Siddhartha

I read the insightful story (fictional) of a man who lived during the Buddha's time and dared to go in search of life, wisdom and purpose on his own despite meeting the Buddha. It is the story of a man who walks his own path to enlightenment. The author of the story does a compelling job of conveying his own insights about life through the man's story. The man is named after the Buddha, as Siddhartha. The book is also called 'Siddhartha' and the author is Hermann Hesse. Now, you know.  

Source: Wikipedia

1) Siddhartha learns his own lessons by doing things in his own unique way and not by following anyone else's teachings or thoughts


2)He realizes that someone who is obsessed with the act of searching for something may actually not find what he is looking for because he may be so lost in the search itself that he cannot see what is in front of him (he misses the thing that he is looking for even when it is in front of him because he is still looking!) > This one is profound! 


3)He concludes that wisdom cannot be shared. Only knowledge can be shared.  


4)Only towards the end of his life does he understand the bliss of flowing along with life, like a river. He understands that he must be a part of everything that life brings to him. He must be the same through ups and downs, and twists and turns though there may be no such thing as good or bad. He sees that the river is what it is throughout its course irrespective of obstacles. It gets past rocks because of its flexibility and acceptance. 


5)He also learns from the river that listening is one of the most essential skills for leading a blissful life, because listening means learning


6)He realizes that life allowed him to learn things on his own and he had to accept that for his son as well. The special lesson for parents is that they cannot and should not try to control or determine their children's destinies. Every child will have to chart his or her own path and should be allowed to experience his/her destiny without unwarranted interruptions


7)An almost direct recommendation that the author makes is that of the "Om" meditation. During many instances in the story, Siddhartha recovers from inappropriate moments including a suicidal one by repeating the term "Om" until he magically begins to see the 'light'

The SN Story

PeopleBrowsr Presents A Brief Cartoon History of Social Networking 1930-2011

View more presentations from PeopleBrowsr

Cute representation of the social networking story! The world is definitely changing.

The Passion Thread

If there is no passion, there is no ownership.
If there is no ownership, there is no long-term thinking.
If there is no long-term thinking, there is no persistence.
If there is no persistence, there is no achievement.
Constant: Values, Intentions.

The Creative Personality

• The Creative Personality: Ten paradoxical traits
  
  
  10 paradoxical traits of the creative personality http://bit.ly/gXoGGw  by the Creativity Genius - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi  via @gautamghosh
  
  
  
• Extracts:
  • Of all human activities, creativity comes closest to providing thefulfillment we all hope to get in our lives. Call it full-blast living.

    
    
  • Despite the carefree air that many creative people affect, most of themwork late into the night and persist when less driven individuals wouldnot.

    
    
  • Creativeindividuals, on the other hand, seem to exhibit both traits simultaneously. (Extrovertedness and Introvertedness)
    

    
    
  • When tests of masculinity/femininity are given to young people, over andover one finds that creative and talented girls are more dominant andtough than other girls, and creative boys are more sensitive and lessaggressive than their male peers.

    
    
  • Inventors have a low threshold ofpain. Things bother them

    
    
  • Perhaps the most difficult thing for creative individuals to bear isthe sense of loss and emptiness they experience when, for some reason,they cannot work. This is especially painful when a person feels his orher creativity drying out.
    
    Yet when a person is working in the area of his of her expertise,worries and cares fall away, replaced by a sense of bliss.

    
    
  • Perhapsthe most important quality, the one that is most consistently presentin all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process ofcreation for its own sake.

Criteria for your idea

This is a great post on finding out if your idea will make it to the league of FB, Twitter etc.

Quotes:

Innovate on Purpose: Criteria for your idea

• Does it solve a problem that is relevant and important to a customer? 
• Does it cut costs, remove a significant barrier or create a significantly different capability? 
• Will the idea be easy to adopt for the target customer, with low switching costs? 
• Is the offer and benefit easy to understand, and easy to communicate? 
• Is your idea protectable or defensible?  Is there any intellectual property? 
• Do you have concepts beyond product innovation?  Can you extend your idea to service innovation, business model innovation or customer experience? 
• Can you offer your idea at a price point where you make money? 
• Can you scale your concept quickly? (Comment from me: Imagine the ecosystems that FB, Twitter and iPhone have created!)

Squeal!

