areas that need to be cleaned. Don’t spray any cleaning solution directly onto the screen but rather dampen your large cleaning cloth with your solution and apply very gentle pressure, cleaning the display in a circular motion.

Don’t apply any hard pressure or touch the screen with your fingertips. It has been suggested you think of the screen as a smooth baby’s bottom and give it the same kind of care as you would give an enfant’s delicate skin.

Make sure you let the screen thoroughly dry before turning your device back on. You should now have a perfectly cleaned screen ready for your full viewing enjoyment once again.

Word of Caution - you should always check your owner’s manual or the manufacturer for the recommended cleaning method for your particular LCD TV or Laptop Screen.

You should also note, commercial LCD cleaning kits are very inexpensive. These cleaning kits will have everything your need to clean your LCD screen. Most will have a Microfiber Cloth or Chamois that are excellent for picking up dust and removing fingerprints and smudges. A can of Compressed Air is also handy for removing dust from your screen and from those hard to reach places.

There are also stronger cleaning solutions to remove ink markings just in case your small child has confused your expensive laptop for an itch-a-sketch toy and created a modern masterpiece. Ouch!

Some commercial cleaning formulas may contain the same mixture as the home-made one mentioned above, but newer cleaning solutions are alcohol and ammonia-free. Some have an anti-static coating that will help reduce the build up of dust particles. It would probably be wise to pick up one of these cleaning kits if you own a lot of LCD screens. You can also purchase single wipes and cleaners for traveling.

What ever route you take, or cleaning formula you use, just remember to treat all your LCD screens with a whole lot of respect. Be gentle, be careful and be diligent. Make sure you clean all your LCD screens when the need arises. That way you will go on enjoying all your perfect pristine LCD screens for years to come.

For other handy LCD cleaning tips and all the materials you need to clean LCD screens go here: How To Clean LCD Screens To learn how to clean a laptop LCD screen try here: How To Clean Laptop Screen Copyright © 2006 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Do you want an alternative touch screen to an iphone? Well here is the all new Samsung Armani SGH-p520 phone. The phone has been designed by the world’s leading fashion brand Giorgio Armani. This is tri band GSM/GPRS phone with EDGE. The phone has a sleek black body and a stylish included leather case.

The phone is a result of the strategic alliance of Giorgio Armani and Samsung Electronics. The combination of Armani’s aesthetics and Samsung’s engineering has brought forward an excellent mobile phone. The phone has dimensions (97.5×54.5×10.5 mm) which make it sleek phone with QWERTY keypad hidden beneath the screen. The TFT touch screen is 2.6 inch with 320×240 pixels of resolution and 256k colours. Their collaboration has led to the birth of a new phone called-Armani-Samsung luxury mobile phone.

The luxurious phone has all expected features in it. The phone is a complete masterpiece to meet today’s mobile users’ needs. Besides communication features the phone is a storehouse of powerful multimedia applications. Well for your business and communication purpose you have the phone with all types of network support in UK. It enables you to view Word, PowerPoint, Excel and pdf files, send emails, MMS, SMS, browse the web and upload data. You can remain connected to your office and business alliances even when you are traveling or busy in some other personal work.

From entertainment point of view Samsung Armani has loads to offer. Its video player can play WMA and Mpeg4 files, music player can play H.263, AAC+/MP3/WMA,AAC,e-AAC+ files. You can download ringtones and customize them to polyphonic or MP3 mode. The phone has Inbuilt FM radio for live entertainment. The battery back up of the phone is very good which supports 220 hours of stand by, 3-4 hours of talk time and 6 hours of music. The compact phone has 3.15 megapixel camera with digital zoom and flash for quality photography (video and Still). The estimated price of this luxury phone is just 400 Euros. And in this price this designer phone offers lot more than other phones in this price bracket.

Samsung Armani Deals, Samsung G800 Deals and G600 Pink are the new phones in Samsung Mobile Phones and this mobile phone is available on Phone Shop.

Faith Hill is Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Cheap Mobile Phone Contract UK.

You’ve recruited the individual members of your team. You’ve established your goal. You’ve developed a plan and a timeline. Now the trick is to get all those unique individuals working together toward the same goal. Given the varied personalities, communication skills and personal agendas individual members bring with them to the team, getting your team to work cooperatively can be a challenge.

In the most productive teams, members are individually and cooperatively focused on reaching the team’s goal. Members understand the interdependent nature of the team: that their individual work depends upon and affects the quality of others’ work and, ultimately, the ability of the team to reach its goal. Members respect, appreciate and recognize each person’s unique contribution to the team’s efforts, but place the greatest emphasis on cooperative achievement of the team goal.

Experiential team building was all the rage not long ago. The team would travel offsite for a “fun” day of rope games and unusual problem solving, typically at an outdoor education center. Unfortunately, too often there was little follow-up and any lessons learned never made it back into the workplace. Today, the emphasis has shifted to in-house team building exercises that can be accomplished at the beginning of a meeting.

