Apologies!

Dear Aa..ha! Friends, 


A thousand apologies. I just discovered that all comments left on this blog for the past few weeks (or perhaps even 1-2 months) had been pushed into the SPAM folder by default! I had complained to Blogspot (many weeks ago) that I was getting too many SPAM comments and it looks like they used the spam-stick a little too liberally and whacked away even the valid comments into the Trash folder. 


I am extremely happy that I have - at least now - been able to discover and recover most of your comments (I might have, however, possibly missed a few as there were 100s of other SPAM comments that I had to bulk-delete). 


Sorry. Sorry. S.o.r.r.y. :-S


I can only hope that this (the fact that your comments were not published) did not prevent you from leaving further comments. Next time you leave a comment, please leave another comment to let me know you left a valid comment prior to that. Err. Sorry, just a silly joke. 8-) But please do warn me (via email) that your comments are not getting published in case such an incident is repeated. Would appreciate that. What?


Regards
N

Copy Not Right

This brilliant person here wants intends to be a better human being just like yours truly but he apparently thinks copying someone else's blog title and description word to word will help him be a better person! :-) Sigh. If only Originality is not something I value, I'd have found it easier to forgive him. I am almost convinced that even his blog posts are not his own. Someone must tell him that this (people not trusting any of his work) is the consequence of copying....even if it's just one thing that he decides to copy. Grow up, my friend. You might sound a lot more impressive than I (or others) do if you look into your own head instead of others' blogs.

Aa..ha!'s Sixth Birthday....

Aa..ha! is celebrating her sixth birthday, friends! :-) 6 years of non-stop nonsense! I don't believe it. :-) Wonder how long this is going to last. Perhaps, God forbid, till I start feeling I have no more energy to learn or share. 


Ever since Twitter stormed the Web 2.0 world, people have almost stopped ranting and raving about blogs and blogging. But I believe there are some of us who couldn't stop blogging come what may, though the frequency of blog posts may decrease based on the blogger's addiction to Twitter-based sharing and learning. 

Coming back to the earth-shattering topic of my blog's sixth year in blogosphere, on this totally meaningless occasion, I'd like to share something charming and musical to make up for all the babbling in the past. 


1) A song that I rediscovered and have been humming for many weeks now (and which I recently learned to play on the Guitar as well)

	Pukarta Chala Hoon Mein .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Song: Hindi Film Music. Music by O.P. Nayyar and sung by Mohammad Rafi 


Here's a scary proposition if you've not already got the shivers thinking about the long life of this blog. I think I should try and play a couple of good songs on the Guitar, record them using my clumsy tools and share them here when I feel murderous enough. Heh Heh.


It would be very uncharacteristic of me if I don't wind up this post with some introspective notes. Blogging has brought me enormous amount of knowledge, some brilliant and wise friends, a little bit of fame and plenty of happiness and satisfaction. :-) Three cheers to blogging!

Growth....Recession

Two lovely posts by Matt. Both of which revolve around aspects that I myself have pondered over and 'am therefore able to relate to very well. Especially like the way Matt ends the first post (is there a way out?). And the second post - particularly the graph - reminds me of my own ramblings, on rules and rebels, here. Incidentally, I just realized, that these two posts are about opposing situations...one about the pursuit of growth and the other about recession/undesired change.

Aa..ha! is 5 Years Old!

Whoo! Hey! Ha! Ho! Yippee! And so on!

Wish Aa..ha! a very happy birthday, folks! She’s been around for 5 years now. This blog is no longer a toddler, you might say! ;-) It’s a wonder no one has ever complained and somehow let this blog be for 5 whole years! H’mm. Miracles do happen, like I’ve always believed. I wasn’t really keeping a tab on my blog’s birthday but it just struck me now…all of a sudden and out of the blue or whatever. So, what have I to say on this inconsequential occasion? I’ll share something I was musing about this morning, not that you’ll stand up and take notice, bow and bless my blog.

What I thought of inspires me and the kind soul that I am, I wish to infect you folks as well. So, get ready then. Straighten your back and focus.

