Tuesday, December 20, 2011
need for pursuit
One of the most often overlooked aspects of leadership is the need for pursuit. Great leaders are never satisfied with traditional practice, static thinking, conventional wisdom, or common performance. In fact, the best leaders are simply uncomfortable with anything that embraces the status quo. Leadership is pursuit – pursuit of excellence, of elegance, of truth, of what’s next, of what if, of change, of value, of results, of relationships, of service, of knowledge, and of something bigger than themselves. In the text that follows I’ll examine the value of being a pursuer…
Here’s the thing – pursuit leads to attainment. What you pursue will determine the paths you travel, the people you associate with, the character you develop, and ultimately, what you do or don’t achieve. Having a mindset focused on pursuit is so critical to leadership that lacking this one quality can sentence you to mediocrity or even obsolescence. The manner, method, and motivation behind any pursuit is what sets truly great leaders apart from the masses. If you want to become a great leader, become a great pursuer.
A failure to embrace pursuit is to cede opportunity to others. A leader’s failure to pursue clarity leaves them amidst the fog. Their failure to pursue creativity relegates them to the routine and mundane. Their failure to pursue talent sentences them to a world of isolation. Their failure to pursue change approves apathy. Their failure to pursue wisdom and discernment subjects them to distraction and folly. Their failure to pursue character leaves a question mark on their integrity. Let me put this as simply as I can – you cannot attain what you do not pursue.
Smart leaders understand it’s not just enough to pursue, but pursuit must be intentional, focused, consistent, aggressive, and unyielding. You must pursue the right things, for the right reasons, and at the right times. Perhaps most of all, the best forms of pursuit enlist others in the chase. Pursuit in its purest form is highly collaborative, very inclusive and easily transferable. Pursuit operates at greatest strength when it leverages velocity and scale.
I also want to caution you against trivial pursuits – don’t confuse pursuit with simple goal setting. Outcomes are clearly important, but as a leader, it’s what happens after the outcome that you need to be in pursuit of. Pursue discovery, seek dissenting opinions, develop your ability unlearn by embracing how much you don’t know, and find the kind of vision that truly does see around corners. Don’t use your pursuits to shift paradigms, pursue breaking them. Knowing what not to pursue is just as important as knowing what to pursue.
It’s important to keep in mind that nothing tells the world more about a leader than what or who they pursue – that which you pursue is that which you value. If you message to your organization you value talent, but don’t treat people well and don’t spend time developing the talent around you, then I would suggest you value rhetoric more than talent. Put simply, you can wax eloquent all you like, but your actions will ultimately reveal what you truly value.
Lastly, the best leaders pursue being better leaders. They know to fail in this pursuit is nothing short of a guarantee they’ll be replaced by those who don’t. All leaders would be well served to go back to school on what I refer to as the science of pursuitology.
Monday, December 5, 2011
The Truth about Capricons
People belonging to the Capricorn sign are born between December 22nd and January 19th. Capricorn men have strong desires to achieve power, money, status and love. Although love does appear last on the list, it is comparatively a significant part of his personality. Patience comes naturally to them, implying they wait until they find the perfection.
Effectively a loner sign, Capricorns find relationships to be a challenge. Find it difficult to trust another human being. Although they appear to be a bitter people from the outside, they are more sensitive than many and just covering up to experience a sense of security.
A Capricorn man wants to be appreciated praised and ego fed. Any woman who manages to successfully ensure the above will have a very loyal, dedicated and sincere partner for life. Thus proving a Capricorn man's sensitive heart and swayable emotions!
By equalizing material and financial possessions with emotional security the Capricorn man mixes up the feeling sphere with the materialistic realm.
Keeping the positive traits in mind, one big weakness in any relationship will be the Capricorn trying to run the show. Could be mistaken for independence but actually is nothing but desperation for control. Being so emotionally attached to their partners, Capricorns find it difficult to understand and believe that there are lessons to be learnt from their partners.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Life and Some more
The highlight of the evening was an interactive session of questions and answers with Rev. Dada, involving various facts of peace. Some of the questions and answers were –
Q1: What is the price for attaining peace of mind?
A: one should rejoice in the Will of God, for His will is the best, whether in pain or pleasure. With this attitude, one will be filled with peace. Sadhu Vaswani’s wise words were God upsets our plans, to set up His own. But his plans are perfect.
Q2: Why is that earlier generations seemed to have lived in greater peace?
A: This is so because they lived in the love and fear of God. Nowadays, there is no belief in God. We must bring God back into our lives.
Q3: Are the pursuit of wealth, power and position compatible with peace?
A: Keep in mind that wealth, power and position will be earned only according to the power of our Karma. Then one will always be at peace. There is irritation and frustration only because we do not understand the law of Karma.
Q4: Was there a time when you experienced disturbance?
A: There was a time when the slightest thing would make me upset and angry. But through God’s grace that stage has been cleansed out. We should pray to Him and beg for his Grace. We have thrown God out of our homes, schools and colleges. The vacuum thus created is filled by the devil.
Q5: The Vedas mention the mantra, ‘Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti. What significance does it have?
A: The following is my interpretation –
According to the scriptures, three important elements make up man –
i. Body and senses
ii. Mind
iii. Speech which expresses our thoughts.
Hence, Shanti being repeated thrice is once each for the above three. Peace in every aspect that makes up man.
Q6: How to respond and not react?
A: Vanquish the ego. Then there will be no reacting. The hurt and the pain belong to the ego. Till then there will be no peace.
Q7: I am in a position of authority. If a subordinate is rude or misbehaves, what should I do?
A: Do your duty. You may use some firm or even harsh words to correct the person. But your anger should emanate only from your lips, not from your heart.
Q8: How can children be made to feel more peaceful?
A: This great responsibility lies with the mother. She should accept the Will of God peacefully when the child is in the womb. Then those vibrations of peace will pass on automatically to the c
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
The inspiring story of how a single mother made it to the Harvard by Lajwanti Dsouza
This student bagged half a million US dollars in scholarships and educated herself after being left on the road with a baby to look after. Read on to find out how she did it.
For the United States, Lalita Booth is the 'homeless to Harvard' wonder. The face of hope, a much refined version of the staid rags-to-riches story -- only this time the riches is not in dollars but in educational degrees.
For us here, she makes sense because till a few years ago, she was a teenage-mother, living off scraps and out of a car. Today, she is pursuing a degree in Business Administration and Public Policy at the Harvard University. Besides, she is also the author of the book Financial Education for Lower-Income Audiences: A guide to Programme Design, Implementation and Evaluation which is found in the libraries of various US colleges and b-schools.
Her story is stirring not because she is just a cliche -- having fought all odds and emerged supreme -- but because she decided to take the more thorny route to recovery -- education.
At 17 and barely school-educated, with a baby in hand, no place to call home and no family to use as crutch, Lalita decided that the best way to beat life's miseries was to educate herself.
"I wanted my son to be proud of me and I thought no better way than to study and get myself some real degrees. Harvard was just an illusion when I stayed on the streets and went to sleep hungry. Today, I am right there," said Lalita Booth while speaking from the US.
Lalita's story makes good sense because she is also probably one of the few who has been awarded some 20 scholarships in the last five years -- worth a whopping half a million US dollars.
That her life was a mess, Lalita realised when young in Ashville N.C, her hometown.
The only child of her parents, the memories most vivid in her mind are of her parents fighting and being thrown out of homes.
With no inspiration to look up to, Lalita went the 'wild way.'
On turning 16, she legally separated from her parents. "I did that because I thought that would be the end of all my problems. I wanted to live my life my way --there was nothing much with my parents anyway," she said.
But actually, life turned only shoddier. At 17, she got married and at 18, became a mother. And her husband divorced her soon after and left to join the army.
Lalita had just nowhere to go -- her only possession was her wailing child. For a while, she just managed to live -- on scraps and whatever else she could manage. Some months later, Lalita fell in love with another man, and the three moved to Colorado. But life was still exacting and the three had to live on government assistance.
"Both of us did some low-wage jobs to keep it going but it was really tough," recalls Lalita.
And it was an episode one evening, during that phase of her life, that changed everything for Lalita.
"My son was two and I was scared of touching his diaper fearing it would be wet since I had no money for diapers. Then he asked for food and there was nothing at home. I made him sleep hungry. While he slept, I remained wide awake. I felt horrible that I brought into this world a son who I could not even feed. I had to get my life back for my son."
That evening changed Lalita's standpoint forever. Instead of simply crying over how 'cruel life was' Lalita decided to do something about it.
"I sent my son to live with my boyfriend's parents in North Carolina and within minutes of dropping him there I picked up the phone book and searched for financial planners," said Lalita.
"Whoever I called, I told them that I had no money and I needed free advice on how to earn some money to be able to get my son back and get-off government assistance. One financial planner actually helped me out. Since we were still under government assistance, I managed to keep some money aside and enrolled in a course to become a tax agent. The entrance exam is supposed to be real tough but I got through," Lalita informed.
First job
Within months, she got herself a job which gave her $32,000 per annum with the US Treasury Department. Lalita got her son back but around the same time she and her boyfriend also separated. She was back to being alone with her son, only this time, she had a little bit of money and a longing to 'educate' herself.
"I moved to Florida and enrolled in Trinity Community College since it was the cheapest college. I took a job in the grocery store in the day and went to college later. My son's education was also an emerging need then and since he is autistic I knew I had to work double hard," says Lalita.
Studying through the nights, Lalita managed a straight A grade in all the subjects and bagged the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship worth $30,000. This money helped Lalita enrol at the University of Central Florida (UCF).
There too, Lalita performed extraordinarily during the four-years. Finally she graduated in 2009 and was the College of Business Administration's Top Honour Graduate with dual degrees in Finance and Accounting.
There, she was also awarded the Order of Pegasus (highest honour at UCF) and the UCF's Alumni Association's Distinguished Student Award and became UCF's first Truman Scholar.
Days had begun to look brighter for Lalita. She had reached her mid-20s -- and what the waves of education could do to a person, was staring back at her.
"My interest was in managing finances, having learnt the hard way and I always felt that if poor people knew how to handle their money, they would be better off than where they are," Lalita told..
During college, Lalita started a non-profit organisation called Lighthouse for Dreams. The organisation which is growing in numbers even today teaches financial literacy to high schools students. Lalita says it is important that students know the clout that money holds in the world.
Life had begun to settle for Lalita who by then had an irrepressible desire to keep studying. There was no way she was going to stop -- Harvard seemed like a logical next step but an almost impossible one.
She pursued and before she knew it, was strolling along the hallowed corridors of the graduate school in Harvard, pursuing a dual degree in Public Policy and Master of Business Administration.
The Harvard experience
"The best ever. I can't tell you how good the case study method is. I can still remember lectures from a year ago as if they happened yesterday. Lecture-based teaching can be awfully boring. Case-studies bring life to everything. I look forward to lectures only because of case-studies," answers Lalita.
About extra-curricular activities, Lalita says: "Oh, there are plenty here but I don't take part in many. I have a son to go to at the end of the day. My class mates go abroad for internships but I don't because of my son."
Lalita is 30 today while her classmates are about 25-28. No one makes her feel old and they better not because what she has gained in the last decade by way of education and scholarships, none of her classmates have come anywhere close.
She enjoys every bit of classroom life, a privilege she missed while growing up.
Today, she has almost achieved what she set as a goal 12 years ago. Her son who is 12 happily announces to everyone that his mother is at Harvard. "He is truly proud of me and I feel fulfilled today,"Lalita said.
Her son, Kieren, is also heard discussing his mother's accolades in school. Be it her Harry Truman Foundation Fellowship or the Dean's Gold Medallion for Civil Service or better still the College of Business Founder's Day Award.
Forward, Lalita wants to write some more books for the helpless and poor besides continuing work with her NGO. She has become a bit of a celebrity already with newspapers and television channels keeping an account of her every new degree.
So what is the job that Lalita is looking forward to after graduation?
"I hope the Department of Treasury's Office of Financial Education create a special post for me. I would like to work there. Just earning money is not the end of everything, how to spend and use it is very important," the 30 year-old warns.
Till then Lalita, who is proud to have an Indian name (given by an Indian friend of her parents) will just continue to mount up her degrees. When asked about her success, Lalita always says: "In this world, you either have an excuse or a story. I preferred to have a story."
For the United States, Lalita Booth is the 'homeless to Harvard' wonder. The face of hope, a much refined version of the staid rags-to-riches story -- only this time the riches is not in dollars but in educational degrees.
For us here, she makes sense because till a few years ago, she was a teenage-mother, living off scraps and out of a car. Today, she is pursuing a degree in Business Administration and Public Policy at the Harvard University. Besides, she is also the author of the book Financial Education for Lower-Income Audiences: A guide to Programme Design, Implementation and Evaluation which is found in the libraries of various US colleges and b-schools.
Her story is stirring not because she is just a cliche -- having fought all odds and emerged supreme -- but because she decided to take the more thorny route to recovery -- education.
At 17 and barely school-educated, with a baby in hand, no place to call home and no family to use as crutch, Lalita decided that the best way to beat life's miseries was to educate herself.
"I wanted my son to be proud of me and I thought no better way than to study and get myself some real degrees. Harvard was just an illusion when I stayed on the streets and went to sleep hungry. Today, I am right there," said Lalita Booth while speaking from the US.
Lalita's story makes good sense because she is also probably one of the few who has been awarded some 20 scholarships in the last five years -- worth a whopping half a million US dollars.
That her life was a mess, Lalita realised when young in Ashville N.C, her hometown.
The only child of her parents, the memories most vivid in her mind are of her parents fighting and being thrown out of homes.
With no inspiration to look up to, Lalita went the 'wild way.'
On turning 16, she legally separated from her parents. "I did that because I thought that would be the end of all my problems. I wanted to live my life my way --there was nothing much with my parents anyway," she said.
But actually, life turned only shoddier. At 17, she got married and at 18, became a mother. And her husband divorced her soon after and left to join the army.
