Twitter Digest

• Kellogg's Created A Twitter-Inspired Cereal Called 'Totes Amazeballs' read.bi/yp7FfK
• 22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue [Infographic] bit.ly/ye5M6u
• The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging bit.ly/nurIw3
• 10 Little-Known Social Media Tools You Should Be Using Right Now read.bi/woNQFY
• 9 Social Media Lessons From The US Army read.bi/yMzlmW
• 10 Signs Your Work-Life Balance Is Out Of Whack read.bi/yldXhn
• Companies Like Sony And Gap Are Failing At Social Media Because They Just Don't Get It read.bi/z3c9bR
• What’s Inside the Oscar Envelopes? slate.me/y5j8oe

I'm Hoping to lose

No one likes to lose. Can you think of the last time you said - "its just a game" when you won? Motivating yourself is extremely important, and justification is only one of the ways. But there is one specific time that you hope to lose and that's when you lose to people important to you. 

At work, I'm hoping for my team to be better than me everyday. I'm hoping that my team has better insights, analysis and makes better decisions than me. 

At home, I'm hoping that my siblings, parents and cousins do better than me and I lose to them in the game of life and they are successful in their endeavors. Parents are happy to lose to  their children and are proud of them when that happens. 

Losing to people you care for can be an amazing experience if you appreciate it. I hope you look forward to losing someday as well. 

On cheese holes and reputation

When you buy a big chunk of Swiss cheese, you see the holes and somehow, it never bothers you that you're missing out on the product not there. I, on the other hand, think about what the volume of cheese would have been if the holes weren't there. 

The quality of Swiss cheese isn't declared by the number or location of holes in it, but by its taste. Reputation unfortunately isn't like that. A single hole in your image spreads like wildfire and the world catches on to it very easily. 

Watch for the next reputational hole coming your way and be prepared to dodge it. Conversely, before spotting the holes in someone else, stop and evaluate their quality. Never let holes force you to make the conclusions. 

Life's overhead costs

Everyday we are connected with people of some sort. Some of these people we like more than others and some not at all, but we still get by. This phenomenon exists at the workplace and in your personal life. At work you might connect with peers, subordinates, supervisors and in your personal life, your relationships with your family and extended family exhibit these rules as well.

Relationships that we don't appreciate are very much like life's Overhead Costs. If life would be a business, you would eventually run bankrupt for not building the relationships in your costs. Take that one step further and you'll realize that you can also achieve economies of scale on these life overhead costs. The more you foster and better utilize the relationships with friends, families and others, the more personal satisfaction you get.

Take a moment today to appreciate life's overhead costs. True satisfaction is only at a rocks throw if you factor those into your relationship balance sheet.

Twitter Digest

• Brillant solution. RT @azaaza: Made this last night out of a cork to keep my headphones from getting tangled. #DIYbit.ly/xaZ9xw
• Crazy McDonald’s Items [infographic] | Daily Infographic bit.ly/xAKN2H
• Motivation Killers: 9 Things You Should Never Ask Employees bit.ly/A3SKXM
• Survival Of The Fittest: Applying Darwin To First-Year CEOs - Forbes onforb.es/zhMR2e
• "Progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction." - unknown
• Reversing extinction | The Rational Optimist… bit.ly/zRDuo2
• Toronto café and coffee-shop boom about to go bust? bit.ly/zbjMec
• “It Always Seems Impossible Until it’s All Done.” – Nelson Mandela

Adaptability vs. Avoidance

Being adaptive is extremely important. Adaptability can be in the form you read, write and talk. When you realize that a corporate culture appreciates people talking about certain personalities or about trade shows, make sure you adapt and learn the same things. This will lead you to be knowledgeable about a certain spectrum of readings which you can share with others over casual conversations. Similarly, when you write, learn structures and patterns people use around you and follow suite.

But don't mix adaptability with avoidance. Not doing something in a continuum is only going to hurt you long term. If you like something a certain way, be persistent and fully understand it in continuum and pursue it. Seek justification not avoidance. 

Adapt but don't avoid.

Non-wow projects

Most of the time we are involved in day-to-day operations or long-term / short term projects at the workplace. Projects keep us going and having multiple projects can be a good thing, given that you're not rolling in too many at the same time. But what about the non-wow projects? aka. things that need to get done but don't have that wow factor which pushes/excites you to pursue them.

All of us will face non-wow projects in some aspect of our life. More importantly, all of us SHOULD face such projects because they teache us something wow-project don't, the truth behind what motivates us. The truly motivated will bite the bullet and work on such projects, if not have fun doing them and the unmotivated will hate every moment of it.

