By Debbie Gregory.

WhatsApp Messenger is a freeware and cross-platform messaging and Voice over IP service owned by Facebook. The application allows the sending of text messages and voice calls, as well as video calls, images and other media, documents, and user location.

Now the  company is launching a programming kit that makes it easy for businesses to use WhatsApp messaging for info and support.

WhatsApp Business was built with the small business owner in mind. With the app, businesses can interact with customers easily by using tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages. Businesses can provide customers helpful information such as the business address, description, email address, and website. Different chats can be labeled for organization, such as new customers, returning customers or orders completed.

Small business owners are also able to set away messages and create quick replies to frequently asked questions. And just like the normal WhatsApp, conversations are always encrypted, and businesses can be blocked just like individual contacts.

For medium and large businesses, the WhatsApp Business API powers your communication with customers all over the world, so you can connect with them on WhatsApp in a simple, secure, and reliable way.

The company is both charging WhatsApp Business kit users a “fixed rate” for notifications (like those passes and confirmations) and, crucially, charging them if they don’t respond to customers within 24 hours. This ensures that businesses will have a strong motivation to respond quickly to questions.

The platform is primarily suited for businesses with a very familiar or regular customer base. If you are located in a touristy area with few regular customers, for example, the app may not be the best for you. After all, the main goal should be to deepen bonds with your customers and develop brand loyalty, which is extremely difficult to do over a short period of time. However, you can still utilize the app to communicate with customers and give them more information about your business. They may return to the area or recommend you to friends who visit in the future.

WhatsApp has been testing the framework for the business application with over 90 larger companies, including Uber, Singapore Airlines and Wish.

If you’re using WhatsApp for your business, please let us know what you think.

By Debbie Gregory.

Back in 2010, a company called Sonitus Technologies introduced a novel hearing aid called the SoundBite. The system consisted of a behind-the-ear microphone with a custom made clip for inside the mouth that sent tiny vibrations to the inner ear, which were then translated into sounds. Now the latest communication aid from the company has attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense, which has awarded Sonitus a roughly $10 million contract to develop a wireless two-way comms system that clips to a user’s back teeth.

Officially called the ATAC system but dubbed the Molar Mic, the small device clips to the user’s back teeth. The device is both microphone and speaker. Incoming sound is transmitted through the wearer’s bone matter in the jaw and skull to the auditory nerves; outgoing sound is sent to a radio transmitter on the neck, and sent to another radio unit that can be concealed on the operator. From there, the signal can be sent anywhere.

The mic removes the need for headsets and other equipment that could get fouled up, allowing users to continue communicating during dangerous or active situations, such as parachuting out of an airplane, working near noisy helicopters, swimming in open water, or during rescue missions or firefights. Because it is hidden in the mouth, it can also be used discreetly by security personnel or undercover agents.

“Essentially, what you are doing is receiving the same type of auditory information that you receive from your ear, except that you are using a new auditory pathway — through your tooth, through your cranial bones — to that auditory nerve,” said Peter Hadrovic, CEO of Molar Mic creator Sonitus Technologies. “You can hear through your head as if you were hearing through your ear,”

Communicating via the teeth takes a little getting used to, but your ability to understand conversations transmitted through bone improves with practice.

“Over the period of three weeks, your brain adapts and it enhances your ability to process the audio,” said Hadrovic. But even “out of the gate, you can understand it,” he said. (more below)

Sonitus says it will not begin work on commercial versions of the Molar Mic until it finishes it military contract, meaning it will be a few years before we get to listen accept calls directly through our skull bones.

By Debbie Gregory.

The Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis has parted ways with four podiatrists and a dermatologist for their part in a “channel stuffing” scheme.  Channel stuffing is a deceptive business practice that inflates a company’s sales and earnings figures by deliberately sending along its distribution channel more products than are needed.

While the VA proposed terminating all five,  each opted to resign or retire.

Marietta-based MiMedx,  a biopharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and markets regenerative biologics, has been accused of  lobbying friendly doctors and medical staffers at the Minneapolis VA to overstock and over-use products, thereby inflating revenue reports and driving up stocks.

This is not the first time MiMedx has found itself in hot water. In May, three South Carolina VA workers were indicted on federal health care fraud charges, accused of excessive use of MiMedx products on veterans after accepting gift cards, meals and other inducements from a company representative. Two of the three workers were also charged with accepting bribes.

In June, MiMedx announced that it will go back and revise more than five years of financial statements, but the company still remains under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This latest issue comes on the heels of a report issued by the Office of Inspector General that determined the mental health unit at the Minneapolis VA failed to follow VA policies before discharging an Iraq War veteran who committed suicide in the facility’s parking lot less than 24 hours later.

The veteran, who the IG didn’t identify, called the Veterans Crisis Line in February and told a crisis responder that he or she had suicidal thoughts and immediate access to guns. The veteran had just been kicked out of his or her home that day and was feeling overwhelmed and helpless, according to the IG report.  Later that day, the veteran went to the emergency department, where he or she was diagnosed with an adjustment disorder and an anxiety disorder. The veteran was then admitted to an inpatient mental health unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.

Three days after being admitted and prescribed antidepressants and sleep medication, the veteran was discharged at his or her request. The next day, police found the veteran dead in the parking lot.

You’re invited to listen to Debbie Gregory’s interview on Lt. Col. (Ret.) Denny Gillem’s radio show on Frontlines of Freedom Military Talk Radio at: https://bit.ly/2IdfoVE.

Frontlines of Freedom is designed to address and discuss the most pressing issues facing our armed forces, veterans and their families.

During the interview, Debbie touched on her family’s rich history of  service and her reasons for founding VAMBOA. Debbie also referenced her previous role as the CEO of MilitaryConnection.com, and the great number of non-profits we have been privileged to work with.

Debbie shared that she felt one of the  biggest take-aways from the Power Your Business Conference that VAMBOA produced in conjunction with Amgen was the information our members  received from the corporations present as to how to do business with them.

This year, one of Debbie’s goals is starting a veteran incubator to help veteran start-ups get their businesses off the ground, and take them to the next level. The great thing about an incubator is the collaborative environment that exists when people share ideas.

If you’re not already a member, you are invited to join the 7,200+ members nationwide. There is no fee to join.

Guests on Frontlines of Freedom include Cabinet members, generals, admirals, officers of all ranks, enlisted members, politicians, and of course, our very own Debbie Gregory.

By Debbie Gregory.

Congress was generous when it passed a spending bill that gave the military at minimum an additional $61 billion, boosting its overall budget to $700 billion this year.

For even the most serious of shopaholics, spending upwards of $300 billion in the final quarter of fiscal 2018 would be challenging. But spend it government agencies will, rather than giving the money back to the Treasury Department.

The spending spree must be completed by September 30th.  Through August, defense and civilian agencies obligated some $300 billion in contracts. But to spend all the money appropriated to them by Congress, they may have to obligate well over $200 billion more.

Predicting how much the government will spend on contracts is more or less an estimation, but no agency wants to have to return unused funds.

“As big as this year’s defense budget looks, it’s not enough to fix the problems,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry, who heads the House Armed Services Committee. “The first job of the federal government is to defend the country.”

More than 80 percent of the decision-makers surveyed by Government Business Council said they expected to spend their remaining budget dollars on existing contract vehicles.

“There’s one thing the Department of Defense is good at — it’s spending money quickly,” said Todd Harrison, who tracks military spending at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The most common near-term purchases reported by the surveyed decision-makers were professional services (34 percent), human capital products (29 percent), office management products (28 percent) and information technology (26 percent).

“We’re going to have to make a decision as a nation about our overall defense strategy and the role of our military,” said Harrison. “If you want to maintain the same level of involvement in the world, then you’re going to need to fund a larger military.