July 2010
7 posts
How Will You Measure You Life? →
These bits of excerpts were very inspiring: http://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life/ar/1
But instead of telling him what to think, I taught him how to think—and then he reached what I felt was the correct decision on his own.
If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over you’ll find this predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. If you...
“One should not fear the unknown because it’s an unknown.”
– Mo
“Formerly, the fewest men wrote books that were most valuable. Now anybody...”
– The Essential Gandhi
“No man knows himself or can describe himself with fidelity. But he can reveal...”
– Louis Fischer (taken from The Essential Gandhi)
“Listen to your heart, use your head, and don’t underestimate the power of...”
– My Wife
WatchAn amazing video by Hans Rosling, great use of analog teaching techniques.
“Everyday should be the first day of the rest of your life.”
– Mo
June 2010
5 posts
“Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. The...”
– The Clock of the Long Now
“I’m a very premium person to be with.”
– Jonathan Safran Foer in Everything is Illuminated
“Our job, as designers, is to ask, listen, and suggest solutions. The...”
– John Abrams in Companies We Keep
“As in any successful organization, we try to find the right people, inspire...”
– by John Abrams in Companies We Keep: Employee Ownership and the Business of Community and Place
“Secrets corrupt cultures. Secrets cause backstabbing and power plays. They...”
– From Bill Witherspoon of The Sky Factory, in the June 2010 Inc’s article The Art of Work.
April 2010
1 post
Design Thinking
From this article on Smashing Magazine:
Good design is the result of great thinking, as well as great ingredients.
I like to think, a lot. Does that mean I’m more adapt at designing? I do agree with the fact that you can’t design without thinking. Thinking about the audience, thinking about the message, thinking about the delivery, thinking about how it all comes together…
March 2010
3 posts
“Dependence actually looks like successful influence…at first. A large...”
– From The Story Factor by Annette Simmons
Explain What it Means
From The Story Factor by Annette Simons:
In his book Culture Jam, Kalle Lasn says, “The most powerful narcotic in the world is the promise of belonging.” To that I would add, the promise of being “known” — not understood, not necessarily even valued — but simply to be acknowledged and seen. In our technological economy, human attention is the emerging scarce...
Tell Your Soul
From The Story Factor by Annette Simmons:
You will find that your best stories will be about things that happened to you. All choices are ultimately personal choices and if you want to influence people’s choices you will find that the most powerful form of influence is always personal. Don’t buy the BS that your issue “isn’t personal.” If it is important, it is...
February 2010
5 posts
WatchI wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.
Jamie Oliver 2010 TED
Volvo Chasing
A quote from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller:
If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is,...
10 Usability Heuristics
Rehashing the 10 heuristics guidelines for whatever that “something” that you’ll be building for other to use.
Visibility of system status
The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
Match between system and the real world
The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and...
Purge to free yourself →
“More and more I heard the words: ‘Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life’,” he said. “I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need.
“Go off the path, it’s interesting what one finds.”
– Mo
“A vessel is useful only through its emptiness. It is the space opened in a wall...”
– Lao Tse
January 2010
7 posts
“The media manufactures envy.”
Four Questions about Your Job
As I’m reading 10-10-10 by Suzy Welch (yes, Welch, the wife of Jack Welch, someone you might’ve heard of), she offers four questions to ask about your job. It’s her way to steer you towards making meaningful career choices:
Does my job allow me to work with “my people” — those who share my sensibilities about life — or do I have to zone out, fake it,...
Astoria Scum River Bridge →
Amazingly, I walk to the subway every morning without noticing that someone installed this. The bridge itself is hilarious. And I do remember seeing the frozen “river” on the sidewalk about 3 weeks ago on an extra cold day.
Always Ask Her Out
There’s an analogy that I always love to use whenever I’m dealing with a situation on whether I should do something or not. If it’s something I’m interested in and something I really want, it’s always best to go for it.
The analogy is deciding on whether to ask a girl out or not. Fellas, you know what I’m talking about. (Sorry to the female readers out...
December 2009
13 posts
Vision
From What Matters Now:
Vision is the lifeblood of any organization. It is what keeps it moving forward. It provides meaning to the day-to-day challenges and setbacks that make up the rumble and tumble of real life.
