deal architect : Dilbert's favorite blogs?

deal architect : Dilbert's favorite blogs?

Cool list this! I agree!

PoughkeepsieJournal.com - Blogging is latest tool for IBM

PoughkeepsieJournal.com - Blogging is latest tool for IBM

Of special interest to me in this article are the following statements: :-)
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"For example, McDonald's hired iUpload to develop a blogging platform on its intranet as an avenue to exchange ideas. "Internal blogs are becoming knowledge repositories," Hopper said."

"For instance, Robert Scoble, who writes the "Scobleizer" blog for Microsoft, has mitigated some of the hatred directed at the software giant by talking candidly about the company's faults, Sifry said."

What about criticizing IBM? That's OK, too, Barger said.
He said the proof came just two weeks after the initiative started when an employee blasted the company's falling stock price and recent layoffs in her blog. The post received 1,200 views by noon. Instead of chastising the employee, Barger posted a comment on her blog that thanked her for her candor, acknowledged some of her points and challenged her logic where he felt it was flawed. "This is a new medium with new rules. A lot of folks aren't used to the idea of candor being OK," Barger said. "Now, we're saying it's OK to share your opinions." The employee gets heard, and the company also learns what people are thinking.
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Bottom Line? Methinks only mature organizations can take to blogging...!

As Complex As Life Can Get...

I am now reading a paper in which I do not know the meaning of almost every third word. The subject of the paper is in no way related to English literature and vocabulary, by the way. I wonder why some authors make it so difficult for people to understand them! Even simple words don’t guarantee a 100% transmission of the intentions and actual thoughts of the communicator and here are these authors who undoubtedly seem to be looking to reduce the average transmission levels by 100%. Do you see the influence? Whew! The truth is that I detest such papers. Storytelling, where art thou?  

China Inc; India Inc - The Largest Organizations on Earth...

An article that I read a few days ago triggered off the following thoughts - It goes without saying that large companies have their inevitable set of problems and challenges that accompany complexity. But the best part about such companies is that cruising through these complexities would be easily offset by focusing on the employees and leveraging on their intellectual resources. In fact, that’s the only way to cross those chasms of complexity. That’s why, I believe, Knowledge Management is critical. Without proper KM strategies and practices/systems, the complexities can only get worse. What’s more, even if the complexities are overcome by hook or crook (read short-term tactics), absence of KM thinking will mean that the organization will lose out on various potential opportunities for expanding business and becoming more efficient.

It is interesting to think that the whole business of outsourcing is perhaps a KM story for China Inc and India Inc are simply putting their vast intellectual resources pool to use and leveraging on it, contributing to global efficiency and effectiveness in the process. One conclusion that can be directly drawn from this example is that KM would be especially essential for large organizations….

Looking for God? He is everywhere!

I came across this last week and loved it.

 

Look behind and thank God!

Look forward and trust God!

Look around and serve God!

Look within and find God! :)

 

Anyone knows the source?

NHN: The Little Search Engine That Could

NHN: The Little Search Engine That Could

Why are people still talking only about China and India as the future superpowers? Korea's story is extremely inspiring to me....they are making themselves heard everywhere. Samsung, LG, Hyundai, NHN now....(Okay, Daewoo wasn't able to woo us at the end of the day...so what?)

WOOing the market is KEY for Wookey....! ;)

One man’s meat is another man’s poison? WOOing the market is KEY for Wookey....! ;)

'Poll' on Communication and Effective Learning

Dave (Pollard) concludes thus on the topic of The Economics of Communication and Effective Learning  (certain words/phrases/points coloured in blue by this blogger – me – to highlight points I agree with fervently)

1.       People like information conveyed through conversations and stories because the interactivity and detail gives them context, not just content, and does so economically.

