Letting Freedom Ring...!

"Vacations Overrrr Finally...!" Since, I am back to my grounded state now-I can let my imagination go wild yet again :) Remember back in college there were days when you loved studying a subject or working on the same so much that you became completely absorbed in it? Well as human beings we all drop into such ultra-creative blissful zones every now & then - thats when human brain works to the best of its ability - often resulting in amazing positive outcomes...!
Few years later, nothing made us feel more happier@work than sitting in a nice office environment with designer furniture & energetic looking folks around - but not for long. Soon, many of us realised that we ought to pursue our passions & pursue interesting 'n' challenging things that make our lives fun. Welcome to the bandwagon of creative souls friends...!
While most of my acquaintances have come up with remarkable resolutions for 2008, I have decided to wait for a while, analyze my "Ahaaaa" moments in the year that went past by & then write everything I can think of as a resolution for the year ahead using RW / MM Techniques and finally distill the ones I feel I can accomplish easily ;-) I firmly believe that setting one's new year's resolutions is just one half of the battle; the challenge lies in remain fixated to them and achieve them within perceived time frame. Lets see how quickly I nail my resolutions down - Jan end max :)

Have a look @ Acciental Creative folks' website-I learnt about them while searching for podcasts ["creative" was my search keyword] in iTunes this morning - their whole concept looks so impressive. They are slowly (& steadily) hunting & connecting with distinguished Creative Pros across the globe with a mission of helping people find their "Creative Rhythyms". I am so amazed by the whole idea. I have a notion that each one of us can make a visible & unique contribution to this world.

The question is - "Have you started yet?"

Breaking The Rules...!

Back in High School, me & few of my friends were always on the lookout of opportunities where we could contribute as responsive citizens by engaging ourselves in community based initiatives, participating in nature trails, educating have-nots during our free time (we were mostly free)...and believe me it used to be so much fun. Somehow it used to give us a sense of euphoria - and we all were invariably happy most of the time. But all such rules seem to have changed in present times - The green lustre of the environmental movement has lost its emerald sheen; similarly, the social get togethers have become a rare occurence.

Why don't we care about the plight of others anymore? Why can't we spend few bucks to help the needy and spend a few hundred bucks on Black Friday / Christmas? Why is everyone-firms, individuals, coaches so focussed on creating their identity amongst masses rather than helping the masses?

The bigger concern I see is that somehow all such observations seemed to have turned people like me off for a while.. and lack of alternatives is definately not an excuse in this case..! Anyways, till I do some more soul searching, here's what I'll keep myself occupied with:

• FreeRice - Build Up vocabulary & help end hunger
• ONE Campign - Fight against poverty & global AIDS
• Millenium Campaign - Goal to end poverty by 2015
• Get a Prius soon :-) - Hey c'mmon its Hybrid, eco friendly, economic to maintain (44 MPG Mileage), HID lights, cool looks, has an amazing smart key technology - oooops I can write a full blog post on it :-) This perhaps explains this post's title. Ω

♥ Merry Christmas ev'body ♥

Decision Making...!

Time & again we hear from our Supervisors/elders that "Quick Decision Making Skill" can be learned over en extended period of time and it comes from practice. May be thats true but considering the paucity of time & based on the post - I somehow feel that everyday decisions are indeed taken by our subconscious minds in those Split Seconds. As my friend (my Cooking Guide) was cooking yesterday, I tried drawing an analogy between cooking & decision making. Here's a gist of my thoughts that wandered way too much last evening ;-) :

• Gather All Ingredients (Facts) - The exercise directs our Subconscious minds towards soaking the problem which could later help in taking a good decision.
• Add Spices (Self Judgment) - Like a good recipe, we have to allow ourselves to add our own spices (feelings, intuitions & other considerations) based on our past experiences & judgments. Like a good dish, this step is what differentiates a good decision from a not o good one.
• Patience - Until the dish gets prepared one has to exercise patience-likewise decision making can be a time consuming process which we ought to consider.
• Visualization - Mind Mapping has proved to be a good aid since my High School days. Have tried the same while cooking - it actually helps. Somehow I feel we remember things better by way of pictures / illustrations as against mere facts.

Enough said-have a look@the following Video...to learn why timely decisions are crucial~ Enjoy...!

Beyond Cognition...!

Early this morning while browsing through my Google Reader feeds, I stumbled upon Yahoo Design Blog and there was an instant moment of awe & inspiration. For the first time, I felt that out there there are some folks do work for pursuing true research in pursuit of their passions - as against working on usual stuff under visible pressure of revenue targets, work hours clocked or performance feedback :)

The Yahoo Design Team seems to be working on a plethora of Research Projects and after navigating their site - I can summarize their work as " Cutting Edge Science applied for executing some fresh idea". The one project which intrigued me in particular was their "Burst Visualisation Software" - which represents Yahoo Search Queries density in different geographic locations on the globe against a search term like "Miss Teen USA". Apart from the idea this is what impressed my mind about this project:

• Globe Texture & Appeal (Yahoo rocks in aesthetics..!)
• The algorithm that yields patterns from a seemingly colossal data against a search term - wonder how they do that - get data, do reverse IP Loookup, plot a trend, capture times also since search trends would differ during day / night times for each distinct location...Wow!
• After a while [few spins of the globe :)], one can ascertain what are the popular search keywords and "patterns" like these are what Marketers look forward too - ain't it?

And yes, check out the statement by Aaron Koblin - "I have a feeling there's a lot more to come with this stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to spend some more time on it soon". Now, this is a true passion indeed..Boy, what a nice way to start your day with...!! By the way do have a look at this video.