Random Musings

  Consider the following game. James and John are being interviewed by a fast-growing company. Both of them would like to have the freedom to work remotely whenever they choose. Each of them negotiates his terms of employment without communicating with the other. The company's official policy is that all employees must be tied to their office desks from 9-to-5 every day. If both candidates insist on working remotely, both of them would be allowed to. If one of them agrees to be tied to a desk, the other one would also be forced to work in this way. Simultaneously, the company offers each of the candidates a bargain: Get hired immediately if you betray the other and agree to be tied to a desk. The two candidates have the power to change the company's policy, but they do not know it. They also assume that all other major companies would follow the same procedure. The possible outcomes are: If James and John betray each other, they both end up tied to their desk. If J...

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140824235337-22330283-the-three-qualities-of-people-i-most-enjoy-working-with

"This practice of defining my personal brand has not just let me fully showcase the work I do as an engineer, it’s helped me cultivate and figure out who I want to be to the world." Personal branding is more than self promotion from Neha Batra Source: https://builttoadapt.io/why-a-personal-brand-is-necessary-for-todays-developer-f0f18bfaa033 http://www.thestartupofyou.com/

http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/transprac.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13hire.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all?src=tptw

In the debate of NATURE vs NURTURE this post is a nice addition. Few interesting titbits... " it's possible to build any given skill or capacity in the same systematic way we do a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest. Will Durant*, commenting on Aristotle, pointed out that the philosopher had it exactly right 2000 years ago: " We are what we repeatedly do ." "For more than two decades, Ericsson has been making the case that it's not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we're willing to work — something he calls " deliberate practice ." Numerous researchers now agree that 10,000 hours of such practice as the minimum necessary to achieve expertise in any complex domain." http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/08/six_keys_to.html

A nice post from an engineering manager within Facebook of what makes him stick there longer. Think these are attributes every team must shoot and is a sure shot recipe for a high performing group. Autonomy and Responsibility Focus on Impact A place run by Hackers i.e. folks who are passionate to build something and share the same leading much bigger innovation Growth and Coaching http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=415679363919

A nice interview with Jeff Bezos launching his new Kindle on the Charlie Rose show. Here is a device that is trying to get you into a flow state . Enclosed are interesting comments from the show. “I would say something though like we’re trying to get out of the way. We’re not trying to create an experience. We want the author to create the experience. You know, if you’re going to read Nabokov or Hemmingway or we want us creating the experience for. That’s not our job. Our job is to provide the convenience. That you can get books in 60 seconds, that you can carry your whole library with you so that you don’t get hand strain, so the device doesn’t get hot in your hands, so that it doesn’t cause eye strain, so that the battery life lasts a month, so you never get battery anxiety.. … Now people say why don’t you add a touch screen? Well, the reason we don’t want a touch screen is if we’re going down that decision path, we say, okay, a touch screen and the current technology for ...

With the explosion of information and umpteen number of places that vie for your "head space" comes Attention Deficit Disorder . Paul Graham in a nice post has a good advice on how to manage this one.. " You can't directly control where your thoughts drift. If you're controlling them, they're not drifting. But you can control them indirectly, by controlling what situations you let yourself get into. That has been the lesson for me: be careful what you let become critical to you. Try to get yourself into situations where the most urgent problems are ones you want think about. You don't have complete control, of course. An emergency could push other thoughts out of your head. But barring emergencies you have a good deal of indirect control over what becomes the top idea in your mind." http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html

"Everyone has a Boss excepting God" - Unknown Don't know who said this but very very true in an organisation setting. Had read "Managing your Boss" a classic long long time back. Came across something this week and reminded myself that should blog this one. No matter how smart one is if we are within an organization setting managing ones boss is critical. And don't get me wrong this is not sucking up. Do that ( suck up ) and a smart boss would recognize and get rid of you soon... :-)

Why intelligent people fail... can't agree more to these points 1. Lack of motivation. A talent is irrelevant if a person is not motivated to use it. Motivation may be external (for example, social approval) or internal (satisfaction from a job well-done, for instance). External sources tend to be transient, while internal sources tend to produce more consistent performance. 2. Lack of impulse control. Habitual impulsiveness gets in the way of optimal performance. Some people do not bring their full intellectual resources to bear on a problem but go with the first solution that pops into their heads. 3. Lack of perserverance and perseveration. Some people give up too easily, while others are unable to stop even when the quest will clearly be fruitless. 4. Using the wrong abilities. People may not be using the right abilities for the tasks in which they are engaged. 5. Inability to translate thought into action. Some people seem buried in thought. They have good ideas but rarely...

Was reminded of this recently and can concur from experience how valuable this advice is... "What do you do if you receive a nasty email from a customer/partner? Reply in full steam? Tell them how they suck badly and you don’t give a damn to who they are/what they do? That you don’t need them and they can eff anywhere? Hang on. One of the most important lesson I have learnt over the last few years is to not reply to nasty emails immediately, especially if its from somebody who matters (business partner/potential customer). Take a deep breath. Take a walk. Go for a smoke. Do whatever that helps you unwind a little bit. In some cases, simply calling up the other person is better than carrying the conversation over email. Email is a great communication device and will continue to remain so (atleast for businesses), but do not take that as a discussion device. It’s a tool and serves as a means to achieve a much bigger goal." http://www.pluggd.in/email-etiquette-for-entrepreneurs-...

If only these guys would add this Power Distance indicator for each organization they measure would be good know how really "flat" an organization is from the seats of power.

Is the internet really making us dumb.. ?? Nicholar Carr says yes Steven Pinker says no Two things that sprang to my mind of reading these of what internet can do in a bad way .... - Polarization of thoughts The fact that information is more pull based rather than push based we might run the risk of having to circle ourselves with only the information we like to see and thus not respect or appreciate the diversity that an issue could have from a very unrelated source. - TIME SINK!!! This is the mother of all. How many times have you felt that if you just spend time doing something more productive... and darn not have wasted all the time "just browsing" ......

What motivates us.... money...is more the better NO!!!.....

" Iterate ", " Iterative " or " Iteration " seems to get the most traction these days on how to build anything large or deal with complexity. A nice definition is “Keep trying until you get it right,” And to say this is new, a 1980 paper http://www.billbuxton.com/iteration.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/magazine/13FOB-onlanguage-t.html?ref=magazine

Now here is a reason to get an IPad to get into a FLOW... http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/05/the-ipad-and-immersive-computi.html Conditions for being in a flow state . One must be involved in an activity with a clear set of goals. This adds direction and structure to the task. One must have a good balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and his or her own perceived skills. One must have confidence that he or she is capable to do the task at hand. The task at hand must have clear and immediate feedback. This helps the person negotiate any changing demands and allows him or her to adjust his or her performance to maintain the flow state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

A simple definition.... of a most overkilled word in the business world... "Innovation is a valuable change, unconstrained by the way things are." http://blogs.parc.com/blog/2010/03/innovation-defining-doing-measuring/

Nice Story..... A water bearer had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole that he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For two years this went on daily. The perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection and that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day. "I am ashamed of myself because this crack causes water to leak all the way back to your house." The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the pa...