Motivation is a complicated beast, and you might hate getting a non-wow project, but next time you get one, take it as an opportunity to discover your motivation factor; perhaps you'll find something wow there itself.

The happy secret to better work

Twitter Digest

• To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail. —Abraham Maslow
• Why China Isn't Winning: American Higher Ed Is Still Much, Much Better - David Lundquist - International - The Atlantic bit.ly/yEhNq8
• Hedge-fund closures: Quitting while they’re behind | The Economist econ.st/yFbUta
• John Fairfax, Who Rowed Across Oceans, Dies at 74 nyti.ms/yaXIaY
• How the Science World Tells Black Kids Do Not Enter - Education - GOOD - StumbleUpon bit.ly/z8PLPv
• 16 Facts About Sleep [infographic] bit.ly/gzhmQt
• Seth's Blog: "How'd it work out?" bit.ly/xfwkaA
• How Much Do Books Really Cost to Make? - Business - GOOD - StumbleUpon bit.ly/yJsUX3
• @cmrn_dp Moneyball job? | Quantitative Analyst bit.ly/Ar3vg7
• Leadership isn't communicating what you need, leadership is communicating what you can contribute. ~ @simonsinek
• 12 Times That Being Cheap Will Cost You read.bi/z43FPH
• Restaurant's 'Triple Bypass Burger' Almost Killed A Guy read.bi/w39H6k
• 10 Ways Data Mining Can Help You Get a Competitive Edge bit.ly/yxyBkd via @KISSmetrics
• Forget 'The Seven Habits' But Remember 'The No Asshole Rule' - Forbes onforb.es/xwTtzx
• Dogs Diving Underwater Are Terrifying And Bewitching read.bi/xMa9GW

For the love of negotiation

"Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, to bargain for individual or collective advantage. Negotiation is intended to aim at compromise" - Wikipedia

Most of us don't negotiate everyday and even when we do, we try to run away from it. This isn't very atypical of human nature. Ambiguity is something no one likes and it takes a lot to develop a tolerance for it.

A negotiation is typically created in the first place because of information asymmetry. When two parties have certain pieces of information they don't wish to share with each other while still trying to do business together is what creates the gyration. 

For example, if you buy a product X from a vendor for $4 and sell it for $5, you make $1 as profit. But is $4 actually your cost? Maybe you can negotiate for a lower cost? In order to find out this answer, you would have to figure out what the cost of manufacturing the product for the vendor is, but without understanding the complications of the business in practice itself, which is very likely to give inaccurate conclusions. And the vendor is under no obligation to share his cost build-ups with you, hence the negotiation. 

Information asymmetry is not only typical between a buyer-supplier relationship, but is also typical within a company and its own walls.
Two divisions who might not want to share information with each other might be creating inter-divisional negotiations without understanding group accountability. Perhaps they could have shared all the information with each other and created win/win situations, but instead end up with compromise(as Wikipedia stated, is the objective of a negotiation). 

Don't let barriers like these plague your workplace. Ask and give information as requested by others and help create a negotiation free workplace.

Twitter Digest

Daily chart: Speaking in tongues | The Economist econ.st/z0MgJ1

"If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost." - Zig Ziglar

Seth's Blog: Time doesn't scale bit.ly/zJKXyT

What's This Pinterest Website? - WSJ.com on.wsj.com/AmZSE8

Hey Microsoft, This Isn't Really The Best Way To Get People To Use Bing read.bi/xfwX6V

Walmart wins with a back-to-basics approach | Reuters reut.rs/AkZa6f

Graph of that 1997-2012 tech sector as %ge of S&P 500 sta... on Twitpic bit.ly/x0kURJ

“It Always Seems Impossible Until it’s All Done.” – Nelson Mandela

The Rebirth of U.S. Manufacturing - YouTube bit.ly/yTO6Uq

"Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few." - Pythagoras

Leadership, however, is not likely to last

The only thing constant in business is and should be change itself. All of us are plagued by complacency, be it learning new hard skills / soft skills and everything in between.
Leaders are dynamic and constantly adapt to the environment and un-learn old ways and never get labeled as ‘old school’. But leadership is not likely to last forever. A leadership style itself can become complacent and might be a misfit for an evolving organization. Change in such a situation might be good anyways. Chucking a leader in a position after a long time or a strategic shift might be a good idea. Perhaps this is the time when you’re actually allowed to say to someone-“don’t take it personally’.