We must do whatever we do with sincerity, passion & patience* or not do it at all. [*I suspect am convinced that we are all being gradually rapidly consumed by the need for speed]

Tada! :-) Should I say anything else? Feeling like a 5-year-old myself. Seem to have forgotten how to talk/write. What a nincompoop of a post this one has turned out to be! Anyway, I know I am likely to be forgiven for it is my blog-birthday! Move on and hope for the best. I may speak some sense when I come back to write the next post!

Grattitude...(Gratitude + Attitude)

Thanks to R.K for this sweet little award! [Sorry for the delay in putting up this post, RK! I needed some time to nominate others for this award!] Irrespective of how much of an introvert one happens to be, it is always deeply satisfying when one is recognized and acknowledged - in this case, because of one's writings. This award is supposed to be for blogs that show great Attitude or Gratitude or both....! And here are my nominations and they are in no particular order! :-) But, unfortunately, many of the folks in this list don't blog too often :-(

• Prashant (Full of gratitude....and noble ideas and thoughts!)
• Rakesh (He's got a mind of his own. That means an attitude of sorts)
• Asal Tamizh Penn (What a typical South-Indian attitude!)
• The Director's Blog (Attitude, I say)
• Krish (Epitome of Attitude)
• Bengalooru Banter (Attitude, Attitude, Attitude...Think Local, Act Global)
• Sarita (A friend with a unique attitude towards life)
• Lakshmi (Gratitude for life...nature)
• Global-Thought (Immense gratitude for life and the capacity to inspire anyone who drops in!)

Thanks once again for the award, RK! :-)

Weekly Updates as Blog Posts....

Why would it to be good for organizations to make use of blogs as a substitute for weekly reports and updates? Imagine how much of a difference it would make:

1. Search would be possible (No need to look through email folders and worry about misplaced emails or lost emails)
2. Tags would make it easier for people to locate updates related to a particular activity
3. When the employee or her manager leaves, the new person who takes over will have a wonderful record of the project's history and milestones/challenges etc!
4. Would be easy to invite third parties to take a look at project progress when the need arises

Umm. Er. Well. Huh...

Umm. If you've been wondering.....yes, I am alive. But ain't really kicking. Rarely have I been away from blogging for such a long time (2 weeks is a long time given my erstwhile blogging frequency) while still leading a routine life.....Makes me wonder how I survived without imagining that I must be dead, before blogspot happened to me. Patience. Let me explain what I mean by that baffling statement. Because Blogspot tends to bluntly 'tell' me whether I am thinking or not. And to not think - about something profound, creative, worthwhile - for too long a time is suffocating. Don't get me wrong. Silencing the mind is a great thing. But if I am not thinking about something 'important' for, say, more than a week...I almost feel like a log of wood (aka dead). To think but not be able to express the thoughts is a different feeling. To stop blogging is almost equivalent to have stopped thinking, at times!

Been busy with some official procedures, but that shouldn't be stopping me from thinking/writing, however stupid an exercise form-filling happens to be. Sample this...I had to make a card for a friend who celebrated her birthday recently and something tells me what I came up with is the stupidest card ever designed by any human on earth. If you're thinking that the financial crisis may have something to do with it, you're not right. I don't work with any of the financial majors. I guess I just have to wait for this phase to go away...or even better....see it as something that will save my blog-readers from the agony of reading my posts. The thing that makes me somewhat happy though is that I recently managed to get my brain active enough to write a strong letter on behalf of a friend's friend who is waiting to get back some money that she was cheated of. Apparently, the letter made a difference and the organization that cheated her has woken up and is talking to her to understand what exactly can be done to recover from the situation...though there is no guarantee that she will get the money back as yet.

What all this means, anyway, is that I am hungry. Extremely. Looking for some food....for thought. Almost starving, actually. And, please, I am not looking for "fast" food. Note to self: You should probably try and take some time off and finish the book that you started reading a couple of weeks back - Presence. Will surely make your brain feel better.

I did catch up with my blog-feeds after a week's gap...to look for something that would bring some life back into me. I found three posts that changed my mood. Here they are, in the order in which I found them.

