Bosses Hierarchy

Let us start counting:

In big businesses, there is regional manager who supervises the country managers in all countries which fall in his region. Country managers guide the branch managers who in turn make sure that sales and service department managers are doing their jobs perfectly. The department managers, of course, need to have supervisors to manage the teams of salespeople who are doing the actual selling.

And I have not yet mentioned the top management, personal assistants and secretaries.

This is how most of the big (or even medium-sized) businesses operate. And these are the businesses who are in real trouble right now.

And they are really addicted to their way of doing business. That is why the top bosses of auto industry in USA flew to Washington in private jets to ask for the money to avoid bankruptcy.

Small businesses don't have these hierarchies. The business owner is the one who builds the products with the help of his small team, sells and provides support and service when needed and takes lunch on the same table with all his employees.

If you have been planning to start your own small business, now is a good time. To cut costs, a lot of people and companies are looking for cheaper products and services which only small businesses can provide.

Lets us get started.

Lateral Thinking

Floating black balls on water surface; a novel idea to stop sunlight reaching towards a huge open water reservoir. Amazing.

Things-to-do with Gmail

Google has added a really nice 'Tasks' feature to gmail which you can use to manage your things-to-do lists right there in your gmail account. It is still an experimental feature so you will need to enable it by going through the Settings--Lab tab.

You can create tasks by entering a single line description or from within an email. It will even link that task to the email using email subject as the text for the task (you can change it though)

If you are still keeping everything in your head, take a break and off-load your thinking to gmail tasks list.

The Blame Game

When things go wrong in a business who is going to be blamed by top management?

• Employees
• Economy
• Software
• Suppliers
• and sometimes even customers

What will be deliberately "overlooked" by top management?

• Failure in hiring good employees and/or keeping them happy.
• Lack of delegation and trust.
• Complexities.

And when a business is making a lot of money and progress, who is going to get the credit for success?

Well, no prizes for the right answer.

Why have a blog?

There are many compelling reasons. One of these is trust.

Internet makes it possible to sell your product, service or idea to millions of people in the world. But why do these millions of people will trust you with whatever you say on your website?

There is an old internet adage which says that "on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog".

It is quite easy to look like the biggest textile manufacture or the "most respected" consultant through a cleverly built website. And everybody knows this.

Your blog makes it possible to start a dialog with people you have not met with and let your would-be customers know your commitment and expertise. It is a free, simple but extremely powerful tool to build the trust. Now every body knows you are not a dog.

Your website address please

An elegant website or a blog is a much better tool to introduce you or your business to me than your business card or 5 minute talk in the hotel lobby. Even if you have nothing to put on your website, start with a single page, putting your resume and contact information there.

There was a time when building a website was difficult. You were supposed to learn about quite a few technical things like html, ftp, web hosting etc. as well as buy and install software to build the website and upload it to the internet. The "easiest" tool was Microsoft Frontpage which allowed non-technical people build a website with broken links and many under-construction pages. These under-contruction pages never got updated because of the hassle involved.

Not any more. There are now a lot of wonderful tools and websites which will get you started building a new website or blog absolutely free in minimal time. A very short list includes blogger.com, google sites and, my personal favorite, wordpress.com.

Wordpress.com gives you a website in matter of seconds. You can write your blog or create a website to sell something using the powerful control panel without learning a whole stack of internet technologies.

Wordpress.com (and other such tools) gives you a web-based control panel to build your website. There is nothing to install on your computer. This makes it easy to incrementally develop your website from your home or office or with the help of your online friends.

Feeling poor

Are you filthy rich? No matter how much money you make, we can still make you feel poor.

Take a look at few pictures of newly opened The Atlantis Palm Hotel and Resort in Dubai.

Forget about starving people.

Doing what you love

I saw them on a London tube station. They were playing music, collecting tip and selling their CD. They were doing what they loved though their 'marketing strategy' could be better.

Sometimes it takes a lot of risk, courage, effort and lateral thinking to do what you love and still be a success.

Shopping Mania

Shopping centers are so much organized and fun here in UK (and every where in the western world) that I ended up with a number of useless things in my hands while visiting few shopping places. Even the people who are crying of hard times are constantly buying more and more junk to fill their homes. All the 'poor' people in London seem to have every luxury imaginable in their homes and still feeling unsatisfied.

