Happy new year

Happy new year. May God brings more prosperity and happiness to you in 2010.

The new year milestone forces us to reflect back on our past achievements and mistakes. If you are still not getting there despite all out efforts for a good number of years, its a sign that your current way of doing things or thinking is not helping you. Instead of digging the same hole deeper and deeper to find gold, you may need to dig a new hole at a different place.

Albert Einstein rightly said "The problems of today will not be solved by the same thinking that produced the problems in the first place."

You are always told to think "out of box", be creative, become problem solver, have a different perspective etc. But how? I would suggest to start with one of the de Bono's books. "Teach yourself how to think" is a good start. 

Here are few related links from my blog:

• Edward deBono
• Thinking tools
• Plus, Minus, Interesting
• Six Thinking Hats

Posted via email from Saqib Awan

Writing succinctly

From Letter XVI of Pascal's Provincial Letters:

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

Great words. Writing a concise, clear and simple piece does require a number of readings, revisions and corrections.

Posted via email from Saqib Awan

What matters now by Seth Godin

Seth Godin has released a new free ebook titled "What matters now" which is full of provocative thoughts. Each of its 80 pages is a complete chapter written by a respected author or a blogger. Its format makes it convinient to read pages in any order. Here are some excerpts:

Fear

Have you ever wondered who’s behind that little voice in your head that tells you, “you’re in this by yourself, one person doesn’t make a difference, so why even try?”

Dignity

Dignity is more important than wealth. It’s going to be a long, long time before we can make everyone on earth wealthy, but we can help people find dignity this year (right now if we choose to).

Ease

We are the strivingest people who have ever lived. We are ambitious, time-starved, competitive, distracted. We move at full velocity, yet constantly fear we are not doing enough. Though we live longer than any humans before us, our lives feel shorter, restless, breathless...

Dear ones, EASE UP. Pump the brakes. Take a step back. Seriously. Take two steps back. Turn off all your electronics and surrender over all your aspirations and do absolutely nothing for a spell. I know, I know – we all need to save the world. But trust me: The world will still need saving tomorrow. In the meantime, you’re going to have a stroke soon (or cause a stroke in somebody else) if you don’t calm the hell down.

Neoteny

Neoteny is the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood. Human beings are younger longer than any other creature on earth, taking almost twenty years until we become adults. While we retain many our childlike attributes into adulthood most of us stop playing when we become adults and focus on work.

Adventure

I’ve been thinking about how big our world is and how small-minded we’ve become; how quick we are to judge and how slow to understand. Technology places the resources of the world at our fingertips, yet we have trouble seeing past the ends of our noses.

Dumb

But what makes dumb, smart? The ability to look at the world through a different lens from everyone else. To ignore rules. To disregard the ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’ and ‘never-succeeded-befores’. Then you need conviction, and the ability to stand by that conviction when other (smart) people look you in the eye and say, “no way, nuh uh.”

Attention

You can buy attention (advertising).
You can beg for attention from the media (public relations, Web).
You can bug people one at a time to get attention  (sales).

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.

Confidence

Confidence is rocket fuel for your business life. Confident people have a come-this-way charisma that generates a following. When you possess total confidence you are willing to take risks. When you have it, you propel yourself and your team forward into the future.

Knowing

There is no such thing as boring knowledge.
There is only boring presentation.

Download "what matters now" from this link.

Posted via email from Saqib Awan

This ad is a public service message?

This obvious advertisement for a food supplement on the front page of a newspaper (The Nation, 24-Dec-2009) is a public service message?
How?
Am I missing something?

Posted via email from Saqib Awan

Power crisis, environment and bikes

This news item about Copenhagen's bike friendly streets prompted me to write this. Copenhagen is the city where a recent climate conference concluded.

Power load shading and now natural gas load shading (here in Pakistan) in winter has severely crippled our home and business life. Using a bicycle to commute is one possible way to save energy, keep our environment a bit cleaner and keep ourselves healthy. I know it is going to take a lot of courage to adopt this poor man's mode of transport in our status conscious society but why not?

