Synthesis Post: The importance of communication in business field

Main point: Skills being learned in Public Relations course helps Financial Analysts to succeed

Public Relations

Financial Analysts

·         Four Essential Steps for PR Professions: “RACE” 1.      Research: Know about your customers, e.g. social background, personalities, which helps PR people to adjust themselves when they communicate with customers 2.      Action: Make a plan. Testing your plan before actually start doing it 3.      Communication: Talk about your plan with your customers. Customers have the right to follow the plan or not, but PR people should tell customers about the consequences of every decision they make. 4.      Evaluation: How did we do? Evaluation helps PR people make improvements. Also it helps PR people to act better next time. ·         Writing skills: “Bad writings shut credibility, instead, qualified writings stand out (Open Post #6).” Knowing how to write is not just enough, more importantly, who you are writing to? Who is your audiences? Should always put yourself in audiences’ shoes to target your audiences. ·         Engagement

·         Communication skillsà Knowing your customers goals and needs ·         Analyze/Research: Analyzing customers’ financial systems is the second important thing that financial analysts should do ·         Engagement: 1.      In PR field, selling products is important, but getting engaged is way more important than just being able to sell companies’ goods (Open Post #9). 2.      Engaging with customers would help financial analysts knowing more about their customers. Getting familiar with customers’ personalities helps analysts to make accurate analysis which would reduce risks for both customers and companies. 3.      Writing skills: For financial analysts, it is normal to attend meetings and write reports. Qualified writings is essential for analysts. Reports should be clearly pointed out the financial issues that customers have and give customers professional ideas about what they should do next step.

Prompted Post #10 Recognizing Truth "The wolf of Wall Street"

Financial analysts can work in variety of fields. "Financial analysts generally focus on trends affecting a specific industry, geographical region, or type of product. For example, an analyst may focus on a subject area such as the energy industry, a world region such as Eastern Europe, or the foreign exchange market (Occupational Outlook Handbook, Bureau of Labor Statistics)." Therefore, it is not enough for analysts just to know how to use business language. Instead, analysts should keep learning other fields' language once a while in order to be more professional and updated. 

Language For Business

In the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street," "uses the f-word a record-breaking 506 times in 180 minutes (The Wolf of Wall Street Guide to Fiancial Business English, FluentU)." But in real life, saying "f-word" to your customers can shut your own credibility, which means you could shut yourself out of the field. Business English is not just about using terminology, more importantly, is the way of how you communicate with your customers. Saying such bad words can lose your customers' trust. Trust is the key to build up deeper relations with customers. Customers are expected analysts respect and help them. Be careful and responsible for what you say and keeping learning your field's language.

The Wolf of Wall Street

Works Citation

"The Wolf of Wall Street Guide to Financial Business." Weblog post. FluentU. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. <http://www.fluentu.com/english/business/blog/business-english-finance/>. 

Open post #10 Political V.S Economy

People are always saying that the country's economy is related to politics. Donald Trump thinks that United States should not make trades with China anymore because he thinks China try to appreciate (increase) the value of Chinese currency by doing trades with U.S. Also, as what I have heard that Trump does not like immigrants. In this case, international students may start concerning about the exchange rate and if they are welcome in U.S as outsiders. If Donald Trump wins the election, he would reduce the amount of imports from China, which means that U.S net capital outflow (means U.S buys more foreign assets) would be reduced. The whole country's economy would be affected, so did China. 

Politics V.S Economy

Economy is everywhere in our life. And every move that government would take, people will get affected by it. The public does not have the power to change the situation. Nowadays, Chinese economy is declining so that the exchange rate is keeping raising daily. For international students, this is not a good sign. But we have no power to change the situation. All we can do is wishing that the government can do something to make the situation less worse. It is true that presidential election in U.S is not a big deal for international students and most international students do not even care about the result. But from my personal perspective, I still hope that the next president can actually do something for the U.S and he/she will still be willing make trades with other foreign countries. 