Follow these key steps to plan a productive team building exercise:

1. Keep it simple. It should be quick and easy to set up in a typical meeting room.
2. It doesn’t need to be expensive. You can get a lot of mileage out of basic office supplies or a few items from your kitchen pantry.
3. The exercise should be geared for normal office clothing or team members should be told ahead of time to dress appropriately.
4. People have a hard time relating to large groups, so divide the team into small units of 2 to 4 or 6 people. By breaking down barriers and creating partnerships within these small groups, team members will be better able to relate to the larger team.
5. Instructions must be easy to understand, especially by any non-native English speakers in your group.
6. Limited instructions may be part of the team building exercise. Forcing people to figure out what to do or how to do something helps team members identify skills and abilities in themselves and their peers that can help them define their roles on the team: leader, facilitator, problem-solver, communicator, etc.
7. The exercise should engage all members quickly.
8. It should present a problem that has multiple solutions to allow for creativity, but that can only be solved through collaboration and cooperative action.
9. You can increase the difficulty level of any exercise by adding a complication such as “no talking,” or by speeding things up by asking, “How can you do it faster?”
10. At the completion of the exercise, it is crucial that a facilitator, often the team leader, lead the team in reflecting on what happened, the choices made, and how they interacted with each other. Team members should discuss what they would do differently next time. Reflection is critical to identifying and reinforcing learning.

Try these team building exercises to get your team off on the right foot.

1. Scrambled Jigsaw. Before the team arrives, place a jigsaw on each table. To manage the time element, use large-piece children’s puzzles of 100 pieces or so. Remove 5 pieces from each puzzle and move them to another table. As the team arrives, divide members among the tables. Instruct teams to fully complete their puzzle, by any means, in the shortest amount of time possible. As puzzles are completed and teams realize pieces are missing, they will be forced to negotiate with other teams to complete their puzzle. This exercise promotes flexibility, communication, negotiation and cooperation.
2. Creative Assembly. Purchase 3-D punch-out wood dinosaur puzzle kits. Divide the team into groups of 2 to 4. Without comment or instruction, give each group the unpunched puzzle pieces, one complete puzzle per group. Do not let the group see the boxes, pictures or instructions or in any way identify what you have given them. Instruct each group to assemble its project, telling them they can only use what is in front of them. You’ll get some interesting and creative constructions, a lot of laughter and some good natured frustration, particularly with the winged dinosaur kits. When time is up, ask each group to describe its construct. In this exercise, creative thinking, brainstorming, problem-solving, cooperation and consensus will certainly get a workout.
3. Slight of Hand. Divide team into groups of 4 to 6. Hand each group 4 tennis balls. Tell them each person must handle all 4 balls in the shortest time possible. Do this several times, each time asking, “How can you do it faster?” This exercise will progress from the obvious passing of the balls down a line, to around a circle, to some interesting ball drops and hand swiping. Your team will practice cooperation, quick thinking and creative problem solving in this exercise.
4. Going Up. Divide team into groups of 2 to 6. Give each person one 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper and one 5″ strip of masking tape. Instruct each team to build the tallest possible free-standing structure. This exercise promotes cooperation, creative thinking, problem-solving, consensus, leadership and division of labor.
5. Gnome Dome. Divide the team into groups of 2. Give each group 20 gumdrops and 12 toothpicks. Instruct each group to build a dome. Problem-solving, creative thinking, cooperation (and possibly snacking) will be practiced during this exercise.
6. Poisonous Web. Stretch a piece of rope across a door frame, securing it to the frame or connecting wall with duct tape. You’ll need two pieces of rope, one 3 feet off the ground, the other 4 1/2 feet off the ground. You are creating a “window” 18 inches wide that you describe to the team as a “poisonous spider web.” The team must work together to get all members through the opening without touching the ropes. They must go through, not under or over the ropes. If a team member touches either rope, the entire team must go back to the beginning and try again. This exercise builds cooperation, leadership, creativity and problem-solving. It also forces team members to trust and depend on each other.
7. Hang Ups. Hand each person a wire coat hanger. Tell the group they may work individually or create their own groups. Instruct them to make something useful from their coat hanger. Set a time limit of 5 to 15 minutes. Ask each person/group to describe his “tool” and its use. This exercise will indicate which of your team members are natural leaders or born socialites as well as which are more shy and may need to be drawn out when working with the group.
8. In the Picture. This is another puzzle game. Divide the team into groups and give each one a jigsaw puzzle from which you have already removed one piece. Each team will complete a puzzle with one missing piece. Ask each team what this represents in terms of the team. You’re aiming for discovery of the importance of each individual to the successful accomplishment of the team’s goal, but you may get some interesting responses about proper planning, supply officers and quality control.
9. All Aboard. This is another physical game. Depending on the size of your team, place a 1-foot to 3-foot square of cardboard on the floor, or mark off a square with masking or duct tape. Draw numbers, one for each team member. In order of the numbers drawn, team members must stand in the square. As the number of people in the square increases, members will have to work together and get creative to get everyone aboard. This exercise practices cooperation, problem-solving and leadership.
10. Bridge the Gap. Divide the group into teams of 2 to 4. Give each group a small ball of modeling clay and 12 toothpicks. Instruct them to build the longest cantilever bridge they can. Award points for speed of construction, length of bridge, ability to stand without tipping over and ability to hold weight (to measure this, stack quarters until the bridge tips or breaks). Team members will practice creativity, problem-solving, consensus (and manual dexterity).

To be successful, teamwork must be more than a method of dividing up the work to get the job done. Teamwork must embrace a cooperative attitude of mutual respect, shared responsibility and open communication. Teamwork recognizes each team member’s individual contribution to the team in the context of the interdependency of those efforts in cooperative pursuit of the team’s goal.

Amy Linley gives practical and usable advice regarding communication and meetings at AccuConference.

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