In a down economy—particularly one that has taken most of us by surprise—things get very tactical. We are just trying to survive. What worked yesterday does not necessarily work...
View from 20,000 Feet; My Rules on Work and Cat... →
My fav line of the post:
The difference between a junior engineer and a senior is that a senior will ask questions whereas a junior is afraid to.
That’s something I agreed with wholeheartedly. If you find yourself at a place that doesn’t encourage using the What’s, Why’s, How’s, and When’s, then it might not be the best environment to be in. Because I...
“Character of a person is based on follow through with his or her words.”
– A Moism
WatchAmazing design thinking + visuals on how to one might adopt textile magazine to e-readers. I’ll tell you this though, I think that e-readers are much better suited for shorter-length publications such as magazines and papers. E-readers for books just doesn’t make sense to be because it doesn’t make sense to me why anyone would carry around more than 1 or 2 novels.
Big Action
Upon receiving the Save the Date for my wedding, a good friend of mine (whom I will refer to as R) promptly responded by saying:
This is big action, finding the “right person” is such fantastic thing and it changes everything, how we look at the world, it gives us purpose and meaning….
Well said my friend, well said.
Thinking Humanly
The response of James May on the new requirement that US Airlines must let passengers off planes stuck on airport tarmacs after three hours was:
The rule “will lead to unintended consequences — more canceled flights and greater passenger inconvenience,” James May, president of the Washington-based Air Transport Association, an airline trade group, said in a statement. The standard “is...
Enrichment
From Seth Godin’s What Matters Now, I really liked the page by Rajesh Setty which suggests the following 5 steps to help enrich other people’s lives:
Commit - Commit to lifetime-relatinoships that span events, companies, causes, and geographic boundaries.
Care - Care for the concerns of others as if they are your own.
Connect - Aim to connect those who will benefit and enrich...
WatchAwesome part of the video:
…fifteen years ago, Aaron Feuerstein, who was the head of Malden Mills in Massachusetts — they made Polartec — The factory burned down. 3,000 employees. He kept every one of them on the payroll. Why? Because it would have been a disaster for them and for the community if he had let them go. “Maybe on paper our company is worth less to Wall...
“One of the unfortunate side effects of all the publicity and hype surrounding...”
– Eric Reis on GigaOM (gigaom.com)
“A friend of mine once said that Christians are like manure: spread them out and...”
– Crazy Love by Francis Chan
November 2009
13 posts
“Frankly, you need to get over yourself.”
– Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
“Today, Aravind Eye Care System examines more than 2.3 million patients a year,...”
– The Blue Sweater
“Recently, a 71-year-old entrepreneur defined his breed as “the most...”
– The Blue Sweater
“When you have everything,” she went on, “you start to think that...”
– Prudence from The Blue Sweater
Designing Tomorrow
Towards the end of Change by Design, Tim Brown provides a number of inspiring themes to help promote the future of design thinking:
begin at the beginning
take a human-centered approach
fail early, fail often - Leaders should encourage experimentation and accept that there is nothing wrong with failure as long as it happens early and becomes a source of learning.
get professional help
...
Choice Fatigue & Decision Making
Quoted from Change by Design:
Barry Schwartz has identified as “the paradox of choice.” Most people don’t want more options; they just want what they want. When overwhelmed by choice, we tend to fall into behavioral patterns used by those whom Schwartz calls “optimizers” — people paralyzed by the fear that if they only waited a little while longer or search...
Moving with Intellect and Compassion
Quoted from The Blue Sweater:
“If you move through the world only with your intellect,” [Maha Ghosananda] said in a direct and clear voice, “then you walk on only one leg.” With his hands held in prayer, he lifted on leg and slowly and deliberately hopped three times. With the same deliberation and pace, he restored his foot to the floor. After a long breath, he...
WatchThe best line in the video is:
The Human Spirit can overcome anything if it has hope.
Two Lines that Great Managers Should Believe In
For those wishing to be great managers, you should believe and utilize the following two statements:
I can’t do anything to help things I don’t know about.
I don’t really think about being a good manager. I care about people. I care about what we’re building [or doing, or creating]. I try to do The Right Thing.