Lalita had just nowhere to go -- her only possession was her wailing child. For a while, she just managed to live -- on scraps and whatever else she could manage. Some months later, Lalita fell in love with another man, and the three moved to Colorado. But life was still exacting and the three had to live on government assistance.
"Both of us did some low-wage jobs to keep it going but it was really tough," recalls Lalita.
And it was an episode one evening, during that phase of her life, that changed everything for Lalita.
"My son was two and I was scared of touching his diaper fearing it would be wet since I had no money for diapers. Then he asked for food and there was nothing at home. I made him sleep hungry. While he slept, I remained wide awake. I felt horrible that I brought into this world a son who I could not even feed. I had to get my life back for my son."
That evening changed Lalita's standpoint forever. Instead of simply crying over how 'cruel life was' Lalita decided to do something about it.
"I sent my son to live with my boyfriend's parents in North Carolina and within minutes of dropping him there I picked up the phone book and searched for financial planners," said Lalita.
"Whoever I called, I told them that I had no money and I needed free advice on how to earn some money to be able to get my son back and get-off government assistance. One financial planner actually helped me out. Since we were still under government assistance, I managed to keep some money aside and enrolled in a course to become a tax agent. The entrance exam is supposed to be real tough but I got through," Lalita informed.
First job
Within months, she got herself a job which gave her $32,000 per annum with the US Treasury Department. Lalita got her son back but around the same time she and her boyfriend also separated. She was back to being alone with her son, only this time, she had a little bit of money and a longing to 'educate' herself.
"I moved to Florida and enrolled in Trinity Community College since it was the cheapest college. I took a job in the grocery store in the day and went to college later. My son's education was also an emerging need then and since he is autistic I knew I had to work double hard," says Lalita.
Studying through the nights, Lalita managed a straight A grade in all the subjects and bagged the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship worth $30,000. This money helped Lalita enrol at the University of Central Florida (UCF).
There too, Lalita performed extraordinarily during the four-years. Finally she graduated in 2009 and was the College of Business Administration's Top Honour Graduate with dual degrees in Finance and Accounting.
There, she was also awarded the Order of Pegasus (highest honour at UCF) and the UCF's Alumni Association's Distinguished Student Award and became UCF's first Truman Scholar.
Days had begun to look brighter for Lalita. She had reached her mid-20s -- and what the waves of education could do to a person, was staring back at her.
"My interest was in managing finances, having learnt the hard way and I always felt that if poor people knew how to handle their money, they would be better off than where they are," Lalita told..
During college, Lalita started a non-profit organisation called Lighthouse for Dreams. The organisation which is growing in numbers even today teaches financial literacy to high schools students. Lalita says it is important that students know the clout that money holds in the world.
Life had begun to settle for Lalita who by then had an irrepressible desire to keep studying. There was no way she was going to stop -- Harvard seemed like a logical next step but an almost impossible one.
She pursued and before she knew it, was strolling along the hallowed corridors of the graduate school in Harvard, pursuing a dual degree in Public Policy and Master of Business Administration.
The Harvard experience
"The best ever. I can't tell you how good the case study method is. I can still remember lectures from a year ago as if they happened yesterday. Lecture-based teaching can be awfully boring. Case-studies bring life to everything. I look forward to lectures only because of case-studies," answers Lalita.
About extra-curricular activities, Lalita says: "Oh, there are plenty here but I don't take part in many. I have a son to go to at the end of the day. My class mates go abroad for internships but I don't because of my son."
Lalita is 30 today while her classmates are about 25-28. No one makes her feel old and they better not because what she has gained in the last decade by way of education and scholarships, none of her classmates have come anywhere close.
She enjoys every bit of classroom life, a privilege she missed while growing up.
Today, she has almost achieved what she set as a goal 12 years ago. Her son who is 12 happily announces to everyone that his mother is at Harvard. "He is truly proud of me and I feel fulfilled today,"Lalita said.
Her son, Kieren, is also heard discussing his mother's accolades in school. Be it her Harry Truman Foundation Fellowship or the Dean's Gold Medallion for Civil Service or better still the College of Business Founder's Day Award.
Forward, Lalita wants to write some more books for the helpless and poor besides continuing work with her NGO. She has become a bit of a celebrity already with newspapers and television channels keeping an account of her every new degree.
So what is the job that Lalita is looking forward to after graduation?
"I hope the Department of Treasury's Office of Financial Education create a special post for me. I would like to work there. Just earning money is not the end of everything, how to spend and use it is very important," the 30 year-old warns.
Till then Lalita, who is proud to have an Indian name (given by an Indian friend of her parents) will just continue to mount up her degrees. When asked about her success, Lalita always says: "In this world, you either have an excuse or a story. I preferred to have a story."
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The fascinating story of a courier company run by deaf people!
Two years ago Dhruv Lakra started out Mirakle Couriers that is almost exclusively run by people with hearing disabilities. This is the success story of the 32-year-old entrepreneur and his company.
A few days before the country celebrated Eid, Mumbai-based entrepreneur Dhruv Lakra found himself with a rather unique problem on his hands. A Muslim gentleman who'd heard of his courier service wanted them to deliver over 3,000 Eid cards across the city.
Lakra and his team of over 50-odd people were far from ready for this. It was a challenge that few courier companies of that size could've been able to meet. Delivering so many shipments in less than two days was out of the question.
With Mirakle the challenge gets more complex -- all its delivery boys and each of its back office staff is deaf.
Sitting across the table from me, Dhruv Lakra speaks softly and in short sentences. He doesn't like to deviate from the question he's asked and seems like a man of few words.
For now though, Lakra is getting a little fidgety. He's promised me this meeting but his heart and mind are back at the office where everyone is trying to sort out the 3,000 cards that need to be delivered ASAP.
It's a little more complicated as one of the two days they have to deliver is a Sunday, the one day that the staff looks forward to. Lakra knows it will be a tough job trying to explain them the importance of making this work.
So when he returns to the office about 29 minutes later, he will have rolled up his sleeves and along with his staff would be sorting out the cards.
Surely, money is a factor why everyone is working at Mirakle Couriers.
Yet somewhere I'd like to think it isn't so much for the cash that Lakra and his men would be delivering the huge consignment that's just landed on their hands.
For the people at Mirakle it is an occasion they must rise to.
Over two years they've worked hard to build a reputation of being professional and efficient. Certainly, a measly order of 3,000 cards isn't going to ruin that.
The story of Mirakle Couriers isn't just inspiring but also fascinating -- how the seeds of a simple idea have borne fruits.
Today the company boasts of some prominent corporate houses -- including Mahindra and Mahindra, Godrej, Aditya Birla Group, Vodafone, Infomedia18 JSW, The Business India group and Tehelka among others -- as clients. But while it looks all hunky-dory from the outside it has taken two long years of hard work, patience and persistence to make it happen.
It all began in a local bus a few years ago when Lakra, having returned with an MBA from Oxford and still unsure about his future plans, happened to find a seat next to a young boy.
Much later into the journey, Lakra discovered the boy couldn't hear. They 'spoke' using a piece of paper and a pen exchanging notes. The boy, Lakra recollects, was unemployed.
While this got the then 20-something Lakra thinking about job prospects for the deaf it also struck him that the deaf are perhaps the most invisible among the differently abled people.
In a separate instance when he took a courier delivery without exchanging a single word with the delivery boy Dhruv Lakra hit upon the idea.
"Most people don't talk to courier boys. All we do is take the packet and sign the sheet," he points out adding that not being able to communicate isn't always an impediment in a courier boy's job.
If at all, this has worked to their advantage. While making a pitch to a prospective client, the folks at Mirakle use the social card.
"We tell them if you cannot employ a disabled person, outsource one of your functions to us because we employ disabled people," Lakra says.
Sometimes the pitch works; at other times it doesn't.
Even if they do sell them the idea, there are some who have their apprehensions.
"There's the concern of safety and delivery of the shipments. Some of our clients worry about their shipments getting lost. Convincing them sometimes is difficult."
That's when the big corporate houses Mirakle works with come handy. "It helps to work with big names. When people realise that we work with Mahindra and Godrej, it adds to our credibility. (Also) we're not an NGO. We are offering them a service."
Like most social entrepreneurs, Dhruv Lakra is quick to point to me that his organisation isn't an NGO and is run by the rules of business like any other.
When I ask him if he is disdainful towards NGOs he is quick to point out that he was part of one before starting out Mirakle.
"I think for our kind of business, a for-profit model works better. The thing is disability is closely linked with charity and we need to get that notion out. People also don't always take NGOs seriously and since we are a client service division it helps to be a privately run company than an NGO. Moreover as an NGO you cannot become a vendor."
It has been a difficult ride for Lakra but one that he's enjoyed nonetheless.
When he started out in 2009 with one delivery boy, he worked out of a friend's house and delivered letters himself. Then as business grew thanks to the generosity of Anu Aga of Thermax he managed to get a working space enough for six to seven people.
Today Lakra doesn't necessarily go out to deliver letters and rather focuses on managing his team.
In an interview to Rashmi Bansal in her book I have a Dream, Lakra mentions that to be able to enter the world of the deaf isn't easy.
So, over the years he's even learnt to speak sign language, which helps him bond with them better.
"I'm about 80 per cent fluent," he says.
It also helps him communicate with new recruits, most of who come from extremely poor background, have little or no education and are very, very low on self confidence.
"I knew what I was getting into was difficult but you cannot imagine their mental map," he says, his voice betraying signs of exasperation.
"The people who come to me are in their early 20s; they can't hear; some of them are barely fourth grade dropouts and have never once held a proper job. It's very difficult (to reach out to them)."
While the boys do the delivery, the back end operations are handled by the women, all of them in their 20s.
Managing an assorted team of this kind has its challenges. Lakra tells me they meet every once a week to discuss what problems the team faces and they try to overcome it. At the same time they also make sure they don't have such meetings too often.
"Initially there was a lot of handholding but now we're learning to let go because we realise they tend to get over-dependant on us. Earlier if a delivery boy said he couldn't go to an area because he wasn't familiar with it, we'd make an exception. Today we don't. At some level we've come to realise that it is after all their life and they can choose to make a difference," Lakra says.
Dhruv Lakra had a choice too. He could've been an investment banker, could've not returned from the UK after his education and could've gone for the conventional route.
Having finished his schooling in Jammu, Lakra came to Mumbai because his parents wanted him to experience the big city life. Here, he spent his college years and soon after, like most of his classmates, joined a private financial services firm.
Two years into his job, Lakra realised he wasn't cut out for it. The job went out of the window and the young fellow decided he wanted to contribute to a social cause.
"I joined Dasra (an NGO) and soon after I joined them I was sent out to Nagapattinam and Cuddalore (in Tamil Nadu). I spent almost four months working in the tsunami-affected villages," he recollects.
After working for over two years with Dasra, Lakra bagged a full scholarship to Oxford for an MBA degree in social entrepreneurship.
On returning to India, Lakra was certain he wanted to start out something on his own but had no clue till the incident in the bus happened.
In his blog, Lakra recollects the story and remembers how difficult life was for the deaf and how 'something as straightforward as a bus became a struggle'.
He writes, "It is an invisible disability. You cannot know when someone near you is deaf as there are no obvious physical attributes, and so it's totally ignored.
It is also a silent (voiceless) disability. There is very little public sympathy for the deaf, and by connection, a severe lack of government support for them in India.
Particularly when it comes to employment there are no opportunities because no one has the patience or the foresight to learn deaf language and culture. This is how Mirakle Couriers was born."
While the initial support of friends and family did help him stay afloat, it was the prestigious Echoing Green fellowship in 2009 that really gave Mirakle the thrust it always needed.
The fellowship amount of about $60,000 aims to 'accelerate social change' by investing in and supporting 'outstanding emerging social entrepreneurs to launch new organisations that deliver bold, high-impact solutions'.
Over two years, the fellowship amount that is released in instalments has largely helped Mirakle grow.
Today the company has two offices -- one in South Mumbai and the other in the western suburb of Andheri and is a thriving business.
Dhruv Lakra's family that has gone through a seesaw of emotions wondering where their son would land up is now not just satisfied but also quite proud of what he does.
Mirakle Couriers has since won the Hellen Keller award for being the 'Role model supporter of increased employment opportunities for disabled people' and won the 2010 National Award for the Empowerment of People With Disabilities.
Yet sitting across the table from me, three days before Eid, Dhruv Lakra is a restless man. There's an urgent delivery of over 3,000 invitation cards that needs to be completed over the weekend.
Exactly 29 minutes into the conversation, Dhruv Lakra excuses himself and leaves. He returns to his office and joins his army of silent women and men as they work through the latest challenge thrown at them.
A few days before the country celebrated Eid, Mumbai-based entrepreneur Dhruv Lakra found himself with a rather unique problem on his hands. A Muslim gentleman who'd heard of his courier service wanted them to deliver over 3,000 Eid cards across the city.
Lakra and his team of over 50-odd people were far from ready for this. It was a challenge that few courier companies of that size could've been able to meet. Delivering so many shipments in less than two days was out of the question.
With Mirakle the challenge gets more complex -- all its delivery boys and each of its back office staff is deaf.
Sitting across the table from me, Dhruv Lakra speaks softly and in short sentences. He doesn't like to deviate from the question he's asked and seems like a man of few words.
For now though, Lakra is getting a little fidgety. He's promised me this meeting but his heart and mind are back at the office where everyone is trying to sort out the 3,000 cards that need to be delivered ASAP.
It's a little more complicated as one of the two days they have to deliver is a Sunday, the one day that the staff looks forward to. Lakra knows it will be a tough job trying to explain them the importance of making this work.
So when he returns to the office about 29 minutes later, he will have rolled up his sleeves and along with his staff would be sorting out the cards.
Surely, money is a factor why everyone is working at Mirakle Couriers.
Yet somewhere I'd like to think it isn't so much for the cash that Lakra and his men would be delivering the huge consignment that's just landed on their hands.
For the people at Mirakle it is an occasion they must rise to.