2.       People hate talking heads, and are increasingly intolerant of them.

3.      People no longer have the opportunity for serendipitous learning and discovery -- everything they read and learn is narrow, focused, bounded, and the tools they are given in their reading and research reinforce this blinkered approach to learning. The consequence is the intellectual equivalent of not eating a balanced diet -- a malnourished mind.

4.       People do not know how to do research, or even search, effectively. They think these two things are the same, which they are not, and they have never been trained to do either properly. It's a good thing the search engines are so smart, because our use of them is mostly dumb.

5.      People search as a last resort. They prefer to ask a real person for what they want to learn or discover, because it's faster and the answer is more context-specific. And if there is a single good browsable resource on their subject of interest, readily at hand, and they have the time, they will usually prefer to browse that resource rather than looking at a bunch of disconnected, often irrelevant, search engine matches.

Tongue in Chick!

Saw this board put up outside a chicken shop that showed a grinning hen dressed in a chef’s attire (apron, hat, knife et al). What a tongue in cheek advertisement, I thought! It sort of troubled me, I must say.  (With due apologies for making this satirical remark myself, it occurred to me that it can perhaps be called a tongue in chick advertisement in this particular case!). While on this topic, I have a feeling (from what I see and hear these days) that many people are turning to vegetarianism and that’s great news according to me! :-)

The secrets of their success...

Found this in the Fast Company article “The secrets of their success – And yours” and liked it a lot.

Though my opinion of what success is and what its importance is has been shaped up quite a bit after reading Success Vs Joy, and I may not pay as much importance to it now as I did before, I pass on these nuggets as they nevertheless hold good whether you are pursuing success or not. Actually, come to think of it, the fact is that John Mackey and Warren Bennis may have said this in response to the question what is success? But these are, as far as I am concerned, related to joy. The truth perhaps is that the people who’re considered successful by society and have been able to sustain the perception for long are actually those who’ve focused somewhere else. On what gives them joy! Right, Sethi? :)

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Response from John Mackey, Founder and CEO, Whole Foods Market, Austin, Texas, www.wholefoods.com to the question, what is success? :

A few years ago someone asked me to write down what success meant to me and the principles I followed to achieve it. My answer then is still how I feel. Here's what I wrote:

-I create my own reality through my thoughts and emotions.
-I am never a victim of anyone else.
-I follow my heart in all circumstances.
-Life is an adventure. Seize the day!
-When confronted with alternatives I always choose the one that creates the most excitement within me.
-I do what I'm afraid to do until it doesn't scare me anymore.
-I would rather be happy than right.
-Love is the only reality. Everything else is merely a dream or illusion.
-Forgiveness is the key to healing all relationships, and leads to happiness.
-Always tell the truth.
-Giving and receiving are one and the same.
-I choose to be healthy.

Whole Foods Market (1996 revenues: $900 million) is the country's largest natural-foods grocer. It was founded in 1980 in Austin, Texas. It now has 74 stores in 17 states.

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Another section (in the same article) which resonates with me is this extract from Warren Bennis’s response to the same question - what is success?

1.       Do you know the difference between what you want and what you're good at?

2.       Do you know what drives you and what gives you satisfaction?

3.       Do you know what your values and priorities are, what your organization's values and priorities are, and can you identify the differences between the two?

4.       Having measured the differences between what you want and what you're able to do, between what drives you and what satisfies you, and between your values and those of your organization -- are you able to overcome those differences?

Businesses Must Learn to Let Go

Businesses Must Learn to Let Go

Every thought leader worth his/her word seems to be talking about flat worlds (TF), co-creation (CKP), collaboration across borders, X-Engineering (James Champy) and the like! So, is the world finally going to converge, collaborate and forget to be selfish and self-centered? Nah! I don't think so!!. But all this talking may make a dent somewhere if not change the shape of things to come! ;)

On Google's Heels...