Westfield, the third biggest UK shopping center opened two days ago. Enormous crowd was reported by newspapers and other media. London mayor is urging people to spend, spend and spend.

But do we really need to do all this spending?

Annie Leonard of The Story of Stuff has correctly analyzed why we love shopping and why we should not do this. Visit storyofstuff.com and watch this 20-minutes eye-opening story.

Best Things in Life

Best things in life are simple and free:

• Homeopathy medicines to cure the diseases.
• Lateral Thinking to keep your head clear and focused.
• Yoga to exercise your body.
• Watching sunset and eating home made food. (compared to dining in a 5 star restaurant)
• ... (i could list hundreds of things)

Unfortunately the corporations are hell bent to make us believe otherwise using the power of marketing.

So what is your choice?

Simple and free or complicated and expensive?

Procrastination and Comfort Zone

Procrastination (delaying things without any reason) and your comfort zone have direct relationship. It is easier to take any action which falls within your comfort zone.

For example:

• It seems easier to chat forever on IM but extremely difficult to write few lines on your new blog so you always postpone your blog post until you just forget about it.
  

• It seems easier to browse zillion websites aimlessly but difficult to read few blogs daily to enhance your knowledge.
  

• It seems easier (and tempting) to order a new and faster laptop for 800 because you love computers (though all you do is email and word processing) but you will think over and over before ordering HIP for 300 (in UK) to sell your house (which matters most to you right now).

You tend to procrastinate more when you have a narrow comfort zone. You will always complain that you are too busy but you are in fact playing within your comfort zone.

The trick to expand your comfort zone. To do so do at least one thing daily you are uncomfortable with.

Remember the most important decisions are always uncomfortable and are worth doing right now.

Simplicity and Design

It seems economy came down crumbling like a falling house of cards. Latest computers, powerful databases and top of the line analytical tools could not help predict and prevent this fall.

As part of my consulting business I am required to provide more and more tools and reports for analysis of business data. It is time we realize that our obsession with analysis is not going to help us much. As de Bono says "You can analyse the past but you have to design the future". We waste a lot of energy and resources on analysis. Let us divert some of it towards simplicity and design.

Seth Godin writes:

I've always been frightened by big-firm accounting. The sort of financial legerdemain in which skilled accountants work hard to make the numbers look the way the CEO wants, instead of making them clear. Cash accounting run on a simple bookkeeping system is the small way to do it... even if your company is huge. That's because sooner or later, management has to know what's actually happening as opposed to what they can pretend is happening.

Short URLs

Bit.ly is a url shortener. It gives you a short url for any long url. You can then spell this url on phone or send it through email without the line wrapping issues.

For example:
> http://saqibawan.blogspot.com/2008/10/short-urls.html
becomes:
> http://bit.ly/1MWO1G

Personal Emergencies

• Last date for tax return is tomorrow and we still need to collect all the information.
• We are planning to cancel subscription of a magazine,website or any other service we don't need anymore but we forget.
  
• We need to read that book which will help advance our career or business but can't find time.
  
• Kids need some stationery before going to school today.
• Bills were due yesterday.
  
• ....

Emergencies are part of daily life.

Our short term attention span and memory is limited. We always fear, and rightly so, that we will forget something important so we either try to do it right now or postpone it a bit (and then forget it.) This is one of the causes of emergencies in our life.

Emergencies can be reduced. The trick is to stop doing things off your head. Instead maintain a list of things to do using some tool like hiveminder.com and do things from there.

Caution: Do not put every small bit of work on your things to do. You will make your list unwieldy and soon get fed up. Sometimes it is better to forget things which don't matter much in short term and long term.

Rule 20-80

Rule 20-80 states:

1. 20% people have 80% wealth.
2. 20% of your customers generate 80% revenue.
3. 20% of your employees complete 80% of their assignments.
4. 20% of your reading is enough to provide 80% knowledge.
5. 20% of your effort generates 80% of your expected outcome.
6. 20% of a software fulfills 80% of your requirements.
7. and so on ...
   

The rest 80% usually gives you only 20% and can be ignored if you love free time and higher productivity. The trick is to identify the 20%.

