Him & Her ..

Her:  Tell me one thing .. do I send the wrong signals to guys ?

Him: No, definitely not .. to me

Her:  Lol, diplomat …

Promises …

“The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it” - Napoléon Bonaparte

If only the Prophet had heeded the Emperor’s words, this post would probably not be written today. But then, it was a persistent wish – from a mother, how could that be turned down on Mother’s Day ?

All is quite difficult these days, save for promises.  Promises, promises everywhere.  Promises to the leader to keep the team flag flying high.  Promises to kith and kin to stay in touch.  Promises to the almighty to do everything right.  A daily promise to the inner self to seek a life.  And a silent promise to the motherland to return .. someday …. And of course, a promise to keep posting !

Now that all these have been promised, now its time to deliver.  Where is one supposed to make a beginning ?  Everywhere …  Lest the words of the great playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon should come true …

” Being of no power to make his wishes good:
His promises fly so beyond his state
That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes
For every word.”

Some hobbyist pictures

At Mrs. M ’s insistence and persistence …. one per day from now, for a while

 

Doing what’s required …

Missus Em has been bugging me day and night to post something long and thought-provoking (ie. fluff). Now, I tried reasoning with her, saying I’m not good at writing fluff, however my plea falls on deaf ears (or blind eyes, to be precise).. And then, I remembered this magical quote from Churchill … and decided to post .. not fluff, but something tangible, which is my flavor.

It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.

- Sir Winston Churchill, British politician (1874 – 1965)

Just to give this post a little context, I’d like to advert to a post by J. Shortly after reading this post, I am the recipient of some instant messages from her, whining and complaining about the lack of “career opportunities” for graduates from a certain university. I listen patiently, and then explain why it has nothing to do with being from that university. My friend persists with the argument, saying people are bagging jobs for the wrong reasons. I disprove that argument and then go on to ask my friend about everything she has done to work her way out. She says, “I have done xxxxxxxxx. I am getting nowhere, life is being unfair to me.” This is precisely when I remembered Churchill.

Not too long ago, I had been in a predicament similar to my friend, however; I had fought my way out of it in a fashion not adopted by many – to the extent I was surprised I could do so much. To blend this situation with Churchill’s quote, my friend is obviously trying her best. The problem is, the best ain’t enough. Firstly, the person in question is doing only her best. Lets say, that out of a certain population of her peers, x% are each doing their best Now, the next question arises – who will win ? Obviously, the best among those doing their best. It is here that Churchill’s statement makes most sense. Doing your best might not be enough. In order to win, to steamroll the competition, you need to outsmart, outwit, outdo and outperform them. You need to do whatever is necessary, often better than your best – and quite often, better than the best …

I’d like to illustrate this with an example, a good friend, a great mentor and former collegue, N. Now N was hell bent upon a Marketing position in the world’s largest software maker. The usual route to this was getting a MBA in marketing from a Top-5 B-school, usually after at least 5 years of work experience. Now N had none of these qualifications. He applies to this position, and gets rejected. He tries a second time .. same story. The third time around, N tries a couple of different approaches, and manages to get a first-round interview for an intern position in the company’s marketing department. This is all he needed, he aces the first round as well as seven subsequent rounds, and becomes 1 out of 25 interns selected from thousands of applicants worldwide. Now, his next goal was to convert his internship into a full-time offer. Once N gets to his workplace, he finds that his peer interns (read rivals) are MBA candidates from Top-5 B-schools. But N is determined to nail the job. He signs up for more projects than he is assigned to, and volunteers for projects that others push away. He then works like crazy to over-deliver on all fronts. By the end of the summer, he had literally killed 24 of the best candidates in the world. Company approaches N with an offer to come on board full-time. The tables are now turned, N calls the shots about the salary et. al … Inspiring story, eh ?

Lets now quickly compare J and N … J is stuck in a box, and doesn’t know whats going on (nothing wrong with that). However, when someone tries to show her ways to opportunity, she refuses to accept it, and thinks the other person pointing a finger and trying to accuse her of being incompetent. On the other hand, N keeps his ears and eyes wide open for the slightest hints of opportunity, and swoops down on them the moment he spots them … In short, he does whatever is necessary, and more often than not, ends up outperforming not just himself, but all those around him…

Speaking of outperforming onself, I can’t but help thinking of my encounter with Y.G.. I had a chance to meet with Mr. G a few weeks ago and boy, was I overawed .. During our conversation, I couldn’t help casually brushing off that oft-heard shibboleth, “work hard”. Coming from a corporate hot-shot, I beleived it must surely have a profound foundation, and I decided to question him further. When asked to clarify if his advice was really as obvious as it seems, it started to make sense… Here’s what he had to say,

How many people actually work hard? I’m not asking about extra hours, but real work. How much time do you waste on the 9th floor of Technology Park sipping coffee in the cafe, or gossiping at the urinal (yes, people do that), or reading blogs at 10:00am in the morning? The answer: A LOT .. Cut the wastage, and do real work. Put in the kind of effort that adds value, take on important projects that no one wants to do, and just see where your career goes.

An introspection revealed – from the average 14-hours-a-day, I realized I “actually worked” for far lesser. And the creepy part: I’ve “worked harder” than my colleagues …. “Hard work” may not be that obvious after all.

Lots to learn here .. for me, for J, for N .. for everybody … like Churchill says, we need to do what’s required …

YouTube is now GooTube !!

So its official now .. here’s the release from Google’s PR department that declares Google’s acquisition of YouTube for $ 1.6 Billion.

I was a little taken by surprise here … my gut feel led me to beleive that Yahoo! would take the initiative, since many of the search results on Yahoo! Video Search actually are links to YouTube videos .. A missed opportunity for Yahoo! … And think of it, its also a missed opportunity for Microsoft, as Scoble says, since MSN videos is practically uknown .. This would have been a great chance for Microsoft to get a foot in the video search door … alas ..

Apparently, YouTube is going to retain its own brand identity … So GooTube would still be called YouTube .. But then its always been YouTube, right ? …

The Prophet Quoteth …..

“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius”

Of Broken Dishes ..

When a dish falls, it breaks. You may glue the peices back together, but there will always be cracks visible, making the dish to be weaker than it once was.

This is how friendships and relationships work. Once a rift appears, its almost impossible to fix it, and hope that things would be just as they were before.

However, there is one caveat to this rule – Relations between people are somwhat different from dishes – they can be mended … It has to be mutual though. But most of the time, people are perfectly willing to walk away from the shattered pieces and go buy new dishes …

I never used to beleive in the dish theory, but it seems to me now that I’ve been proved wrong …

Only time can tell ..