random ramblings

"They say the secret of success is being at the right place at the right time, but since you never know when the right time is going to be, I figure the trick is to find the right place and just hang around." — Bill Watterson I have saved this strip – I think it follows where Calvin hopes if the right place is a comic book store, so you can hang around in front of that. I was thinking about this initial advantage. Heard this in Radiolab podcast On Success with Malcolm Gladwell as well – about a random initial advantage maximized over a period of time. Of course, small things like hardwork, passion, attitude and a little bit of genius helps. It is not about the initial advantage through quirks such as which year you were born etc, but advantage created by people with own initiative. I have been involved in setting up a new team recently – given everybody gets same chance and starts from same place, looking at how people come up differently. I have seen people becoming go...

One of the blogs I follow regularly is Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. Her stories of startups, suffering from Asperger’s syndrome , weird mix of seemingly unrelated anecdotes, personal references and thoughts on career is interesting and often thought provoking. Like this one that Prom is a career stepping stone . Excerpts:- The thing that is most difficult in work life is adjusting to different cultures as seamlessly as possible. People do not lose jobs because they don’t get the job done. People generally lose jobs because of poor cultural fit. If people think you fit on the team, they’ll cut you slack even when you don’t get the job done. In fact, the Harvard Business Review reports that people don’t even care if you don’t get the job done if they like you. It’s the getting people to like you part that is so hard. .. Asians are kicking everyone’s butt in academics. But.. Asians don’t do as well in the workplace. Because the skills that you need to do well in school are no...