Over two years they've worked hard to build a reputation of being professional and efficient. Certainly, a measly order of 3,000 cards isn't going to ruin that.
The story of Mirakle Couriers isn't just inspiring but also fascinating -- how the seeds of a simple idea have borne fruits.
Today the company boasts of some prominent corporate houses -- including Mahindra and Mahindra, Godrej, Aditya Birla Group, Vodafone, Infomedia18 JSW, The Business India group and Tehelka among others -- as clients. But while it looks all hunky-dory from the outside it has taken two long years of hard work, patience and persistence to make it happen.
It all began in a local bus a few years ago when Lakra, having returned with an MBA from Oxford and still unsure about his future plans, happened to find a seat next to a young boy.
Much later into the journey, Lakra discovered the boy couldn't hear. They 'spoke' using a piece of paper and a pen exchanging notes. The boy, Lakra recollects, was unemployed.
While this got the then 20-something Lakra thinking about job prospects for the deaf it also struck him that the deaf are perhaps the most invisible among the differently abled people.
In a separate instance when he took a courier delivery without exchanging a single word with the delivery boy Dhruv Lakra hit upon the idea.
"Most people don't talk to courier boys. All we do is take the packet and sign the sheet," he points out adding that not being able to communicate isn't always an impediment in a courier boy's job.
If at all, this has worked to their advantage. While making a pitch to a prospective client, the folks at Mirakle use the social card.
"We tell them if you cannot employ a disabled person, outsource one of your functions to us because we employ disabled people," Lakra says.
Sometimes the pitch works; at other times it doesn't.
Even if they do sell them the idea, there are some who have their apprehensions.
"There's the concern of safety and delivery of the shipments. Some of our clients worry about their shipments getting lost. Convincing them sometimes is difficult."
That's when the big corporate houses Mirakle works with come handy. "It helps to work with big names. When people realise that we work with Mahindra and Godrej, it adds to our credibility. (Also) we're not an NGO. We are offering them a service."
Like most social entrepreneurs, Dhruv Lakra is quick to point to me that his organisation isn't an NGO and is run by the rules of business like any other.
When I ask him if he is disdainful towards NGOs he is quick to point out that he was part of one before starting out Mirakle.
"I think for our kind of business, a for-profit model works better. The thing is disability is closely linked with charity and we need to get that notion out. People also don't always take NGOs seriously and since we are a client service division it helps to be a privately run company than an NGO. Moreover as an NGO you cannot become a vendor."
It has been a difficult ride for Lakra but one that he's enjoyed nonetheless.
When he started out in 2009 with one delivery boy, he worked out of a friend's house and delivered letters himself. Then as business grew thanks to the generosity of Anu Aga of Thermax he managed to get a working space enough for six to seven people.
Today Lakra doesn't necessarily go out to deliver letters and rather focuses on managing his team.
In an interview to Rashmi Bansal in her book I have a Dream, Lakra mentions that to be able to enter the world of the deaf isn't easy.
So, over the years he's even learnt to speak sign language, which helps him bond with them better.
"I'm about 80 per cent fluent," he says.
It also helps him communicate with new recruits, most of who come from extremely poor background, have little or no education and are very, very low on self confidence.
"I knew what I was getting into was difficult but you cannot imagine their mental map," he says, his voice betraying signs of exasperation.
"The people who come to me are in their early 20s; they can't hear; some of them are barely fourth grade dropouts and have never once held a proper job. It's very difficult (to reach out to them)."
While the boys do the delivery, the back end operations are handled by the women, all of them in their 20s.
Managing an assorted team of this kind has its challenges. Lakra tells me they meet every once a week to discuss what problems the team faces and they try to overcome it. At the same time they also make sure they don't have such meetings too often.
"Initially there was a lot of handholding but now we're learning to let go because we realise they tend to get over-dependant on us. Earlier if a delivery boy said he couldn't go to an area because he wasn't familiar with it, we'd make an exception. Today we don't. At some level we've come to realise that it is after all their life and they can choose to make a difference," Lakra says.
Dhruv Lakra had a choice too. He could've been an investment banker, could've not returned from the UK after his education and could've gone for the conventional route.
Having finished his schooling in Jammu, Lakra came to Mumbai because his parents wanted him to experience the big city life. Here, he spent his college years and soon after, like most of his classmates, joined a private financial services firm.
Two years into his job, Lakra realised he wasn't cut out for it. The job went out of the window and the young fellow decided he wanted to contribute to a social cause.
"I joined Dasra (an NGO) and soon after I joined them I was sent out to Nagapattinam and Cuddalore (in Tamil Nadu). I spent almost four months working in the tsunami-affected villages," he recollects.
After working for over two years with Dasra, Lakra bagged a full scholarship to Oxford for an MBA degree in social entrepreneurship.
On returning to India, Lakra was certain he wanted to start out something on his own but had no clue till the incident in the bus happened.
In his blog, Lakra recollects the story and remembers how difficult life was for the deaf and how 'something as straightforward as a bus became a struggle'.
He writes, "It is an invisible disability. You cannot know when someone near you is deaf as there are no obvious physical attributes, and so it's totally ignored.
It is also a silent (voiceless) disability. There is very little public sympathy for the deaf, and by connection, a severe lack of government support for them in India.
Particularly when it comes to employment there are no opportunities because no one has the patience or the foresight to learn deaf language and culture. This is how Mirakle Couriers was born."
While the initial support of friends and family did help him stay afloat, it was the prestigious Echoing Green fellowship in 2009 that really gave Mirakle the thrust it always needed.
The fellowship amount of about $60,000 aims to 'accelerate social change' by investing in and supporting 'outstanding emerging social entrepreneurs to launch new organisations that deliver bold, high-impact solutions'.
Over two years, the fellowship amount that is released in instalments has largely helped Mirakle grow.
Today the company has two offices -- one in South Mumbai and the other in the western suburb of Andheri and is a thriving business.
Dhruv Lakra's family that has gone through a seesaw of emotions wondering where their son would land up is now not just satisfied but also quite proud of what he does.
Mirakle Couriers has since won the Hellen Keller award for being the 'Role model supporter of increased employment opportunities for disabled people' and won the 2010 National Award for the Empowerment of People With Disabilities.
Yet sitting across the table from me, three days before Eid, Dhruv Lakra is a restless man. There's an urgent delivery of over 3,000 invitation cards that needs to be completed over the weekend.
Exactly 29 minutes into the conversation, Dhruv Lakra excuses himself and leaves. He returns to his office and joins his army of silent women and men as they work through the latest challenge thrown at them.
The Real Superman
My mom only had one eye. I hated her… She was such an embarrassment. She cooked for students and teachers to support the family.
There was this one day during elementary school where my mom came to say hello to me. I was so embarrassed.
How could she do this to me? I ignored her, threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school one of my classmates said, ‘EEEE, your mom only has one eye!’
I wanted to bury myself. I also wanted my mom to just disappear. I confronted her that day and said, ‘ If you’re only gonna make me a laughing stock, why don’t you just die?’
My mom did not respond… I didn’t even stop to think for a second about what I had said, because I was full of anger. I was oblivious to her feelings.
I wanted out of that house, and have nothing to do with her. So I studied real hard, got a chance to go abroad to study.
Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. I had kids of my own. I was happy with my life, my kids and the comforts. Then one day, my Mother came to visit me. She hadn’t seen me in years and she didn’t even meet her grandchildren.
When she stood by the door, my children laughed at her, and I yelled at her for coming over uninvited. I screamed at her, ‘How dare you come to my house and scare my children!’ GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!’
And to this, my mother quietly answered, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address,’ and she disappeared out of sight.
One day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. So I lied to my wife that I was going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went to the old shack just out of curiosity.
My neighbors said that she died. I did not shed a single tear. They handed me a letter that she had wanted me to have.
‘My dearest son,
I think of you all the time. I’m sorry that I came to your house and scared your children.
I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I may not be able to even get out of bed to see you. I’m sorry that I was a constant embarrassment to you when you were growing up.
You see……..when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn’t stand watching you having to grow up with one eye. So I gave you mine.
I was so proud of my son who was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye.
With all my love to you,
Your Mother.
There was this one day during elementary school where my mom came to say hello to me. I was so embarrassed.
How could she do this to me? I ignored her, threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school one of my classmates said, ‘EEEE, your mom only has one eye!’
I wanted to bury myself. I also wanted my mom to just disappear. I confronted her that day and said, ‘ If you’re only gonna make me a laughing stock, why don’t you just die?’
My mom did not respond… I didn’t even stop to think for a second about what I had said, because I was full of anger. I was oblivious to her feelings.
I wanted out of that house, and have nothing to do with her. So I studied real hard, got a chance to go abroad to study.
Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. I had kids of my own. I was happy with my life, my kids and the comforts. Then one day, my Mother came to visit me. She hadn’t seen me in years and she didn’t even meet her grandchildren.
When she stood by the door, my children laughed at her, and I yelled at her for coming over uninvited. I screamed at her, ‘How dare you come to my house and scare my children!’ GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!’
And to this, my mother quietly answered, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address,’ and she disappeared out of sight.
One day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. So I lied to my wife that I was going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went to the old shack just out of curiosity.
My neighbors said that she died. I did not shed a single tear. They handed me a letter that she had wanted me to have.
‘My dearest son,
I think of you all the time. I’m sorry that I came to your house and scared your children.
I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I may not be able to even get out of bed to see you. I’m sorry that I was a constant embarrassment to you when you were growing up.
You see……..when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn’t stand watching you having to grow up with one eye. So I gave you mine.
I was so proud of my son who was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye.
With all my love to you,
Your Mother.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Life is about you
BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one
DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstanding, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret.
You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one
DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstanding, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
20 Things NOT to do on a Sales Call By Geoffrey James
#1. Flirt with the admin. It may seem tempting, but unless you’ve got soap-opera-quality looks, chances are you’re only going to annoy (or even alarm) the admin, who will tell the boss. Instead: Stay polite, friendly and respectful.
#2. Talk more than you listen. Initial sales calls are all about relationship building and gathering information, which you can’t do if your mouth is moving. Instead: Get curious about the customer and ask questions.
#3. Comment on the memento. The last 372 people who came into that office remarked about the signed baseball on the desk. Ho-hum… Instead: Research the prospect and ask about the prospect’s job.
#4. Pretend to drop by. Who are you kidding? Do you think that it’s going to cushion the rejection if you pretend that it’s not a sales call? Instead: Have something important to say or sell that justifies your presence.
#5. Answer your cell phone. Ouch! Ouch! What were you thinking? How could any telephone call be more important than a real live prospect? Instead: Turn it off and leave it in your briefcase.
#6. Overstay your welcome. Your prospect has hundreds of other things that he or she could be doing, rather than spending time with you. Instead: Set a time limit for the call.
#7. Let the meeting meander. This isn’t the time for a wandering conversation that slowly gets to the point or a long series of complicated questions. Instead: Provide brief agenda of how you expect the call to proceed.
#8. Argue with the customer. If the customer doesn’t agree with an important point, arguing is only going to set that opinion in stone. Instead: ask the customer why he holds that opinion; then listen.
#9: Discuss politics or religion. Such subjects are almost always a trap into opinionated quicksand that’s hard or impossible to get out of. Instead: keep the discussion on business or neutral ground.
#10: Dive into your product pitch. Sure you’ve got something to sell, but if you pitch too soon, you’ll get pitched out the door. Instead: Ask questions to understand needs, before you pitch.
#11: Arrive late to the call. If you don’t arrive on time it tell the customer clearly that you don’t give a damn about them or their time. Instead: Always arrive 15 minutes ahead of time. If you drive to calls, get a GPS.
#12: Appear flippant or sarcastic. A good-natured laugh at a joke might be taken personally by someone watching out the window, without hearing the context. Instead: Watch your demeanor at all times.
#13: Lack requisite product knowledge. The prospect doesn’t want to hear “I need to get back to you about that”…over and over. Instead: make sure you’re trained on your current products and policies…before the call.
#14: Fail to plan the call. Sounds simple, but trying to close when should be qualifying (for example) is a lost sale. Instead: Never enter a door without first thinking about what you plan to accomplish.
#15: Be too business-like at first. Remember you’re building bridges with another human being, not just a notch in your sales gun. Instead: Smile and be friendly… but don’t get too gushy.
#16: Show up with a crowd. If you bring too many people, it will draw customer’s comments about why your costs so high Instead: Use webconferencing when you need to include additional resources.
#17: Fail to check your appearance. Don’t show up with something amiss that a quick stop in the client’s bathroom could head off. Instead: Make a quick pit stop - with a look-over - before the call.
#18: Forget the customers’ names. What could be more embarrassing than actually forgetting whom you’re talking with? Instead: Write down the names down of everyone in the room with a small table diagram.
#19: Be rude to the admin. No flirting, of course, but if you act all arrogant and superior, you’ll just antagonize the help. Instead: Be friendly and respectful of the staff - admin and otherwise.
#20: Ask personal questions. You may think that the customer is your friend, but you can easily screw up if it gets too personal. Instead: Keep the conversation focused on business issues, especially the customer’s needs.
#2. Talk more than you listen. Initial sales calls are all about relationship building and gathering information, which you can’t do if your mouth is moving. Instead: Get curious about the customer and ask questions.
#3. Comment on the memento. The last 372 people who came into that office remarked about the signed baseball on the desk. Ho-hum… Instead: Research the prospect and ask about the prospect’s job.
#4. Pretend to drop by. Who are you kidding? Do you think that it’s going to cushion the rejection if you pretend that it’s not a sales call? Instead: Have something important to say or sell that justifies your presence.
#5. Answer your cell phone. Ouch! Ouch! What were you thinking? How could any telephone call be more important than a real live prospect? Instead: Turn it off and leave it in your briefcase.
#6. Overstay your welcome. Your prospect has hundreds of other things that he or she could be doing, rather than spending time with you. Instead: Set a time limit for the call.
