Long.. long... ago I heard this story from someone/somewhere. So long ago, that I have forgotten its source. So long ago, that the story has gone through version changes in my head.
The story is/was approximately like this:
"A good farmer died and ended up in hell. To his astonishment, hell was filled with all good people you can think of from our world's history. Yet, he was angry with the God as he was a good guy all his life. There he was - In Hell. God being a nice person sent him to Heaven, where he found all bad poeple you can think of throughout our world's history. 
Confused enough, he asked God. "What's this all about?"
God told him that there was a small error and things got changed a little bit. The contents changed but the names, hell and heaven remained the same. However, to the astonishment of God was the fact that hell had become a better place to 'live' in. So much that God was spending 80% of his office hours in Hell, cos it was awesome now."
Moral of the story : The awesome organizations, the awesome teams and awesome products are the outcome of awesome people coming together.
Question of the story : If you are a small part of a larger something, are you awesome enough?
Are you the one changing "Heaven to Hell ...or... Hell to Heaven"?
In this hue shift, we are seeing the rise of a modern China, whose youth are defining their own identities, by bending the values that have existed for centuries. What implications could this have, on health, culture, wealth and everything else that you can think of?
What else?
Are you able to think of something else?
Is that doable?
This might seem to be a very simple and easily replicable strategy. Then why is it not easily done by everyone else? The challenge, curiously, does not rest with the frontline employees. They are, unfortunately not in a position to choose what to wear, hence any nicely done uniform sporting the brand logo will do just fine for them. It's then upto the CEOs to make the move, and to drop those pricey lustrous dark Suits. The art and the wisdom is in empowering the frontline employees.
Just imagine this and it will be all clear. Imagine your company's CEO making sure that he/she wears exactly what you wear every single day, and chose to do so for the rest of his/her life. You wear blue, he too does. You wear green, he does too. How would that make you feel? That's how they feel.
" Man 50%, dressing 50%" is the crude translation of an old Tamil (A Dravidian Language of the Southern India) saying. So if not anything else, you are 50% of what the CEO is, going by your dress code. The discretionary decisions that the frontline employees, "the biological-living faces of the brand", make with the customers can be roughly weighed to be 50% percentage of what the CEO makes in keeping the company healthy, alive and profitable. That's psychological employee empowerment at play, with just one party knowing how it all fits and works. Or may be both parties know it, but accept it happily, keeping their egos aside. Whichever be it, it does work.
Photo courtesy : Flickr user - http://www.flickr.com/photos/crashmaster
I typed (about two months ago) this as I was watching a man in his sixties struggling to walk inside the bus (yes, while it is moving), he was definitely not healthy enough to maintain balance and walk firm. He could well have been, had he chosen, a few years ago, to be selfish for his own health. He could have been selfish and could have spent some time and money everyday to keep himself healthy. But he did not, because he had other priorities to attend to. His family, kids, parents, relations, work, aging parents and the same stuffs that we all have and must attend to in our lives on a daily basis. And now it was his turn, to transfer the burden to his kids and be the aging parent. And The cycle goes on.
Be selfish, for good. Loving yourself, at least for the important others! Hmmm...Interesting.
Will you tear away the mask, or choose to keep it till the last day...?
Let's face it. Passwords are a pain.
Especially for the majority of Internet users who have the need to maintain anywhere between 40 to 60 different passwords, some for work and some for personal use and not to mention the lover-passwords, and/or friends-passwords. The latter two are more like a set of shared passwords which friends and/or couples share. More like a sign of trust and faith. Great going!
So we all kinda know what we are talking about right now. You know what to expect out of this blogpost. "A password strategy" that will not be a pain on your memory neurons and at the same time does not compromise your online security and privacy. You are reading the right write-up.
What kind of Passwords do systems require these days?
Password requirements vary depending on what you intend to use the password for. Windows password can be a simple word. Whereas, a bank password should not be a simple word, or it could be the other wat if your Windows OS has all our crucial data, but the bank account has nothing-to-lose! So categorize your requirements and plan your unique ways in which you will put this three-level strategy to work.First LevelA simple password. In short, anything that you can remember. This will be the 'word' on which the complexity will be added.
