Know thyself

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. ~ Tao I enjoy meeting people who are self-aware. I look for the opportunity to work with them wherever possible. Working with them usually turns out to be a great experience where I end up gaining more and…

Paradox in business life

Life is full of paradoxes. All of us experience it on daily basis. Business life is no exception either. Few examples: Seek consensus or seek difference of opinion: Looking for consensus? But difference of opinion is what bring individuality and makes a place aspiring. However, you need a level of consensus to build buy-in for successful…

In our lifetime…

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. - Charles Darwin In our life time - we saw: Computers came to life. And shrank in size as fast as they came while becoming extremely powerful Computers…

Teamwork and Collaboration

Earlier today, I stumbled on this video clip of John Chambers speaking to Harvard Business on few of the things changing on the organization front. It is vital in the current day and age where increasingly changing landscape and global competition that continue to shape things faster than ever before. The need to scale our…

Management Excellence

Front line management plays a key role in the success of an organization. It can be competitive differentiator when companies are able to harness their management talent for their greater good. Consider the following on the importance of front line management: For 80% to 90% of the employees in an organization - their direct manager…

Community versus Mob

In the current day and age - web technologies has made building communities very easy. Also, Communities are extremely helpful in solving everyday challenges and come in every shape, size and cause. Social communities come together for common good and find each other supportive that see greater success. However, be watchful while building social communities to…

Succeed by committing

"Your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing" - Abraham Lincoln Simple formula for success: Make commitment on regular basis - large or small - with a conviction. And then do whatever it takes to make it happen. At times we just fail to commit either for the  fear of failure…

Ideas that spread – wins!

Although it is an hour long video - but captures well why in today's world it is vital for everyone to remain connected with their customers and help spread ideas. Also, Seth has great delivery and captures this topic so eloquently. It is fun to hear some of his usual examples around slice bread or purple cow.…

Market-ing: Make it personal

We live in a time where communicating to broad audience alone one way has limited reach and stickiness. To make a message sticky and gain viral spread - you want to communicate through your audience. You want to foster a community of influencers who can help spread your message and communicate for you. Ask someone…

Share your ideas – Social Media 101

I find myself in more situations lately educating others or asking others to embrace social media as part of professional life. It has become a norm for start up companies where social media is part of life. However, in established companies it is a journey: some leap forward and others need hand holding to get…

Business of software

While talking to few acquaintances who are in the business of building different kind of software (Attention based; consumer product; SaaS; or others) than on-premise enterprise software products - it is interesting to observe similar discussion. This is probably the core nature of software business. At the end of the day it comes down to…

Bookworm

I love reading books. Books have been helpful and insightful in guiding me all along. Beside several great mentors  who supported, coached and guided me along - I credit few good business books in shaping my thought process thus far. My younger daughter, Mansi, is another bookworm. Over the last 2 years or so -…

Twitter Frenzy

Now you know why anything and everything I think any given moment is so important for the whole world to know. It is not just an isolated case of having short attention span. I gotta run and tweet... make sure you are following me on the twitter <grin> Enjoy!!!

Visualization Techniques

If you ever need to know any kind of charting/visualization technique  - look no further. Check out the periodic table of Visualization methods.  It is interactive - so give it a try and hover over.

Be a fisherman

While driving back home yesterday, I tuned in to the NPR as a routine habit. At that time, I happen to catch a story on Fishermen’s life – particularly how they deal with the highs and lows in their life. In fact it is the only way of life a fisherman knows. Various thought sparked…

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won

Tough time present opportunities otherwise not available. Current economic environment is just one such opportunity. Much depend on how we as individuals act and enable others to act to make the best of it. It is  our collective attitude that determine how an organization will fare as the rough weather passes. Few thoughts: 1. Know…

Weekend wrap

Few stories caught my attention as I wrap up the weekend: 1. Use of hologram during election coverage by CNN. I am not sure how many saw it during the telecast on Tuesday. It looked cool on TV. Although technology remains some what weak.  Also, some time back Cisco shared its telepresence initiative that is making buzz…

Buy American

To say the least - last couple of weeks have been rough in the financial market. It is hard to bring trust back in the system particularly after seeing retirement or life savings getting wiped off. It takes a while to come to term with things. On the other hand - it is the time…

Can east keep its edge

Both China and India largely used to be the nation of bicycle. Both countries are growing leaps and bounds. I just hope both countries can find a good balance between modernization and tradition to keep the pendulum from moving too far. Also, hopefully learn from what West is trying to do to encourage more eco-friendly…

Vote for my daughter – Next President

Call about creativity. There was a time when producing such a video would have been an effort. Now it is child's play. Anyway - Ayushi, my elder daughter nominated to run for the Presidency by her friends. Easy to pull such pranks now. Here is the video link - check it out!!! and may be…

Guess who?

I grew up in India so not sure how I would have looked during 70's and 80's in US. Particularly how my high school yearbook portrait would have been. Now one can visit yearbookyourself and travel back in time to create portrait from yester-years. Check it out:  

Ouch!!!

$4 Trillion and counting - that is how much market cap of the financial sector has reduced in the current meltdown taking with it the nest egg of so many... New York times has a good interactive map showing the meltdown and change among major players. Check it out. Here is an interesting punch -…

Imagineering

Last couple of week, I watched Discovery channel "Project Earth" series. It showcases ideas that environmental engineers are working on to reverse the global warming and reduce carbon dioxide in our environment. One thing that occured to me watching the series is the imagination of people involved. Although, most of the ideas are still scratching the surface…

Keep on trying…

I enjoy watching Olympics and this inaugural weekend was no exception. It was fun. It is amazing how host country keep setting a new bar every time during these mega opening shows. This one was no cheap and came at a price of $300M. I like knowing about various other countries, its athletes and their stories. Traditionally, Olympics…

Last lecture

Video of Randy Pausch's last lecture. He was a CS professor at CMU. He was suffering from Pancreatic Cancer when he gave this lecture couple of months before his death. One need to watch the video to gain a sense of his personality. Worth watching and inspiring.

Well done is better than well said…

Earlier today, I was watching an interview of Arnold Schwarzenegger on ABC. In response to a question he quoted his belief around "Well done is better than well said". I love it... Action just speak louder than the words. It is great to be of creative mind and think new ideas. But the fun is in converting those…

People process

Bob Bennett from Sage Payment Solution Division recommended "The Future of Management" and also send me a copy to read. It is an interesting read and the book compares the management practices of the yesteryears to what is needed now to build an innovative/high performance organization. Management Innovation is called out repeatedly touting empowered employees…

Globalization: Rise of the rest

I just wrapped up Fareed Zakaria's book titled "Post American World". It is a good read and attempts to provide macro view of the world; discusses trends and perspective on things to come/shape future in the next couple of decades. Here are the excerpts from the book covered on Newsweek. Here is Fareed's interview on BBC providing glimpse…

Beam me up Scotty!!!

This is an exciting preview of Cisco's telepresence initiative. It will be way too cool in the future to hold meetings that include remote sites. Check it out :- Read more about it here.  

Organization thoughts

Organization is much in my thoughts these days. So I thought of capturing some of those that worked well for me over the years. Think globally act locally - Understand the big picture from business perspective and know where the ship is sailing to rationalize everyday decisions and their impact towards the goal. No Surprises- Trust…