#7. Let the meeting meander. This isn’t the time for a wandering conversation that slowly gets to the point or a long series of complicated questions. Instead: Provide brief agenda of how you expect the call to proceed.
#8. Argue with the customer. If the customer doesn’t agree with an important point, arguing is only going to set that opinion in stone. Instead: ask the customer why he holds that opinion; then listen.
#9: Discuss politics or religion. Such subjects are almost always a trap into opinionated quicksand that’s hard or impossible to get out of. Instead: keep the discussion on business or neutral ground.
#10: Dive into your product pitch. Sure you’ve got something to sell, but if you pitch too soon, you’ll get pitched out the door. Instead: Ask questions to understand needs, before you pitch.
#11: Arrive late to the call. If you don’t arrive on time it tell the customer clearly that you don’t give a damn about them or their time. Instead: Always arrive 15 minutes ahead of time. If you drive to calls, get a GPS.
#12: Appear flippant or sarcastic. A good-natured laugh at a joke might be taken personally by someone watching out the window, without hearing the context. Instead: Watch your demeanor at all times.
#13: Lack requisite product knowledge. The prospect doesn’t want to hear “I need to get back to you about that”…over and over. Instead: make sure you’re trained on your current products and policies…before the call.
#14: Fail to plan the call. Sounds simple, but trying to close when should be qualifying (for example) is a lost sale. Instead: Never enter a door without first thinking about what you plan to accomplish.
#15: Be too business-like at first. Remember you’re building bridges with another human being, not just a notch in your sales gun. Instead: Smile and be friendly… but don’t get too gushy.
#16: Show up with a crowd. If you bring too many people, it will draw customer’s comments about why your costs so high Instead: Use webconferencing when you need to include additional resources.
#17: Fail to check your appearance. Don’t show up with something amiss that a quick stop in the client’s bathroom could head off. Instead: Make a quick pit stop - with a look-over - before the call.
#18: Forget the customers’ names. What could be more embarrassing than actually forgetting whom you’re talking with? Instead: Write down the names down of everyone in the room with a small table diagram.
#19: Be rude to the admin. No flirting, of course, but if you act all arrogant and superior, you’ll just antagonize the help. Instead: Be friendly and respectful of the staff - admin and otherwise.
#20: Ask personal questions. You may think that the customer is your friend, but you can easily screw up if it gets too personal. Instead: Keep the conversation focused on business issues, especially the customer’s needs.
How much do you get others to do the work?
This is probably one of the least publicized weapons of mass destruction in business model design. What could be more powerful than getting others to do the work while you earn the money?
In the bricks and mortar world IKEA gets us to assemble the furniture we buy from them. We do the work. They save money. On the web Facebook gets us to post photos, create and participate in conversations, and “like” stuff. That’s the real value of Facebook, entirely created by users, while they simply provide the platform. We do the work. They earn the sky-high valuations of their shares.
Previously mentioned Redhat crafted another smart business model based on other people’s work. Their entire business model is built on top of software developed by the open source software development community. This allowed them to substantially reduce their development costs and compete head-on with larger companies like Microsoft.
A more malicious business model in which others do the work is the one practiced by so-called patent trolls. In this model patents are purchased with the sole intention of suing successful companies to extract payments from them.
In the bricks and mortar world IKEA gets us to assemble the furniture we buy from them. We do the work. They save money. On the web Facebook gets us to post photos, create and participate in conversations, and “like” stuff. That’s the real value of Facebook, entirely created by users, while they simply provide the platform. We do the work. They earn the sky-high valuations of their shares.
Previously mentioned Redhat crafted another smart business model based on other people’s work. Their entire business model is built on top of software developed by the open source software development community. This allowed them to substantially reduce their development costs and compete head-on with larger companies like Microsoft.
A more malicious business model in which others do the work is the one practiced by so-called patent trolls. In this model patents are purchased with the sole intention of suing successful companies to extract payments from them.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Thats my Fish
The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the water close to Japan has not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring the fish. If the return trip took more time, the fish were not fresh. To solve this problem, fish companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen fish. And they did not like the taste of frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So, fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, they were tired, dull, and lost their fresh-fish taste. The fishing industry faced an impending crisis!
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But today, they get fresh-tasting fish in Japan .
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How did they manage? To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks but with a small shark. The fish are challenged and hence are constantly on the move. The challenge they face keeps them alive and fresh!
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Have you realized that some of us are also living in a pond but most of the time tired and dull? Basically in our lives, sharks are new challenges to keep us active. If you are steadily conquering challenges, you are happy. Your challenges keep you energized. Don't create success and revel in it in a state of inertia. You have the resources, skills and abilities to make a difference.
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Take a Risk, take a chance. Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!
.
But today, they get fresh-tasting fish in Japan .
.
How did they manage? To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks but with a small shark. The fish are challenged and hence are constantly on the move. The challenge they face keeps them alive and fresh!
.
Have you realized that some of us are also living in a pond but most of the time tired and dull? Basically in our lives, sharks are new challenges to keep us active. If you are steadily conquering challenges, you are happy. Your challenges keep you energized. Don't create success and revel in it in a state of inertia. You have the resources, skills and abilities to make a difference.
.
Take a Risk, take a chance. Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!
Ek Din
Ek din aisa bhi aana hai dono Ke do mein se ek ne chale jaana hai. aisle jeena seekh le ke jeene mien taqleef na ho.
The immortal romantic lines, love beyond life. If man and woman were made for companionship why do they have to live alone once the other dies. Another one of life's wonders. I wish I was superman and could change this
The immortal romantic lines, love beyond life. If man and woman were made for companionship why do they have to live alone once the other dies. Another one of life's wonders. I wish I was superman and could change this
Thursday, August 18, 2011
10 Things Great Managers Do By Steve Tobak
There’s all sorts of rhetoric about what good bosses should and shouldn’t do these days. I guess that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, most of it’s pretty basic, generic fluff that sort of blends together after a while.
Even worse, a lot of it’s, well, utopian. It panders to what employees want to hear instead of giving truly practical and insightful advice on what makes a manager effective in the real world where business is everything and everything’s on the line.
This list is different. It’s different because, to derive it, I went back in time to the best characteristics of the best CEOs (primarily) I’ve worked for and with over the past 30 years. It’s based entirely on my own experience with executives who made a real difference at extraordinary companies.
Some were big, some were small, but all were successful in their respective markets, primarily because of the attributes of these CEOs. Each anecdote taught me a critical lesson that advanced my career and helped me to be a better leader. Hope you get as much out of reading it as I did living it.
10 Things Great Managers Do
Maintain your cool and sense of humor, especially during a crisis. When our biggest customer - and I mean big - thought I leaked a front-page story to the press, I offered to resign to save the relationship. My boss, a great CEO, gave me this serious look, like he was thinking about it, and said, “You’re not getting off that easy.” Then he broke out into a big smile.
Tell subordinates when they’re shooting themselves in the foot. Sometimes I can be pretty intimidating and I’ve had CEOs who shied away from giving it to me straight when my emotions got the better of me. Not this one guy. We’d be in a heated meeting and he’d quietly take me aside and read me the riot act. He was so genuine about it that it always opened my eyes and helped me to achieve perspective.
Be the boss, but behave like a peer. I’ve worked with loads of CEOs who let their egos get the better of them. They act like they’re better than everyone else, are distant and emotionally detached, or flaunt their knowledge and power. That kind of behavior diminishes leaders, makes them seem small, and keeps them from really connecting with people. They’re not always the most successful, but the most admired CEOs I know are genuinely humble.
Let your guard down and really be yourself outside of work. You know, teambuilding is so overrated. All you really need to do outside of work to build a cohesive team is break some bread, have some drinks, relax, let your guard down, and be a regular human being. When you get to be really confident, you can be that way all the time. That’s the mark of a great leader.
Stand behind and make big bets on people you believe in. One CEO would constantly challenge you and your thinking to the point of being abusive. But once he trusted and believed in you, he put his full weight behind you 100 percent to help you succeed. He’d stand up for you even when he wasn’t sure what the heck you were up to. And he’d give you new functional responsibilities - something up-and-coming execs need to grow. Okay, he wasn’t perfect, but who is?
Complement your subordinate’s weaknesses. I often say it’s every employee’s job to complement her boss’s weaknesses. The only reason that’s even doable is because we’ve all only got one boss. But I actually had a CEO who did that with each and every one of his staff. For example, I’m more of a big picture strategy guy and he would really hold my feat to the fire by tracking my commitments. It felt like micromanaging at first, but I eventually realized it helped me to be a more effective and strengthened the entire management team.
Compliment your employee’s strengths. It takes a strong, confident leader to go out on a limb and tell an employee what they’re great at. Why? I don’t know, but I suspect it’s hard for alpha males that primarily inhabit executive offices. Anyway, it’s important because we can’t always see ourselves objectively. Twenty years ago a CEO identified how effectively I cut through a boatload of BS to reach unique solutions to tough problems. Today, that’s what I do for a living.
Teach the toughest, most painful lessons you’ve ever learned. As a young manager at Texas Instruments, I once asked my boss’s boss for advice about a promotion I didn’t get. He told me a candid story about the hardest lesson he’d ever learned, the reason he was stuck in his job. He made himself indispensible and didn’t groom his replacement. It was painful for him to share, but it opened my eyes and made a huge difference in my career.
Do the right thing. Just about everyone says it, but I’ve only known one CEO who both preached and practiced it to the point where it became a big part of the company culture. You’d walk the halls and hear people say it all the time. He meant two things by it. When he said it to you, it meant he trusted you to do just that. He also meant it regardless of status quo or consequences. He had extraordinary faith in that phrase. Now I do too.
Do what has to be done, no matter what. It’s a rare executive who jumps on a plane at a moment’s notice to close a deal or gives an impromptu presentation when a potential investor shows up unexpectedly. It’s even more rare when he does it without asking questions or hemming and hawing about it. He just does what has to be done. That kind of drive and focus on the business is relatively common with entrepreneurs in high-tech startups - but it shouldn’t be. It’s the mark of a great manager who will find success, that’s for sure.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The Story of Dhyan Chand by Rajesh Kalra
I have been bemused by the recent clamour that the rules for awarding Bharat Ratna be modified to include sportspersons too so that our batting sensation Sachin Tendulkar can be awarded the nation’s highest civilian award. Given the way some of the national civilian awards have been devalued in recent years, especially Padma Shri, with all sorts of people with doubtful integrity and accomplishments getting selected, considering Sachin for the nation’s highest award would easily seem one of the most merited.
I too am a fan of Sachin who has provided joy to millions of Indian, indeed the world, cricket lovers with his supreme batting displays. Even more than that, I marvel at the manner in which he has handled himself while being scrutinised so closely for well over two decades. Not a shred of allegation on his personal and professional behaviour. Of course, the way he has managed to retain the passion for the game that would do men half his age proud is something folk stories are made of.
However, despite all these great things attributed to Sachin, I am still unconvinced that if indeed the rules of the game are changed to include sportspersons, Sachin should be the first in the line to get the award.
The one name that comes to mind immediately is that of our hockey great Major Dhyan Chand. Whether you are a hockey lover or not, anyone who claims to be a sports lover would, or should, know about Dhyan Chand. He was instrumental in the country winning three successive Olympic Gold medals in hockey - 1928, Amsterdam; 1932, Los Angeles and 1936, Berlin. Such was his mastery when the sport was indeed India’s national game, that there are tales of people travelling from different countries to just watch him play a game of 70 minutes.
And while Sachin’s feats may still be getting there, Dhyan Chand’s accomplishments and stories are already part of the sporting folklore. Consider the following:-
At Berlin Olympics in 1936, when India played its first game, word went around that a wizard was at work on the hockey field and it drew spectators from other venues. A German newspaper carried a headline: The Olympic complex now has a magic show too. Posters were put up all over Berlin asking people to watch a show like never seen before.
At one occasion, a lady spectator said if he was such a wizard, could he play with her walking stick. Dhyan Chand did, and scored goals, with the walking stick.
Apparently in 1935 at Adelaide, Australia’s hockey capital, Dhyan Chand and cricket great Donald Bradman came face to face. After watching him play, the Don remarked: He scores goals like runs in cricket.
And of course, the most celebrated story of how Hitler, after watching his stupendous performance at Berlin Olympics, offered him the German citizenship and also a promotion in the German army. Of course, Dhyan Chand refused.
And this is just a sample of stories around the man, whose exploits on the hockey field with his team mates, especially his elder brother Roop Singh, are enough to write a book on. Honestly, do you think Sachin’s exploits, amazing though they are, come even close?
As I said, I hold Sachin in extremely high regard but there is yet another major difference between Sachin and Dhyan Chand. When Dhyan Chand played, it was the golden age of hockey with several great players, but Dhyan Chand’s stature was unquestionable. He was unparalleled. However, while Sachin too is considered great, there are his contemporaries who, depending on who you speak to, are considered as good, if not better. Internationally, these would include those like Brian Lara or Viv Richards, and at home, easily the redoubtable Sunil Gavaskar and India’s man for all seasons, Rahul Dravid. Of course, how can one not mention the Don, but there has rarely been talk of Sachin being greater than him.
In Dhyan Chand’s case, however, there was no one who came close. In terms of stickwork at least, there have been the likes of our own Mohd. Shahid or the Pakistani duo of Hassan Sardar and later Shahbaz, but absolutely none had such a mesmeric influence over the game as Dhyan Chand.
So, back to the debate on whether Sachin should get the Bharat Ratna or not? Yes, most certainly. As I said, he merits it ahead of a lot of others who keep getting national awards these days. But should he be the first one? I most certainly think not. Dhyan Chand it should be.
I too am a fan of Sachin who has provided joy to millions of Indian, indeed the world, cricket lovers with his supreme batting displays. Even more than that, I marvel at the manner in which he has handled himself while being scrutinised so closely for well over two decades. Not a shred of allegation on his personal and professional behaviour. Of course, the way he has managed to retain the passion for the game that would do men half his age proud is something folk stories are made of.