Lies and statistics (about TEDTalks)

Twitter Digest

• Lists of Note: How to Write bit.ly/zDODv4
• 14 Ways an Economist Says I Love You. bit.ly/wLWDYB
• An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation - StumbleU…bit.ly/xbDwxw
• BBC News - Day in pictures: 8 February 2012 bbc.in/z83S0A
• A Guide To The Horrible Youth Unemployment Mess In Europe read.bi/xZODmk
• The Troika Gave The Greeks An Offer They Can't Accept read.bi/zbmEmZ
• Quips: The wisdom of Warren Buffett | The Economist econ.st/xYGIOp
• 13 Strange Highs from Around the World [infographic] | Daily Infographic bit.ly/xGdbaS
• Transparency: Who Are Americas Illegal Immigrants - Politics - GOOD - StumbleUpon bit.ly/xV7Xqo
• An Amazing Apology From George Papandreou read.bi/z1bj3U
• Asian girl band kicks open door to U.S. | Video | Reuters.com reut.rs/xBdw7m
• Transparency: Who Are Americas Illegal Immigrants - Politics - GOOD - StumbleUpon bit.ly/xV7Xqo
• Great Leaders Gain Knowledge « How We Lead bit.ly/yFHAb0
• The Black Rhino Was Declared Extinct Yesterday — Here Are 10 Other Species That Have Been Wiped Out By Manread.bi/AqrGB5

Information sharing dilemma

For all the voracious readers out there, you know that there’s a lot of information you consume everyday via a variety of channels, but how do you share it?

Let say you grab a piece of your twitter feed, open the page and decide that you need to share that content. You have two options:

• Re-tweet the original comment
• Share the page on your own twitter feed or on your own website
• etc.

Considering that you source/cite the information properly, option B can be OK, but there is a certain generosity factor associated with option A. Perhaps the people who you retweet will remember you, but if they are re-tweeted often, perhaps they wont.
If everyone starts RT’ing my twitter posts, chances are I’ll forget them once the RT’s pass a certain level, hence the dilemma. Should you RT someone who will initially remember you, but eventually forget you?

The information sharing dilemma is something all of you will face every day and I’ll leave it up to you to decide how to share your ideas / thoughts, but keep the generosity factor in mind. Do no evil and build your social capital at the same time. Your digital footprint today is who you are. Don’t think that you can keep your real life separate from your digital life. You are what the google machine says you are.

The Unemotionally Intelligent teammate

"Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups" - Wikipedia

You have been grouped with some brilliant people, mostly Subject Matter Experts passionate about the products they deal with and with 20+ years in the industry. They are the true know it all's in their capabilities and industries, but one of them lacks something important- Emotional intelligence.
This factor happens to be something which a lot of us care about, but fail to get a grasp of. Truth be told, a teammate who isn't EI immersed won't care and may say or do things that are considered un-EI all the time. That's no different than eating junk food all day without being educated of the health risks involved.

So here's a tactic, next time you get a chance to socialize with the un-EI teammate outside the workplace, let them know about it. Sounds a bit too much to do? Hence the social environment. The one thing that I ask of you not to do is to back-channel talk the un-EI teammates behavior. Somethings are best left between the parties involved. In fact, if you're the one doing the back-channel talk, think again who's being un-EI.  

Seth Godin: We are all weird[audio]

Success Mag interview, 2012 from Seth Godin on Vimeo.

Common sense is not enough

Common sense is a repository of principles that work most of the time and for most of the people under most circumstances. But the reality is, most situations which require us to think in the first place are unique and never seen before, thus not common. The model of human beings are over simplified to apply common sense, and don't account for the complexities and paradoxes of human nature. Take the following for examples:

• People like monetary incentives and will do whatever for more money
• People understand what risk is and don't make emotional decisions
• Everyone is good at analyzing themselves and understands their personal biases

If you live in the same reality as me, chances are none of the above hold true and they repeat themselves over and again. 

Leaders must understand far beyond common sense assumptions as situations require. Common sense is not enough and even in the busy world of today, we must find time for such complexities or otherwise succumb to providing common sense (aka ordinary) solutions. 

Offshore wealth

via: Economist

What nonprofits can learn from Coca-Cola

Workplace Blackholes

No, I'm not talking about an actual black hole, but people that tend to be like one. Every workplace has its blackholes, but the only difference between the actual ones that exist in space and the ones at the workplace is that you can escape the workplace ones.
Next time you face one talking about things that suck the energy out of you, just walk away. If they send you negative emails, discard them. If they send you negative Facebook messages, unfriend them.
Don't worry about their existence, worry about how far you can possibly get from them. 