From here via @sauravj - A special Penguin! :-)

Source of Pic: Provided in the link above

Libraries and KM

Some quick and immediate thoughts:

1. There is no substitute for a good - real, physical - library. Despite the Kindles and PDFs

2. Library professionals ought to adopt the latest technologies to make it easy for people to browse through catalogs and reading lists from their desktops. Sites like LibraryThing and Safari are good examples for sharing one's virtual bookshelf. This could be a part of the KM system

3. e-Formats of books are essential in certain situations and cannot be avoided

4. Library activities should be extended to allow people to have conversations, collaborate and engage in group-reading or thinking

5. With the onslaught of e-readers, I am not able to predict the impact it will have on physical libraries a decade from now. Environmental preservation may lead to people being encouraged to read books online rather than depend on print. 

The Science of Making Decisions - Newsweek

Quotes:

The Science of Making Decisions - Newsweek

• If emotions are shut out of the decision-making process, we're likely to overthink a decision, and that has been shown to produce worse outcomes on even the simplest tasks.
• trying to drink from a firehose of information has harmful cognitive effects. And nowhere are those effects clearer, and more worrying, than in our ability to make smart, creative, successful decisions.
• Creative decisions are more likely to bubble up from a brain that applies unconscious thought to a problem, rather than going at it in a full-frontal, analytical assault
• If you let things come at you all the time, you can't use additional information to make a creative leap or a wise judgment," says Cantor. "You need to pull back from the constant influx and take a break
• In contrast, a constant focus on the new makes it harder for information to percolate just below conscious awareness, where it can combine in ways that spark smart decisions.
• There is a powerful 'recency' effect in decision making. We pay a lot of attention to the most recent information, discounting what came earlier."
• We're fooled by immediacy and quantity and think it's quality
• The Art of Choosing
• It isn't only the quantity of information that knocks the brain for a loop; it's the rate. The ceaseless influx trains us to respond instantly, sacrificing accuracy and thoughtfulness to the false god of immediacy.
  • Whoa! Think! 
• First, when people see that there is a lot of complex information relevant to a decision, "they default to the conscious system,"
• Even experts become anxious and mentally exhausted. In fact, the more information they try to absorb, the fewer of the desired items they get and the more they overpay or make critical errors.
• Maybe you were this close to choosing a college, when suddenly older friends swamped your inbox with all the reasons to go somewhere else—which made you completely forget why you'd chosen the other school. 

• Experts advise dealing with emails and texts in batches, rather than in real time; that should let your unconscious decision-making system kick in. Avoid the trap of thinking that a decision requiring you to assess a lot of complex information is best made methodically and consciously; you will do better, and regret less, if you let your unconscious turn it over by removing yourself from the info influx. Set priorities: if a choice turns on only a few criteria, focus consciously on those. Some people are better than others at ignoring extra information. These "sufficers" are able to say enough: they channel-surf until they find an acceptable show and then stop, whereas "maximizers" never stop surfing, devouring information, and so struggle to make a decision and move on. 

Temples

The debate on the differences between Religion and Spirituality is an old one and perhaps one that does not actually satisfy either - debating - parties completely.  


Nevertheless, here is what occurred to me.


Religion is keeping track of the number (and type/popularity/specialty) of temples one visits. Spirituality is not having to keep track of the number of times one drives others to the temple (looking for peace of mind, that is). ;-) 

The Relationship Dilemma

The Relationship Dilemma: You can run away from those who are almost always bad to others, you can hang on to those who are almost always good to others but you are perplexed when you have to deal with those who are sometimes good and sometimes bad - which explains why most of the world is perplexed most of the time. ;-)

The T.R.E.E

Source: Google Images

The tree was one of its kind, big and sturdy
Its lovely branches & leaves made it shady
It was fully equipped to protect the needy
For its warmth, all the birds were greedy

On the tree, the squirrels wanted to play
The saints wanted to meditate and pray
Travelers wanted to rest on the way
Children wanted to be make merry all day

The tree had plenty of space to spare
It had the best of breezes to share
It had all the strength to dare
It had fruits sweet and rare
It could almost give a mother's care

The birds begged for a nest
The squirrels squealed with interest
While people were desperate to rest
The children's expressions said it the best

The tree, unfortunately, turned a deaf ear
And wasted itself without a tear
None of these, it thought, were dear
It understood only the rules of distrust and fear
Its purpose, sadly, was not clear

I M Possible

Remembering two (twin) quotes by Jack Addington


"Man can do whatever he is able to conceive in his mind, receive in his consciousness, expect with assurance, and accept in actual experience"


“It's a law of the mind that which you can conceive of, believe in, and confidently expect for yourself, must necessarily become your experience.”

