Friday, March 28, 2008

Earth Hour 2008...!

Often, I get amazed by people who come up with brilliant ideas every now and then. More than money, more than politics, I feel that ideas are the secret power that this planet actually runs on.Anyways, I was really impressed this morning while reading about "Earth Hour 2008" as Top news on almost all major news sites. Carter Roberts was the man behind Earth Hour 2008 which is basically an international event aimed at communicating one simple message "Urgent need for action on global warming". At 8 pm EST on the Saturday (29 March 2008) millions of people (me, you and many more) in some of the world’s biggest cities will unite and switch off electrical appliances for the Earth Hour.

What an amazing way to exhibit that we care for our planet - I love the idea ! This movement accentuates the need to keep pushing on till we get a "Greener Earth" by remaining alert, decarbonizing our surroundings, reducing electricity consumption, planting trees & coming up with innovative ideas.

Well then, you might wish to sign up for this noble cause by clicking right here

Monday, March 03, 2008

The Science Of Experience...!



I often wonder about this "work experience" concept which has puzzled me a lot since my High School Days. Our society always gives preference to a person who has done similar kind of chore than a equally talented & sharp person starting afresh. And there are plenty of reasons for such commonplace behaviour. I read somewhere that mastering the most complex human endeavors requires a minimum of 10 years' experience and when you consider examples of Chess GrandMasters, Real Estate Agents, Investment Bankers, Olympic Athletes (their practice starts right from their childhood) - you would certainly follow that notion. And to some extent I too agree to this belief (you would always take your BMW / Audi for regular maintainence to an experience mechanic than a novice right;)). Anyways, here's what my thought stream at the moment goes like:

  • Patience: The more time you spend pursuing any particular activity, the more you train your SubConscious and once your subconscious mind learns something well, it becomes a habit.
  • Patterns: Human Brain remembers experiences as illustrations than words/numbers. A series of repititive events (the work we do daily) form a pattern in our mind and thus we follow a certain set path eventually. Try observing a colleague for a week and I bet you'll find patterns in his/her way of checking emails, sipping coffee etc. That said, all we need to be efficient in certain skill is religious practice for an extended period of time.
  • Comfort Zones: Most of us (best example is me :)) like practicing what we know well rather than venturing out everyday to do stretch our skills or as my Dad says - breaking out of our Comfort Zones. In order to be real performers all we need to do is to overcome complacency & try new things. Acquisition of new skills always yields +ve results.
  • The Digital Divide: Emails are amazingly fast, convenient & best form of magnification - perhaps thats why we keep checking our Inboxes every 5 minutes. But hey, aren't we all emotional people; personal face to face meetings always have an edge over virtual communication since you can best portray yourself in person.
That said, I feel that each one of us (freshman / experience professional) can make a visible difference at workplaces keeping above cues in mind. Personally speaking, if I were to hire somebody(someday ;-)), I would look for people whose attitude can be best described as:

## An exceptional yet humble Rockstar @ work
## Differentiate or Die
## Be Analogue (human)
## Exhibit passion & Emit positive vibes
## Get straight to the Point(Ideas)
## Amaze people around atlest once per week
## KISS (Keep it Sweet & Simple)