Prompted Post #9 Recognizing Significance

 "In the light of prior psychology research, we predict that investors' reliance on an analyst'd report and the arguments contained therein will be influenced by the type of analyst issuing the report and by whether the report conclusion is favorable or unfavorable about the stock's potential (Journal of Accounting Research: Investor Reactions To Financial Analysts' Research Reports)." The result of the research shows us that customers rely on analysts' reports a lot. Customers take analysts' advice seriously and make investment based on their professional opinions. Therefore, financial analysts are an important role in business field or any other field. Financial analysts should pay attention to the advice being given to customers. Be responsible for every decision making for customers. Customers have their own rights to refuse listening to analysts' suggestion, but analysts are required to let their customers know the consequences of every decision customers make. 

Financial Report

Financial analysts can make a big impact among companies. "Specifically, investors judge the company's stock as having less potential when an unfavorable report originates from an investment banking analyst than when it originates form a non-investment-banking analyst (Investor Reactions To Financial Analysts' Research Reports)." Being objective and analyzing figures accurately are analysts' responsibilities. Investors' decisions mean a lot for companies, therefore, being fair is win-win for companies and investors. Financial analysts are the core of the business between companies and investors. 

Investors

Works Citation

Simko, Paul J., Lisa Koonce, and D. Eric Hirst. Investor Reactions to Financial Analysts' Research Reports. JSTOR. N.p., 2 Nov. 1995. Web. 6 Apr. 2016. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2491491?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents>.

Open Post #9 Engagement

Engaging with customers is essential for every profession. For this week, we had a guest speaker came to our Public Relations class to share some of her professional working experiences. She is the director of the department in Golin company in Chicago. Golin is a professional Public Relations company around the country.

GoLin Logo

PR professionals work on marketing and branding by reporting good things. PR people can work in variety of areas. They can work for the government for candidates to raise funds; they can be in tourism industry to work on public affairs, etc. People who is not in this field, may judge PR people that they can lie about the truth in order to sell themselves. However, when PR professions deal with situations, they always tell the truth to the public. But they just tell the truth that they want the public to know.

Our guest speaker mentioned that selling the products is not good enough, moreover, PR people or every profession should know how to get engaged with their customers. Before companies take any action or make new plans, they do research in order to target customers. Maintaining good relationships with customers is the key to get engaged well with customers. This is also why PR people have to tell the truth and make their customers understand the consequences of every decision they make, otherwise, PR people will lose their customers' trusts. 

Engagement is not just important in PR profession, also it is important for Financial Analysts. Getting engaged with customers is one of the ways to let analysts know their customers' needs. Engagement is also the key to make successful businesses. 

Open Post #8 Development of technology, Good or Bad?

Is technology a good thing or bad thing? Can it be a big helper in working field or it can destroy people's work?

Robot V.S Humanity

Shalee, who was one of the guest speakers in my PR class, is one of MSU students and stars her career as a blogger. Her blogger is mainly focusing on relatively new and growing, media trips, sponsor-ships and partnerships, and investment. She mentioned that she lost every post she wrote for the past two years due to internet crash. In the news "In Modeling Risk, the Human Factor Was Left Out" (The New York Times), Steve Lohr wrote "Math, statistics and computer modeling, it seems, also fell short in calibrating the lending risk on individual mortgage loans. In recent years, the securitization of the mortgage market, with loans sold off and mixed into large pools of mortgage securities, has prompted lenders to move increasingly to automated underwriting systems, relying mainly on computerized credit-scoring models instead of human judgment (Lohr, page 2)." Technology can advance people's life and work, but sometimes they can get people in trouble and difficult situations. 

As we know, every field needs the support of technology, especially in business. People can not over trust technology, instead should know how to balance the use of technology and real human intelligence.

Works Citation

Lohr, Steve. "In modeling risk, the human factor was left out." The New York Times 5 (2008).

http://www.artisanmg.com/millares/pdf/millares_659196.pdf

Prompted Post #8 Practing Your Knoledge

I just started working at Office for International Students and Scholars as a Front Desk Receptionist. Although, this job is not related to my field at all, it let me gain skills that may help me succeed in my  career.

