How to make a mess of your life

Three simple and easy steps to make a total mess of all things 

Repeat every day to stay in the cage of misery and clip your wings 

One:

Find two things to complain and rant about

Sometimes you could murmur, sometimes you could shout 

Two:

Find two topics and appropriate people to fight or argue with

Don't pause to think if you are pursuing the truth or chasing a myth

Three:

Find some faults in people or situations around you 

Elaborate and examine till the concerned blokes turn blue 

Tip:

Take as many of these aspects from the past as possible 

As the past guarantees you things that are no longer changeable 

Social Media

Disclaimer: Please ask your mobile service provider to activate your sense of humor before reading further.

Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, including you, except Yours Truly is merely and purely coincidental.

Selfies, sunsets, babies and cats

Some bouquets and a few brickbats

Like, comment or lazily lurk

Fool around, think a bit or just burp

Boast a bit or somewhat less or a lot

Declare whether life is cool or hot 

Birthdays, weddings, parties and all

Trips to everywhere, now on the wall

What was for lunch and what for dinner

Who is the saint and who the sinner

Sports, movies, politics and religion

What to embrace and what to shun

Obsess about an idea or a cause   

And garner some passing applause

Share nonsensical poetry 

Indulge in honest or random flattery 

Talk about this; talk about that

Go around in circles; say Howzzat 

Wonder what the heck is happening

And quit the whole damn thing 

Is your sense of humor intact? *Peace*

Please continue what you were doing.

To Believe or Not to Believe

Buddha is quoted thus: "Don't believe everything you read". Abraham Lincoln also apparently warned people to not believe everything on the Internet. I don't know; Lincoln was the one quoted in that poster I saw on the Internet. 

Logically speaking, how could we anyway believe everything we read? Just when you had permanently concluded that laughter is good for health, some researchers come out of their isolated offices and tell you that your organs might get ruptured or displaced if you laugh too much. 

Just when you were sure that deep introspection is what might make you a better human being, some psychologists warn you about the side effects of deep thinking. Who wants to be a better human being but, at the same time, slightly insane? (Makes you wonder how they arrived at such a conclusion without thinking too much). 

Not a single so-called Universal truth is left untouched or unchallenged. There are many ways to use rational thoughts to either construct or destroy the same case. People, meanwhile, simply choose what they want to believe and ignore everything else. 

What next? We must simply wait for Mark Twain to tell us (via the Internet, of course) to start believing everything we read. That way, we'll take ourselves less seriously and life will be a lot more fun. 

The Life of a Child

How to engage a guest at home - Tips from a three year old. Demonstrate your ability to recognize chess coins by their names and random alphabets in the newspaper. Serve imaginary coffee multiple times. Show where the juice is stored in the fridge. Suggest that the guest should drink water with a straw. Say bye when the guest gets up to leave and persevere until the guest disappears. 

Chase Cars or Cats?

When life puts you in a situation that makes you feel like a Dog chasing Cars on the road but you'd rather be a Dog that chases Cats, here are some of the things you could do to bark off the blues (in no particular order). 

Chase Cats when life is not looking *chuckle*

Look for Cars with Cats inside them *wink*

Hang out with a community of Dogs that tells you how nice it is to chase cars *make sure you put on a sober expression all the time*

Study, analyze, dissect and write a report on Cars and the differences between chasing a Honda vs Toyota vs Benz vs Ferrari etc *distribute it as a PDF* 

Discuss the ethical issues related to the chasing of Cats, with philosophical Dogs *make notes* 

(Screech. Stop. Run)

Merlin-Sid-Buck-Dory

This is the utterly butterly Friday of the Nonsense. Warning: If you don't watch animation movies or watch them but cannot relate to any of the characters therein, you may not understand a single word of this post and may also, as a bonus, face the risk of experiencing permanently temporary (or temporarily permanent in certain cases) insanity.

Imagine a character like Merlin the Magician (Shrek) who was fired from his school, who fumbles and blunders but says all sorts of profound things related to soul-searching, truth and introspection.