Learning and The Dangers of Expertise

This talk provides good food for thought. Do watch it if you're interested in KM, Collaboration or Learning. The speaker warns us about the dangers of blindly believing so-called experts and not questioning them enough and about societies having to feel more comfortable about managing dissent. 


Someone from the audience asks a very valid question - About the impact that this might have on how we teach children. Here's what methinks:


Maybe this points to a clear need for collective learning amongst children? Rather than a teacher standing up in front of the class and preaching? And of course, the need for education to accommodate questions from students, Montessori style.


And, finally, consider this post in juxtaposition with the previous C&H strip. See the joke? :-)

Super!

Author- Bill Watterson. Source: Gocomics.com

One of my all-time favourite strips from C&H.

Pause...........Vs Stop.

The difference between pause....
and STOP.

The Mystery of Energy

There are some people who somehow bring out the best in us, in a very natural way (Ideas, attitude, humor, positivity, hope etc. No preaching/lecturing required in most cases). Our energies perhaps vibrate at similar levels and recognize each other as friends irrespective of external appearances. The best relationships are perhaps of this category....as they have no other conditions. Like Music. Nature. Children. Pets. Great Books.

Krishna and Kurukshetra

If you're interested in Hindu Mythology and wonder often about the existence of God and the like, you must watch this fascinating research video on Krishna, full of scientific (cosmic) and archeological references.

http://www.saraswatifilms.org/movies.php

Life's Lessons

Life. Choice. Death. Dreams. Peace. An amazing attempt by the video-creator.

Vulnerability

I must say this video is overwhelming and leaves me almost speechless. It has an amazing mix of insights that are both affirmative as well as challenging. I am afraid it is not as easy to understand as it seems. I believe there are many more dots that the viewer/audience will have to connect to be able to see a clearer and more personal picture. Obviously, it took Brown years of research, struggle and introspection to arrive here. Between the 18th and 19th minute is perhaps one of the most critical aspects related to Parenting.

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. :-)

*************************************

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. :-)

Ping-Pong

Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson (C). Source: gocomics.com

I have picked up three important articles that struck a chord in the last three weeks. It has absolutely nothing to do with the C&H strip above...except perhaps that Calvin is also convinced that he has what it takes (albeit the wrong skills) to do what he wants.

1. Change yourself. Find your own mistakes first. Become more patient, accommodating, forgiving, understanding and what not. The easiest thing to change is yourself, not others. Never ever give up. It's ok to pursue efficiency, knowledge, excellence and the rest but that's your personal choice and chase, not others' pursuit.

2. Do not "take" whatever comes to you. Learn to send back the things that don't belong to you, things that you don't deserve. Free yourself of other people's baggage and burden. You do not have to defend yourself every day of your life.

3. Unconditional love exists but only within yourself. Learn to like (and forgive, as appropriate) yourself rather than expecting other people to know you and your 'wonderful' qualities. Focus on your talents and allowing them to bloom rather than wasting time in expecting others to give you room.

What's More Dangerous?

Cruelty by itself is not permanent; It can be removed. What makes it dangerous is it is because of or combined with insanity and/or stupidity.

Conscience is the Customer

Writing a poem after a long time...!

************************

A severe and unexpected blow on the head 

Can either leave one forever dead

Or give one new wisdom to deal with what's ahead

When another person's greed 

Comes at the cost of one's own need 

One can retaliate and scream in haste 

Or perhaps change one's own taste (uncompromising and yet clever)

When problems pile up together

One can complain about rough weather

Or smile & just brush them off with a light feather

It's ok to be human, take the shock and pause for a while

But life is eventually about covering the next mile

The map is drawn with values as the path(s)

It's up to one to determine which to take without any wrath

The most important thing is the conversation with one's conscience   

In order to discover one's own happiness in the long distance  

(Because) That's the only thing that may finally make sense

Know Thyself

Just been reading this fascinating research paper (thanks to Zephy for the pointer). 

Know Thyself and Become What You Are: A Eudaimonic Approach to Psychological Well-Being by Carol D. Ryff and Burton H. Singer.

The paper isn't really as intimidating and esoteric as you might imagine it to be at first (based on the Title). Once I started reading it, I was excited and wanted to read on till the end.   