Is Google Pack for the Enterprise? - Link

Extract: Joe Wilcox, a Microsoft analyst at Jupiter Research Inc., said the bundle is less about competing with Microsoft than driving search traffic. "Google has more important priorities than Microsoft, and [one of those] is getting more stickiness around its services," he said. "When you buy an operating system, you are invested in it, you return to it. There's stickiness. With a search engine, you're merely typing an address in a browser. By releasing stickier products and services—Picasa, G-Mail, Toolbar—they're creating stickiness [added] to the brand."

Methinks: Wouldn’t the current magnetism be better than glue (stickiness)? ;)

Not All Innovations Are Equal : HBS Working Knowledge

Not All Innovations Are Equal : HBS Working Knowledge

I'd imagine that the process revolutions and the service innovations can also be categorized as strategic revolutions if they result in a change of the business model. What?

Sounds like an interesting book to read...

Ain't it so?!

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it. - Benjamin Disraeli

More Paradox Thinking Examples...

Hey, isn’t the concept of organic farming also about paradox thinking?

Don’t spray fertilizers and chemicals to clean up the place. Instead, make the place dirty. Bring home the worms and the rodents.  Let the soil entertain all its regular guests. <Implied – They will clean up the place and we are, not to mention, saved from the side-effects of fertilizers/chemicals>

Hello!!

I’ve come across a few occasions involving lost mobiles – situations where mobiles have been left forgotten in public places like reception areas, cafeterias etc. On most of the occasions I was involved in people who found the mobile struggled to find out whose mobile it was. You can’t figure out the mobile number (Isn’t this strange? Are the Mobile manufacturers and service providers listening?) and neither can you find out the name of the owner of the mobile without getting in touch with at least one of the ‘contacts’ mentioned in the mobile! The most common act is to call one of the numbers in the Contacts List and ask the person called as to whose mobile he was receiving the call from. It goes without saying that it isn’t too easy to explain what has happened most of the time as the person being called is likely to immediately break into chitchat attributable to the relationship that the two parties being discussed share. I do have a roundabout way of dealing with this kind of a situation – I’ve got this entry in my mobile which says – This Phone # and also <My name> - Me. There are many other similar entries that one could include like:

 

µ       I, Me, Myself

µ       My Number

µ       This Phone #

µ       This Mobile

µ       <Your Name> - That’s Me

µ       My Residence

µ       Please call

 

If the person locating your phone cares to browse through the complete contacts list, she may end up figuring out your name and number (residence as well as the mobile itself). It may then be easier to get to you.

 

Any other method that you know of to return mobiles to their rightful owners?  Tring Tring.  

Project collaboration, management, and task software: Basecamp

Project collaboration, management, and task software: Basecamp

I think I may have come across this software earlier too. Recording it on my blog this time around. Seems to be simple to use and in the same category as Groove - project management collaboration....

�We must get more money into education�

�We must get more money into education�

Wonderful ideas on improving the education system in India from Mr.Premji...

Emergic: January 3, 2006 Archives

Good piece of advice if you are on the path to entrepreneurship...

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Emergic: January 3, 2006 Archives: "The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint
Guy Kawasaki writes:
a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. While I?m in the venture capital business, this rule is applicable for any presentation to reach agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc.
The ten topics that a venture capitalist cares about are:

1. Problem
2. Your solution
3. Business model
4. Underlying magic/technology
5. Marketing and sales
6. Competition
7. Team
8. Projections and milestones
9. Status and timeline
10. Summary and call to action

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When Inspiration Knocks...