Now imagine how it would be for him to go on a vacation with the following characters.

The extremely lazy, ignorant but kind and lovable Sloth, Sid (Ice Age)

The flamboyant, brave, clever and crazy Weasel, Buckminister (Madagascar - Ice Age!)

The entertaining, forgetful, helpful and funny Fish, Dory (Finding Nemo)

Any idea how awesome that would be? Rocks you to the soles, uh? Why....even I would love to go on a vacation with these quirky and unique characters. Actually, I have a brilliant idea. An idea that normally strikes you only once in a life time. How would it be to make a movie with all these characters together....on a vacation? If you decide to make it, make sure you mention your source of inspiration. That's all. 

PS: I thought of Bugs Bunny as well, but, hey, he would steal the entire show and people would find it difficult to shift their attention to any of the other characters except perhaps Buck. 

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PS2: I made an unforgivable omission. I forgot to add King Julien to this list.

Lunatic, narcissistic, talkative and talented Lemur (Madagascar)

Cafeteria Hilaria

I rush off the Cafeteria as usual so I can avoid all the queues at the counters and crowds at the table and be quickly done with my share of carbohydrates and vegetables. 

I find five men standing near the cash counter in a haphazard manner. Not knowing whether it is meant to be a queue or one person paying for the remaining four people (who probably want to give him moral support while he pays for everyone), I patiently wait at the periphery of the, err, unusually shaped human formation. 

Finally, after a lot of careful mental calculations by the cashier and the customer(s), they collect their coupons and make their way to the Food counter and are joined by two other people who just emerge from somewhere.

I get my coupon and join the Food queue. It seems like these men are new to the Cafeteria going by their somewhat lost expressions and funny behavior in the queue. It takes quite a while for them to get their plates filled and I continue to wait while I attempt to clean my plate which looks like it is nearing the end of its association with mortals. 

Meanwhile, to my utter joy, I discover that three of the men have come out of the queue with their plates filled. But they realize that they have forgotten the spoons and need to disrupt the queue in order to get them.

They approach the spoons with outstretched hands and I take a step backward, impulsively, to give them enough space (the spoons are on my right). As I take a step backward, I discover that I have stepped on something soft. The lady who was standing behind me did not apparently feel the need to stand more than a few inches away. Unable to bear the pain, she gestures with her hands and hits me in the process. I apologize, the last man who came to pick up the spoon apologizes and the lady pretends to be fine. 

Google Images

I move on to get some food whilst shaking my stupid head and notice that the last person in front of me is almost done. Suddenly he starts gesturing wildly with his hands, in my direction - I am saved only by a narrow distance. He has apparently paid for another new entrant and wants him to come over to the Food counter. This new bloke who enters the scene comes rushing and gets in between me and the guy at the front and stretches out in various directions to get a plate and a bowl and starts demanding that he be served some food. I am surprised that he never thought about all of us already waiting in the queue but I decide it is OK as he might get lost in the Cafeteria otherwise. 

While I wait again for my turn, this guy gets his rice and then realizes he does not have a spoon. He quickly looks around, sees my plate and spoons next to his and picks up one of my spoons. I stare at him open-mouthed and then loudly declare "That's my spoon!". He hesitantly puts it back while avoiding looking at me. After a few seconds, I start laughing and feel embarrassed at the same time. I continue laughing for a while and then realize I need to say something to make the guy feel better. "Sorry, I did not mean to scare you, but I was a bit shocked". To which he says "I am new to this place...." 

I laugh all the way to the table, all the way through lunch and all the way back to my desk. Here I am now, ready to face the rest of the day. 

Bliss & Learning

I wonder if there is any other cartoonist on Earth who can say it so well. :-) Three cheers to short-term stupid self-interest. None of us need to be trained on that. 

The Nonsense of Laughter

Calvin and Hobbes - (C) by Bill Watterson 

There's something profound about this cartoon strip (like many others by the brilliant Watterson). 