The paper explores and studies various thought-leaders' writings on the highest human good which, according to the authors, Aristotle equated to happiness (activity of the soul in accordance with virtue). The authors go on to say virtue may be different for different people but Aristotle thought it was be the ability to be intermediate (moderated behaviour). Virtue, he stated, "is the state of character concerned with choice in which deliberate actions are taken to avoid excess or deficiency". (Nice....reminds me of Buddhist principles)

Extracts: 

"The excellence of the human being is thus going to be associated with growth towards some final realization of his or her true and best nature"

"For (Bertrand) Russell, happiness depended most importantly on 'zest', by which he meant having active interest and engagement in life, and by 'affection', by which he meant having meaningful bonds of love with significant others."

"Eudaimonic well-being is linked with better neuroendocrine regulation, better immune function, lower cardiovascular risk, better sleep and more adaptive neural circuitry" 

The authors find that the three key things in life that helps people be genuinely happy are Personal Growth, Purpose in life and Positive relations with significant others. The interesting thing is that women rate positive relations higher on the happiness scale while men replace that with autonomy. Two other contributors to the happiness recipe are, understandably, self-acceptance and environmental mastery.

Lots of food for thought in the paper!

Vivekananda Jayathi

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.” - Swami Vivekananda


Not only spiritual giants, I might add! 


"We want that education, by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded and by which one can stand on one's own feet" - Swami Vivekananda 

Happy National Youth Day! Swami Vivekananda (12 Jan 1863 - 4 July 1902)

Inspiration for the New Year

via Prashant 

Two O Eleven

Dear Friendly Fiends, Flimsy Friends and other Fundu Folks, (You are allowed to mix and match if you no like. Heh Heh. :-)) 


Wish you a meaningfully hyperactive, happy, healthy and peaceful new year 2011!  

Google Images

Here's perhaps my best ever (borrowed & shared) gift to all of you - A rare, profound and yet entertaining article. http://bit.ly/4bRk2P  (I'd earlier written a post on this article but I want to make sure that those who did not read the previous post discover the article at least now!)


PS: Read One. Read All. Read or Perish. If there's one thing you must read immediately after you are born, then it is this article. Read it to your children, dog, cat and neighborhood crow etc. Read it again and again. R.E.A.D it.


PPS: Sing with me. 

Two Thousand Eleven is Heaven. 
Tra la la. La la la. Boom Boom. (Chorus)
Let's learn to wake up before Seven. 
Tra la la. La la la. Boom Boom. (Chorus)
Let's be labeled odd rather than want to get even. 
Tra la la. La la la. Boom Boom. (Chorus)

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

Things to Remember

Rules for Humans - http://bit.ly/8ZNqqM

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

The Art of Living

"The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's doing both." - James A. Michener

Gary Hamel: Who are the Most Innovative Companies?

• Gary Hamel: Who are the Most Innovative Companies? - Gary Hamel’s Management 2.0 - WSJ
  
  
  Notes:
  
  
  • Fourth are the cyborgs, companies like Google, Amazon and Apple that have been purpose-built to achieve super-human feats of innovation.  You won’t find much industrial age DNA in these organizations. These companies have been built around principles like freedom, meritocracy, transparency and experimentation. They are so endlessly inventive and strategically flexible they seem to have come from another solar system—one where accountants are treated as servants rather than gods.
  • If you work in a company that’s merely human—one that’s riddled with stale, conformance-inducing management practices—another chirpy anecdote about Google or Apple may make you puke.
  • Most of our management rituals were designed (a very long time ago) to promote discipline, control, alignment and predictability—all laudable goals. But to outrun change or head off a newcomer at the pass, these processes have to be re-engineered so they facilitate rather than frustrate bold thinking and radical doing.

How to Focus on Something...

Arrange your desktop as follows. 

Note: Today is Friday. Long time no jolly silly posts. Fridays demand a minimum of one. Eh?

Lucky?

Why you should not assume someone is lucky or declare to someone he is lucky!


1) Luck is, most of the time, a consequence of hard work and effort or a good/thoughtful decision and the person hearing it is not going to like it if the situation he is in is attributed to just coincidence (which is what luck mostly means)


2) Calling someone lucky typically, err, hints at jealousy (even if just a little) whether we like it or not. Or like one of my friends said, it means you probably don't deserve what you got!