MSU OISS Office

Having some real working experiences can actually make me see how communication work for every job. Last week, my PR professor invited one of his fiends, Jeff Holyfield, as our guest speaker to share some of his professional working experiences. Jeff said in his speech "Commnication is an important part of every job." OISS office hosts dozens of international students every day and every student has their own problems and concerns. Commnication will be the most effective way for receptionists to understand and help students. Students tell us about their situations so we can know which advisor should be assigned to the student. In Finance filed, finance analysts should have the ability to analyze clients' financial situation so that they can come up with the best plan for clients. And being a receptionist actually let me learn how to analyze situations accurately and objectively in order to help students. 

Practice Your Knowledge

Actual working experiences help me learn more and faster about my field than learning from written/spoken resources. When I'm in a working position, I think as a professional, I think for my students that I have been helped by me. Spoken or written resources can only give me some ideas. People always say that practice is a great way to learn. Working let me act like a professional and makes me actually gain some of the silks that may help me succeed. 

Open Post #7 "Information Affects Us A Lot"

Mickey Hirten is a professional journalist of Lansing Pulse. He was one of our guest speakers in the PR class.

Mickey Hirten-Google Image

He said "Information affects us a lot," so it is important for people to "vacuum the quality of the info" we are receiving. It does not matter which field people work for, people should have the ability to analyze the information received. 

Customers may lie about their situations. In some situations, customers even force PR people to tell lies in front of the public in order to protect themselves. In the movie "The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)," lawyer Mickey Haller almost got killed by his customer because at the beginning Mickey didn't recognize that his customer actually was the killer until he got reminded by an old case he handled 15 years ago. 

"Trust is like an eraser. It gets smaller and smaller after every mistake (Lincoln Lawyer 2011)."Telling the truth is win-win.This also reminds us that the situation may not be dangerous as the one in the movie, but it is always necessary for every profession to see the lies that you customers try to hide. 

Prompted Post #7 Contemplating Controversy

One of the article I found online, which talks about 7 controversial issues about investing. Financial analysts mostly work on investing, so that the issues about investing matter to analysts. 

Controversy

• Efficient Market Hypothesis
• Fifty Percent Principle
• Greater Fool Theory
• Odd Lot Theory
• Prospect Theory (Loss--Aversion Theory)
• Rational Expectations Theory
• Short Interest Theory
• The Bottom Line

Rational Expectation Theory

"The theory states that the players in an economy will act in a way that conforms to what can logically be expected in the future. That is, a person will invest, spend, etc. according to what he or she rationally believes will happen in the future (7 Controversial Investing Theories)." Some economists think the theory is important, but some of them think develops economy can not rely on this theory. The problem with this theory is "it can be changed to explain everything, but it tells us nothing ( 7 Controversial Investing Theories)." Investors or economists like seeing actual numbers or using models to analyze problems with current economy. This theory sometimes is not reliable. "Moreover, it allows us to predict (correctly or not) human behavior without stirring out of our armchairs to observe what such behavior is like (Rational Decision Making in Business)." The theory does help economists predict households' behaviors, but it can not actually tell economists actual thing that would help economists make adjustment.

Rational Expectations Theory in Life

Works Citation

• Andrew, Beattie. "7 Controversial Investing Theories." INVESTOPEDIA. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2016. <http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/controversial-financial-theories.asp>.
• Herbert A, Simon. Rational Decision Making in Business Organizations. N.p.: American Economic Association, 1979. JSTOR. American Economic Association, Sept. 1979. Web. 20 Mar. 2016. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1808698>.

Prompted Post #6 Evaluating Sources

The Journal of Risk and Insurance was published in 1967 by American Risk and Insurance Association. The main point made by the author, J. Fred Weston that " Is it really a bad thing if people learn and teach finance by using some of the techniques, like models or statistical testing?"

Google Image

The author wrote " The use of models, careful statistical testing of hypotheses and propositions, decision theory, the techniques of operations anylysis, and new powerful tools of programming began to be applied to the finance field..." In old times, people might not like trying new ideas, but nowadays, models and statistical testing are the most basic tools for economists or finance professionals to predict and learn our economy ad analyze financial risks. In the article, J. Fred mentions that some of  the people believed in textbook literacy and they thinks these theories can not be tested. 