Watterson on TV

C&H by Bill Watterson

Close on the heels of my previous post on Kids addicted to TV....

The KMix Program

I believe this post may liberate me from boredom for a while. There was a time when the highlight of a good week - for me - was likely to be the process of writing a creative/humorous/meaningful post. Now, one needs to be satisfied - more often - with a quick and witty observation or insight, shared in a jiffy, in the form of a tweet or a status update. Arguably, the process of blogging is a more mentally engaging and absorbing activity. What a to-be-recorded speech for a permanent audience demands of (and gives) you is different from what a quick remark in a largely informal setting does. However, the most dangerous addition to the former situation is, potentially, rambling. 


To get ahead with this post, it is not meant to be an accurate reflection of reality. You may or may not recognize these characters or may only be able to partly relate to them. This post is meant to provide more humorous relief than genuine insight. That said, by Toutatis, let me proceed. 


Look around in your organization or even your personal social circles. You may possibly find at least one of the characters described below, only their names are likely to be very different. You need to understand what roles they might play in your knowledge management program/strategy before the sky falls on your head. Let's call the program, you are in charge of, KMix as it rhymes with the characters' names and sounds harmonious etc. 


Asterix: A star hero(ine) who is both intelligent and action-oriented. A person who shares his knowledge on the go and inspires others to solve problems, accomplish things and stay active and alert in life and at work. But he also knows when he must keep his mouth shut. Your knowledge management program - KMix - must engage him at any cost. He is your program Salesman (Ref: Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point) in more ways than one. He needs a micro-blogging account if not anything else.



Obelix: A good-natured but ignorant bloke (or girl) who is happy following Asterix around and using his 'raw' skills when asked to. He can beat up the bugs and be the life and soul of a wild-boar party. He does not consume the magic potion of knowledge but is nevertheless an asset in certain situations. He may never understand the meaning of a knowledge management program (KMix, in this case) but he needs to be mentored by one of the Asterixes so his skills are leveraged upon. He needs to follow Asterix's tweets even if Getafix (coming later) does not allow him to consume any of his blog recipes. He may need a micro-blogging account to at least declare that he has spotted boars (opportunities) or Romans (competition) 

Getafix: The wise man (or woman) in the organization. A thought-leader who has plenty of important and magical recipes and is content sharing it with the action-men and women. He is a Maven (Ref: Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point). He likes to cook up reliable stuff that will help fix problems. He is the expert or adviser that your knowledge management program (KMix) must point to when there is a crisis or when your action-men and women need to get started. He is the person who is interested in discovering knowledge and putting multiple pieces of it together. Ignore him at your own peril. He needs to have his own blog of recipes and might also want to create demos, documents and presentations at times. 

Cacofonix: A lot of you would probably jump up and say you know this person really well and he sits right next to you. A man (or woman) who can't help sharing his, err, so-called wisdom. Someone you'd like to shut up every time he opens his mouth, which is quite often. He thinks he is great, but the problem is no one else does. The KMix program could do without him and his noisy ways. He, after all, adds to the information overload and forces you to focus on information filters as much as information fillers. His blog may have no use for feeds/email alerts and his tweets may be blocked by most colleagues. But remember to release him when you want to chase away annoying competitors.

Vitalstatix: The manager who may not necessarily fight battles himself (or herself) but is a powerful entity. He is the one who decides whether the battle should be fought or not, in the first place, and then puts people on the job. He, however, listens to Getafix and Asterix and considers their views before he decides what to do. He is a people connector (Ref: Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point) who knows everyone, can see the big picture and has a bird's eye-view of the situation. (He is carried around on a shield in the actual Asterix and Obelix stories.) He needs a social networking account and needs to be subscribed to important knowledge sources if not anything else. 