3) You may be commenting on one particular aspect of his life but there may be a lot of other problems in his life that may not even be compensated for by this apparent "stroke of luck"


4) There are so many better ways of responding when someone is going through a nice phase or a good thing has happened to them - You can say "That is great!", "This is cool!", "Happy for you!" or even "You are blessed" etc but of course you must mean it. ;-)

KM India Summit 2010-Observations

Last time around (during KM India Summit 2009) I ended up writing one of my longest ever posts and attempted to cover too many things in it. Some people did come back and appreciate it but I suspect, for many, it must have been daunting to read such a lot. This time, I plan to share my key observations and interpretations rather than cover the whole event as if I were a journalist.


KM India Summit 2010 lasted 2 days and there were three master classes (covered in one day) before the conference. I was fortunate enough to attend all of it as I got a free invite in return for speaking at the event (My topic was KM and Social Networking).


@MadanRao has done a great job of live-tweeting in case you're interested. He also has a blog post here. Atul Rai (Wipro Infotech) covered a lot of stuff through his FB updates. I think there were a few random tweets from many other participants as well. Search for #KMIndia (on Twitter) to check them out.


Meanwhile, for me personally, here are key thoughts and discoveries from the Master Classes:

• Mindtree undoubtedly has a super-exhaustive KM initiative to boast of and they've attempted to give equal attention to all forms of KM (culture, process, tech, ideas management, knowledge creation, collective intelligence mechanisms and tools, KM embedded in projects etc)
• The Millers' work on innovation and the role of spiritualistic thinking/human values is extraordinary. I was completely tuned into their session and it felt wonderful to listen to them though I think the time period we are looking at for the whole world to move to thoughts that combine spiritualism with business is, well, very huge
• The Millers conducted a very sincere workshop with a lot of exercises to help participants understand their level and styles of thinking. They had a wonderful exercise that brought out some interesting facts for me personally. It helped me understand I am an "intention" person more than a "connection" or "action" person. (Intention people look for a meaningful contribution and tend to look for a purpose before getting down to actually doing things. Connection people are those that value relationships above everything else and Action people don't like to waste time thinking any more than they can help it :-)). The exercises also helped participants analyze whether they are short-term or long-term oriented
• Verna Allee's workshop was very interesting and brought to light the advantages of Value Network maps as opposed to social network maps or process flow charts. Her website will give you most of the details that she covered during the workshop. I believe this is a concept that is worth the time and energy and you never know what it may lead to. I hope to be able to apply this somewhere

****************  The conference talks  **********************

• One aspect that disappointed folks who have been in touch with KM in the Indian IT industry was the presentation of familiar - same old - case studies (without any significant changes from the previous versions) 
• Infy's Suresh delivered a sophisticated presentation that urged us to bring together multiple disciplines, related to KM, for better results
• Ron Young explained the four dimensions of KM (Creativity, Collaboration, Innovation and Knowledge) and reiterated that we need to bring eastern and western thinking together to be able to make the best of knowledge
• William Miller (in his talk) brought out the relationships between and importance of combining spiritualistic thinking, innovation and KM - the first time I have ever heard such a talk at a KM conference. It goes some way to prove that KM could perhaps be the pathway to such a business (r)evolution!
• In general, presenters from non-KM fields made a greater impact on the audience because of the freshness in their perspectives. Vinita Bali from Britannia spoke about knowledge of the customers' needs as one of the superior dimensions of KM. She had some intriguing examples from the domain of medicine. She spoke about holistic thinking and treatment of symptoms in the context of knowledge and the importance of cross-learning between sub-fields. She had a simple definition of innovation that everyone appreciated after it followed a knowledge cafe that resulted in sophisticated perspectives ;-). Innovation, she said, in simple terms is "something that creates new value"
• Anil Menon, Pradeep Kar and Sadagopan spent some humorous, inspiring and thought-provoking minutes on innovation in the context of countries and dwelt upon the culture in India vs that in China. One of the interesting things that stuck on to my mind was Anil's emphasis that knowledge of theory was essential for business leaders :-)
• Dr.Sandhya from IIT Madras Research shared the results of an interesting study she had conducted that revealed that organizational learning support systems can turn around the innovation ecosystem. Her study revealed that innovation increases from 13 percent (with just availability of knowledge) to 66 percent if the organization has a good org. learning support system. She also mentioned that co-location of the concerned entities was found to be very important for innovation
• Mr. Trivedi representing the Govt. of India shared an impressive performance management model that has been implemented for assessing the performance of Indian ministries! 
• There was a debate on whether KM has fulfilled its potential or not and arguments were justified on both sides. It seems like the lack of concrete measurement techniques for KM will remain a pet peeve amongst those who like to say KM has not reached its potential. It would be interesting indeed to see if KM crosses this limitation in a convincing manner. Also, it later occurred to me that we are perhaps talking about the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly but things don't end there....the butterfly then needs to fly, collect food, "get" its colours and what not
• The knowledge cafe on KM and innovation brought out familiar thoughts on the two subjects as well as proved that people are still confused and unsure when it comes to categorically defining intangible concepts

