new year resolutions

Today morning saw an HR email about new year resolution. Here goes..

• Use my computer for something other than Microsoft technologies (Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint). It could help avoid embarrassment when some relative tells his daughter in 8th standard that “this uncle” who is working in IT can help with her homework in C++


• Try to use more than 0.005% of my brain


• Try not to assume every fad theories coming from everywhere has some meaning


• Try not to feel guilty in saying no to something that is not worth it


• Try to find/do more satisfying “original” work, than “adding value” to something


• Take longer vacations and without “calls” in between


• Try to do more exercise than climbing stairs once every day


• Try to build honest, lasting relationships- Because “the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

I know these may not work since today morning’s newspaper was saying only SMART resolutions survive beyond January. 

Anyway only reason we survive is by trying..

Have a great 2011!

mobile

For the first time in 6-7 years, I bought a phone last weekend – Samsung Galaxy 3. All this time I was using Nokia phones because of it is ultimate reliability. I initially was looking for a dual SIM phone, but wanted that to be Android – there were not many options like that. Finally narrowed down the criteria to Android alone – to tinker with it if possible. I have been admiring iPhone ever since it came out, but did not want to go that expensive.


Just saw the article ”2011 will be the year Android explodes”. People are making the arguments for and against in Google Vs Apple, some predicting the demise of Apple yet again in another defining war – but remains to be seen if Apple still continues to surprise.

For one thing, I can see mobiles taking over PCs/laptops in terms of internet usage. Just take case of our own parents:- it is a struggle for them to get connected just to see some photos or email or chat – but not having to boot up a computer, the modem etc, if they could access all they need in a much more user friendly device, they would switch.

What the dog saw – Malcolm Gladwell

Finished all of Malcolm Gladwell’s books with “What the dog saw and other adventures”. This one is collection of articles on various topics that came out in New Yorker magazine. Like most articles in the magazine, each story goes into painstaking details which can be a drag at times, but the details are sometimes fascinating. I still have the suspicion though – whether all of this is authentic science, what is truth and what is fiction. But he definitely knows how to write non-fiction in the most engaging way.

I have terrible memory when it comes to books I read – so started keeping some notes on things I found interesting.

the trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell. the other trick to finding ideas is figuring out the difference between power and knowledge. you don’t start at the top if you want to find the story. you start in the middle, because it’s the people in the middle who do the actual work in the world. people at the top are self conscious about what they say (and rightfully so) because they have position and privilege to protect – and self-consciousness is the enemy of "interestingness".

I was earlier wondering if senior leaders had blogged or explained the thought processes in a more direct manner, establish the rapport with employees, whether that can lead to people understanding it better. This kind of explains why that cannot happen. On the other hand, listening to that middle who does actual work might work well as well to know what is working and what is not.

like most great innovations, it was disruptive. and how do you persuade people to disrupt their lives? not merely by ingratiation or sincerity, and not by being famous or beautiful. you have to explain the invention to the customers – not once or twice but three or four times, with a different twist each time. you have to show them exactly how it works and why it works, and make them follow your hands as you chop liver with it, and then tell them precisely how it fits into their routine, and finally sell them on the paradoxical fact that, revolutionary as the gadget is, it’s not at all hard to use.

Kind of relevant to what I do these days. We explain our work horribly, bury it in mountain of buzz words, colorful pictures – it never works. It has to be broken down to basic detail, tell them exactly how something works – it sounds very easy, but we make it very complicated.

relationship we have to the products we buy. about the slow realization among advertisers that unless they understood the psychological particulars of that relationship – unless they could dignify the transactions of everyday life by granting them meaning – they could not hope to reach the modern customer.

I am somehow interested in marketing, I don’t have any talent in that area, but mainly from the psychological aspect of it. Most effective of them are trying to understand people better and exploit that (somewhat like mind hack) to sell products. So it is interesting to see that they connect hair color to certain message that a person is conveying to society, nutritional drink to mother’s desire to see their child compete better in sports etc.

when you are first taught something, you think it through in a very deliberate, mechanical manner. but as you get better, the implicit system takes over: you start to hit a backhand fluidly, without thinking. the basal ganglia, where implicit learning partially resides, are concerned with force and timing, and when that system kicks in, you begin to develop touch and accuracy, the ability to hit a drop shot or place a serve at hundred miles per hour. this is something that is going to happen gradually, you hit several thousand forehands, after a while you may still be attending to it, but not very much. in the end, you don’t really notice what your hand is doing at all. under conditions of stress however th explicit system sometimes takes over. that’s what it means to choke. it is when you start to think about your shots again. you lose your fluidity and touch.

It is one of those paradoxes in life – you need to think to improve and once you have, thought could actually be a hindrance.