Twitter Digest

• Can Beautiful Women Be Taken Seriously in Business? - Forbes onforb.es/x3vQ2b
• FBI File on Steve Jobs—PDF - WSJ.com on.wsj.com/zJ8Af1
• Open Strategist: Don’t overcomplicate things ? bit.ly/xFiVb0
• Seth's Blog: Who is your customer? bit.ly/xo289r
• Stopping The 'Brain Drain' Of The U.S. Economy | WBUR & NPR bit.ly/zB0bPN
• 13 Recruiters Share The Weirdest Job Applications They've Ever Received read.bi/wwnkny
• Commercial Aircraft Of The Future Will Be Unbelievably Quiet And Fuel-Efficient read.bi/wnWWdj
• A videographic exploring polling data on America's presidential race econ.st/zhlNsw
• “Your life is your message to the world. Make it inspiring.” - Lorrin L. Lee
• Mattel ditches Merkel for footballer's wife | Video | Reuters.com reut.rs/yfPdWr
• JFK’s teen mistress in explosive new tell-all - NYPOST.com nyp.st/ybDBFe

Sheryl Sandberg: women leaders

Retail sector research

Open publication - Free publishing - More canada

Don’t overcomplicate things ?

If you’re an out-of the box thinker(perhaps in-the box is better, whatever you prefer), you might be tempted try out new things that are genuine, not everyone is familiar with and forces people out of their complacency and think further and beyond their typical realm of understanding.

It might be something really useful, but the first reaction of the human blocking mechanism is to shun it by labeling it as 'too complicated'. Even if you build a formula which might be as simple as a x b x c, the ingenuity rejector might refuse to accept it immediately.

To counter such potential push back, spill the beans first and let everyone in the room know that “this is new, so please don’t discount it as being too complicated and hear me out first”. Then take the steps to be crystal clear of what the outcome would be and break it down in steps with an actual example. Ideas are worth sharing, and having them labeled as ‘too complicated’ is too much of a loss. 

If you’re on the other side of this equation and oversimplify everything, this is your chance to accept that intuition is dominated by facts 9/10 times. I don’t have a source for that one but lets just say that your intuition should easily grasp that.

Twitter Digest

• A videographic exploring polling data on America's presidential race econ.st/zhlNsw
• “Your life is your message to the world. Make it inspiring.” - Lorrin L. Lee
• Mattel ditches Merkel for footballer's wife | Video | Reuters.com reut.rs/yfPdWr
• JFK’s teen mistress in explosive new tell-all - NYPOST.com nyp.st/ybDBFe
• WHAT NEXT? The Incredible History Of Secretive Swiss Banking read.bi/xbySl2
• Open Strategist: Harry Potter Book/Movie Revenue bit.ly/ynGuVZ
• Americans Blow $3.4 Billion On Valentine's Dinner [INFOGRAPHIC] read.bi/w206Qa
• How Marc Andreessen makes Silicon Valley magic — Tech News and Analysis bit.ly/x6R3tT
• A Place of Excellence - Forbes onforb.es/z0Rmkr
• For A Clear Picture Of Facebook's Business, Look At These Charts read.bi/wKi2IJ
• Open Strategist: LinkedIn and Buzzwords: Whats your pick? bit.ly/wHIzQn
• France To Google: You'll Pay For Making That Free! - Forbes onforb.es/zfQT5S

Charts: Every US astronaut at NASA

source: Guardian

Harry Potter Book/Movie Revenue

Book revenues: 

Movie Revenues:

source: UK film council

LinkedIn and Buzzwords: Whats your pick?

LinkedIn Most popular buzzwords in the US:

Most popular buzzwords over the world:

Meat the future

Meat The Future from Beckmans College of Design on Vimeo.

Twitter Digest

• Twitter Commits Social Suicide - Forbes onforb.es/y9iviy Forbes incorrectly analysis Twitter statement and later fixes itself #FAIL
• How to hire like Warren Buffett - Sales Machine - CBS News bit.ly/zzX2Fx
• Math doesn't suck, you do. bit.ly/wVuViG
• An Introvert's Guide to Networking - Lisa Petrilli - Harvard Business Review bit.ly/wkLIQF
• Handle a heckler bit.ly/wL2LWu
• 17 Tips On Becoming A Charismatic Leader read.bi/AqO6kF
• 6 Ways Nature Cleans Up Our Messes Better Than We Do | Cracked.com bit.ly/yFSSns
• Your Mom Sleeps Naked* [infographic] | Daily Infographic bit.ly/wu6JcG
• Where blue eyes came from | The Rational Optimist… bit.ly/yEIYl4
• "Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few." - Pythagoras
• Seth's Blog: The waffle paradox bit.ly/yV6t4K
• Occupy…Your Doctor’s Office? - The Wealth Report - WSJ on.wsj.com/x8bjhr
• Be Better at Twitter: The Definitive, Data-Driven Guide - Megan Garber - Technology - The Atlantic bit.ly/zJAxf8
• Understanding J.C. Penney's Risky New Pricing Strategy - Rafi Mohammed - Harvard Business Reviewbit.ly/wV3WRK