Colors of Your Thinking

The one of the easiest ways to offend someone is saying something emotional and presenting it as "facts". de Bono's six thinking hats make it easy to show the color of your thinking or ask others to label their thoughts.

White hat is all about pure facts, figures and information.

Black hat finds faults and design errors pointing out why something will not work.

Red hat signifies the emotions, feelings, hunch and intuition.

Yellow hat thinking is about positive and constructive ideas.

Green hat is for new ideas and creativity.

Blue hat is for the control and direction of the thinking process.

For example my last comment on Dubai is a red hat thinking.

Dubai

Dubai was my destination last month for a consulting assignment. I have been to Dubai many times for the last 10 years. Dubai seems to be under-construction forever.

Dubai is a perfect city. Everything is perfect and in absolute order; Law and order, cleanliness, buildings, roads, airport, food, Internet, no tax.

And this bugs me. It seems so unnatural to be so perfect. I cannot help myself to develop some sort of association/affection with this city.

To me, Dubai seems like a play land for the super rich kids where everybody else is there to maintain that play land and trying to make enough money to go back to his home and retire.

Micro and Macro

Micro Management
The manager or the big boss, mostly the owner of the business in an SME, takes care of everything. Whether the matter is hiring the office boy or the head of marketing department, he conducts the interview. There is no delegation of responsibilities, or more important, trust in the middle management. In fact there are only two layers of management; the big boss and the rest of the people.

All day to day decisions pass through his head and hands. He is a stern believer of the carrot and stick methodology. Everyone is expected to carry out any task at anytime as the boss 'wishes'. He will always complain about the lack of talented workers. The multinational next door is opening new branch/outlet every week but he cannot hire a good accounts clerk. High turnover of valuable people is another indication.

There are few problems with micro management:

1. People don't like being "commanded" all the time (unless they are ex-service men)
2. Everyone in the company works only enough to save his skin and keep him or her in the job.
3. No one takes initiative because no one is ready to bear the brunt if the initiative fails.
4. You, the big boss, cannot leave office for extended periods because nothing will get done in your absence.

Micro management is a positive feedback system. The more you apply it, the more you are convinced that it is the right thing to do. The big boss is very very clear on what he thinks or what he wants but unfortunately does not know what his employees think or want. His life and those of his subordinates are miserable. Only big boss grows and that too with pain.

In his weekly message titled "Youth Crime", Edward de Bono says, "There are two things which everyone needs. They are 'significance' and 'achievement'". The only 'significance' for subordinates is not being jobless and the only 'achievement' is the pay cheque.

Macro Management
Macro manager has enough vision, hunch and trust on subordinates. He delegates his work to them and lets them finish without any interference. His relationship with his subordinates is based on trust and care. Carets and sticks are rarely used.

This behavior of the big boss instills responsibility in subordinates who work hard to come up to the expectations of their manager. They are able to solve the problems themselves, take initiatives, enjoy their work and pride themselves of their work.

Interestingly macro management is positive feedback system too. The more you apply it, the more you believe in it. Everybody grows and everybody is happy.

The 'significance' for people is belonging to a great company. Their 'achievement' is working to the best of their abilities and getting things done on their own.

Thinking tools can help transform a micro manager into a macro manager.

Firefighters

A good designer designs a building which never catches fire for its life. This goes unnoticed and designer never gets any reward or appreciation.

A poor designer designs a building which catches fire after a certain time period. Firefighters reach the spot on time, start working hard and bring the fire under control within 2 hours. Firefighters are appreciated and rewarded for saving "lives" even though the building is gutted.

This analogy can be extended to our daily life. Someone who is smart enough to manage his work and complete it before 5 pm is not appreciated and rewarded. Instead he is given more work because he still has "free" time. Hard worker is the one who works extra hours after office time.

The problem with this approach is that smart people soon identify this behavior and start working 'harder' than 'smarter' because it is more rewarding.

In my consulting to a large number of customers I have met only one who had banned the employees from working extra hours. If someone wanted to work late to finish his work, he or she had to provide the justification.

Identifying smarter people is a lot more difficult than identifying the 'hard worker'. One simple way is to start treating everyone smart.