If you live at a place where roads are not too busy (we don't have bike lanes) and your work place is not far away, you can use it for your daily communte or just for the supermarket trips.

But on larger scale we need our government support to take initiative and make our roads bike friendly. This surely is going to cost much less than any new power or gas pipeline projects.

Meetings

Enough

From Derek Sivers blog:

Two friends were at a party held at the mansion of a billionaire. One said, “Wow! Look at this place! This guy has everything!” The other said, “Yes, but I have something he'll never have: enough.”

And ...

I live simply. I hate waste and excess. I have a good apartment, a good laptop, and a few other basics. But the less I own, the happier I am.

Derek was a multi-millionaire who gave away all his wealth to a trust.

Website of world's richest man

Warren Edward Buffett is the world richest man with estimated net worth of $62 billions. His company BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. ranks 17th among the world's biggest companies. Its worth having a look at its website.

I would also suggest to read some of its pages. Content is free of buzzwords with to-the-point information and personal tone.

This website is not an exception. Personal and business websites of Jakob Neilson, who is considered authority on making usable websites, are also worth looking at.

There are countless others including the one you use daily.

Ridiculous automation

I just happened to visit Liberty market in Lahore yesterday after a long time. The attendant at parking entrance gave me a parking ticket with my vehicle number written on it. He did not ask for the parking fee. When asked he pointed to a parking meter for payment.

So the next step was to get another ticket from the "automatic" parking meter. An attendant girl standing besides that meter helped me to get the ticket and also provided the 5-rupee coins which I did not have.

When coming out of parking, both tickets were collected and checked by the guard standing there. The first ticket was checked for vehicle number (to make sure I was not stealing someone else car) and second was checked for the parking time. (to make sure that I did not overstay)

This new system just makes things difficult for everyone. If the sole purpose is to collect more money by hourly parking rate, that could be done by writing time by the attendant at entrance. (Or better yet by increasing the flat parking fee for every one)

This new parking system "automation" is just ridiculous. It has increased the number of attendants besides incurring the additional cost of 10 expensive meters.

This automated parking system is used in developed countries for 100% self-service paid parking. This is of course not possible in our country due to cultural and existing system differences.

This is the type of automation we achieve when we mindlessly copy systems from other countries.

I often have hard time convincing my clients on simpler and to-the-point IT solutions for their businesses. They will insist on getting big, expensive and complicated solutions like Oracle, SAP etc. Not because they need it but because the big companies around the world use these.

I never give up though.

Are you a hacker?

A hacker is normally considered someone who can break into a remote computer and can steal or destroy data files which may be worth millions of dollars etc. Initial hacker stories were also centered around some clever computer programmer with skills to break into Pentagon computers bringing USA/USSR on the brink of war. This is a negative portrait of a hacker. This is, at best, layman's definition of a hacker.

A hacker is more than this definition. He is probably someone capable who is highly motivated to solve a given problem with any amount of effort using his insight and thinking to recognize shortcuts. He is curious and determined to find a simple solution to a complex problem; a solution which no one else is yet able to conceive.

Paul Graham's essay Great hackers is a must read for any one who wants to become a great hacker. On recognizing hackers around you, he says:

The problem is, if you're not a hacker, you can't tell who the good hackers are. A similar problem explains why American cars are so ugly. I call it the design paradox. You might think that you could make your products beautiful just by hiring a great designer to design them. But if you yourself don't have good taste, how are you going to recognize a good designer? By definition you can't tell from his portfolio. And you can't go by the awards he's won or the jobs he's had, because in design, as in most fields, those tend to be driven by fashion and schmoozing, with actual ability a distant third.

Eric Raymond, a great hacker himself, has a written an article on how to follow steps to become a computer hacker. The hacker attitude, he writes, is:

1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
4. Freedom is good.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.

On cultivating hacker abilities, he cites this short poem:

To follow the path:
look to the master,
follow the master,
walk with the master,
see through the master,
become the master.