Eg. loudspeaker : A simple non-guessable word.
A password that requires atleast one caps(Uppercase alphabet), and one number.
Eg."Loudspeaker5"
Third Level
This is becoming the standard slowly, and this is where you can be at your creative best. A password with atleast one caps, one numeral, and one special character!
Eg. "Loudspeaker5%" or "Loudspeaker5^". That is, any special character above/next to the number you choose to suffix.
So essentially, you use the same word, which now is the only thing you have to worry about now. Make sure other's can't guess it."Mom / dad / girl's / pet's / bike's name
"Not guessable" is the keyword.
Years which you think only you know about...
You get the idea right?"
"If guessable" it's not a password.
What if my employer/organization wants me to change password every 15 days??
Do this...
and keep re-cycling your password.
It would be far more efficient if you can also change the 'words' often. And they too must follow a pattern. A pattern, that you are comfortable remembering.
Eg.
Also, please add your password ideas/problems in the comments.
"I am now on cloud, doesn't matter if it is cloud 9. We don't care about the specifications."
The year, five years ago. Age of specifications. It was in my college times, when a girl I knew, when asked about her computer's specifications, did not know it. She just used her comp. That day, which was five years ago, and she seemed to be stupid. Today she seems all the more correct. No wonder I had a latent crush on her! The un-definable years of computing. This is 2012 and the world is being woken up to think beyond the specification of its computers. This change is being fueled by all the IT Titans nowadays, with the first being Apple, followed by Linux and now recently Windows. To write a blog post like this has become really difficult, as the definition of personal computer is changing, often crazily. The definition now includes anything from a Desktop PC, to a laptop, to a netbook, ultrabook, ipad, tablets, iphones and all other smart phones which seem to be using the same processors as our computers a year ago once did. This spec, that age. My first laptop had 256 MB RAM, my present mobile, a Motorola Backflip has 512 MB RAM. But we are not here to cribb about this, are we?! The point of the post is that, we don't care what's in the device. All that we care about is what can the device do, and how well can the device do it. That's what smart means, isn't it? Apple, past specification. When I bought my Apple iPad, the seller convinced me not with specification, but only with what the device can do. It did make sense. Why would I bother which MegaPixel my camera is, when I can be sure to have a crisp photo from it, every time. The problem started with literacy, when after completing Engineering (or any technical degree), we needed a purpose or scenario to put that knowledge to use. And so the specs! Aaahh...engineering finally. In the process we forgot that we were consumers, who should not give a damn as to what's inside. All that we need is.. "will the device live upto it's promise." If it's retina display, I don't care to know the exact pixel count, the only question is, "do I feel happy looking at it?". Simple. Even Windows does it, these days. I am typing this, as the windows 8 consumer preview is being downloaded, it is currently at 72%! But one thing that inspired me to write this post was this, unlike how it used to happen those days, my computer was not bothered to ask me, "___ these many data are to be downloaded,____ it will take this long, ___close all other applications etc". Instead, the download is happening happily, and the message says "Feel free to use your computer!". Very unusual, but very very sensible. Windows phones, rethought. I don't have to access facebook "app", do I? Simple as it may seem, this architecture must have caused headaches and costed million of Ramen noodles, coke and cigarettes for the designers and engineers. In the end... everybody happy! The OS is integrated with facebook, twitter and other such usual "app" stuffs. I feel this is more like a positive mutation, rather than an evolution. Evolution is what Apple does. Whatever be it, we are diving deeper into ubiquitous computing. And I am happy, cos I am a guy, and technology for us is raison d'etre! I am now on cloud, doesn't matter if it is cloud 9. We don't care about the specifications.
Receptionist : (Fake smile) Thank you for the Stay sir. Hope you liked your stay here. If there was any inconvenience, we are sorry. But please let us know and we sure can serve you better the next time.
Customer : (Sarcastic smile) Electricity, water, soaps and shampoos and Air conditioning were not asked for, but provided to me as a basic and default service. I am here in this Hotel, and obviously not carring my Internet around. You must have provided me with Wi-fi.