After-thoughts:

1. We need to have more specific and detailed case studies on KM process improvements and cultural endeavors which probably means more workshops that are targeted at a specific audience, surveys before the conference is planned, and finally, more non-IT companies in the fray
2. We need to spend more time on creating and using frameworks rather than simply rattling off a laundry list of things that companies do. We need more sessions that help people understand principles so they can then act on their own
3. Also, another idea that I recently mentioned in a previous post is to include a session that presents ideas that are completely against the topic and the flow of the conference. That would be funny, provoke creative thinking and result in some unusual combinations of concepts etc

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....

********************


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). :-)

Corruption as Usual

What's new? - India is at it, as usual. Sigh.


When I come across people who continuously complain, criticize, comment, and consider things like corruption (especially in politics), I feel a tinge of guilt because I myself rarely focus on such aspects of life. But, to my credit, I have at least wondered if my, well, indifference is a good thing.  I shouldn't perhaps call it complete indifference because it does make me feel sad, angry and annoyed when it stares me in the face. But I never find myself craving to study or aggressively studying the situation, reading press articles, watching interviews, reports etc to understand the intricacies of the scam or the complaint as the case may be. (Maybe I'm too result-oriented and perhaps averse to being affected by negative news in the case of areas outside my control)


I think there are many ways in which one can react or respond to problems in the world of politics (which is, according to many, one of the most abused occupations/services ever). 


1. Ignore most of it and go about our regular work in a sincere manner, knowing (or assuming) that we cannot change things (or even get to the full truth!) but can, instead, make a difference to what is under our own control - our own life. (Note: I think all this talk about voting for the right person or party is a farce because you will find only one honest and sincere politician amongst many thousands and that person is either crushed into inaction by the system or widely recognized for being different and therefore known to even those who do not 'follow' politics)


2. Complain about it or criticize everyone involved till the next scam surfaces or something else distracts them and, well, waste a lot of energy accomplishing, arguably, nothing much except creating temporary unrest and angst amongst the members of the circles we move in


3. Comment on it in an informed and intelligent manner (based on extensive and reliable research) and influence people (preferably those who can pull some strings and change things or those who might have an indirect impact on the situation if not a direct one) to think about potential solutions 


4. Comment on it armed with half-baked ideas, incomplete information and declare things based on a highly biased and subjective analysis and pretty much add to the confusion and chaos around us 


5. Comment on it in a humorous (and hopefully sensitive) manner and get a few people to see the funny side of the whole thing and laugh even as they suffer the implications (it's only those who understand the situation who will also be able to fully relate to the humor and therefore enjoy it) 


6. Consider it seriously from various angles (a bit of type 3.) and actually act on it with the intention of changing things for the better - either by joining politics and bravely taking corruption head-on or, for that matter, creating an informal community that passionately finds solutions and implements them


It's anybody's guess under which category most of the population falls. Having said that, I am not proposing that everyone must fall into a particular category. After all, it is society's mixed reaction and response that will hopefully add up to prevent corrupt elements from surviving and succeeding. I rest my case.
  

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.... ;-)

Tranquility Doesn't Exist

Have you ever felt that the need for tranquility - in today's world - is actually more than the need for happiness? Happiness is indeed within and can be tapped into by doing and thinking the "right" things. Isn't tranquility, on the other hand, based on what's happening "outside" even as you happen to be looking inward?


A pond that's left to its natural state deals with its moss, sharks, weeds, reflections, and what not. It can remain happy AND tranquil despite the weeds, the mud underneath and its other natural challenges. But what happens when there are external disturbances like someone throwing a stone and causing unnecessary interruptions (the ripples and the noise)? It can still choose to be happy and find happiness within but there is no denying the fact that - in reality - there is no tranquility. Happiness is possible but Tranquility seems like an unachievable goal.....even worse, happiness that is achieved without tranquility in the outside world almost seems artificial. Frightening. 

Source: Google Images

Wikipedia on Paradoxes

Being a big fan of paradoxes, it is a shame I did not spot this page earlier. Thanks to @rondon for the link.


https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_paradoxes

KM India Summit 2010

Knowledge Management and Social Networking

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