And being a master himself, he advices these steps:

1. Learn how to program.
2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.

And to achieve hacker status, according to him, you also need to:

1. Write open-source software
2. Help test and debug open-source software
3. Publish useful information
4. Help keep the infrastructure working
5. Serve the hacker culture itself

Paul Buchheit, a great hacker who created GMail at Google, recently wrote an excellent blog post which neatly sums up all the thoughts behind philosophy of hacking.

Every system has two sets of rules: The rules as they are intended or commonly perceived, and the actual rules ("reality"). In most complex systems, the gap between these two sets of rules is huge.
Sometimes we catch a glimpse of the truth, and discover the actual rules of a system. Once the actual rules are known, it may be possible to perform "miracles" -- things which violate the perceived rules.

The words "in most complex systems" in above definition broaden the scope of hacking. It is not limited to computers. Finance, economics, medicine, business, education, human resource, politics are all examples of complex systems.

And on hacker's mindset:

We're often told that there are no shortcuts to success -- that it's all a matter of hard work and doing what we're told. The hacking mindset takes there opposite approach: There are always shortcuts and loopholes. For this reason, hacking is sometimes perceived as cheating, or unfair, and it can be.

When comparing hacking with thinking I find strong correlation. Hacking is a new and simple way of solving old problems. Hacking is a different life perspective. Hacking is lateral thinking.

So back to our original question. Are you a hacker?

If not, take the advice of great hackers, and be one. (Note to self, you should too)

Finding your moment

From "the moment": <http://gapingvoid.com/2009/10/28/finding-your-moment/>

The Moment is a con­fluence of empathy, unders­tan­ding and cla­rity
that ena­bles you to ele­vate your­self to your next stage of
deve­lop­ment. I have a true Moment about once a year, and it falls
within a dif­fe­rent cate­gory each time (ie. Paren­ting,
per­so­nal, professional).

QUOTE: Making money

If somebody said to me, "Look, I'll offer you a lousy job, but you'll get paid £3 million a year," I'd say, "Thank you very much, no." Charles Williams

An MBA in six months

Seth Godin, a marketing expert and a business guru, has successfully demonstrated how an MBA program can be taught in six months with much better results.

Here is the description of this program and a follow up on completion.

It is perhaps a good example of backward learning.

Formula for success

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure."
Thomas J Watson, Founder of IBM

Murder your darlings

With the passage of time all of us accumulate a lot of office/household goods which are practically junk. And it is hard to get rid of this junk without conscious effort. I advocate (and rigorously practice) simplicity but sometimes I find it hard to get rid of something which looks and feels wonderful but is practically useless.

This blog post discusses this in a nice way:

My theory is that the things that you own that you’re not using or don’t need aren’t just a waste of money and space: they’re draining you of your energy.  Every time you walk past that cookbook that you never opened, or that model airplane kit that you meant to assemble, or the oscilloscope that you haven’t turned on in a year, a little neural pattern fires that says “Someday I should..” or “I always meant to…” or “God, I really ought to take care of that.”
...

There’s a saying among writers about the process of copy-editing: murder your darlings.  You may have crafted a beautiful phrase or metaphor in this paragraph, but if it’s not serving the whole piece, it’s got to come out.  You have to murder your darlings.

Six hats map

Six thinking hats framework by Dr. Edward de Bono helps you stay focused and productive during meetings and discussions. Hats framework allows you to detach your ego from your discussions and focus on results.

Hats are used symbolically and there is no need to actually wear a particular hat. You just state that you are going to wear a particular hat. Hats are used to simulate the role playing. Six hats framework is extremely easy to learn and can be taught in 5-10 minutes to anybody including children. (who love role playing)

To use the hats during a meeting or discussion, you explain the six hats metaphor to everybody. During the discussion, everybody explicitly states the hat he or she is wearing and makes a statement according to his or her hat's color. Hats can be changed as many times as you like.

For example if you want to make an emotional statement, you will put on your red hat and put forward your statement. Similarly to say anything negative, you will tell the participants that you are now going to make black hat statement.

Blue hat is normally used by someone who is conducting the discussion (the controller) and allows him or her to keep everyone stay focused on the subject of the discussions. If the discussion drifts to off-topics, he can wear his blue hat and ask everyone to stay on the topic.

Some people are always positive, some find satisfaction in findings faults. Some others are creative. Six hats framework forces you to recognize your favorite hat and expects you to use all the hats in a balanced way. For example if you are too much critical (black hat) or emotional (red hat), it is expected from you that you use the yellow hat (positive) and white hat (facts) too.

To use the hats effectively you need to use the correct hat for each statement. For example you cannot say something emotional and make it look like a white hat statement. White hat is reserved for pure facts and you are expected to be asked for a reference which can prove that your statement is a pure fact.

Here is a mind map of six thinking hats which you can print and distribute before meetings/discussions or use as your computer desktop background for easy reference.

Low cost and innovative businesses

It is always possible to look at your existing business practices and simplify and/or innovate these. Unfortunately most people do not do it unless there is a competitive pressure or some regulatory demand. Innovation and simplification require both lateral thinking and courage.

Intercity bus service in our country was terrible before Korean company Daewoo started its service and set the standards of quality service and punctuality. It still seems the only buss service which has a regularly updated website. I tried but could not find the website of the biggest local intercity bus service, New Khan.

PIA started offering e-tickets only after Air Blue launched its service in Pakistan with e-tickets.

The picture below (click to enlarge) shows how low cost airlines (In Europe and US) are able to lower their fares compared to expensive airlines. Some of the strategies (from the picture) include:

1. Higher seat density with single class cabin.
2. Fast turnarounds (up to 25 minutes) - higher utilization of the plan.
3. Direct flights - point to point; no transfers, short routes.
4. Smaller airports - cheaper and simple ground facilities.
5. Tickets sold directly mostly by internet (easyjeb - 95%)
6. No frills - no additional costs
7. Standardized fleet (only one aircraft type) - cheaper maintenance, training
8. High variable proportion of salary (up to 26%) - better HR utilization. Ryanair is serving 9679 passengers per employee
   
9. compared to 715 passengers by employee by Air France.

If you are having trouble making your business profitable in these difficult times, reconsider your strategies.

Better employment

In the UK the Holst Group working with New Deal (the government programme for unemployed youngsters) found that teaching just six hours of thinking increased employability FIVE FOLD. What was taught was a mixture of CoRT and Six Hats.

This is truly a remarkable result and if any reader of this message wishes to send it on to his or her member of parliament, minister or prime-minister, please do so.

If six hours of thinking can do more for employment than ten years of traditional education, then there is something seriously wrong with education.

Edward de Bono, 26-June-2000

EBS

Examine Both Sides (or E.B.S for short) is a simplified form of O.P.V which involves you and the other person's (or group) thinking. For the duration of this tool application, you put yourself in the shoes of the other party and try to read his mind. As with O.P.V you are not trying what the other party should think but what he or she is thinking based upon his wishes and environment.

Practicing this tool is same as practicing other thinking tools. You set a time limit (2-5 minutes) and write down first your thinking and then other persons' thinking.

Practicing this tool before a job interview or a business deal can increase your success rate. You understand the other side better and you prepare better.

A small business owner, I have worked with, is extremely good at doing E.B.S. His employees always remark that when they go to him for something he would already know what they were going to discuss or demand. So he always has counter arguments (or a solution) ready.

With E.B.S you are not forced to think humbly or cruelly. You just do your best possible effort to examine the thinking of both parties involved.

Exercises:

1. Your spouse wants you to go for a morning walk. You prefer to stay at home to study a book. Examine both sides and write down the thoughts of both parties (you and your spouse)
2. Your brother (who is also your business partner) wants to do aggressive marketing to get new customers. You want to focus on satisfying existing customers. Do an E.B.S.
3. You want your son (or daughter) to read books. He (or she) wants to watch moves or play video games. Do an E.B.S.

Your mission

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where ..." said Alice.
"Then it does not matter which way you go," said the Cat.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

The famous quote above provides ample reason for a mission or direction in your life. A mission creates a filter in your life which gets applied to all your activities. A mission vitalizes you and gives you a sense of achievement with every small step or learning experience. This, in turn, makes you happy and vibrant.

Without a mission or direction you can live decades without achieving anything.

What is your mission?

QUOTE: Action

"Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action."
Benjamin Disraeli

OPV

Attention directing thinking tool OPV stands for 'Other People's Views'. To practice this tool in a given situation;

1. List the people involved or affected by a particular situation or thinking.
2. List the views of each person involved. For this put yourself in each person's shoes and imagine what he thinks.

As with any thinking exercise, time allowed for this is very short from 3-5 minutes (or bit more if the list of people involved is bit longer)

Note that with OPV you do not list what other people should think, but what they will think on their own. You are not trying to impose your thinking, you are trying to read their minds.

Exercises:

1. You are owner of a business. Your organization provides free lunch to all staff. You are thinking to discontinue this free lunch. Do an OPV. (List the people affected and what they will think)
   
2. You are tired of your job which is getting you nowhere in future. You just decide to take risk, quit your job and spend a year to build your own business or find a new job. Do an OPV for your wife, father, mother and a close friend.
3. Your employer stops the free medical care because a number of people were misusing it. Do an OPV for employees who were misusing it and for those who were fair.

Writing makes you think better.

Among other things, writing clarifies your thoughts and generates ideas. This guy had a problem and proceeded to write it down so that he could post it on internet to get recommendations. But he never posted it. His problem was solved while he was writing.

Paul Graham writes in his essay, "Writing, Briefly":

"expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong;"

So write it even if no one reads it.

Intelligence is not enough

"The general notion that intelligence (analysis, logic, and argument) is enough is dangerous in many ways. The emphasis is on the logical rather than perceptual skills, which are so important in real-life thinking and doing. The ability of an intelligent person to avoid obvious errors and to put together a coherent argument often blinds that person to the need to develop deliberate thinking skills. The avoidance of error is certainly not enough in thinking."

(Edward deBono, I am right you are wrong, p-275)

Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to achieve

An interesting article which says that if you announce your plans you are less motivated to achieve them. Agreed. I have experienced the same thing myself.

From the article:

Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re less motivated to do the hard work needed.

...

It may seem unnatural to keep your intentions and plans private, but try it. If you do tell a friend, make sure not to say it as a satisfaction (“I’ve joined a gym and bought running shoes. I’m going to do it!”), but as dissatisfaction (“I want to lose 20 pounds, so kick my ass if I don’t, OK?”)

QUOTE: Conquering fear

Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content
with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress,
saying to yourself the while: "Is this the condition that I feared?" Seneca.

Learning backwards

Dr. Edward de Bono says:

"If you were teaching someone how to use a wood-turning lathe you might use the following sequence: check the machine, switch it on, position the tool in the jaws, position the wood in the chuck, recheck, switch on the drive, observe and control the process ... switch off the drive, take out the tool, remove the formed wood, switch off the machine. This is the normal time sequence in which the operation would be carried out and it seems sensible to teach first things first.

But this way of teaching may be quite wrong. It may be best to teach the sequence backwards. Perhaps the first thing we ought to teach is how to switch the machine off, then how to remove the formed wood  ... and lastly how to switch it on." (I am right, you are wrong; page 96)

I have had great success with this method when teaching databases to students about 10 years ago. First I showed them a real database application running, dissected it into its parts, taught them how to build the major building blocks (tables, forms, reports). Database normalization, terminology and other abstract things were the last items they were taught. Learning was extremely fast as well as other benefits. Students were able to make sense of their learning immediately and were enthusiastic and looking forward to each learning session.

Alternate uses of blogs

Blogging platforms (blogger.com, posterous.com, wordpress.com etc.)
allow you to create a blog where you can publish your thoughts at a
frequency you like.

A blog is a web page which has a date associated
with each post (a sort of web page). These pages are presented in
reverse chronological order (that is, the latest post/page is shown
first followed by the older posts/pages.)

Simplicity of blog websites coupled with the ability to post updates
through email makes it possible to do a number of wonderful things like:

1. Publish a daily updated things-to-do list for yourself or your department or your organization.
2. Update daily (or weekly or monthly) prices and rates in your industry. (Gold, currencies, real estate etc.)
3. Make notes of what your learned today. (class room or self-learning.) Share it with world or keep it personal.
4. Build a repository of web sites links (bookmarks) you find useful while browsing internet and may want to visit later.
5. Prepare lecture notes and share with your students through a blog.
6. Update your inventory onhand list for your branches or salespeople reference.

etc.

Keep in mind that:

1. You can allow the whole world to view your blog or restrict it to yourself or a group of users.
2. You can allow multiple people to update the same blog.

QUOTE: Perfection

"Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away."
Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The easiest way to build your blog

You wanted to build your blog but always thought it was difficult.

Not anymore. The easiest and simplest way to build a blog is here. You
only need to know how to send email.

1. Write something. Attach any images, videos, files etc.
2. Send it to post@posterous.com.

Your blog will be created and its URL sent to you in email. You can keep
updating it by sending more emails to the above email address.

See a sample one here: http://saqibawan.posterous.com/

Now there is no excuse to not having a website or blog.

QUOTE: Dressing up

"There is another branch of decorative art in which I am sorry to say we cannot, at least under existing circumstances, indulge ourselves, with the hope of doing good to anybody, I mean the great and subtle art of dress ...

There can be no question, that all the money we spend on the forms of dress at present worn, is, so far any good purpose is concerned, wholly lost." Ruskin

Provocations

"You are working in an organization for the last 5 years. You sometime
think about switching your job or starting your own business but dismiss
it immediately considering all the risks associated with it. One day,
your boss gets infuriated on some petty issue and threatens to fire you
from job. This episode is repeated next day too. Suddenly your brain
starts working and you no longer consider the idea of switching your job
or starting your own business (or changing your job) too risky."

"Some old friend of yours visits you and tells you how easily he was
able to setup an internet based business which allowed him to get rid of
his lousy 9-to-5 job (which is actually at least 8-to-6). He
enthusiastically discusses his newly got freedom, shows off his new car
and invites you to his new apartment. Suddenly you start thinking that
perhaps starting your own venture is worth the effort and risk."

"Your cough is not getting better even after a 3 months treatment by a
specialist doctor. You start thinking about alternate medicine and
treatment (acupuncture, herbal, homeopathy, yoga etc.)"

"Your star employee who is handling a key business function in your
organization stops performing and starts behaving strangely.This
triggers a thought in your mind to outsource that business function."

These are all examples of provocations which immediately make you think
in new possible ways your never thought. These are all chance or
(sometimes) unpleasant provocations.

With lateral thinking it is possible to sit down and setup provocations
for yourself with the sole purpose of leading you to new and better
ideas of doing anything. We shall explore this method in future posts.

QUOTE: Simplicity

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
Leonardo Da Vinci

LINK: History of advertising industry and its future

From the article:

"By the mid-1920s agency copywriters had already figured out how to appeal to the more psychologically complex aspects of consumer choice: print ads began to prey on the individual’s fear of social failure, and radio announcers told tales of how their competitors’ products would lead to illness. Unchecked by any sort of regulatory body, advertising agencies had the freedom to pitch whatever worked best. Over the span of just a few years, advertisers successfully convinced the great unwashed to brush their teeth regularly, rinse with mouthwash and smoke as many cigarettes as humanly possible."

"Ad agencies had mastered the ability to sell the American consumer products that they had never heard of and had no real need for. This was the cunning genius of advertising."

"Consider the sheer superfluity of certain kinds of goods which this forcing of turnover entails. We are deluged with things which we do not wear, which we lose, which go out of style, which make unwelcome presents for our friends, which disappear anyhow – fountain pens, cigar lighters, cheap jewelry, patent pencils, mouth washes, key rings, Mahjong sets, automobile accessories – endless jiggers and doodads and contrivances. Here the advertiser plays on the essential monkey within us, and uses up mountains of good iron ore and countless sturdy horse power to fill – a few months later – the wagon of the junk man."

Read full article here: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/84/pop_nihilism_adverting_eats_itself.html

iPhone price slash

According to Yahoo news, Apple has drastically reducd the prices of iPhones. Now:

• 8 GB iphone is $99
• 16 GB iphone is $199
• 32 GB iphone is $299
  

Though Apples' iPhone is not available officially in Pakistan, people here have been using it after getting it unlocked by creative phone vendors at Hall road and Hafeez Center, Lahore.

For those people who still don't know about iPhone, it is a mobile phone with email, internet and other computer applications. Its gesture based interface has been one of the reasons for its popularity. A large number of software applications are available on internet which can be downloaded and run on iPhone.

Elite school systems

I went to a mediocre public school. These schools have been built for "masses" and differ primarily on medium of teaching which is Urdu verses the English in elite schools. I also had the opportunity of observing an elite school closely while working there as a consultant.

Due to my "connection" (if there is any) with that particular elite school, people often ask me for information/process about getting their kids there. Though I avoid it but sometimes I cannot resist my urge to ask them "why they want their kids go there?". The usual answer is that they want to give the "best" possible education to their kids. If you ask they cannot define the "best".

Some people are honest with themselves and say that this school will help their kids build right kind of contacts. Yes, contacts and not the education. They want their kids to get rich and not interested in helping them become thinkers, philosophers or inventors. All these people are already rich people and they can "afford" to make their kids thinkers, philosophers, inventors etc.

William Deresiewicz taught for 10 years at Yale University, an elite educational institute in US and has written a detailed article on the disadvantages of elite education.

Few quotes from his article:
"The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you."

"The second disadvantage, implicit in what I’ve been saying, is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth. Getting to an elite college, being at an elite college, and going on from an elite college—all involve numerical rankings: SAT, GPA, GRE. You learn to think of yourself in terms of those numbers. They come to signify not only your fate, but your identity; not only your identity, but your value. It’s been said that what those tests really measure is your ability to take tests, but even if they measure something real, it is only a small slice of the real. "

"Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. Their pain does not hurt more. Their souls do not weigh more. If I were religious, I would say, God does not love them more."

"An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed."

"Being an intellectual means, first of all, being passionate about ideas—and not just for the duration of a semester, for the sake of pleasing the teacher, or for getting a good grade."

"The world that produced John Kerry and George Bush is indeed giving us our next generation of leaders. The kid who’s loading up on AP courses junior year or editing three campus publications while double-majoring, the kid whom everyone wants at their college or law school but no one wants in their classroom, the kid who doesn’t have a minute to breathe, let alone think, will soon be running a corporation or an institution or a government. She will have many achievements but little experience, great success but no vision. The disadvantage of an elite education is that it’s given us the elite we have, and the elite we’re going to have."

(Emphasis added by me)

Read the full article here.

QUOTE: Teaching

When you teach, be brief, that your readers' minds may readily comprehend and faithfully retain your words. Horace.

Need for some lateral thinking

The aluminum-glass doors of the accounts office in Aitchison college, I was sitting in yesterday, swung open and closed with a big bang without any apparent cause. After few minutes investigations it turned out that this was not some black magic but a powerful bomb blast resulting from a suicide attack in Lahore at Rescue 15/ISI buildings.

Issues like terrorism are the ones which badly need some fresh thinking using lateral thinking tools. These issues are so much complicated that our right/wrong logic cannot help us solve these issues. Sadly there is nothing in sight which suggests this is going to happen.

Job or not

I really enjoyed reading the following blog posts.

Top 10 reasons to have a job

Top 10 reasons NOT to have a job

and

10 reasons you should never get a job

Enjoy.

Excellent but not enough

Edward de Bono has coined a new word, ebne, which stands for 'excellent but not enough'. This new word helps us to point out the need for improvements in systems which are otherwise considered highly successful.

Our education system is ebne.

Health science is ebne.

Your job is ebne.

Management Evolution

Procedures and functions of organizations get complicated with the passage of time. We need to make conscious effort to keep things simple.

In my last post, bosses hierarchy, I pointed out towards the unwanted layers of management which get build when an organization evolves. I just got a power point presentation from a friend of mine which describes the exactly same concept in an interesting way.

Do have a look at this presentation [the_ant.pps].