Task-based management can also help. A manager assigns a task (with some if/then instructions) to his subordinates and the deadline is not too short. If the task is completed before time, the manager lets him enjoy time saved.

Brain Surgery

Watch yourself when you are trying to get something done in haste. You will be angry, violent and aggressive.

I was not much surprised when I read that haste is a form of violence.

This means that you are committing violence against yourself or subordinates or kids or friends if you are asking them to deliver too much in the shortest possible time. Bad for you and bad for those who work with you.

I remember reading somewhere advice of the CEO of a mega corp (probably Oracle Corp.) to his newly inducted secretary who was overwhelmed by the volume of work. "Don't worry if something gets delayed, We do not do brain surgery.", he told her.

Most of us are not in the brain surgery business either.

Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is a new term in IT jargon. In simple words, cloud computing refers to the software running on Internet servers. Here is a bit detailed definition from joyent.com.

"Software previously installed on personal computers is being shifted or extended to be accessible via the Internet. The term for this is “cloud computing”. In the cloud, you run your application on one (or many) virtual computers. The advantages to this approach include reduced up front hardware costs, reduced maintenance and administrative costs, the ability to match hardware and software capabilities and, most importantly, the flexibility to scale your site up and down depending on demand."

Free Yourself

Internet and web applications allow you to free yourself from physical office.

• You can check your email anywhere using web mail.
• You do your banking on Internet.
• Your branches share a single online database for all inventory operations.
• Your customers track their orders and accounts without bothering you.
• Your projects get managed through Internet from remote locations.
  
• Your pictures, videos, documents, spreadsheets, backups are all in the cloud.
  
• Your London office phone rings in Lahore.

and so on. Possibilities are endless.

But the question is, are you doing any of the above?

Intellectuals

"The first rule of intellectualism is: 'If you do not have much to say, make it as complex as possible.' A true intellectual has as deep a fear of simplicity as a farmer has of droughts. If there is no complexity, what is there to work with or write about?"

"There is no end to the complexity of descriptions. You could divide a simple pencil into ten parts if you wished and then proceed to describe all ten parts and the relationship of the parts. Once you have a handful of concepts you can choreograph the most complex of dances. There is no limit to the word games that can be played with words."

Edward de Bono in Teach Your Child How To Think page 9.

Buzzwords

UK's local authorities body has warned the British bureaucrats to stop using buzzwords, saying they confuse people and prevent residents from understanding what local governments do.

This body prepared and sent a list of 100 buzzwords which includes words like synergies, stakeholders, sustainable communities, empowerment, coterminosity, revenue stream among others.

Two years back, I attended a discussion at LCCI about developing service oriented business and exporting services. Participants were few foreign consultants, secretary of a government department and few other 'intellectuals'. This discussion was full of so many buzzwords that I had troubleg concentrating what everyone was saying. The end result of this discussion was obvious. We accomplished nothing during the 2 hours session.

If British people are having difficulty understanding buzzwords, how can our people be comfortable with these. It is time that we clear our websites, marketing material and discussions of these buzzwords.

Designing Your Website

Are you searching for the best graphics designer for your website?

Is your logo design process going through the 99th iteration?

Are the graphics on your website still not as good as you would like to be?

You just went through tons of CSS templates but nothing good was found?

Have you thought about the text or products description you will put on the website? No. That is a secondary thing and will be taken care of during the development. Right? Wrong.

Jakob Nielsen is an authority on building better websites. He has been advocating simple and usable websites with emphasis on content which is updated regularly.

In a recent interview to BBC he said how users becoming more focused during surfing and how they dislike all the widgets and promotions on websites. Users are not interested even in your home page. They search your website with google and go straight to the portion of their interest.

"Most ignore efforts to make them linger and are suspicious of promotions designed to hold their attention." and "People want sites to get to the point, they have very little patience,"

So you have spend a lot of money and energy building the "best looking website" but have not spent a minute or a dime to get the right content for the website?

Think again.

Interrupt Me

Sometimes your focus on work is razer-sharped. Whatever the distractions or interruptions are around you, you keep doing your work and meet the goal of your daily productivity.

Sometimes this is not the case and even the most interesting job becomes boring. You do some effort to concentrate but soon give up. Various news, games and 'other' websites come to your rescue when this happens.