It often amazes me when I see public spaces like malls, cafes, restaurants, gyms etc spend huge sums of money on Interiors, chairs, tables and sofas, lighting, water temperature, soaps and its fragrances, AC temperature, ergonomics, Newspapers, magazines and a few hundred other factors, to win the customer's heart. But they miss the most easy and catchy form of service a company/institution can provide to its customers - Internet Access.
"a penny saved is a penny earned", a very old proverb. In fact the proverb here is so out of place that this discussion just lost its charm. But the saying says a lot. When read as "a calorie saved is a calorie earned", it makes sense, at least in this context. So getting back to how hobbies work, Hobbies are those activities that we choose to do, since we love or cherish doing them. Or better, passionate about doing those activities. Be it by nature or nurture, we all develop our unique interests and there is a part or module of our brains that is very capable of handling certain activities better than other people can.
Some paint, some sing, some write, some dance and some solve sudoku and crosswords. Not all can do everything. We do what we do best. But our jobs don't necessarily have to be the kind of activity that we might relish doing. You might be a painter working as a Sales person. Now this is tough, at least until when your brain learns new ways to efficiently form neuronal patterns that can handle new activities better, like remembering names (memory), mailing, thinking, decision making and calling, all at the same time (multi tasking) etc. Most of which are something not generally the kind of things that introverts do. So in the process of doing these new stuffs, our brains consume huge amounts of energy, simply put, more glucose and oxygen. So after a while (until the stamina gradually increases with practice) we are bound to feel tired. That's just normal and fair. For the brain needs rest now and then, to re-energize and form better patterns. In order to make something out of the gathered information, we humans need rest.
Hobbies, on the other hand, are activities our brains are better capable at handling. The patterns of neurons that makes a painter a painter, is unique to him/her. Your unique thinking patterns process data more efficiently and effortlessly. Passion fuels these activities. This makes the brain exercise a different part of the brain, which is already well designed to handle that specific and unique favorite hobby or hobbies of yours. So, you spend lesser energy as you indulge in your hobby, and by this time, the tougher job's data has been sorted and you are good to go again.
Not to mention that you are emotionally charged again and the hobby facilitated dopamine and endorphins are doing their magic. Congratulations, you just got more productive.
I had to answer a question. I loved to answer the question, too. I was just glad that I now stay with friends who ask me such questions. The question was...
What do you really want to become dude? When will you consider yourself a success?
It made me think for two seconds, not because I had to generate the answer, but because the processing speed of our brain is much more faster than the flexibility of our tongue muscles. The sentence got compiled in those two seconds. I answered...
Success is a relative term. And going by that definition, I am already a sucess. But if a goal were to be attached to quantify the success... then I want to be a "Thought Leader".
Now a friend who asks such a queston, is sure a serious question shooter. He was, and he went on...
So is it like you want to be a CEO or something? A business entrepreneur kind of??
Now this question demanded more of my processing potential! I had to phrase it properly, I had to deliver the answer with accurate precision. The entropy of the information had to be minimised as much as possible. I went ahead and replied...
A thought leader is one who makes it his responsibility to innovate, which requires a deep understanding and conherent thinking across many domains, to create a holistic and innovative concept/product/anything that was previously undone, but that which needs to be done with an urgency more than ever.
In short, if you think CEO's are the cream layer, a thought leader is one who lays the framework/model by which the CEO's think, and hence the term thought leader. He/she does what a scientist does to science. Science and scientists are in a symbiotic relationship. But, a thought leader and management science are in a mutualistic relationship.
By the end of the answer, the pulses of neuronic firing that existed in my brain embodying these concepts, gained a crisp clarity and identity in the more universal and Generic language of English.
Wikipedia too talks on such stuffs, it would be a lot more easier if you could read about "Thought Leaders and Thought Leadership", using the link below. For in wikipedia, thousands of thought patterns converge to form an article, and at times such crowd-wisdom's co-creation is easier to understand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_leader
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