- This one made me guffaw
- This one made me stop, think and wonder about life
- This one made me introspect on my own tendencies (on prescriptive thinking)

See What I Found... :-)

I loved reading this post! Maybe because I have a thing for enthusiasm and expertise (knowledge) :-)
It also led me to another wonderful post on passion, on the same blog. And do follow these posts to catch up with amazing blog conversations, from some really thoughtful (and passionate) people!!

==========================
I left some excited comments and thought I'd reproduce one of them here...for it provided me with a wonderful opportunity to reconsider and collate many of my previous musings on the topic of competition and passion.

Sukumar,

Brilliant post and, once again, brilliant conversation as well! It feels so good to see your posts provoking such introspective and genuine conversations. :) Here are some additions to this wonderful conversation.

- I suggest that all the people who are passionate about passion and success read the book Success Vs Joy by Geeth Sethi. It is simply awesome. Check out some of my comments on the book here

- And check out some of the things I discovered and wrote about with re. to competition

here

here

here - (Even I believe Google is what it is more because of its own passion rather than an intention to do better than others)

here

and here

and here as well


- Finally, I shall play my own devil's advocate - Gary Kasparov says he is what he is because of Karpov! See this. (Sigh....you can't expect simple and unilateral solutions to life's complexities!)

Waiting to see more such conversations on topics close to my heart! :-)
Nimmy

Social Media in Business

This is a brilliant all-in-one list of how organizations are making use of Social Media (Blogs, Wikis, Microblogs, Communities: discussion boards, networks, second life, Video, Podcasts, Photos, Mashups, Voting, Crowdsourcing, Meetup, Bookmarking, Widgets). The most popular, not surprisingly, seem to be Blogs, Microblogs and Communities. Goes a long way to show how social media can change the face of business. Be it communication, branding, interaction, feedback, innovation et al. I am ready to bet my last rupee that these things are and will continue to be brilliant for businesses (and non-profit), really. But only if the entity under question is so passionate and innovative that it stands out of the crowd and knows exactly what it wants out of the web 2.0 paradigm. It cannot be there to just join the bandwagon. There is so much information out there in the WWW that it will turn out to be nothing more than a sticky and horrifying mess of posts, tweets, questions, discussions, forums, files and utilities if there is no method to the madness. (What a paradox, eh? Leveraging on crowd power is by the show of leadership and highlighting differences from the rest of the corporate crowd!).

Hat-tip: Thanks to Dina for her tweet pointing to this list! :-)

Digital Grapevine

Here comes micro-Blogging within the enterprise.

PS: And I'd said....

Tag!

Update: I think I have not done justice to this tag and post. I realize that my language is almost indifferent and somewhat crazy. I had absolutely no intentions to hurt the person who so kindly passed this tag to me and also appreciated my blog! God! And I took up the post like as if it is a burden! Thanks to the foul mood I was in at the time of writing this post. It seriously has nothing to do with my not wanting to take this tag or pass it on! I was too disturbed to write like my usual self and I guess I did not have the mental strength to spend time on passing on the tag and awards to selected people because of my state of mind. Shame on me! And apologies to all those who felt they were wasting their time on a neutral post. S-O-R-R-Y! :( And if you decide to pick up this tag and pass it on, please do so and let me know. You can make amends for my crazy state of mind and general blogging lethargy! Thanks in advance!

==========================================================

I've been tagged (and given an award as well)....and after a really loooooong time. There was a time when I found tags coming to me somewhat frequently but then, later, the traffic died down. Since then, I've wished for tags to come my way especially when subjected to extreme blogging boredom. This isn't really such an occasion but I, nevertheless, would love to take this tag and pass it on. The tag comes from here. Thank you, Prashant! So, here goes....