Knowledge should not just be theories, instead, they should be applied in real life. In my economic courses, students are required to know how to solve some of the basic math problems because mathematics are used to prove theories. Numbers can reflect problems. The value of GDP can tell economists how a country's economy develops but it also can tell economists problems. Models and statistical testing are created based on theories. Traditional textbook is a great way to tell "what these theories are" but models and statistical testing can make us understand " what do theses theories mean." 

Works Citation

Weston, J. Fred. The Journal of Risk and Insurance. N.p.: American Risk and Insurance Association, n.d. JSTOR. 1967. Web. 19 Mar. 2016. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/251429?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents>. 

Open Post #6 The importance of having great writing skills

 "Bad writings shut credibility, instead, qualified writings stand out (PR class guest speaker, Channel 10 radio host)." Verbal communication is important in business field or any other field, but writing can be another way for customers and professions to communicate with each other. Writing can be challenging sometimes, especially when we try to send out messages to our audiences in short, clear and consistent content. More importantly, we should know how to grab audicens' attention from the first sentence. In order to do so, we need to look at what draw us in. Pick up some articles that draw your attention at the first place and try to figure out the patterns of those articles and then use them in your own writings. 

Being a Good Writer

Preparing written reports is a part of financial analysts' work. Therefore, it is essential for analysts to have standing out writing skills. The quality of writings is way more important than how many writings you have write. Financial analysts can work for personal companies, individuals, big companies, etc. Our customers can be varied. Analysts should know to adjust the style of writings in order to target audiences. Try to make a impact. Customers rely on these reports to manage companies' money system or to decide if they need to make new investments or not. Analysts should be clear and honest about companies' current financial situation in order to gain customers' trust and help customers make benefits.

Prompted Post #5 Observing Community: MSU SCMA

For this prompted post, I went to MSU SCMA (Supply Chain Management Association) to do some observation. I used to think about managing in Supply Chain Management instead of Finance, so I joined in SCMA in order to know about the major. Most of academic associations usually invite professional people who work in to filed to come and give students speeches. Also, they have their general meetings every week. Sometimes associations organizes special events for community members, like volunteering in Ice Skating, in order to build up some relationships in MSU community. 

Community 

Unfortunately, SCMA was holding leadership academy for me people who would like to work for 2016-2017 SCMA Executive Board. Students who were in the leadership academy, acted professionally and all dressed up. Most of the students gained some leadership experiences before, so that their speeches were organized and they were really confident about themselves. In public relations field, there are nine factors of effective persuasion. Audience analysis is one of them. Audience analysis is to analyze your targeting audience's age, gender, lifestyle, personal values, etc. Audience analysis can lead speakers to adjust their styles. So in this leadership academy, students did good job on using normal language to target their audience's needs. When they spoke in front of the public, they were really energetic and confident. 

People may act differently in different contexts. The person who may not have enough confidence in normal time, but they have to overcome the fair of facing to the public and be confident and professional when they give a speech. Communications in real life can be casual and also can be professional. Different styles can be determined by the contexts.

Open Post #5 Learning the language of our field

Learning Your Language

Communications' style can be determined by the context. For the talk topic response assignment, I chose the TEDx video in the folder as my resource. It is important for people to know how to translate their professional ideas or opinions in normal language in order to let their targeting audience understand them. In TEDx website, this program is defined as "The TEDx Program is designed to help communities, organizations and individuals to spark conversation and connection through local TED-like experiences (TEDx Program)." Communication can be a powerful tool for people to build up connections with each other. People prefer to stay in their confer zone, so that we are more likely to make friends with the person who can really understand us. 

In the video "How I Taught Myself to Code," the speaker Litha Soyizwapi explained every point he made in details and examples. He also used lots of visuals and figures to help audience understand him and make his points more supported. In normal life, body language or hand gestures can be consider as "visuals." When people can not understand what we are talking about, we can help them to understand better though body language or by showing images. Examples and explanations should be necessary and related to the topic. Unrelated explanation can mislead audience to the opposite direction that we want them to go with. 

Works Cited

"TEDx Program." TED. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <https://www.ted.com/about/programs-initiatives/tedx-program>

Prompted Post #4 Concidering Delivery and Sytyle

For this prompted post, I picked up one scholar article written by Michael, C. Jensen, who is from Harvard Business College; and a blog post about tax refund. 

The title of the blog post is "3 tips to help you make the most of your tax refund." The content can be clearly seen just by looking at the title. In this post, the author used lots of "You." The style of the post is more likely having a conversation with the public. The language is very casual so that people can easily understand. The post is not very long comparing with the scholar article I found on Google Scholar. Every paragraph begins with topic sentences. The author does not write down every detail, instead, links followed after topic sentences. If readers are willing to know more details and information about IRS (Internal Revenue Service) or the tax refund program, they can go to these links and read through. This blog post is targeting variety of audiences who need help with their tax, like senior citizens or people who can only speak limited amount of English. The content of the post is easily to understand and instructions are easy to follow. 

However, the style of the scholar article is totally different from the blog post. The author of this article who is from Harvard Business College, is a profession in finance field and has more authorities than the writer of the blog post. The person who wrote the blog post could be one of the employees in Internal Revenue Service, to sell their service by writing this post, so that the person is not really required to have professional knowledge. But "Agency Cost Of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers" is different. It is a research project to analyze the conflicts and problems with the financial system, which is much more professional and more convinced. It is 15-page long research paper with a good list of resources and in-text citations. Lots of footnotes have been used in the paper in order to make the article more detailed and accurate. Scholar articles are more aim to the group of professionals who work in their special fields, so that some of the terminology and concepts are not easy for the public to understand.

Works Cited 

SIEMINSKI, DAVE. "3 Tips to Help You Make the Most of Your Tax Refund." Web log post. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. N.p., 18 Feb. 2016. Web. 21 Feb. 2016. <http://www.consumerfinance.gov/blog/>.


Michael, C. Jensen. Agency Cost Of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers. Social Science Research Network. N.p., 25 Mar. 1999. Web. 21 Feb. 2016. <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=99580##>.

Open Post #4 Women in Business

Nowadays, it's very normal for women to run for business. But before a few decades, women were identified as "Housewife." The TV show that I have been watching for a week makes me think about why women start involving in business and how they success in this field. 

Women In Business

In the scholar article "Research on women business owners: Past trends, a new perspective and future directions," says "However, differences between male and female business owners have been found in educational and occupational background, and approaches to business creation ."(Brush, 1039) Women started to realize that they should be educated too. I personally agree that women should be independent, which means we should be able to earn money by ourselves. Education is a powerful tool that helps women succeed in  their careers. Scientific studies show that women have stronger study skills than men do. Education is not good enough, moreover, women should have great communication skills and know how to work with men. Even people accept women can work like men, in some companies, bias still exist. In my generation, more and more women choose to get married at their early 30's or decide not to have a family. This may be due to the competition in the society. Some women give up the responsibility of being a mom in order to succeed in the competition among men. 

Works Cited

Brush, Candida G. "Research on women business owners: Past trends, a new perspective and future directions." Small Business: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management (1992): 1038-70. (https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=eiJKwGspuQ0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1038&dq=reasons+of+women+success+in+business+&ots=230SBqgsRo&sig=xPXMow3TTkXlm9jdtQiEBE6B0Vs#v=onepage&q=reasons%20of%20women%20success%20in%20business&f=false)

Open Post #3 Talk like a professional

I will continue discussing the topic--communication for this open post. Some people think that Public Relations is an art, but some people say that PR is scientific. There is not an absolute definition for this subject. There are at least five different words to define what Public Relations is. For instance, PR can be called corporate communications, communications, community relations, marketing communications, etc. We can see that the word “communication” is in every different terms. We are doing daily communications among our friends, classmates, group members, etc. every day. But communications in our professional fields can be challenging and scientific methods may be required. In PR field, “listening formula” can be one of our examples. 

Active Listening

The content of the formula is that “listen+
question+repeat+refine+question again.” This formula actually shows the process of how we start communicating and it can be a useful tool for us to communicate with the people in our professional fields. This formula just gives us a big frame and we need to change the content in this formula to target at our audiences. So that it is always important for writers and presenters to be clear about who they are talking to. 

Communications can be challenging sometimes, but communication is like writing that we need to know how to target at the right audience so that we can present ourselves in our fields successfully. 

Prompted Post #3 Exploring Communication

Because I haven’t taken any course that is related to my major yet, I did interview with my economic professor for this prompted post. Mr. Ballard is the best professor I had in college and I had his class last semester. He did not use slides like most of the professors did and the way he taught was pretty straight forward. He really cares about his students and he wants his every student be succeed in this course. 

Business Talking

I did this interview with him during his office hours. I only had fifteen minutes to talk with him because he had a meeting that he had to attend. He is a professional economist and there is no doubt that he majored in economy back in college. By observing the way he talked in class, I could tell that he really paid attention to the verbs, nouns, etc. he used and thought about his audience all the time. I asked  him that “ It must be very important for economists to know how to present your ideas and understanding to your audience and have some advanced writing skills, right?” He didn't answer me right away, instead, he asked me about my major. “I’m majoring in finance,” I answered. And Mr. Ballard said to me “It doesn't matter which field you will work in, it is always challenging for everyone to see the same picture as you see by writing or expressing in words.” I agree with him and it it always important for writers to know who they are writing to. Professor Ballard told me that he always thinks about who he is targeting to when he is writing in order to make sure his audiences understand him easily. Writings in his professional field is more academic. Jargon will be used a lot in professional writings. Presentations, meetings, media interviews can also be the way how economists communicate and display their ideas.

Word choices and audiences are very important for writers to think about before they start writing. Writing can be challenging and hard for us to do, but writing is another way for us to communicate with each other. 

Open post #2 Exploring the relationship between Public Relations and Business field

For this open post, I would like to focus on the relationship between public relations and business filed. It is important for business people to know how to communicate and coorperate with their business partners well. So I tried to use this post to explore more about communications in business and learned some communication skills from it. This is also the reason why I decide to take a PR class for this semester, in order to learn more about communications in pubic and problem solving. Professor Robert Kolt is the instructor for this course, who is  PR professional and very experienced in this area. And he has his own PR company as well.

Communicating With Co-workers

Commonly speaking, public relations are used in building up the trusted relations between companies and the public, or solving public conflicts. Technology and media can be involved in public relations. In the field of Finance, "Financial relations involves communicating not only with a company's stockholders, but also with the wider community of financial analysts and potential investors." Like I mentioned in last open post that attending meetings with clients is paper of financial analysts' job. Financial Analysts should be able to know how to engage themselves with the public in formal presentations or meetings, especially "Annual reports and stockholder meetings are the two most important public relations tools for maintaining good investor relations." So that some of the PR techniques will be used. "RACE" stands for research, action, communication and evaluation. RACE is an important concept for PR people. Financial analysts can start with the "R." Research can be done by different forms, For example, personal interview can be one of the methods to do research. Base on the information financial analysts get from the research, take some actions or make some plans. Then communicate with clients again to evaluate and test the plan financial analysts made. 

Public Relations

The relationship between PR and business field, especially in the financial relations, some of the methods or techniques that being used in PR will be used in finance filed to help clients solve the problem and build up trusted relations with clients.

Works Citation

"Public Realions." Reference for Business. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2016.

Prompted post #2 Defining Ethics

Base on the information I searched online, there are no specific ethics in the field of finance. But an interesting concept, which is called "Mosaic Theory," was discussed on the website I found online.

Ethics in Finance

"The mosaic theory states that analysts are free to use public, material and non-material information during the course of their professional research, and any conclusions they reach can be considered 'fair game'and can be attributed to their research and not to insider information." We all know that "mosaic" has been used a lot nowadays on social media, TV or even on pictures, to hide something from the public. In business, companies in order to sell their products or services can trick their customers by not telling the truth. For instance, we all had the experience of shopping online. Because we could not see the product in real, we preferred going through the comments made by the customers who had already bought the product before we actually decided to buy it or not. Comments are the only way for customers to evaluate products to make their purchase decisions when they shop online. So that some of the companies use their inside employees to write ideal comments about the product in order to make a lot of profit. But it will be win-win for companies and customers if companies are honest with their products and services. 

Works Citation

"Standards and Ethics for Financial Professionals." Investopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2016. <http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financialcareers/09hey/professional-standards-ethics.asp>.