However, despite all these great things attributed to Sachin, I am still unconvinced that if indeed the rules of the game are changed to include sportspersons, Sachin should be the first in the line to get the award.
The one name that comes to mind immediately is that of our hockey great Major Dhyan Chand. Whether you are a hockey lover or not, anyone who claims to be a sports lover would, or should, know about Dhyan Chand. He was instrumental in the country winning three successive Olympic Gold medals in hockey - 1928, Amsterdam; 1932, Los Angeles and 1936, Berlin. Such was his mastery when the sport was indeed India’s national game, that there are tales of people travelling from different countries to just watch him play a game of 70 minutes.
And while Sachin’s feats may still be getting there, Dhyan Chand’s accomplishments and stories are already part of the sporting folklore. Consider the following:-
At Berlin Olympics in 1936, when India played its first game, word went around that a wizard was at work on the hockey field and it drew spectators from other venues. A German newspaper carried a headline: The Olympic complex now has a magic show too. Posters were put up all over Berlin asking people to watch a show like never seen before.
At one occasion, a lady spectator said if he was such a wizard, could he play with her walking stick. Dhyan Chand did, and scored goals, with the walking stick.
Apparently in 1935 at Adelaide, Australia’s hockey capital, Dhyan Chand and cricket great Donald Bradman came face to face. After watching him play, the Don remarked: He scores goals like runs in cricket.
And of course, the most celebrated story of how Hitler, after watching his stupendous performance at Berlin Olympics, offered him the German citizenship and also a promotion in the German army. Of course, Dhyan Chand refused.
And this is just a sample of stories around the man, whose exploits on the hockey field with his team mates, especially his elder brother Roop Singh, are enough to write a book on. Honestly, do you think Sachin’s exploits, amazing though they are, come even close?
As I said, I hold Sachin in extremely high regard but there is yet another major difference between Sachin and Dhyan Chand. When Dhyan Chand played, it was the golden age of hockey with several great players, but Dhyan Chand’s stature was unquestionable. He was unparalleled. However, while Sachin too is considered great, there are his contemporaries who, depending on who you speak to, are considered as good, if not better. Internationally, these would include those like Brian Lara or Viv Richards, and at home, easily the redoubtable Sunil Gavaskar and India’s man for all seasons, Rahul Dravid. Of course, how can one not mention the Don, but there has rarely been talk of Sachin being greater than him.
In Dhyan Chand’s case, however, there was no one who came close. In terms of stickwork at least, there have been the likes of our own Mohd. Shahid or the Pakistani duo of Hassan Sardar and later Shahbaz, but absolutely none had such a mesmeric influence over the game as Dhyan Chand.
So, back to the debate on whether Sachin should get the Bharat Ratna or not? Yes, most certainly. As I said, he merits it ahead of a lot of others who keep getting national awards these days. But should he be the first one? I most certainly think not. Dhyan Chand it should be.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Do we really want a New India
Have been following the Anna movement with some interest daily. 15K odd people joined the struggle yesterday. Some got put in Jail. So now they are war hero's. Surprise Surprise the opposition gets involved.
This is making me think.
1) Do we want a new government? No of course not. Looking at the options we have and you will see what I mean. What we want is this government to change its ways. But can this government do that? Can it Really? With the government getting blackmailed by its coalition allies on hourly daily basis, the government is rendered ineffective. They can only work 20% of the time for the people and the rest of the time to help its on cause and stay in power. Who is responsible for this mess? We the people who vote for the person who speaks the local language and we are comfortable with. People in the South dont always trust the people in the North (just an example)
2) Do we really support Anna? I am sitting in my comfy seat in KL saying I support Anna. IF I really supported Anna and the cause I would be down there with my friends supporting them in Delhi. 2 thing come out of my last statement. I know of a lot of people who have joined the cause because they dont want to seem out of the crowd. Secondly this is mostly a Delhi revolt. Out of millions of people who live in Delhi 15K showed up (peanuts I must say). Does anyone from Assam care?
3) Who wants the change? Not the rich, the current situation affects their net worth in the Indian stock market. Not the upper middle class- They lose big pay packets if MNCs leave, Not the middle class (frankly they want earn their 3 meals a day and kids have good education. They deal with so many more day to day problems that a lokpal bill can never solve. and certainly not the poor class (which by the way forms the largest part of the population) as they wont even know what Lok Pal is and what's written them. Get them educated first. Let them eat first. Let them lIve first
4) What is the plan for the Anna team? Will he die or will he eat? This revolution will take a turn if Anna dies fasting. And no I am trying to be a cynic but unless the movement as a long strategic plan this movement will fail without a tragic incident. They just dont have the mass movement.
5) News is calling this Anna movement. Its not, its an anti corruption movement. I am against the self proclamation that this movement is going towards
6) What's Anna issues over and above what Gandhi faced- Anna faces a larger population broken into multiple small communities.
A closing note: I want to see corruption end in India. I hope this movement works. But not at the cost of taking us back 20 years.
This is making me think.
1) Do we want a new government? No of course not. Looking at the options we have and you will see what I mean. What we want is this government to change its ways. But can this government do that? Can it Really? With the government getting blackmailed by its coalition allies on hourly daily basis, the government is rendered ineffective. They can only work 20% of the time for the people and the rest of the time to help its on cause and stay in power. Who is responsible for this mess? We the people who vote for the person who speaks the local language and we are comfortable with. People in the South dont always trust the people in the North (just an example)
2) Do we really support Anna? I am sitting in my comfy seat in KL saying I support Anna. IF I really supported Anna and the cause I would be down there with my friends supporting them in Delhi. 2 thing come out of my last statement. I know of a lot of people who have joined the cause because they dont want to seem out of the crowd. Secondly this is mostly a Delhi revolt. Out of millions of people who live in Delhi 15K showed up (peanuts I must say). Does anyone from Assam care?
3) Who wants the change? Not the rich, the current situation affects their net worth in the Indian stock market. Not the upper middle class- They lose big pay packets if MNCs leave, Not the middle class (frankly they want earn their 3 meals a day and kids have good education. They deal with so many more day to day problems that a lokpal bill can never solve. and certainly not the poor class (which by the way forms the largest part of the population) as they wont even know what Lok Pal is and what's written them. Get them educated first. Let them eat first. Let them lIve first
4) What is the plan for the Anna team? Will he die or will he eat? This revolution will take a turn if Anna dies fasting. And no I am trying to be a cynic but unless the movement as a long strategic plan this movement will fail without a tragic incident. They just dont have the mass movement.
5) News is calling this Anna movement. Its not, its an anti corruption movement. I am against the self proclamation that this movement is going towards
6) What's Anna issues over and above what Gandhi faced- Anna faces a larger population broken into multiple small communities.
A closing note: I want to see corruption end in India. I hope this movement works. But not at the cost of taking us back 20 years.
The Problem with perfection RON ASHKENAS
If you're not familiar with the law of diminishing returns, it states that at a certain point adding more effort will not produce significantly more gains. The challenge is knowing when you've reached that point. For many managers this is an important question: How far do I keep going on a project before I declare that it's "good enough" — and that further effort will not significantly change the outcome?
Several years ago I worked with a project team charged with increasing sales to its large corporate customers. At the first meeting the team brainstormed ways to drive up sales, but before moving ahead decided to collect data about current sales and survey sales managers and customers. Since it wasn't clear which ideas might work, this seemed like a logical next step — until the data analysis work dragged on for months as the team tried to reach the perfect answer.
I've seen this pattern in many organizations where, instead of moving into action, managers insist on doing more analysis. In some cases this is part of a company-wide "paralysis by analysis" culture, while in others it is a personal tendency of the manager or team involved. Either way this oft-repeated pattern results not only in wasted effort, but significant delays in moving forward.
From my experience, there are two often-unconscious reasons for this unproductive quest for perfection. The first is the fear of failing. In many organizations, coming up with a recommendation that doesn't ultimately succeed can be career limiting. So to avoid this fate, managers put in extra effort to get the "right" answer, and back it up with as much data and justification as possible. Then, if it doesn't work, nobody can say that they didn't do their homework.
The second driver of unproductive perfection is the anxiety about taking action. Studying problems and coming up with recommendations is safe territory; while changing processes, procedures, incentives, systems, or anything else is much higher risk. Action forces managers and teams out of their comfort zones, driving them to sell ideas, deal with resistance, orchestrate work plans, and potentially disrupt work processes for colleagues and even customers. So one way to avoid dealing with these messy issues is to keep the study going as long as possible, thus delaying any action.
Because of these psychological dynamics, breaking free of unproductive perfection is not easy. But if you are a project sponsor, leader, or team member, and want to move into action more quickly, here's an approach you can try: Instead of viewing "action" as something that follows research, think about how action can occur parallel to research. In other words, rather than coming up with perfect recommendations and then flipping the switch months later, start by testing some of your initial ideas on a small scale immediately — while collecting more data. Then you can feed the lessons from these experiments into the research process, while continuing to implement and scale additional ideas.
For example, in the sales case described above, the team shifted its patterns by selecting three corporate customers where they could quickly test some of their ideas, in a low-risk way, in collaboration with the sales teams. With one customer, the sales leader experimented with selling products and services together, rather than having services as an after-sell. A second sales leader added a paid advisory service to his offering. The third worked on building relationships higher up in the C-suite. The lessons from these experiments were then incorporated into the team's recommendations, which were then tested with several more customers and so on. Within a year, most of the corporate sales teams were working differently and increasing their overall sales.
Clearly the ideas that first emerge through this iterative approach are not going to be perfect, but by sharpening them through field-testing rather than theoretical analysis they will eventually become good enough to deliver results. Working in this way also reduces the risk of recommending the "wrong" ideas and the anxiety about managing change, since small-scale tests provide rapid feedback and engage others in the organization right from the beginning.
Perfection certainly makes sense when designing an airplane or an office building. But if the search for perfection is leading you to diminishing returns and an avoidance of action, it might be worth taking a different path.
Several years ago I worked with a project team charged with increasing sales to its large corporate customers. At the first meeting the team brainstormed ways to drive up sales, but before moving ahead decided to collect data about current sales and survey sales managers and customers. Since it wasn't clear which ideas might work, this seemed like a logical next step — until the data analysis work dragged on for months as the team tried to reach the perfect answer.
I've seen this pattern in many organizations where, instead of moving into action, managers insist on doing more analysis. In some cases this is part of a company-wide "paralysis by analysis" culture, while in others it is a personal tendency of the manager or team involved. Either way this oft-repeated pattern results not only in wasted effort, but significant delays in moving forward.
From my experience, there are two often-unconscious reasons for this unproductive quest for perfection. The first is the fear of failing. In many organizations, coming up with a recommendation that doesn't ultimately succeed can be career limiting. So to avoid this fate, managers put in extra effort to get the "right" answer, and back it up with as much data and justification as possible. Then, if it doesn't work, nobody can say that they didn't do their homework.
The second driver of unproductive perfection is the anxiety about taking action. Studying problems and coming up with recommendations is safe territory; while changing processes, procedures, incentives, systems, or anything else is much higher risk. Action forces managers and teams out of their comfort zones, driving them to sell ideas, deal with resistance, orchestrate work plans, and potentially disrupt work processes for colleagues and even customers. So one way to avoid dealing with these messy issues is to keep the study going as long as possible, thus delaying any action.
Because of these psychological dynamics, breaking free of unproductive perfection is not easy. But if you are a project sponsor, leader, or team member, and want to move into action more quickly, here's an approach you can try: Instead of viewing "action" as something that follows research, think about how action can occur parallel to research. In other words, rather than coming up with perfect recommendations and then flipping the switch months later, start by testing some of your initial ideas on a small scale immediately — while collecting more data. Then you can feed the lessons from these experiments into the research process, while continuing to implement and scale additional ideas.
For example, in the sales case described above, the team shifted its patterns by selecting three corporate customers where they could quickly test some of their ideas, in a low-risk way, in collaboration with the sales teams. With one customer, the sales leader experimented with selling products and services together, rather than having services as an after-sell. A second sales leader added a paid advisory service to his offering. The third worked on building relationships higher up in the C-suite. The lessons from these experiments were then incorporated into the team's recommendations, which were then tested with several more customers and so on. Within a year, most of the corporate sales teams were working differently and increasing their overall sales.
Clearly the ideas that first emerge through this iterative approach are not going to be perfect, but by sharpening them through field-testing rather than theoretical analysis they will eventually become good enough to deliver results. Working in this way also reduces the risk of recommending the "wrong" ideas and the anxiety about managing change, since small-scale tests provide rapid feedback and engage others in the organization right from the beginning.
Perfection certainly makes sense when designing an airplane or an office building. But if the search for perfection is leading you to diminishing returns and an avoidance of action, it might be worth taking a different path.
Network-key to the top
Online Networking Guide
Stanford Who’s Who is an elite organization
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extend beyond our membership program.
Stanford Who’s Who
utilizes a wide variety of
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individuals who complete
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tribute your professional achievements, and is
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Who’s Who website.
Another excellent promotional tool is the
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SECTIONS
1
STANFORD WHO’S WHO
Discover how to utilize one of
the most powerful internet
networking and personal
marketing tools.
2
LINKED IN
The Professional Social
Networking site is just waiting
for you tap it’s potential .
3
Simple messages limited to 140
characters could be your key to
success!
4
FACE BOOK
Now with more users than
Google! Facebook not only let’s
you network with your friends
and family, but can be a powerful
tool to network yourself or your
business!
Relationships Matter. That is the motto of linked in.
Your professional network of trusted contacts gives you an
advantage in your career, and is one of your most valuable
assets. LinkedIn exists to help you make better use of your
professional network and help the people you trust in
return. It’s mission is to connect the world’s professionals to
make them more productive and
successful.
Linkedin is a great resource for
networking yourself. Here are five tips
for success with Linkedin.
1. Build Your
Connection Base. Connect
with past co-workers, friends, and
professional connections. But don’t
limit yourself, Linkedin has a wealth
of resources for you to reach out and
make new connections.
