Sennheiser Talks Time - our most precious commodity

When every second counts, messages must be delivered clearly and without delay - this is true for many professions. Consider the emergency services. An ambulance driver, who mis-hears the location of an emergency or the condition of a patient, could waste precious time trying to understand the situation to obtain the right information. A police officer could find himself in the line of fire, innocent lives could be lost, or a fire service may despatch an inadequate fleet to tackle a blaze.

Consider the financial sector. Trading in stocks and shares requires ultra-precise timeframes and up to date information delivered clearly and concisely - the very future of a business could depend on it. Consider aviation. For pilots and air traffic controllers, clear and concise communication ensures the safety of pilots and passengers alike and could save lives. Consider motor racing and Formula 1 - without clear communication between drivers and their pit crew, valuable time could be wasted planning the most efficient strategy during the race.

To respect the value of time and the impact wasted time can have on companies and professionals, you must also respect the importance of clear communication. Miscommunication can happen for any number of reasons, from background noise and a poor quality signal to cheap audio equipment and the struggle to understand multiple speakers at once. Professions that deal with time-critical scenarios cannot risk any of these factors affecting their ability to clearly communicate, and pass on vital information securely and clearly. Thankfully, advances in technology have led to modern headsets that can address a wide range of issues that could cause someone to mishear, and cost precious time.

The effectiveness of these headsets is as crucial as the nature of the communication itself.

INDUSTRY EXAMPLES: Emergency services - Police Clear communication within the Police Control Room environment is absolutely essential. We deal with calls and deployment of police assets that may face serious threat or harm and have to ensure our messages are clear and concise with accurate, pertinent and unambiguous information.

Mishearing or miscommunication could in essence cost lives in our business. Two examples, whilst not exact, would be during either a pursuit or a firearms type incident. These types of incidents are fast paced and often require split second decision making and clear communication between all those involved. Within a pursuit incident this may be around decisions to continue or abort the pursuit or around the tactics to be deployed. If these are not heard correctly the outcome is that people could be seriously hurt or killed. Again, when firearms officers are deployed then intelligence updates and movements of the subjects are key factors to how those officers will respond; the consequences of getting that wrong could easily result in fatal injury.

Within the Police service we do have agreed language and terminology for use in particular certain types of critical incidents, which helps drive to clear, fast and understandable communications to those involved in both the Control Room and the assets on the ground.

-Wiltshire Police Force

Rally Driving Everything in rallying is about timing, events are run to the split second. Whether avoiding penalties and potential elimination by being late to a time control to the vital timing of delivering pace notes from navigator to driver at one hundred miles per hour on a forest track at night. Hearing clear instructions is vital.

We're driving fast - as fast as we can, along tricky roads in changeable conditions, so receiving accurate and timely instructions from a co-driver is vital. If these are read too late, even a second too late, I can go off the track. During a rally in Belgium I barrel-rolled my car eight times when my co-driver didn't get the timing quite right. It was enough to put the wheel off the track, hook the car over, bounce off a tree into a frightening sequence of rolls. My co-driver ended up in hospital - so that's the consequence of getting it wrong. If a co-driver is too far ahead in their calls, the road shape suddenly doesn't correspond to what I'm seeing through my windscreen. If it's foggy, for example, you need complete trust because your lights bounce back off the fog and you have to switch them off, we both then try to read looming landmarks to keep our place on the notes.

You have to trust in your co-driver to literally and figuratively keep you on track, and trust that the timing of their calls is implicit - it governs everything that you do. You need to know that if they get lost on the notes, they'll just say lost and then you can switch to visual driving only until your position is found. Receiving these instructions quickly and effectively is the difference between win and lose, and possibly even the difference between life and death.

-Tony Jardine, UK motorsport pundit Sky Sports News, rally driver and former F1 assistant team manager

Rail With Train Operating Companies core communication is operated from control rooms, and audio communication is constantly fed between the central control, stations, signallers, drivers, and the front line staff looking after customers.

The control will make decisions about the safe and punctual running of the railway and it is vital that these decisions are fed through in a clear and timely fashion. If a serious incident occurs, control must lead communication between station staff, drivers, Network Rail signallers and the emergency services. Clear communication is critical to the smooth running of the service under normal operation, but getting this collaborative communication right can also be the difference between life and death.

We have procedures in place to maximise clarity of communication - staff are

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