Posts

Web 2.0

A good video that explains Web 2.0 (without the particular technology implementation details)

Corporate Politics

Corporate politics, what the heck is that ? Consider this statement: "Achieving a goal is often not as important as the way its achieved". Balderdash? Confused? Disagree? Read on. If you don't know what corporate politics is yet, then you are either new to the job market, naive, or an agnostic. If you are new to the job market - you will learn over time, unless you are naive and continue to be one. If you are agnostic then you must think that you can find a small cubicle in your company and get into "heads-down" work, try not to bother anyone, not let anything or anyone bother you. My friend, you have a lesson to learn. I used to be an agnostic. When it comes to politics, I say you should not be agnostic. If you are one, the symptoms are telling. Things happen to you at work, i.e. you are not in control of those things or your own career. You never decide the work you want to do, things don't fall in place as you would expect. You aspire to get to the next...

Bookmark Sync by Google is Disappointing

Goggle labs have offered a Firefox plug-in that promises to automatically synchronize the state of the browser across machines. To download it Click here I installed the plugin on 2 Firefox browsers (1) Firefox 1.5.x on a Windows 2000 SP4 2.5GHz 1.5GB RAM (2) Firefox 1.5x on a Windows Home SPx 1.60GHz 760MB RAM (3) Firefox 1.5x on a Windows 2000 SP4 1.8GHZ 1GB RAM The first machine was run behind a firefall and proxy server, the other was connected to the internet with no proxy. Depending on the network I connected the first machine in I was disappointed by a major flaw in the plug-in. If the browser cannot connect the Internet, then it will not work. Uninstalling the browser is easy, but once you re-install it the Google browser synch is not uninstalled. YOu can delete it from the extensions either because to do that you will have to start the browser, but the browser does not start.

Reputation: Guard It

So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life According to Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power , reputation is the cornerstone of power. Reputation alone can intimidate and win. Vulnerability will invite attacks from all sides. Reputations should be unassailable; one should be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. According to Greene, one should destroy enemies by opening holes in their own reputations and after the holes are opened, stand aside and let public opinion take over. Notably a person in recent political history was a victim of such reputation damage. He was not able to recover from it and finally offered his resignation; of course a different reason was cited for this. Colin Powel is a highly decorated military personnel. Before Operation Desert Storm was executed, he publicly opposed several of George H.W. Bush's administration officials who advocated the deployment of troops to the Middle East to force Iraqi president Sadd...

The Eccentrics Versus the Uncouths

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The Eccentrics Versus the Uncouths. This article is inspired by this one . I argue that the difference between a Geek versus Nerd is the same difference that separates the eccentrics from the uncouths. Also, most often the nerds are the ones that are geeks, the geeks are often nerds, some nerds are not geeks, and some geeks are not nerds. A nerd is an uncouth person a geek is an eccentric. I think geeks are odd, and are not really the talented few who run the show in corporate America. The genius may be a nerd, a geek, neither, or both. The leader in corporate America may not be nerdy nor geeky, unless the leader is a perceived genius. Eccentricity. Webster defines someone who is eccentric as: a: deviating from an established or usual pattern or style b : deviating from conventional or accepted usage or conduct especially in odd or whimsical ways Take notice that an eccentric is not uncouth, just bizarre. Oddities in behavior are often traits of the genius. The reverse does not work. ...

Leadership by heuristics or empirical research ?

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Leadership has been studied from various perspectives. The first recorded approach to leadership was embedded in traits. It was believed that leaders are born not made, "Kings are born, not made", it was said. "Greatness is in the blood", was commonly believed. Several views on leadership emerged as our civilization evolved. Over the past 30 years our understanding of leadership went through a major shift. Our collective new understanding of leadership has been presented nicely by Peter Northouse . He provides a very good overview of leadership in his book Leadership Theory & Practice (LTP). Various perspectives on leadership have been acquired over time through scientific research. Northouse writes about several approaches to leadership in his book including the trait approach, skills approach, style approach, situational approach, contingency theory, path-goal theory, leader-member exchange theory, transformational leadership, and team leadership. The boo...

Directed Project/Thesis Defense

The thesis defense was succesful. I was looking forward to it. Tanya and Nikhil accompanied me for the presentation. Mark set up the projector, Dr.Newton, Dr.Latif, and Dr.Newton entered Knoy 569. I introduced all to Nikhil and Tanya. Dr.Elliott played with Niknil and said that they were gathered to meet with him and my presentation was just a side show. After everyone settled, the proceedings began. The light was dimmed, and I began. After about three slides into the presentation Nikhil started acting up. Tanya took stolled him out and waited in the lobby. For the next hour I was in the groove, slide after slide I talked and answered questions interactively. At one point, during the presentation Dr.Newton murmed, "This is important work". The professors were satisfied. At the end of the presentation, the lights were switched back on. Everyone was beaming with satisfaction. Dr.Newton asked if she could use the statistical part of my paper to teach her six hundered level cours...