2. Join Groups. Your first foray into networking
on Linkedin is to join groups. Linkedin makes it easy to
target groups that are within your industry or that may
be potential clients.
3. Be Active. Don’t just join a group and read
the conversations, be part of the conversations!
Networking yourself is all about communication, don’t
waste your time by just being silent in the corner.
Contributing to discussions is the prime “foot in the
door” to start your networking. You will begin to build
new relationships by engaging in intelligent discussions.
4. Update Your Profile. Keep your profile
fresh with up to date information.
Link your Twitter account to your
profile so your new contacts can get a
news feed on your accomplishments.
Constantly updating and being active
will translate your level of
commitment to networking. Always
make sure your profile is complete.
Ask your friends to post
recommendations on your profile,
these are testimonials to your
character, knowledge and work ethics.
5. Start a Group. Don’t just follow, be a leader.
Start a group on Linkedin, invite your other contacts to
participate and voice their opinions.
L INKED IN
FACTS
URL: www.linkedin.com
Founded: 12/2002
CEO: Dan Nye
Description:
Twitter is a micro-blog, social networking tool that
enables users to send and view messages, known as Tweets.
The “Tweets” are text posts, limited to 170 characters.
5 Tips for Using Twitter
1. Tweet: Tweet, and Tweet often. Look for
interesting content.
Keep people
abreast of what
you are doing
throughout the
day. The way
Twitter was
designed is you will
be forced to keep
your tweets short,
it’s up to you keep
it sweet. Tweet
two to three times
daily to maintain your presence. Download one of the
many twitter mobile apps to constantly keep in touch
and have the capability to Tweet media such as photos.
2. Reply: Respond to other tweets. Keep yourself
in the Twitter conversation. Networking is about
communicating, engage the people you are networking
with.
3. Search: Learn and use Twitters advanced
search tool. This can put you on top of relevant topics
and put you in touch with new contacts.
4. Complete: Keep your profile and bio complete
on Twitter. Make sure your profile matches your
message and goals for
branding yourself.
Customize your page
to stand out and
utilize the real estate
to brand your
message.
5.Promote: Just
like your website, you
need to promote your
space on twitter and
gain followers. How?
Here are some ideas: link your twitter account on your
email signature, place a link on your website, place your
Twitter info on your biz card, keep tweeting and build
your recognition as an expert.
FACTS
URL: www.twitter.com
Founded: 2006
CEO: Evan Williams
Facebook is nothing short of a social media revolution. In a
short time it has gathered more users than Google. A simple
concept of creating a digital identity, allowing you to easily find
others with similar interests, old
friends and classmates and targeted
marketing.
1. Profile: Full complete
your profile on Facebook so
people can easily identify you
and get in touch with you.
Through your profile you will
be able to create group and
fan pages.
2. Create group or
fan pages: What’s the
difference you might ask? To
quote Facebook “Facebook
created Pages when we
noticed that people were
trying to connect with brands
and famous artists in ways that
didn’t quite work on Facebook…Not only can you
connect with your favorite artists and businesses, but
now you also can show your friends what you care about
and recommend by adding Pages to your personal
profile.” Groups are smaller scaled than Pages are. You
could easily compare a group to a club. One of the
major differences is that when you update
on a group, it comes directly from your
personal account, where on a fanpage
you can create updates that appear from
“fan page” itself. Groups are great for
oroganizing on a personal level and for
smaller scale interaction around a cause.
Pages are better for brands , businesses,
bands, movies or celebrities who want to
interact with their fans or customers
without having them connected to a
personal account, and have a need to
exceed Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap.
3.Communicate: Start
communicating. Whether it’s just
personal networking or networking your
product, business or page. Engage in
conversions and relevant discussions.
The more you get your name out there,
the more people will “like” your page.
Download Facebook’s mobile app so you do not miss an
opportunity to participate in discussions.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
The rise from the ashes
August 14, 2011
Posted by Michael Jeh 51 minutes ago in Michael Jeh
A modern team that could reinvigorate the old game
Alastair Cook is understated and classy © Getty Images
Irony. One of the most underrated pleasures. Best savoured slowly and with none of the joy and exhilaration that comes with winning or triumphalism. It's almost bitter-sweet in flavour because it brings with it no great sense of personal achievement or patriotic fervour; just a wry smile and a shake of the head.
Irony is spread thick on British toast this Sunday morning. In a week which Andrew Strauss described as not being one of England's finest hours (with reference to the riots), the much-maligned English cricket system of the last 20 years finally brought the throne back to the birthplace of the game. On one hand we have a staid, traditional, somewhat old-fashioned country (in the nicest possible way I might add) showing off an ugly modern face that looked so incongruous among the iconic tourist sights of London. Barely a few days later we saw a slick, ruthless and thoroughly modern cricket team, even down to the style of clothing they now wear on the field, polish off a tired but formidable (on paper) Indian batting team that boasts many of the modern greats.
There is nothing old-fashioned or traditional about this England team, even down to the Irishman in the middle order and the various other players whose heritage can be traced back to the four corners of the globe but who are now as proudly British as you like. No sense of disenfranchised youths among this lot! And all of this in an old British city (Birmingham) that is now as famous for its Indian balti restaurants as anything else. Ironic indeed.
For India, the gentle fall to earth was predictable but surely it must hurt a little bit to relinquish the No. 1 ranking so meekly. Okay, it is clear that Test cricket is not necessarily at the top of the BCCI's priorities and that is their prerogative. India have earned the right to prioritise their own goals and who would begrudge them that privilege? They are the World Champions in the shorter format, their innovative economy has reinvented Twenty20 cricket to the extent that everyone is copying their blueprint. The irony I suppose is that for a country that scoffed at Twenty20 cricket when it was first born, it took but one triumph in South Africa a few years ago, when a young MS Dhoni led a team of pups to a world championship, for India to now relegate Test cricket to a definite second, third or even fourth priority. No one at the BCCI will ever admit it but maybe even IPL ranks higher in the pecking order.
India are not the only ones seduced by that mistress - Australia too have proved that despite the rhetoric, IPL contracts are on a par with any sense of national duty. We only have to remember Michael Hussey and Doug Bollinger arriving late for a Test series in India because of commitments with Chennai Super Kings to realise that it would be hypocritical to single out the home nation as the only ones smitten by the IPL's fluttering eyelashes.
It is ironic too that for a country that is widely regarded as the most cricket crazy nation on earth, the longer form of the game has lost its spectator appeal. You would think that for a nation which loves cricket as much as India does, the more cricket the better. To a certain extent that is true but it's not the five-course meal that Indians now love to watch. They have embraced the take-away, fast-food concept and are now exporting it with added spice! Some people would argue that the Indian cricket fan still follows Test cricket as closely as ever but they just don't like watching it at the stadium. Even allowing for some of that, looking from afar, one can't help but feel that the players themselves know that their real stardom lies in the shorter format.
With the retirement of Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar looming, one cannot help but feel that they will take a bit of that five-day magic with them. Virender Sehwag has a magnificent Test record but such is his style that one tends to link him more closely to the shorter game, although his numbers suggest that he's actually a more credentialed Test player than anything else. More irony.
For England, I can only see a fairly extended reign at the top. They will need to find a spinner to replace the excellent Graeme Swann but the rest of their squad looks robust and endurable. Now that Kevin Pietersen's star has waned slightly, they lack the genuine stars that the Australian and Indian dynasties boasted during their reigns but ironically (there's that word again!), that actually makes England a more complete outfit. In Alastair Cook they have a future record-breaking run machine but it is probable that he will creep up silently on greatness in a manner quite unlike Tendulkar, Ponting, Sehwag, Lara et al.
Cook is the quintessential British stereotype in that respect - understated, efficient and classy without feeling the need to convince anyone else. He is unlikely to be the poster boy for junior cricketers in England but for all that anonymity, he might just be the dinosaur that Test cricket, and English cricket, needs to keep the embers burning.
Who will challenge England in the next few years? Just about everybody but I don't think they'll dethrone England for a few years yet. I don't think they will dominate to the extent that the Aussies crushed all before them during their halcyon period but in typical British tradition, they will be efficient and clinical, winning more than they lose in the next half-decade. I rate South Africa as their most likely challenger for no other reason than they have the same efficient work ethic that Andy Flower has managed to instill into this team. The South African domestic system is quite robust and, like county cricket, it doesn't necessarily have to be the best domestic competition in the world to turn out a squad of about 15 players who can take on the world. Mind you, a question for another blog piece might be the issue of which country has the best first-class system. Australia can no longer claim that as its birth-right but who else has the depth to match it?
Not to be particularly jingoistic - I don't really care who sits on the throne - but after watching Britain's youth laying waste to a proud country that I so dearly love from my many years of playing cricket and my days as a student at Oxford, I can only hope that Strauss and his men realise that cricket needs them to rule with a velvet glove not an iron fist. We've seen what can happen when young people feel disenfranchised and ignored by the powerbrokers - regardless of whether we agree with their gripes or not (and frankly, I don't!); cricket too, even Indian cricket, can learn something from that. Rule with grace, mind your manners, innovate with imagination but never forget that the roots of the game still lie in slow-growing soil. The Tendulkars of the world can grace any stage but his pedigree was born of traditional parenting. Watching a slowly unfolding Border/Dravid/Yousuf/Kallis/Warne masterclass in Test cricket is a pleasure that should not just be for the video archives - there's room in cricket for all types of kingdoms.
The King is dead. Long live the King. That's irony
Posted by Michael Jeh 51 minutes ago in Michael Jeh
A modern team that could reinvigorate the old game
Alastair Cook is understated and classy © Getty Images
Irony. One of the most underrated pleasures. Best savoured slowly and with none of the joy and exhilaration that comes with winning or triumphalism. It's almost bitter-sweet in flavour because it brings with it no great sense of personal achievement or patriotic fervour; just a wry smile and a shake of the head.
Irony is spread thick on British toast this Sunday morning. In a week which Andrew Strauss described as not being one of England's finest hours (with reference to the riots), the much-maligned English cricket system of the last 20 years finally brought the throne back to the birthplace of the game. On one hand we have a staid, traditional, somewhat old-fashioned country (in the nicest possible way I might add) showing off an ugly modern face that looked so incongruous among the iconic tourist sights of London. Barely a few days later we saw a slick, ruthless and thoroughly modern cricket team, even down to the style of clothing they now wear on the field, polish off a tired but formidable (on paper) Indian batting team that boasts many of the modern greats.
There is nothing old-fashioned or traditional about this England team, even down to the Irishman in the middle order and the various other players whose heritage can be traced back to the four corners of the globe but who are now as proudly British as you like. No sense of disenfranchised youths among this lot! And all of this in an old British city (Birmingham) that is now as famous for its Indian balti restaurants as anything else. Ironic indeed.
For India, the gentle fall to earth was predictable but surely it must hurt a little bit to relinquish the No. 1 ranking so meekly. Okay, it is clear that Test cricket is not necessarily at the top of the BCCI's priorities and that is their prerogative. India have earned the right to prioritise their own goals and who would begrudge them that privilege? They are the World Champions in the shorter format, their innovative economy has reinvented Twenty20 cricket to the extent that everyone is copying their blueprint. The irony I suppose is that for a country that scoffed at Twenty20 cricket when it was first born, it took but one triumph in South Africa a few years ago, when a young MS Dhoni led a team of pups to a world championship, for India to now relegate Test cricket to a definite second, third or even fourth priority. No one at the BCCI will ever admit it but maybe even IPL ranks higher in the pecking order.
India are not the only ones seduced by that mistress - Australia too have proved that despite the rhetoric, IPL contracts are on a par with any sense of national duty. We only have to remember Michael Hussey and Doug Bollinger arriving late for a Test series in India because of commitments with Chennai Super Kings to realise that it would be hypocritical to single out the home nation as the only ones smitten by the IPL's fluttering eyelashes.
It is ironic too that for a country that is widely regarded as the most cricket crazy nation on earth, the longer form of the game has lost its spectator appeal. You would think that for a nation which loves cricket as much as India does, the more cricket the better. To a certain extent that is true but it's not the five-course meal that Indians now love to watch. They have embraced the take-away, fast-food concept and are now exporting it with added spice! Some people would argue that the Indian cricket fan still follows Test cricket as closely as ever but they just don't like watching it at the stadium. Even allowing for some of that, looking from afar, one can't help but feel that the players themselves know that their real stardom lies in the shorter format.
With the retirement of Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar looming, one cannot help but feel that they will take a bit of that five-day magic with them. Virender Sehwag has a magnificent Test record but such is his style that one tends to link him more closely to the shorter game, although his numbers suggest that he's actually a more credentialed Test player than anything else. More irony.
For England, I can only see a fairly extended reign at the top. They will need to find a spinner to replace the excellent Graeme Swann but the rest of their squad looks robust and endurable. Now that Kevin Pietersen's star has waned slightly, they lack the genuine stars that the Australian and Indian dynasties boasted during their reigns but ironically (there's that word again!), that actually makes England a more complete outfit. In Alastair Cook they have a future record-breaking run machine but it is probable that he will creep up silently on greatness in a manner quite unlike Tendulkar, Ponting, Sehwag, Lara et al.
Cook is the quintessential British stereotype in that respect - understated, efficient and classy without feeling the need to convince anyone else. He is unlikely to be the poster boy for junior cricketers in England but for all that anonymity, he might just be the dinosaur that Test cricket, and English cricket, needs to keep the embers burning.
Who will challenge England in the next few years? Just about everybody but I don't think they'll dethrone England for a few years yet. I don't think they will dominate to the extent that the Aussies crushed all before them during their halcyon period but in typical British tradition, they will be efficient and clinical, winning more than they lose in the next half-decade. I rate South Africa as their most likely challenger for no other reason than they have the same efficient work ethic that Andy Flower has managed to instill into this team. The South African domestic system is quite robust and, like county cricket, it doesn't necessarily have to be the best domestic competition in the world to turn out a squad of about 15 players who can take on the world. Mind you, a question for another blog piece might be the issue of which country has the best first-class system. Australia can no longer claim that as its birth-right but who else has the depth to match it?