Thus speaketh my soul:

If you’ve found what gives you real true everlasting joy, then forget everything else. Just follow your heart. Just immerse yourself in that one thing. Pursue that idea like it was your world. Be obsessed. Like it was the only thing. It will ‘succeed’. It will keep you alive. Truly alive, not just in plain existence. This extreme fixation will help you filter out the noise emanating from the external world – the world outside your passion – and concentrate on only those things that will help you build on your pursuit, on only those things that will aid you in your quest. Even the bare minimum necessities like food and water will fade into oblivion and cease to matter as much as it matters to a man without a passion in life. The only caveat being that the passion has to be ‘right’. It has to be built on strong values that do not interfere with nature. The passion cannot be one that causes harm to others. It has to be like the passion that Howard Roark had for architecture. The world may have made it difficult for him to live. But it did not affect him in anyway. And he did not let his passion affect anyone else in any negative manner. It was a natural passion that contributed to society and did not take away anything from it. Blessed is the man who finds his passion and then drowns in it without letting external factors distract him. The world would be a great place if everyone were to have a passion for life per se and a passion for a profession, both the passions built on strong values that celebrate the interdependencies of life and the need for mutual support (between man and man, man and nature, man and animal et al) for meaningful existence.

Whew! I couldn’t perhaps write like this everyday! So, you know there must be a reason (and inspiration) for me to have written this piece. I am coming fresh from the influence of a great book that I just finished. Success Vs Joy by Geet Sethi and Sunil Agarwal. I will write more about this book in the days to come. For now, I think it is a fantastic book that anyone who has an open mind should read. If you are not the materialistic types, you’ll most certainly enjoy the book. If you are one of the worldly types, but have an open mind, this book can change you (and your life). If you’re into sports, this book will move you as you’re most likely in love with sports for what it gives you in terms of joy rather than the by-products of money and fame that it brings along....

Selfishness?

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. - Oscar Wilde

Mmmmm!

Innovation is not something that was unfathomable till it arrived!

Indeed, the greatest praise an innovation can receive is for people to say, "This is obvious! Why didn't I think of it? It's so simple!" – Peter Drucker

Leaders, Managers, Opinions...

“Bad managers play checkers. Good managers play chess. The good manager knows that not all employees work the same way. They know if they are to achieve success, they must put their employees in a position where they will be able to use their strengths. Great managers know they don't have 10 salespeople working for them. They know they have 10 individuals working for them ....A great manager is brilliant at spotting the unique differences that separate each person and then capitalizing on them." - Marcus Buckingham Courtesy – Knowledge@Wharton Newsletter .

In the same Newsletter, Marcus talks about the need for leaders to be clear and optimistic above all. Leaders can be anything but can’t be unclear or pessimistic because they are meant to lead the populace into the future. Hmmm! I Agree!

Let there be light!

What a wonderful thought - I can't help but feel captivated by this statement….! Oooh la la!

"The temple may have been dark for a thousand years, the Hindu mystics say, but once the lamp is lit, every corner will be ablaze with light." - Eknath Easwaran

PS: I guess one also needs to do all that is required to protect the light – like prevent the wind of negative thinking from blowing away the flame.

Thought for the Day - EE

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran

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Reason is like an officer when the King appears.

The officer then loses his power and hides himself.

Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.

 - Jalaluddin Rumi

Thinking, however useful it may be at times, is not the highest human faculty; it is only a stage in development. If, for example, in the throes of evolution we had stopped with instinct, saying, "This is the highest possible mode of knowing," our human future would have been stunted: I would not be seated here writing these words, nor would you be reading them.

Like instinct, reason is only a way station. When friends and I go to Berkeley to see a play, we sometimes stop halfway along to stretch our legs. But we don't get so involved in stretching legs that we forget to go on to the theater. Thought is a useful but temporary stopping station; it should not be considered a permanent solution to the problems of living.  Just as we were able to rise above instinct and to develop reason, the mystics say we must one day pass beyond discursive thinking and enter into a higher mode of knowing.

The Buddha said that we cannot solve the problems of the mind with the mind. We cannot solve our problems by thinking about them, analyzing them, talking about them. In meditation, we often simply leave personal problems behind -- we move out of the neighborhood where they live.

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>From Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By" (Nilgiri Press, 1997) http://www.nilgiri.org/Html/Thoughts/today.html

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Makes one think, eh? But wait a second, isn’t that - Think - what we are not supposed to overdo!  :)