My version of KMix stops here even though I am tempted to include Dogmatix (as a character or subject matter expert who focuses on ethics, values and is the champion of the Organization's environmental initiatives etc) and UnHygienix (as perhaps a character who knows how to 'fish' for knowledge but does not know how to curate it and package it well so it can be consumed by others. What he needs is good training ;-) ) as additional examples but that would be taking it too far, uh? Woof. 


PS: All credit for this post goes to the authors of the Asterix and Obelix series (Goscinny and Uderzo). My version of these characters, for KMix, are nothing but simple extensions of the real characters. 

Hehehehee

If Calvin were a dog.....

Mud on your Nose

Google Images

Reading Peanuts reminds me of my first flappy-eared friend. He was phenomenally smart and perpetually hungry. We'd cleverly drop a biscuit into one of the dozen flower pots when he was sleeping or looking elsewhere and then shout 'FETCH!!' with a straight face.

He'd get up in a jiffy, his eyes popping out, and run over to the pots, sniffing hard. Every pot was sniffed from all directions, sending some hibernating lizards scooting all over the place in the process (the only thing I didn't like about our game). Our flappy-eared friend meanwhile would intensely focus on finding the biscuit and inevitably find it soon. He'd munch on it or rather gobble it down and look up to see if we would say 'Fetch' again. We'd giggle and guffaw. He probably imagined it was because we were proud he had found the biscuit. Little did the fella know it was because of all the wet mud smeared on his nose. (Evil us)

PS: Obviously, our game left us soon with half-broken flower pots much to the dismay of the elders of the house.

Peanuts by Charles Schultz - Google Images

"Like"

In the world of FB "Like"


Sulking Sunny hardly "Like"s anything.
Excited Emma "Like"s almost everything.
Manipulative Mohan has an ulterior motive for everything he "Like"s.
Tubelight Theresa wonders what she really "Like"s.
Clueless Chintu doesn't know there is a "Like" button
Random Ramu "Like"s things once in a while
Focused Frank is very particular about what he should "Like"
Exchange Easwaran's motto is "Like" for a "Like"
Profit Padma's motto is one "Like" one for many "Like"s
Opinionated Orlo looks for a "Hate this Like"
Confused Ciby "Like"s and then "UnLike"s and then "Like"s again
Statement Sindhu leaves a comment - "I like it" 
Shy Sambu does a mouse over "Like" but finally comes off without clicking it
Narcissist Natasha "Like"s her own status updates


Update: Changed some names....err...to maintain the male:female ratio. :-)
PS: This author does not intend to hurt or offend anyone with this analysis. Please take it with a pinch of salt and as a horrible example of the varieties of human behaviour. OK. Thanks. Bye.

Life Again

A couple of introspective moments:


Life has such an ironic sense of humor. It sometimes kills the usually sensitive and careful people for doing just one wrong thing or saying something inappropriate (during a rare or confused instance) but it may accept or become indifferent (immune) to people who do nothing but inappropriate things most of their lives. Ha ha. :-)

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It is howlarious and ridiculous how we interpret sorrow or drawbacks according to our convenience. Human behaviour is such a comic thing. Depending on whom the sorrow/drawback invades, we attribute it to radically different causes that our collective or individual mind/ego is satisfied with. It could be "something they deserve to get for their wrongs" or "a result of their/our past sins" or "just a part of life" or "the consequence of ill-wishes or jealousy of others" or "a required learning experience". We need to grow up. Big time. :-)

One of the Best

Awesome strip this. The concept, the pictures, the expressions and all that sort of thing. What would we do without C&H to cheer us up when everything else in life seems a bit - temporarily, given that we are all optimists in the long run - dismal? Uh?