Not to be particularly jingoistic - I don't really care who sits on the throne - but after watching Britain's youth laying waste to a proud country that I so dearly love from my many years of playing cricket and my days as a student at Oxford, I can only hope that Strauss and his men realise that cricket needs them to rule with a velvet glove not an iron fist. We've seen what can happen when young people feel disenfranchised and ignored by the powerbrokers - regardless of whether we agree with their gripes or not (and frankly, I don't!); cricket too, even Indian cricket, can learn something from that. Rule with grace, mind your manners, innovate with imagination but never forget that the roots of the game still lie in slow-growing soil. The Tendulkars of the world can grace any stage but his pedigree was born of traditional parenting. Watching a slowly unfolding Border/Dravid/Yousuf/Kallis/Warne masterclass in Test cricket is a pleasure that should not just be for the video archives - there's room in cricket for all types of kingdoms.
The King is dead. Long live the King. That's irony
Thursday, July 7, 2011
The Real Secret to Personal Productivity By Steve Tobak
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The Real Secret to Personal Productivity
By Steve Tobak | July 6, 2011
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With everyone searching for the secret to personal productivity, you’d think it was a winning lottery ticket or something. Well, today just may be your lucky day.
One thing’s for sure, the blogosphere’s got every answer you can think of, from the painfully obvious to the outrageously contrarian.
BNET blogger Jeff Haden says forget big-time productivity experts Stephen Covey and Tony Robbins; he’s got the answer in 7 Simple Steps, including, “Don’t quit until you’re done.” That’s right, you heard it here, folks. But seriously, his tips do make a lot of sense. No kidding.
Not to be outdone, Jessica Stillman says “everything you know about productivity is wrong.” She quotes five new rules of productivity from the Chief Happiness Officer blog, including, “Working harder and more hours means getting less done” and, get this, “procrastination” can actually be a good thing.
Hmm. I’m feeling productive today; think I’ll go to the beach and deal with work tomorrow. Works for me.
Now, Devon Pendleton of Inc. seems to have hit the jackpot by compiling surprising productivity tips from 10 successful entrepreneurs and executives:
Arianna Huffington of Huffington Post says, “… stop doing what I’m doing and get some sleep.”
Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson works out.
Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin fired their assistants for scheduling them in too many meetings.
Angel investor Ram Shriram says, to track important things in a diary, “Documenting it ensures we’ll always remember it.”
Stephen King says writers should write every day, even if it’s just a little. Consistency is key.
CEO and former U.S. Army captain Gary McCullough gives people “half as much time as they say they need.”
Harper’s Bazaar exec Carol Smith catches up on e-mail on Sundays.
Starbucks VP Stephen Gillett points to multiplayer games like World of Warcraft to learn effective problem-solving and decision-making skills.
Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller doesn’t read contracts. “If I can’t make the deal in a phone call … then it’s not a worthwhile deal.”
But entrepreneur and executive Jana Eggers is the one who, in my opinion, hit the ball out of the park. “I recommend anything that requires focus and discipline … they are good skills to reinforce.”
And therein lies the rub.
You see, the secret to personal productivity is, well, that it’s personal. It’s different for everyone. Branson works out while Huffington goes to bed. You can see how it might be a bit tricky to reconcile those two things, right?
The good news is that I’ve known hundreds of successful executives, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, and they all do have some common attributes when it comes to personal productivity. Every single one of them recognizes the importance of self-discipline and focus, as does Eggers. Each one may have unique tricks and tools to accomplish whatever needs getting done, as do I, but we all know what’s at the core.
So, why doesn’t everyone just say that and be done with it? Well, I guess that’s because it’s so ingrained in us that it’s a given. We don’t think to mention it because it’s sort of obvious. But, it’s not necessarily obvious or ingrained in all of you, so I thought it might be a good idea to mention it.
I know, I know. This might be deflating for those of you looking for a quick fix - like a diet or pill you can take - that’ll just magically help you get things done. Forget it; there’s no such thing, except maybe caffeine. Like it or not, the secret to personal productivity really is discipline and focus.
Now, if you ask me where that discipline comes from, I think that’s personal too, but for me, it came from my father - a real disciplinarian with a wicked strong work ethic. I also find that it helps to have a passion for what you do and to have something to prove, either to yourself or to someone else.
If you’re into lists, The Real Secret to Personal Productivity is:
Discipline
Focus
Strong work ethic
Passion for your work
Something to prove
… and don’t forget the caffeine.
Log In | Join
Search
Follow
Home
Commentary
Leadership
Life at Work
Business Owners
Exec. Ed
Library
CBS MoneyWatch
CBS News
On CBS MoneyWatch: 4 Things NOT to Buy at Costco
Most Popular
VIDEO: The Making of a Great Golf CourseThe Secret to Happier EmployeesWhat Working Moms WantHow Do Colleagues Really Feel About You?7 Simple Steps to Extreme Productivity
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Watch Now:
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Home / Leadership / The Corner Office RSSEmail Alert
The Real Secret to Personal Productivity
By Steve Tobak | July 6, 2011
inShare
28
The Corner Office
Steve Tobak
Contact
Author Bio
More from Leadership
Latest Business Tactic to Improve Service
4 Signs You've Got a Bad Strategy
What Really Makes a Horrible Boss?
Why Should the Best Job Candidates Work for You?
Avoid a Miliband Media Moment | BTalk
View more
With everyone searching for the secret to personal productivity, you’d think it was a winning lottery ticket or something. Well, today just may be your lucky day.
One thing’s for sure, the blogosphere’s got every answer you can think of, from the painfully obvious to the outrageously contrarian.
BNET blogger Jeff Haden says forget big-time productivity experts Stephen Covey and Tony Robbins; he’s got the answer in 7 Simple Steps, including, “Don’t quit until you’re done.” That’s right, you heard it here, folks. But seriously, his tips do make a lot of sense. No kidding.
Not to be outdone, Jessica Stillman says “everything you know about productivity is wrong.” She quotes five new rules of productivity from the Chief Happiness Officer blog, including, “Working harder and more hours means getting less done” and, get this, “procrastination” can actually be a good thing.
Hmm. I’m feeling productive today; think I’ll go to the beach and deal with work tomorrow. Works for me.
Now, Devon Pendleton of Inc. seems to have hit the jackpot by compiling surprising productivity tips from 10 successful entrepreneurs and executives:
Arianna Huffington of Huffington Post says, “… stop doing what I’m doing and get some sleep.”
Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson works out.
Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin fired their assistants for scheduling them in too many meetings.
Angel investor Ram Shriram says, to track important things in a diary, “Documenting it ensures we’ll always remember it.”
Stephen King says writers should write every day, even if it’s just a little. Consistency is key.
CEO and former U.S. Army captain Gary McCullough gives people “half as much time as they say they need.”
Harper’s Bazaar exec Carol Smith catches up on e-mail on Sundays.
Starbucks VP Stephen Gillett points to multiplayer games like World of Warcraft to learn effective problem-solving and decision-making skills.
Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller doesn’t read contracts. “If I can’t make the deal in a phone call … then it’s not a worthwhile deal.”
But entrepreneur and executive Jana Eggers is the one who, in my opinion, hit the ball out of the park. “I recommend anything that requires focus and discipline … they are good skills to reinforce.”
And therein lies the rub.
You see, the secret to personal productivity is, well, that it’s personal. It’s different for everyone. Branson works out while Huffington goes to bed. You can see how it might be a bit tricky to reconcile those two things, right?
The good news is that I’ve known hundreds of successful executives, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, and they all do have some common attributes when it comes to personal productivity. Every single one of them recognizes the importance of self-discipline and focus, as does Eggers. Each one may have unique tricks and tools to accomplish whatever needs getting done, as do I, but we all know what’s at the core.
So, why doesn’t everyone just say that and be done with it? Well, I guess that’s because it’s so ingrained in us that it’s a given. We don’t think to mention it because it’s sort of obvious. But, it’s not necessarily obvious or ingrained in all of you, so I thought it might be a good idea to mention it.
I know, I know. This might be deflating for those of you looking for a quick fix - like a diet or pill you can take - that’ll just magically help you get things done. Forget it; there’s no such thing, except maybe caffeine. Like it or not, the secret to personal productivity really is discipline and focus.
Now, if you ask me where that discipline comes from, I think that’s personal too, but for me, it came from my father - a real disciplinarian with a wicked strong work ethic. I also find that it helps to have a passion for what you do and to have something to prove, either to yourself or to someone else.
If you’re into lists, The Real Secret to Personal Productivity is:
Discipline
Focus
Strong work ethic
Passion for your work
Something to prove
… and don’t forget the caffeine.
Run Shay Run
At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its
Dedicated staff, he offered a question:
'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.
Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do.
Where is the natural order of things in my son?'
The audience was stilled by the query.
The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.'
Then he told the following story:
Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.
I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning..'
Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt.. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.
In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.
In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again.
Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.
At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?
Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.
However, as Shay stepped up to the
Plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.
The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.
The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.
As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.
The game would now be over.
The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.
Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.
Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates.
Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first!
Run to first!'
Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.
He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.
Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!'
Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.
By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball . The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.
He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head.
Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.
All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay'
Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run to third!
Shay, run to third!'
As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!'
Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team
'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world'.
Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!
Dedicated staff, he offered a question:
'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.
Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do.
Where is the natural order of things in my son?'
The audience was stilled by the query.
The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.'
Then he told the following story:
Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.
I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning..'
Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt.. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.
In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.
In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again.
Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.
At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?
Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.
However, as Shay stepped up to the
Plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.
The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.
The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.
As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.
The game would now be over.
The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.
Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.
Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates.
Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first!
Run to first!'
Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.
He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.
Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!'
Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.
By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball . The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.
He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head.
Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.
All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay'
Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run to third!
Shay, run to third!'
As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!'
Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team
'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world'.
Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Google’s Six-Front War
Editor’s note: Guest contributor Semil Shah is an entrepreneur interested in digital media, consumer internet, and social networks. He is based in Palo Alto and you can follow him on twitter @semilshah.
While the tech world is buzzing about the launch and implications of Google’s new social network, Google+, it’s worth noting that Google isn’t just in a war with Facebook, it’s at war with multiple companies across multiple industries. In fact, Google is fighting a multi-front war with a host of tech giants for control over some of the most valuable pieces of real estate in technology. Whether it’s social, mobile, browsing, local, enterprise, or even search, Google is being attacked from all angles. And make no mistake about it, they are fighting back and fighting back, hard. Entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist Ben Horowitz laid the groundwork for this in his post Peacetime CEO / Wartime CEO, saying Larry Page “seems to have determined that Google is moving into war and he clearly intends to be a wartime CEO. This will be a profound change for Google and the entire high-tech industry.” Horowitz is exactly right.
Before I investigate each battle front in the war, it’s important to highlight the fact that perhaps no other tech company right now could withstand such a multifaceted attack, let alone be able to retaliate efficiently. Sure, Apple might get pushed around by Facebook, so it integrated Twitter into iOS5, and sure, Amazon and Apple have their own tussles over digital media and payments, but at the end of the day, Google is in this unique and potentially highly vulnerable position that will test the company’s mettle and ability to not only reinvent itself, but also to perhaps strengthen its core. Let’s take a quick look into the GooglePlex, which may now resemble more of a military complex, plotting out strategies and tactics for this war. Google must battle on at least six fronts simultaneously.
The Browser Front: Users have a choice between Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Firefox (Mozilla), Safari (Apple), and Google’s offering, Chrome. The speculation is that Facebook is interested in a browser, too, since Mozilla co-founder Blake Ross is an employee, but that hasn’t happened yet. More recently, the social browser RockMelt has captured some peoples’ interests, and last week secured $30M in financing, adding Facebook board members Jim Breyer and Marc Andreessen to its board. Andreessen obviously knows a thing or two about browsers. Though most browsers enable users to power their search by Google as an option, Googe’s Chrome offering isn’t the lead browser by market share, and not even in second place.
The Mobile Front: Apple’s iOS took the mobile world by storm in 2007 with the first iPhone. Then Google’s Android operating system roared alongside it, turning into a freight train of downloads, as Bill Gurley said, only recently to be slowed by Apple’s release of a phone with Verizon. While Android may have more installs, they don’t have the developer community to build killer apps because the Android marketplace (both for hardware and firmware) is highly fragmented, whereas iOS is about symphonic convergence. All the along, there’s been ample speculation about whether Facebook was building its own mobile phone device, or as the company has publicly hinted, how it would integrate social layers into different mobile operating systems and platforms.
The Search Front: Whether we’re on the desktop/laptop, a tablet, or a phone, Google wants to be powering our search, and this is where they dominate, though Microsoft’s Bing has been able to acquire an impressive number of clicks. While everything is fine today, there are some troubling warning signs. On desktops and laptops, people will continue to use a variety of browsers, though they end up spending a lot of time on Facebook, which scares Google because of the trend of people moving slowly from search to discovery. This, however, won’t shift overnight. For mobile devices, it’s trickier. Most iOS users navigate the web either through Apple’s own browser, Safari, and can have it search by Google. On Android-powered tablets and phones, Google controls more of the user-experience, including search, navigation, and application integration. While this is going on, users are trying their hand at realtime search on Twitter or BackType, looking for content directly within Quora, or using Blekko’s hashtags to better cut through and sort the web.
The Local Front: When users search for things on Google and click through, Google gets a little cut of that click. It knows how to drive traffic online and be paid handsomely for it. Driving and directing traffic that originates online into the real world, however, is a different story. As Steve Cheney elegantly stated, when we search online for places to go and then end up there in real life, the place itself does not have a clear sense of what drove them there. This is why the Daily Deals space is so red-hot and competitive, as it helps to close this major, valuable loop. If you search for a restaurant via OpenTable and make a reservation, the merchant knows exactly what drove you to the door. That’s why Yelp, which only used to provide reviews, offered the ability to check-in for credit after Foursquare built up a head of steam. The opportunity here is so complex yet fragmented that it drove Google to offer $6B for Groupon just six months ago. In local, Google is competing against Groupon, but also Amazon (which has a stake in LivingSocial), and a host of smaller (Loopt) and forthcoming deals companies will continue to roll out. This is just the beginning.