But sometimes even this help is not enough. You have just visited your favorite news site for the 7th time in the last one hour but there was nothing new. Even Katrina Kaif has not done any new photo shoot for the last few days.

So what to do? Just install the latest version of 'Interrupt Me'. You will be busy as hell all the day. Your boss will be happy that you eyes are on the screen and your fingers are on the keyboard all the day. You are always doing what you are paid for.

Interrupt Me (or IM for short) is a revolutionary new software technology which helps you to produce as little work as possible when you are feeling bored.

Yes, you have guessed it. This software is also called MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk or something else depending upon your preference.

Whenever you are inclined to procrastination, IM allows you to keep yourselves busy without feeling guilty. At the end of the day you blame the "work load" for un-productiveness.

In production line scenarios, IM is not much of an issue. Work forces you to be as much productive as is required by your job. If you stop working, everyone on production line stops so you cannot procrastinate. In these situations, IM helps you to communicate quickly when needed.

This is, however, not the case if you are a programmer, writer, designer, marketer, student, CEO or in any position which requires your knowledge to produce results. You need to take concrete steps to avoid self-inflicted interruptions which include too much web-browsing or chatting.

Setting aside a pre-defined time for these passive interruptions, like 3:00 pm for all browsing/chatting, is one way to deal with them. Some experts even suggest dedicating a separate computer for this purpose at your workplace. This is necessary if your habit has become chronic.

Another possibility, if you are not feeling like doing your work, is that you do absolutely nothing. Just sit there. You are more likely to do something work related after a short period of rest.

Maintaining a list of things to be done in your career or life will help you select alternate course of action when you are bored with your regular work. Hiveminder is recommended.

If you have big plans in your life but are unable to do progress for the last so many years, it is time to question your work habits. Big plans need energy. Make sure your energy is not being drained by interruptions made possible by technology.

Plus, Minus and Interesting

PMI is one of the thinking tools invented by Dr. Edward de Bono (see my last post). Though it looks simple, it is very powerful. To use this tool, we first look towards the plus side of a thinking situation, than towards minus and lastly try to find the interesting points.

"I am going to buy this new fast dual core laptop with big screen. Should I? Let us do PMI. Time for this thinking is 2 minutes."

Plus:

• I shall be able to run my word processor faster.
• I shall be able to run multiple operating systems in virtual environment.
• I shall show off to friends
• I shall be able to run Microsoft VISTA

Minus:

• Too costly.
• An extra expense since don't really need.
• Somebody can snatch this new shiny laptop.
  
• Customer support of this brand is not good.
• Bulky

Interesting

• Will be interesting to see how my favorite games perform.
• Will be interesting to see how my friends respond to my new laptop.
• Will be interesting to see movies on bigger screen while on the go.

Every one might generate different points with his application of PMI on the same topic. PMI is a scan tool which means that once you have moved to Minus, you do not go back to Plus. Similarly when you have moved to Interesting, you do go back to Minus or Plus. When doing thinking without this tool, our emotions, biases and past experiences limit us. PMI forces us to do a full scan before making a decision. This tool is so simple that you can explain it to any one in few minutes and ask him to do a PMI on the current situation.

Minus is not something bad. It is just the other side. In fact during training sessions I conduct, some people list one point on the plus side while others list the same point on the Minus side. This is ok. The important thing is that scan should be broader. A good PMI result should be some equal number of Plus, Minus and Interesting points.

Thinking Tools

Edward de Bono invented thinking tools. A thinking tool is a three letter word carefully chosen to explore a particular aspect of a person's thinking. Thinking tools are a great way to explore a subject before allowing our judgment to take over.

Our usual process of thinking is Observation -- Judgment. With thinking tools, we change it to Observation -- Exploration -- Judgment.

Next time you need to do some thinking on a problem, trying to find alternatives or setting priorities, do not jump to the conclusion immediately. Spend few minutes to do PMI, APC or FIP (or any other thinking tool) and then move on. Thinking tools can be used by an individual or a group.

