The forever recession (and the coming revolution) – Seth Godin

Seth’s Blog: The forever recession (and the coming revolution)  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/09/the-forever-recession.html

માહિતી યુગમાં આદ્યોગિક કે કૃષિસંલગ્ન હુન્નર કે આવડતને ઓછું પ્રાધાન્ય મળતું જણાઇ રહ્યું છે.

લેપટોપ કે આઇ-પૅડ આજનાં મોભાનાં બોલકાં ચિહ્નો જરૂર હોઇ શકે અને તેથી એક પ્લમ્બર કે ટેક્નીશીયન કરતાં દેખીતી રીતે ઓછી આવક પેદા કરતા હોઈ શકે, પણ તેમની જગ્યા લેવી હોય તો જાતે એ કામની આવડત શીખવી પડે પણ માઉસના ક્લિક કે સ્ક્રીનના સ્પર્શથી કામ થઈ તો નહીં જ જાય.

કોમ્પ્યુટરથી થઇ ન શકે તેવો હુન્નર જો ન કરી શકાય તેમ હોય તો નવી આવડત કેળવવાની અથવા તો નવી રીતે પહેલાનું કામ કરવાની આવડત તો શીખવી જ રહી.

દેખીતી રીતે બહુ અઘરું લાગે છે?

શરૂની થોડી અગવડો કે અ-સફળતાઓને ગણકાર્યા વગર, દિલથી સંન્નિષ્ઠ મહેનત કરીએ તો આ કક્ષાએ પહોંચવું અશક્ય તો નથી જ………..

I landed on the following satirical story, just as I had finished this post.

“Lesson for all Salaried People – funny story! ?

A shopkeeper watching over his shop is really surprised when he sees a dog coming inside the shop, He shoos him away. But later, the dog is back inside again. So he goes over to the dog and notices that it has a note in its mouth. He takes the note and it reads “Can I have 12 soaps and a shampoo bottle, please. The money is with the dog.” The shopkeeper looks inside the dogs mouth and to his surprise there is a 500 rupees note in his mouth. So he takes the money and puts the soap, shampoo and change in a bag, and then places it in the dogs mouth. The shopkeeper is so impressed, and since it is the closing time, he decides to follow the dog.

The dog is walking down the street, when it comes to the zebra crossing, he waits till the signal turns green. He walks across the road till the bus stop. He waits on the stop and looks up the timetable for the bus. The shopkeeper is totally out of his mind as the dog gets into the bus and sits on a vacant seat. The shopkeeper follow the dog. The dog waits for the conductor to come to his seat. He gives the change to the conductor and shows him the neck belt to keep the ticket. The shopkeeper is almost fainting at this sight and so are the other people in the bus. The dog then moves to the front exit of the door and waits for the bus stop to arrive, looking outside. As soon as the stop is in sight he wags his tail to inform the driver to stop. Then not even waiting for the bus stop to arrive the dog jumps out and runs to the house nearby. It opens an big iron gate and rushes towards the door. As it approaches the door, he changes his mind and walks towards the garden.

The dog walks up to the window and beats his head several times on the window. It then walks back to the door and waits. The shopkeeper maintaining his senses walks up to the door and watched a big guy open the door. The guy starts beating, kicking and abusing the dog.

The shopkeeper is surprised and runs to stop the guy. The shopkeeper questions the guy “What in the heaven are you doing? The dog is a genius he could be famous in life.” The guy responds “You call this clever?

This is the 3rd time in this week that the dog has forgotten the door keys.

The moral of the story: “You may continue to exceed onlookers expectations, but will always fall short of the boss’ expectation”

The salary Axiom: The pay raise is just large enough to increase your taxes and just small enough to have no effect on your take-home pay.

Isaac’s Strange rule of staleness: Any food that starts out hard will soften when stale. And food that starts out soft will harden when stale.

Lampner’s Law of Employment: When leaving work late, you will go unnoticed. When you leave work early, you will meet the boss in the parking lot. ”

No one will ever wish to identified with the dog of this story, isn’t it?

Kutchh: Bird’s Eye view [કચ્છઃ વિહંગાવલોકન]

First Edition: July 2011

Author: Haresh Dholakia                                       hareshdholakia@yahoo.com

Publishers: Goorjar Granthratna Karyalay      goorjar@yahoo.com

ISBN 987 -81-8480-596-3

Shri Haresh Dholakia has written and published several books on Kutchh in the past. “Kutchh: Bird’s Eye View” is thus a continuing compendium of his incremental articles on Kutch.

Resultantly, the book, spanning 21 concise chapters, covers several facets, like geo-cultural history and reports; the politico-historical events; life-sketches of Kutchhi personae, who could or could not impact the then events; developments in the field of education as well as analysis of post-2001-earthquake Kutchh.

The author, while covering a very wide spectrum of subjects, has clearly drawn the boundary of the scope of this book in the preface. These short articles, or notes, have twin objectives: To document the current and past events and to provide the basis and inputs for further research.

Considering the fact that these articles have been written over a period, mainly for the Author’s regular column in Kutchhmitra, a prominent local daily Gujarati newspaper, the book does meet it’s both objectives.