1. Print screen your desktop, post the image here and write a story on it.
2. Give away some Blogging Friends Forever awards
3. Give away some Brilliant Weblog awards



Here's what my desktop looks like - for the past one week or so! I actually had a cute little pic of Calvin and Hobbes till last week. But, having recently celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi and feasted on lots of sweets and snacks prepared for the one and only Elephant God, I replaced the C&H pic with one of my favourite pics of the former, on an impulse. I love this pic of Ganesha. He looks fresh, charming, colourful and creative - made out of beautiful flowers and the special 'Ganesha grass'. Apart from the pic, if there's anything else I must say about my desktop, I like it to be as 'empty' as possible. The fewer the icons, the better. Love to have all my shortcuts on the thin bar on the right hand side. Can't manage without a few desktop Post Its. And I rarely keep the same pic for more than a month. I like variety...in life as well as on my desktop.

The Blogging Friends Forever Award: If you're reading this, then it's yours. Simple. :-) (Psst: I don't intend to rely on my memory to list down all the people I have met in Blogosphere. Remember, I've been blogging for more than 4 years now)

The Brilliant Weblog Award: I think I've already mentioned most of the blogs that I like to read in many of my previous posts and via my Blogroll. I believe that there are plenty of blogs that make for brilliant reading. I have no inclination to repeat my previous posts or for that matter list down just a handful of blogs here. I sincerely think we all have flashes of brilliance now and then....so most blogs will qualify for this award. I am in a generous mood today! (Did I hear you say "Generous or Lazy?!" ;P) No....really! I think there are too many brilliant blogs for me to be able to list them here. But if you insist, I think I'll give it to one top-of-the-mind blog now - The truly brilliant Eknath Easwaran. He is no more...but his thoughts are eternal. He has the capacity to weave wonderful stories around profound thoughts. I find his writings to be unique in the sense that they are very simple and yet extremely compelling.


PS: I pass on the tag to anyone who is reading this and feels like spending some time on it. :-)

Blogs Again....

After I posted links to a couple of cool and popular blogs I discovered in the recent past, I realized that there are a few more blogs that I'd found to very impressive in the more distant past but had forgotten to mention here. I must spread the word about them as well... :-) Here goes....

(Note: There is one common element amongst all these bloggers - They were the ones to discover my blog and comment on it as a consequence of which I discovered their writings!)

Carnal Zen (CZ writes soooo well. And, btw, I love the tagline on her blog. She is very introspective about life and love among other things. In my opinion, she belongs to the category of bloggers that are liked for being genuine and honest. She has left many a comment on my blog that has helped me add to my thoughts)

Cool Alien from Mars (Has a cool writing style.....he muses about a variety of things...actually just about anything....but I guess the highlights of his blog, to me, are his compassionate stories and "out-of-the-world" poems ;-))

Medhini (She is a wonderful storyteller! Specializes in short stories and contributes to many a group-blog focusing on them. She also reproduces some famous short stories once in a while. Read this thoughtful story of hers. And I love this one off introspective post)

Circle of Life (Rakesh. Introspective. Poetic. Passionate. To start with, I found this poem to be stunning and extremely moving.)

And, finally, it is going to be difficult for me to forgive myself for missing out on mentioning this blog earlier. For some strange reason, I seem to have st(r)ayed away from a specific post to spread the word (literally, because you are bound to discover all the beautiful words that exist in the dictionary, on his blog)......Anyways, better late than never. I've been reading this blogger's - Alok's - brilliant poems for perhaps more than a year now! His poems are extremely passionate, introspective, and extraordinary. He can get England down on its knees with his language and poetic skills. Alok has a huge fan following and can, honestly, be difficult to comprehend for the average literate like me ;-) Hee Hee. His middle name ought to be Wordsworth for both his poetic skills and his mind-boggling vocabulary. Be sure to drop in if you have a sophisticated taste for poetry (He used to be a frequent commentator on my blog but, unfortunately, seems to have gone into hibernation - from blogosphere - for the past two odd months.)

Discovered in Blogosphere.....

New discoveries in Blogosphere. Blogs I have become quite a big fan of.

Here's a girl who writes quite like RK.Narayan. The language, humour, and the narration. Typical Indian writing as many of us know it; Completely Desi with a South Indian flavour. She happens to be a journalist based out of Chennai. No idea what her real name is. She calls herself Asal Tamil Penn (ATP - Typical Tamil Girl) on her blog. Her real-life stories are guaranteed to make you laugh and chuckle......and sometimes guffaw.

Check out her latest post. Chuckle! :-) (BUT....there are a few sprinklings of Tamil words here and there. So, if you don't understand Tamil, you may not be able to savor her posts in the sense that they are intended to be. Try some and decide for yourself)

Here's another girl who has a wonderful way with words. She is undoubtedly a talented and intense writer.

Check out this little but profound post of hers. I love it and it is on the lines of a poem that always has a huge impact on me - Kipling's IF. And check this post too. And this one as well.... :-)

Gift of Thought

Aaahhh. August 4th was my 'happy birthday'. So what? I did not honestly plan to announce my birthday on this blog though I did tweet about it at the end of the day. (A good example of something that is tweet material but not blog material). But there's something that makes me blog about it now. If there's something I think I don't have to be humble about, then it's probably the friends I have. There is a hidden sense of pride when one shows off one's friends, I guess. But I'd like to ignore that thought for now. ;-) So, here's the story...!

A close friend gifts a fantastic book. I read the book. I love it. So, I blog about it. (here's the first post) The author of the book stumbles upon the post. (Thanks to Google) He contacts me. (Long live the Internet and Web 2.0). I am, of course, overwhelmed by the down-to-earth attitude of such a thought-leader! Email exchanges happen on a regular basis. He even keeps an eye on my blog and sends me thought-provoking messages whenever he feels like saying something in response to my musings. After some months, to my utter joy, I discover that he himself has started to leverage on blogging to spread his brilliant thoughts and perspectives (in short installments, outside of the book). And, well, here's what I am coming to........this year, he writes a beautiful post on the theme of unity in diversity on the occasion of my birthday and dedicates (gasp!) it to me!

What a thoughtful gift (in more than one sense of the word)! I am, needless to say, touched! And I am writing this post because I want to spread the message further. Not because a great human being like Zeph has dedicated such a nice post to me (yippee...that's for my own celebration!!) but because the message(s) it contains is meant to be spread. :-)

Politics: Lesson #1

Methinks, knowing how to handle politics is akin to and, quite a few times, a matter of knowing how to handle pressure. Those who resort to politics (read selfish motives) and manipulate the system and other people to suit their whims are people who will, more often than not, do it by putting pressure on the targeted entity. So, it is the subject's ability to not give into pressure or know how to ignore or deal with pressure amicably and smartly, that will determine how successful she is in avoiding the unwanted consequences.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What? I guess the posts I am coming up with these days are all somewhat philosophical or the types that attempt to teach problem-solving to the people who are less practical and more idealistic. Thinking it's time to move to more KM posts and perhaps some funny/humorous ones.......but it really depends on what's happening to me or around me. ;-) Gives me another opportunity to analyze types of bloggers....

- Those who blog what they're learning, reading, thinking, observing, experiencing....
- Those who more or less stick to the above style but restrict themselves to just one topic and keep out the rest of their lives from the blog...
- Those who blog but in a very non-personal way....it's not about their thoughts and perceptions and learnings but just links to information and what is happening in the world outside - general sharing is the primary motive
- Those who blog mostly so they can converse with others rather than make it a one-way sharing process....they probably have short posts that always end with provoking questions and they don't reveal too much of what's on their own minds

Ok. I am going to stop thinking now and let you add to the list if you feel like. :-)

KM is a Good Course!! Of Course!!

Check this out. (Grin!! :-)) There was a time (3-4 years back) when I used to get quite excited whenever I came across students who took up KM as a course in college or for that matter students who were looking for KM careers and projects. (Not that I don't get excited now....but now, it's become more common and somewhat better understood as a subject) If they ever made the mistake of asking me what I thought about the scope and future of KM and some other questions about how interesting it is likely to be etc, they would never hear the last of it. Subsequently, depending on how much they lent themselves to influence and enthusiasm, they'd either go back in a trance or look me up and down and wonder whether I was joking or really serious. Aw! There I go again....let me not distract you from looking up the link...I am sure it will make you smile. :)

Freedom's Way....