List of Thinking Tools

• AGO - Aims, Goals and Objectives
• CAF - Consider All Factors
• EBS - Examine Both Sides
• OPV - Other People's Views
• APC - Alternatives, Possibilities and Choices
• FIP - First Important Priorities
• C&S - Consequence and Sequel
• PMI - Plus, Minus and Interesting

Usage
It is advisable to practice thinking tools in formal sittings before applying these to your day to day life. Practicing thinking tools is simple. You select a topic and use one or more tools to explore the topic. Initially it is advisable to use a paper and pencil to write down your topic and the output of each tool usage. Practice can be done individually or in a group. Experience tells that practice in a group is more enjoyable and fun when all participants share the output of thinking tools. Group practice should not consist of more than 6 people. Each practice session should last for a minimum of 20 up to maximum 50 minutes.

Timing is an important aspect of using a thinking tool. You allow yourself 1-3 minutes of thinking time for each tool usage. You should also monitor your time with a watch. This strict time discipline is an important part of thinking tools practice.

Practice will develop confidence and make thinking an enjoyable process. You will be able to use tools in daily life without much effort.

Open Source Software

For all practical purposes, open source software is free alternative to popular expensive software like Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Outlook etc. The best way to get a taste of it is to download few open source software like Openoffice, Firefox or GIMP and try for few days. You will love it.

The free software is developed by dedicated individuals in their free time as well as by full time developers in open source companies like Redhat, Novel, IBM. All communication and collaboration among the open source developers is done through Internet.

Open source is nothing short of a silent revolution. It is a kind of those rare revolutions which can be brought by just being positive and without fighting a war or being against someone.

Vested interests of proprietary software companies do get damaged. These consider open source a threat. These companies are trying to fight back with by spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) against the open source software. A recent study says that free open source software is costing proprietary software companies (like Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe and lot of others) $60 billion per year.

Secure Internet Communications

All internet communication between your computer and the website can be intercepted by your network administrator, ISP or any other party between you and the website. A large number of really simple network tools are available which make it easy to decipher communication between your computer and the Internet.

That is why when you access your online bank accounts on internet or any other confidential site, the server forces you to use https instead of http in the URL. Almost all websites asking for credit card or other personal information use https. Infact you should avoid putting your confidential information on a website page if it is not using https.

Though there is no need to get paranoid about security, situations do arise when you should know how to protect your internet communication. One of the popular applications on internet is email. If you are like me and use Gmail, you can force Gmail to use https instead of http to login and read and write your emails securely.

By default, Gmail uses https only for your login information. Rest of the communication (reading, writing emails) is not protected. But if you start your login process with https (e.g. https://mail.google.com/, Gmail will keep you connected through https. This is true for all google services including google apps.

Not all websites provide secure access through https which is ok most of the time. However you can investigate or ask the webmaster of a particular site for https access if you are sending any confidential
information over the Internet.

Digging Deeper

Lahore's traffic police was replaced by an entirely new one last year. The newly replaced force also includes female staff. The new policemen/women are called traffic wardens. This was a pleasant change for us traveling on the roads of Lahore on daily basis.

The old police was corrupt and treated ordinary motorists like criminals. Motorists were often seen "bargaining" with them at the corners of the roads.

The new police is educated, polite, well fed and (so far) does not take bribe or pressure of any kind. The police tries to give a warning to the offender or just issues a ticket for the violation. No "bargaining".

The most interesting part of this change was how it was done. Instead of bringing change into the existing traffic police department, a new department was created and new hiring was done.

Sometimes it is better to replace complex and stagnant systems with new ones. Sometimes we need to dig a new hole at a different place to find some oil instead of digging the same hole deeper. This strategy, however, requires a lot of courage and willingness to take risks which might be there with the new system.

Vitamins are Harmful

First there was a revelation that drinking too much water as advocated by many doctors, was not good. (Press TV, Scientific American). Now there are even more startling research results that vitamins taken through pills are not only useless but harmful and can possibly kill you.(Reader's Digest)

"Drinking too much water is good" was perhaps "discovered" by water bottling companies who wanted you to spend money unnecessarily to buy their products. And Vitamins are good only to the health of pharmaceutical companies producing those vitamins.

We should not be surprised to find these new discoveries. Sometimes corporate interests take precedence over human values. This is clearly evident from the manufacturing and sales of tobacco products. We continue to sell tobacco even after fully aware of its harmful effects. Short term gains take control.