The Social Front: Yes, again, Google is fighting a war with Facebook. That much is obvious. What’s less obvious is how other social networks have been able to capture bits and pieces of our identities, leaving Google without any information of who we are. Users have been pumping personal content into blogs like Tumblr, networks like LinkedIn, and even asking search-related questions on Quora. Although we may all predominantly search via Google, the company is struggling in the social field. That is why Larry Page stepped in as CEO, why he tied bonuses to social, and why Google+ is their social sword and shield to fight back and capture user data, despite it being late in the game. Strategically speaking, even if Google+ doesn’t hold or catch fire, it will probably cause its rivals to pause for a moment and consider a range of short- and long-term implications.
The Enterprise Front: If you think the browser, mobile, social, local, and search isn’t enough, check out Google’s combatants in enterprise—just some names like Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and VMware, among others. Google’s App Engine could go up against AWS, though that doesn’t seem likely. Google competes with IBM and Oracle on enterprise search (such as OmniFind) and email and work collaboration tools (Lotus). Google’s Chromebooks are seen as a potential entry point into enterprise computing, going up against hardware giants like HP, Dell, and Lenovo. Furthermore, Google may be trying to push Android into the enterprise, which would apply even more pressure on Research in Motion. There’s VMware, which offers Zimbra, PaaS, and presentation tools, to name a few. And, of course, there’s Microsoft, which competes with Google for a wide range of productivity applications. For all of Google’s consumer-facing brands and applications, its strength in enterprise sometimes is underestimated despite the fact that they currently hold many excellent positions.
It’s easy to pile on Google given their size, their wallet, and their global influence and impact. They are the goliath, and have been for many years, and are now facing many challenging tests, all at the same time. And while it’s a fun parlor game to sit around and pontificate about how Google’s reign might be over or how slow GMail loads, the reality is that no other company could compete legitimately on so many different battlefronts against so many different competitors. There’s no way Google can win each battle, and they must know that, but they will win some, and it will be fascinating to see how the company both adapts and stays the course along the way. Google is not going to go down without a fight, and it could take another decade for all of these battles to play out. The company has some of the world’s brightest engineers, a stockpile of cash, and incredible consumer Internet mind share, worldwide. Sit tight.
While the tech world is buzzing about the launch and implications of Google’s new social network, Google+, it’s worth noting that Google isn’t just in a war with Facebook, it’s at war with multiple companies across multiple industries. In fact, Google is fighting a multi-front war with a host of tech giants for control over some of the most valuable pieces of real estate in technology. Whether it’s social, mobile, browsing, local, enterprise, or even search, Google is being attacked from all angles. And make no mistake about it, they are fighting back and fighting back, hard. Entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist Ben Horowitz laid the groundwork for this in his post Peacetime CEO / Wartime CEO, saying Larry Page “seems to have determined that Google is moving into war and he clearly intends to be a wartime CEO. This will be a profound change for Google and the entire high-tech industry.” Horowitz is exactly right.
Before I investigate each battle front in the war, it’s important to highlight the fact that perhaps no other tech company right now could withstand such a multifaceted attack, let alone be able to retaliate efficiently. Sure, Apple might get pushed around by Facebook, so it integrated Twitter into iOS5, and sure, Amazon and Apple have their own tussles over digital media and payments, but at the end of the day, Google is in this unique and potentially highly vulnerable position that will test the company’s mettle and ability to not only reinvent itself, but also to perhaps strengthen its core. Let’s take a quick look into the GooglePlex, which may now resemble more of a military complex, plotting out strategies and tactics for this war. Google must battle on at least six fronts simultaneously.
The Browser Front: Users have a choice between Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Firefox (Mozilla), Safari (Apple), and Google’s offering, Chrome. The speculation is that Facebook is interested in a browser, too, since Mozilla co-founder Blake Ross is an employee, but that hasn’t happened yet. More recently, the social browser RockMelt has captured some peoples’ interests, and last week secured $30M in financing, adding Facebook board members Jim Breyer and Marc Andreessen to its board. Andreessen obviously knows a thing or two about browsers. Though most browsers enable users to power their search by Google as an option, Googe’s Chrome offering isn’t the lead browser by market share, and not even in second place.
The Mobile Front: Apple’s iOS took the mobile world by storm in 2007 with the first iPhone. Then Google’s Android operating system roared alongside it, turning into a freight train of downloads, as Bill Gurley said, only recently to be slowed by Apple’s release of a phone with Verizon. While Android may have more installs, they don’t have the developer community to build killer apps because the Android marketplace (both for hardware and firmware) is highly fragmented, whereas iOS is about symphonic convergence. All the along, there’s been ample speculation about whether Facebook was building its own mobile phone device, or as the company has publicly hinted, how it would integrate social layers into different mobile operating systems and platforms.
The Search Front: Whether we’re on the desktop/laptop, a tablet, or a phone, Google wants to be powering our search, and this is where they dominate, though Microsoft’s Bing has been able to acquire an impressive number of clicks. While everything is fine today, there are some troubling warning signs. On desktops and laptops, people will continue to use a variety of browsers, though they end up spending a lot of time on Facebook, which scares Google because of the trend of people moving slowly from search to discovery. This, however, won’t shift overnight. For mobile devices, it’s trickier. Most iOS users navigate the web either through Apple’s own browser, Safari, and can have it search by Google. On Android-powered tablets and phones, Google controls more of the user-experience, including search, navigation, and application integration. While this is going on, users are trying their hand at realtime search on Twitter or BackType, looking for content directly within Quora, or using Blekko’s hashtags to better cut through and sort the web.
The Local Front: When users search for things on Google and click through, Google gets a little cut of that click. It knows how to drive traffic online and be paid handsomely for it. Driving and directing traffic that originates online into the real world, however, is a different story. As Steve Cheney elegantly stated, when we search online for places to go and then end up there in real life, the place itself does not have a clear sense of what drove them there. This is why the Daily Deals space is so red-hot and competitive, as it helps to close this major, valuable loop. If you search for a restaurant via OpenTable and make a reservation, the merchant knows exactly what drove you to the door. That’s why Yelp, which only used to provide reviews, offered the ability to check-in for credit after Foursquare built up a head of steam. The opportunity here is so complex yet fragmented that it drove Google to offer $6B for Groupon just six months ago. In local, Google is competing against Groupon, but also Amazon (which has a stake in LivingSocial), and a host of smaller (Loopt) and forthcoming deals companies will continue to roll out. This is just the beginning.
The Social Front: Yes, again, Google is fighting a war with Facebook. That much is obvious. What’s less obvious is how other social networks have been able to capture bits and pieces of our identities, leaving Google without any information of who we are. Users have been pumping personal content into blogs like Tumblr, networks like LinkedIn, and even asking search-related questions on Quora. Although we may all predominantly search via Google, the company is struggling in the social field. That is why Larry Page stepped in as CEO, why he tied bonuses to social, and why Google+ is their social sword and shield to fight back and capture user data, despite it being late in the game. Strategically speaking, even if Google+ doesn’t hold or catch fire, it will probably cause its rivals to pause for a moment and consider a range of short- and long-term implications.
The Enterprise Front: If you think the browser, mobile, social, local, and search isn’t enough, check out Google’s combatants in enterprise—just some names like Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and VMware, among others. Google’s App Engine could go up against AWS, though that doesn’t seem likely. Google competes with IBM and Oracle on enterprise search (such as OmniFind) and email and work collaboration tools (Lotus). Google’s Chromebooks are seen as a potential entry point into enterprise computing, going up against hardware giants like HP, Dell, and Lenovo. Furthermore, Google may be trying to push Android into the enterprise, which would apply even more pressure on Research in Motion. There’s VMware, which offers Zimbra, PaaS, and presentation tools, to name a few. And, of course, there’s Microsoft, which competes with Google for a wide range of productivity applications. For all of Google’s consumer-facing brands and applications, its strength in enterprise sometimes is underestimated despite the fact that they currently hold many excellent positions.
It’s easy to pile on Google given their size, their wallet, and their global influence and impact. They are the goliath, and have been for many years, and are now facing many challenging tests, all at the same time. And while it’s a fun parlor game to sit around and pontificate about how Google’s reign might be over or how slow GMail loads, the reality is that no other company could compete legitimately on so many different battlefronts against so many different competitors. There’s no way Google can win each battle, and they must know that, but they will win some, and it will be fascinating to see how the company both adapts and stays the course along the way. Google is not going to go down without a fight, and it could take another decade for all of these battles to play out. The company has some of the world’s brightest engineers, a stockpile of cash, and incredible consumer Internet mind share, worldwide. Sit tight.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Overcoming Negativity
How to Overcome the Negativity of Others
By Joe Wilner
What do you do when you’re around someone who can’t seem to notice or say anything positive? It can be tough to not let their mood and outlook have an effect.
So, who tends to breed negativity in your life? Is it you boss, coworker, family, or friends? Maybe you’re the one who tends to view things pessimistically at times.
Either way, no one will always have a wonderful day free of frustrations. We are simply going to experience negativity at times; but despite this we do have a choice in how we let negativity effect us. When we experience a negative person it’s important to not them bring us down.
If you’re having a difficult time with a negative person, here are a few ideas to consider.
1) Learn to respond instead of react. This means recognizing when we are encountering negativity so we can prepare mentally and decide how we want to respond. We may want to ignore the comments and not let them get to us, however depending on the situation we may have to interact with the person.
Have you ever been in a work meeting where someone shoots down every good idea and can only see the negative side of things? In these cases we may have to deal with the negativity to prevent it from spreading to others.
Make sure to stop and think. Don’t let the negativity begin to rub off on you. This person is free to have their opinion and as you will see, there are effective ways to work past the negative energy.
2) Focus on the facts instead of emotions. It can be natural to get upset when someone else pointing out all the flaws and mistakes around them. Mind your ego and don’t take it personally. Stay calm and don’t escalate the situation. This means avoid insults, accusations, name calling, and blaming the other person, such as, “You’re always so negative and rude!”
Don’t let the negativity get to you and overtake your attitude. You have the responsibility to not let the situation get out of hand.
3) Once you are ready to respond, an effective way to deal with negativity is to listen attentively and validate how the person feels. It may be tough, but the last thing they want to hear is, “Come on, it’s such a beautiful day, get over the new acquisition.”
Put yourself in other person shoes by being empathic and caring for what the other person is going through. A negative person is often viewing things in a pessimistic manner, so it’s tough for them to see the positive. They also may be having a rough day full of hassles.
Help them regain a sense of control and begin to help them see that not everything is going to turn out horribly. Keep focused on the positive and point out some of the benefits they may be overlooking.
4) Covert negative energy into something productive by helping them to resolve the problem or find a compromise. When someone has a negative attitude they probably aren’t able to think as clearly and be as creative in finding a solution.
Negative thinkers often view things in black and white, concrete terms. They only see one option and feel helpless to do anything about it. Help them find solutions they may not notice.
Negativity can be difficult to deal with, particularly when it’s chronic and directed toward us. However, we don’t have to let the negativity of others bring us down if we are prepared and open to deal with it effectively.
By Joe Wilner
What do you do when you’re around someone who can’t seem to notice or say anything positive? It can be tough to not let their mood and outlook have an effect.
So, who tends to breed negativity in your life? Is it you boss, coworker, family, or friends? Maybe you’re the one who tends to view things pessimistically at times.
Either way, no one will always have a wonderful day free of frustrations. We are simply going to experience negativity at times; but despite this we do have a choice in how we let negativity effect us. When we experience a negative person it’s important to not them bring us down.
If you’re having a difficult time with a negative person, here are a few ideas to consider.
1) Learn to respond instead of react. This means recognizing when we are encountering negativity so we can prepare mentally and decide how we want to respond. We may want to ignore the comments and not let them get to us, however depending on the situation we may have to interact with the person.
Have you ever been in a work meeting where someone shoots down every good idea and can only see the negative side of things? In these cases we may have to deal with the negativity to prevent it from spreading to others.
Make sure to stop and think. Don’t let the negativity begin to rub off on you. This person is free to have their opinion and as you will see, there are effective ways to work past the negative energy.
2) Focus on the facts instead of emotions. It can be natural to get upset when someone else pointing out all the flaws and mistakes around them. Mind your ego and don’t take it personally. Stay calm and don’t escalate the situation. This means avoid insults, accusations, name calling, and blaming the other person, such as, “You’re always so negative and rude!”
Don’t let the negativity get to you and overtake your attitude. You have the responsibility to not let the situation get out of hand.
3) Once you are ready to respond, an effective way to deal with negativity is to listen attentively and validate how the person feels. It may be tough, but the last thing they want to hear is, “Come on, it’s such a beautiful day, get over the new acquisition.”
Put yourself in other person shoes by being empathic and caring for what the other person is going through. A negative person is often viewing things in a pessimistic manner, so it’s tough for them to see the positive. They also may be having a rough day full of hassles.
Help them regain a sense of control and begin to help them see that not everything is going to turn out horribly. Keep focused on the positive and point out some of the benefits they may be overlooking.
4) Covert negative energy into something productive by helping them to resolve the problem or find a compromise. When someone has a negative attitude they probably aren’t able to think as clearly and be as creative in finding a solution.
Negative thinkers often view things in black and white, concrete terms. They only see one option and feel helpless to do anything about it. Help them find solutions they may not notice.
Negativity can be difficult to deal with, particularly when it’s chronic and directed toward us. However, we don’t have to let the negativity of others bring us down if we are prepared and open to deal with it effectively.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
What's the hunger for power?
The tiny edge, the little better, the extra credit or saving that extra buck. Everyone wants to be a superman. Everyone wants to have power.
Having worked in the virtual world for a year or so now its very clear that all of the same world rules apply in the virtual world
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