Source: gocomics.com

Knowledge and Human Stupidity

I came across this article - The basic laws of human stupidity - many weeks ago via Twitter (apologies, but I forgot who had tweeted about it. I think it might have been @beastoftraal). It took me a while to find some time to read the entire article as it is a pretty longish one. But believe me, once I started reading it, I just couldn't stop till I was done. It engaged me as much as a ball of thread might engage a curious cat - the whole experience was playful, interesting and thought-provoking. It delighted me, excited me, made me think, reintroduced me to the element of fun in Economics, and had me grinning ear to ear for quite a while. The article has flavours of social economics, psychology, human behaviour and humor. Obviously, I also attempted to relate these laws to the field of knowledge management. More on that later ;-) 


I immediately wanted to share it on this blog but then I kept procrastinating on the pretext of writing something around it rather than just sharing the raw link (for which we anyway have Twitter and FB). But I think I overestimated my creative potential. The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that nothing I can ever say will add value to the brilliance, constructive sarcasm and the subtle joy that the article exudes. It is a perfect essay that leaves no point unexplored and, what's more, every bit of the exploration that the author -  Carlo M. Cipolla - engages in is a total delight to read and contemplate. Trying to interpret or comment on it would be like commenting on, say, the Himalayas. Not easy at all, uh? 


I've become as big a fan of Cipolla as of Wodehouse! :-) It's a pity Cipolla doesn't seem to have capitalized on his sense of humor and awesome thinking to write as many books or 'stories' as Plum did.

From the article link....

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I cannot, of course, avoid saying how I relate this to KM. No, you can't kill me! Shut your eyes if you don't want to read anything on KM. Here's the thing - I think knowledge management's objectives are (or should be) to get people to see the merit of remaining in or moving into the "intelligent" quadrant (you must read the article to understand what I mean) and looking for mutual benefits as both a taker and giver of knowledge.  I think it is a good example of the intention to exhibit human intelligence, as referred to in the article, because it is about yielding a gain to yourself while causing a gain to others as well and, as we know, KM revolves around the combination of sharing, learning and collaborating (working together to achieve something). 


At the risk of sounding somewhat obsessed, pursuing Knowledge Management in its truest sense, I believe, will put us all - in due course of time - in the I (Intelligent) block and help the organization and society as a whole (even though sometimes it may seem like we are in the Helpless block whenever we come across Bandits who only want to use our material but not share anything that they may have created or discovered). :-)

Conference Paradox

I've had a somewhat philosophical and broody - and inexplicably so - start to the day and it's not even the beginning of the work-week or something! :-) Half the week is yet to be covered. Not to forget, a weekend that one is typically forced to use in a constructive manner (which however rarely happens) is also waiting around the corner. Putting all these so-called 'troubles' aside, I'd like to rely on some craziness and humor to end the current state of affairs. ;-)


I had a sudden crazy thought yesterday as I pondered over a couple of recent conferences I participated in. I think one way to make conferences exciting and unusual (apart from having a smart plan/format, witty speakers, intriguing topics etc)  is to do something paradoxical. I haven't heard of this happening anywhere, so I am guessing it is a fresh idea (though it has been employed in a different form in other situations). Why not invite a good and unconventional speaker to present something totally against the topic - wait till I finish - something ridiculously and absurdly against the topic! 


I have a feeling this will not just be major fun but also provoke participants to actually think of some radical ideas as counter arguments. So, in the case of KM, for example, the presenter could say something like "KM makes absolutely no sense because in the long run we are all dead and the future generation will anyway find no use for the pathetic stuff we have learned!". 


Think about it.... ;-)

Big Mouth

This one makes me guffaw.

Source: gocomics.com

It's All in the Game

Google Images

Here's a sweet little anecdote worth sharing and all that. Last week, I was particularly bored and did not feel like doing anything much. So I decided to plop myself in front of my 5-month-old niece and discuss with her, among other things, the world and its apparent purpose. I started off by smiling and then laughing...in order to set the context, one might add. Obviously, as most small babies will, she smiled back at me and then laughed along with me. I lost track of what I set out to do and instead decided to respond to the situation and keep things going. What that means, by the way, is that I continued to laugh till I started to cough. She laughed along with me quite hysterically and then stopped laughing and gave me a puzzled look (when I coughed) as if accusing me of unfairly changing the rules of the game all of a sudden. Well, even small kids might misunderstand you, you know! ;-)