During discussions with a highly learned Homeopathy doctor, the doctor always rejected the notion of using vitamins, food supplements or drinking a lot of water to make your health better. He said that if there was any deficiency in the body, the body would crave to get that deficiency fulfilled through food. Sweats will taste real good when you have glucose deficiency and so on.

If you are taking reasonably balanced diet you should normally not have any deficiency. Any deficiency in the body is due to the malfunctioning of the assimilation function of the body for that particular vitamin or salt etc. This malfunctioning should be corrected (possibly with homeopathic medicines) and any related deficiencies will go away.

Edward de Bono

The New Model of Brain

Our brain works as a pattern-making and pattern-using system. First pattern is difficult to form. Once formed, this pattern is reinforced with further incoming patterns.

Over the passage of time there are a large number of well-established patterns and it becomes increasingly difficult to form new patterns.

Making new patterns is the key to creating new things. Lateral Thinking tools make creating new patterns a step by step process.

This is the model of brain that Edward de Bono gave us in his book 'Mechanism of Mind'. This model explains how our thinking habits, creativity, learning abilities, decision making skills are all triggered.

Enhancing our Thinking Skills

When we know how something works, we can usually take better control of it. Same is true for our brain. Based upon this model, we can be more creative (Lateral Thinking), improve our thinking skills (Thinking tools), better understand and control different type of thinking involved in our day to day lives (Six Thinking Hats).

These new thinking skills (Lateral Thinking, Thinking Tools, Six Thinking Hats) are all based upon this new model of how our brain works.

Effectiveness of teaching thinking skills can be judged from a single evidence which deBono describes on his website. "In one mine, fights between the tribes working there were reduced from 210 a month to just four through the direct teaching of my thinking methods to totally illiterate miners."

The Need for New Thinking

The need for new thinking is aptly explained by this quote of Albert Einstein. "The problems of today will not be solved by the same thinking that produced the problems in the first place."

A brief bio of Edward deBono is available at wikipedia. He publishes a weekly messages on his official website www.edwdebono.com.

Help Me Help You

Being in the field of IT consulting, I receive a large number of support requests from my customers, friends and family members. Sometimes there is a bug in the software I delivered. Sometimes the home PC of my friend is sluggish due to multiple anti-virus software and a large number of browser plug-ins installed. And his only hope is my advice. Here are few tips which will help me help you better.

1. 1. Use descriptive subject for your email
   
   Subjects like 'Please help me', 'Please solve this' or 'Urgent' make it difficult to look through and prioritize an issue from my list. My list of things to do sometimes contains more than 100 items and subject makes it easy to choose the next one.
   
   You even do not need to repeat your request in the body of the email if the subject says it all.
   
   
2. DO NOT USE ALL CAPITALS LIKE THIS. THESE ARE DIFFICULT TO READ AND ARE TAKEN FOR SHOUTING IN INTERNET COMMUNICATION ETIQUETTES.
   
   
3. Provide a particular reference (form name, report name, invoice number etc.) to reproduce and understand the problem. Do not assume I am clever enough to figure it out all.
   
   
4. More is better. Send one email for each different issue instead of combining all issues in one email.
   
   
5. Use small sentences and numbered paragraphs to make your request clear.
   
   
6. Do not send a new email to remind a pending issue. A reply to an already sent email with something like 'A reminder, it is urgent' keeps everything in context for both of us.

Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft's latest version of Windows operating system, Vista, was released in 2007. Windows is an operating system that powers most of the desktop computers in the world. Vista is the latest edition of this OS after XP.

Vista's new interface design and security enhancements have become productivity degrader and make your day to day computing experience quite painful. These issues together with increased computer hardware requirements make Windows Vista less than ideal for day to day usage.

PC World has termed Vista as the #1 of 15 biggest technology disappointments of 2007.

If you are planning to move to this latest and greatest version of Microsoft Windows, stop and think before you jump.

Sticking to Windows XP for the time being seems the best choice available. Windows XP is going to be supported with bug fixes till April 8, 2014. By that time, we hope Vista will turn into something better or we might have other better choices.

So if you do not have any particular requirement to install Windows Vista (you don't have if you don't know), stick to Windows XP. Your computer will run familiar, faster and cheaper.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog.