Quought for the day #42 – Timothy Johnson

By Rajesh Setty on Tue 06 Feb 2007, 5:00 AM - 2 Comments

Chief Accomplishment Officer of Carpe Factum, Inc (formerly Delta Project Solutions, Inc.). Teaches MBA classes as well as consult on project management issues. Tim is the author of Race Through the Forest – A Project Management Fable and various articles. Other books and articles in progress. His clients have included Harley-Davidson Motorcycles, Teva Neurological Pharmaceuticals, Orchard Place (Children’s Psychiatric Center), ING, Wells Fargo, and Principal Financial Group, as well as some smaller local organizations.

What drives Tim: Passion and Balance. Passion for what works. Passion for creativity. Passion for accomplishment. Passion for solid leadership. Balance among my family, my faith, and my career.

Tim’s Quought for the Day:

What am I accountable for accomplishing in 2007?

Tim’s note accompanying the Quought: 
This is not the same as “what do I need to do?”  I’m asking two
things with this question:

1.  What do I need to get DONE (i.e., finished)?  A lot of us start things – how many of us finish them?  And, are the things I need to get done the right things for me?

2.  How do I effectively own the accomplishment (i.e., possibly working through others to lead them in making the accomplishment happen)?  We’re all busy people.  How can we leverage those around us to create something
greater than we could do on our own?  How do we tap into the servant-leader within to envelop those more talented and bring them along on our journey?

Note:
Quought = Question that provokes thought. Questions are important. Thinking is important. Questions that make you think are very important!

PS:
Squidoo Lens: The Power of Questions!

Posted under Main Page, Quought for the Day.

Quought for the day #41 – Atanu Dey

By Rajesh Setty on Mon 05 Feb 2007, 5:00 AM - 2 Comments

Dr. Atanu Dey is a contrarian and delights in pointing out which bits of conventional wisdom is not all that wise. Thus he argues, for example, that the solution to the problems of rural India lies in urban areas; or that information and communications technology will not solve problems that are not at their core technical problems. He is not exactly a Luddite, as he has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and post graduate degress in computer science. He changed his profession late in life and attended UC Berkeley where he received his PhD in economics. While at Berkeley, he was also a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University in 2001-02, During that period he created a model for development called “RISC — Rural Infrastructure and Services Commons” and co-authored the concept paper with Vinod Khosla.  He has worked for Hewlett Packard in the Silicon Valley and is currently Chief Economist at Netcore Solutions in Mumbai. Atanu blogs at http://www.deeshaa.org on India’s Economic Development.

Atanu’s Quought for the Day
“Is there any technology that was ever developed for the poor and which eventually ended up benefiting the poor?”

Note:
Just shows that I have a bird-brain. When I received this question from Atanu, I wrote back saying, should we slightly modify the question to put the responsibility back on the reader – “”What could you do to develop a technology that would benefit the poor worldwide?”
Atanu quickly responded

Thanks Atanu for the clarification

Note:
Quought = Question that provokes thought. Questions are important. Thinking is important. Questions that make you think are very important!

PS:
Squidoo Lens: The Power of Questions!

Posted under Main Page, Quought for the Day.

Quought for the day #40 – Kimberly Wiefling

By Rajesh Setty on Sun 04 Feb 2007, 5:00 AM - Leave Comment

Kimberly Wiefling is the founder of Wiefling Consulting, a scrappy enterprise enabling individuals, teams and organizations to achieve results that seem out of reach or nearly impossible through leadership and project management excellence. A physicist by education, she spent 10 years at HP in technical leadership and project management roles, then 5 years in the wild and crazy world of Silicon Valley start-ups before leading one to a glorious defeat during the dotcom bust of 2001. Vigorously scrappy, she reemerged, consulting on leadership and project management worldwide – from Armenia, to Tokyo, to the Silicon Valley. Kimberly is the executive editor of The Scrappy GuidesTM, a regular contributor to the “Project Connections” newsletter, (70,000+ subscribers weekly), and her radio show, “The Scrappy DialoguesTM”, airs occasionally on www.wiefling.com, and she is the lead blogger at www.SVProjectManagement.net .

(click on the button to read the background for this series)

When something that seems like it might be “bad luck” happens . . .

When I feel like asking “How?” because it seems impossible . . .

  What would make that possible?

When I want to demand “Why?” . . .

   Help me understand . . .
(Not exactly a question, but gets a lot less defensiveness in people than “why?”)

Note:
Quought = Question that provokes thought. Questions are important. Thinking is important. Questions that make you think are very important!

PS:
Squidoo Lens: The Power of Questions!

Posted under Main Page, Quought for the Day.

Ways to distinguish yourself #172 – Manage costs associated with your contribution

By Rajesh Setty on Sun 04 Feb 2007, 12:19 AM - Leave Comment

Most often, we want to be congratulated for our contributions. Depending on the nature, size and frequency of contributions, we may expect different things – a raise, a pat on the back, a promotion or simply some sort of recognition. What gets conveniently overlooked is that cost that we bring along with the contribution.

Whether you want them or not, there are costs associated with your contribution. Let me take a simple example. If you are a sales person in a company, the costs that you are bringing in will include but not limited to:

In the above example, if you add up all these things, you will notice that the time to “really” celebrate is not when you close that first deal but when you close “that” deal that is profitable to the company after factoring all your costs into consideration.

I picked one example but you can pretty much apply this to any profession. Whatever be your profession, remember that your contributions come with a cost. If the costs outweigh the contributions you are making, you are a liability not an asset.

Now, please don’t take this to an extreme. I urge that you celebrate small victories. On a lighter note, please remember that your celebrations for those small victories are also a cost that someone has to bear.

Note 2: The first 25 entries in the series have been packaged in a ChangeThis manifesto that was published on September 07, 2005. You can download that manifesto here:
ChangeThis Manifesto: 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself (PDF, Free)

Note 3: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 6, 2008. This is a photographic manifesto featuring 15 of my mini sagas (stories in exactly 50 words). Here is the link:
ChangeThis Manifesto: Mini Sagas – Bite Sized Lessons for Life and Business (PDF, Free)

Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.

Quought for the day #39 – Tom Clifford

By Rajesh Setty on Sat 03 Feb 2007, 5:00 AM - 2 Comments

Thomas is an internationally recognized award-winning documentary filmmaker.  Tom likes to tell people his films are like “MTV meets PBS!”

Tom’s passion is branding organizations and transforming individuals through remarkable storytelling and authentic documentary filmmaking.  

For over 20 years, organizations like The Travelers, Deloitte, Lincoln Financial Group, Epilepsy Foundation, Honeywell and Timex have counted on Tom’s films to tell their story authentically and with eye-catching results.  His films capture the “spirit” and culture of companies by empowering employees to tell their story from their personal ‘lens.’

“The Men Who Brought the Dawn,” a film featuring the airmen who flew the atomic missions to Japan and co-produced by Tom, is a part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution.  

Tom’s films have been shown at The NFL Hall of Fame, PBS, AFC Championship and others.

If every physical creation is first created mentally, then what will you be creating in 2007?

Note:
Quought = Question that provokes thought. Questions are important. Thinking is important. Questions that make you think are very important!

PS:
Squidoo Lens: The Power of Questions!

Posted under Main Page, Quought for the Day.

Quought for the day #38 – Professor Srikumar S. Rao

By Rajesh Setty on Fri 02 Feb 2007, 10:52 PM - 2 Comments

Professor Srikumar. S. Rao is the Louis and Johanna Vorzimer Professor of Marketing at the C. W. Post campus of Long Island University and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. His course – Creativity and Personal Mastery – is one of the highest rated courses at Columbia Business School and has been written up in major media including the New York Times, Fortune and Business Week.

Dr. Rao has also served as a marketing advisor to the national board of MENSA. He is interested in programs for gifted children and the development of special instructional materials for them. His other interests include tennis, squash, karate, table tennis and chess; Eastern philosophy and meditation; and Wodehouse, science fiction and creative writing.

(click on the button to read the background for this series)

Dr. Rao’s Quought for the Day is:

If you learnt that, owing to unfavorable business conditions, your salary would be cut in half how would you react? Would you scramble to adjust your finances so you could continue? Or would you immediately look elsewhere?

If the latter, you are wasting your life. Think about it.

Note:
Quought = Question that provokes thought. Questions are important. Thinking is important. Questions that make you think are very important!

PS:
Squidoo Lens: The Power of Questions!

Posted under Main Page, Quought for the Day.

FREE eBook: Personal Branding for Technology Professionals – Japanese version

By Rajesh Setty on Fri 02 Feb 2007, 6:35 PM - 3 Comments

Izumoto Takashi and his team at Quickwins Corporation in Japan have been kind enough to translate my eBook “Personal Branding for Technology Professionals” into Japanese.

I have many Japanese friends but I have never been to Japan. I look forward to going there one day.

Thanks to Izumoto and his team for this initiative.

Here is the link:

Personal Branding for Technology Professionals: Japanese Version (PDF format)

(In windows, right-click to download)

Special thanks to Renee Hawthorne at Intulogy for the illustrations and design.

Posted under Announcement, Main Page.

Don’t like what you are doing OR you are saying you don’t like what you are doing?

By Rajesh Setty on Thu 01 Feb 2007, 8:28 PM - 1 Comment

Actually, there is a big difference in both of these

In the first case, there is a chance that you can do something about it. Basically, you can change the situation in some way.

In the second case, you get a good excuse and a license for inaction. If you make no progress in your career and/or your life, you can continue to say that you really don’t like what you are doing. So nobody including yourself can hold you accountable for lack of progress.

By the way both are bad. I just hope you don’t fall into either of the above categories

Posted under Main Page.

The Art of Leverage: Anatomy of a calendar

By Rajesh Setty on Thu 01 Feb 2007, 1:14 PM - Leave Comment

In my last trip to India, I was able to spend some quality time with my friend Suresh (Investment banker, Photographer, Entrepreneur and just a genius character) and learnt about many of his projects. One that fascinated me was a calendar project that he did for a charitable organization. The project shows the power of leverage.

Here is the front page of the calendar
(This is the photo of Pangong lake, India-China Border)

1. This is one of the 12 photos that Suresh has donated to this charity. If you observe closely, it has a link to his blog where he explains the story behind each photograph.

2. The bottom part has the link to the charity website

Here is the back page of the calendar

1. You will notice that the top half now becomes a post card. At the end of the month, one can tear away the calendar and send this post card to someone. As a side benefit, the blog link travels too.

2. The bottom part has details about the participants in this project along with their websites

Leverage is a keyword that can change the game significantly. This is a simple example of how you can be altruistic at the same time leverage it for the benefit of all the participants.

Hat’s off to this effort!

Posted under Main Page.