The article relating to writing the history of Kutch – the eleventh article on pp. 69 – succinctly explains the travails of historians while compiling the authentic data on Kutch. This may be the reason why the author seems to have adopted the bird’s eye view concept across all the articles.

Overall, the book is a very just effort in the right direction and appropriately reflects author’s deep-rooted affection and sense of duty for whatever is associated with Kutch.

The book is certainly a must-read and must-possess for anyone associated with any aspect of Kutch. In fact, the pressing need for English translation of this book would require no emphasis, considering the fact that Kucthh has enveloped more non-Kutchis and even non-Gujartais into its fold post-2001-earthquake.

 

n  Ashok Vaishnav, Ahmedabad September 26, 2011

Would you rather be a food critic, a book critic, or a film critic?

Before criticizing anything or anyone – how so ever constructive or benign it might be, I would first see inwards.

Could I have done it the way I want it ought to have been done?

If my reply is unconditional yes, then and then only I would gear up to criticize.

Next test: If I am criticized in the same vein, would I be able to take in?

And the last test: Why should I criticize at all?

Practical Nerd

It was indeed a very fortunate coincidence that I landed up on http://www.thepracticalnerd.com/ site during my typical random searches.

Mansur Ali Khan ‘Tiger’ – The Nawab of Pataudi

Like most cricket-lovers of 60s, I also would follow the exploits of Tiger Pataudi on the cricket grounds through radio commentaries and reports in newspapers or sports magazines, wonder at his marvels of cricketing genius and would enjoy Team India’s triumphs under his captainship.

I also had one occasion to actually watch him play during one of the Duleep trophy matches around 1966/67 at Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmadabad.

We would celebrate the elations in discovery of our hidden strength to be able to confront the Goliaths through the performances of Team India under his captainship..

Nawab of Pataudi was our teenage fantasy hero.

However, I would recall his exploits much later in my life too, when I had grown senior enough to my young colleagues, while quoting him during the training sessions on diverse management topics like Team Building, Delegation, Importance of process in achieving desired results, Leadership Qualities.

I would like to place my these instances of remembrances to keep the candles of great wisdom alight in memory of the versatile personality of Mansur Ali Khan, the Nawab of Pataudi.

A] No challenge is intimidating enough to throw up the towel without a decent fight:

In a surprise turn of events, he was asked to take over the captainship of Team India in West Indies under extremely traumatic circumstances. But at no time during that fateful series anyone could see an iota of hesitant approach in this young lad, as can normally be expected when such an onerous responsibility is thrust on such inexperienced shoulders.

B] Leader is First among equals.

At no time during that fateful series of West Indies or for several years thereafter , no one remembered that Pataudi was the youngest ever Captain and that all most all other of his colleagues were much older and experienced than him in that team. Similarly, in the later years, his junior colleagues never felt the gap on account of his stalwart status.

He was so much of a team player, that if his word would be the last one in major team decisions, he was also the principal source of inspiration.

C] A good leader would build a high-performance team irrespective of who chose the team members.

Pataudi always used to say the Captain of India’s cricket team should have strength to accept what others consider as the best among the cricket players in the country. He also believed that it is not possible for a world class spinner to be a world class fielder or vice versa.

He was thus master at devising strategies where sum of strengths of each player was always far more than the sum of weaknesses of these players.

D] Positive Attitude, Always

He never presented ‘reasons’ like poor pitch, mismanaged tour schedules, bane of poor fielding for the defeats.

He would also never deploy defensive tactics for saving the match from a loss or use negative tactics to pullout a draw. For him the spirit and cause of cricket were supreme than the records of wins or losses or draws.

E] Believe in your own abilities and expressively invest confidence in your team members

His all [symbols of ] expression – the way he would lead the Team onto the fielding each session, his field settings, his changes of bowling etc. – always manifested his strong confidence in the ability of Team India to take on the real or perceived might of the opponents.

He is also known to hold the view that he would not offer such basic advice to a player, who has risen to the  level of national test team, as to how to bowl or field or bat under a given situation. He would certainly convey his analysis of the situation and his own strategy to handle it and then leave the execution in the hands of the player concerned, until the strategy warranted a change.

The practice of Theory of Delegation could have tremendously benefitted if the model case studies would have been developed with the help of such execution best-practices.

F] Aim high and face the challenges head-on.

If setting attacking umbrella field settings or devising three spinner innovation  were his messages of not settling with a low aim, his own swash-buckling aggressive over-the-field stroke-play when a couple quick wickets were lost was his own way to lead with example in the face of the challenge.

He would probably accept little less but certainly not little lower.

G] Follow the discipline, demanded by job-on-hand.

Even though he was from a relatively wealthy family background or have had metropolitan and western upbringing, he was known to follow a disciplined routine during the matches.

He was also known not to hesitate in bringing up his erring illustrious colleagues in the matters of professional discipline.

His ‘tiger’-like fielding prowess was iconic not only among his own team members but among the members of opponent teams.

I would pay my very respectful homage to Mansur Ali Khan ‘Tiger’, the Nawab of PATAUDI not only as cricketer or captain par excellence but also as an unsung beacon of best-practices of team management and leadership.