Approximately three years ago, one of my close friends impulsively gifted me a book that she noticed I was intrigued by when we both visited a nice and cute little book shop in Bangalore. As was our regular practice ,we were smiling and grinning at the books around us and rejoicing in the inimitable environment of a book shop, when I walked up to the 'Spirituality and Self-Help' shelf and casually picked up the book I am referring to. As I flipped through the pages, it quite gripped me and I found myself getting excited and inspired by what I was reading. That was when my friend observed my expressions and interest and decided to be an angel - even before I got out of the reading mode and began to think about buying the book, she declared that she'd be gifting it to me!! :-)

The story then moves on to what happened after I read the book. Here are three posts that I wrote about the book/as a consequence of reading the book - one, two, three. I consider the first post to be the closest one, so far, to enlightenment for an ordinary mortal like me. It was definitely inspired by the book apart from a few other things that I was going through at the time of writing the post. A few weeks after I'd written these posts, the author, Zeph discovered them and got in touch with me and we had a few conversations via Email. I was obviously excited about the whole thing and was quite surprised and impressed to see how down-to-earth Zeph was! We continued the online friendship with occasional exchange of mails and sometimes a flurry of mails wherein I posed some of the questions to which I needed some enlightened answers! :-) Needless to say, Zeph may be quite young but he is full of wisdom and is inspired by Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi among others. He has a strong connection with India and its values.....

I recently heard from him again and 'am delighted by what I heard. I am writing this post to tell those of you who would like to discover his wisdom and learn from it that he is now blogging! :-) Check it out here! For starters, don't miss this post...which I found to be very appealing! Zeph has a website as well, in case you want to know more about his wonderful work! Three cheers to blogs, for blogging is most certainly proving to be a wonderful platform and tool to even share such rare wisdom!! :-)

Be Yourself

"Be who you are and say what you feel because people who mind don't matter and people who matter don't mind."- Zenyasi

Apart from this being sound advice for life in general, it also sounds like great advice on blogging to me. What? :-)

Nonsense - The Nerve!

It's been a while since I wrote something worthwhile. The creative (and intellectual?) juices haven't really been flowing. Or maybe I am so preoccupied with a changing life (as a consequence of a change of job....resulting in change of lifestyle....environment....friends....colleagues....processes....challenges.....and almost everything) that I haven't been in my usual form in terms of "writing". Surprisingly enough, I haven't been so very worried about lack of awesome content on my blog of late. After all, not everyone can generate good quality - conceptual or intellectually stimulating - stuff everyday. And I, honestly, feel good to think that I don't necessarily have to live to meet someone or the other's expectation everyday. But I know it won't be long before it starts to get to me and I start thinking that it is my responsibility to say something worthwhile on my blog...something that will be of use to someone or the other. And I also know life will anyway throw something intellectually stimulating - from the perspective of blogging - my way sometime or the other to meet my needs. God. Wait. Hold on. I just realized how much I am rambling out here!! I guess I have this need to ramble something nonsensical if I happen to reach a stage where I feel I have been deprived of intellectual content in life for too long a time. Get the crazy point? Actually, I do have something good to chew on at work but that's, unfortunately, not blog material....at least not as yet. So, I (and you, if you've not given up as yet) will have to wait.

I find it perfectly fine to indulge in nonsensical (goofy and illogical if you want me to be specific) thinking when I am running short of intellectual stimulation. Maybe the corresponding nerves believe in operating in a mutually exclusive manner or maybe there's a hidden connection that we can't see. (Caveat: May not be valid for your brain. Maybe you don't have a 'Nonsense Nerve' at all in the first place). So, okay, where was I? Ya....nonsense......here's something on those lines for your consumption...I cooked up something while complaining to a friend who is far away from the country. If you're angry with someone that you can't physically hit...all you do is put the person's photo on your desktop and drag and drop the Recycle Bin on the person's head when the RB is full of junk. She did not respond....probably because she was too stunned by the ingenuity of the idea.

PS: If you want to be saved from such posts, I have a suggestion - you can pose a nice thoughtful question on Life/Spirituality/KM/Creativity/Innovation/Change Management which I will take a stab at....if I think I have the necessary 'material' to consider the question.... :-)