Hiring the most creative people

This is a nice article on how you should go about hiring employees like you for your company.
One point that is repeatedly stressed is: The most creative and enthusiastic people’s prime motivation to join a company is not just money. Money in fact is at the bottom list when compared to other aspects like complete freedom, an avenue to vent out their creativity, an opportunity to be a part of a passionate team with great ideas, work while having fun, etc.


Read here for the 10 reasons why you should join Mind Valley.
The rules are put in such a way; it would be tough to resist their offer.

Steve Paslina: Habit change is like chess

Steve Paslina has an insightful post on how to break habits and create new ones. He compares changing a habit to a game of chess.

There is an early game, where you don’t directly work on the habit in the beginning but set yourself up for the change.

In the middle game, you analyze what you need to successfully go to the end game. Such as researching about people who already made this change, knowing the difficulties you are going to face and preparing alternatives to make it easy.

In the end game you sail through, if you have executed the early game and the middle game perfectly.

Comparing it to my GMAT preparation, I can find some similarities that I implemented.

Long before I started preparing, I read through the experiences of previous exam takers.

Then read through the problems they faced and how confidence plummets in between, how frustration creeps in, etc. Made up my own ways of how I thought I would face all these tides.

In the end game started my preparation based on other’s experiences. Though I faced all the same problems at least I was not taken by surprise.

Read the whole post here.

Guy Kawasaki

"Guy Kawasaki", every technology entrepreneur must have heard his name at least once. He is one of the original Apple employees in 1984. He is a venture capitalist now and a great speaker. Click here to know more about him. This is his blog.

I have read a lot about him and wanted to read his famous book, "The Art of the Start".
Today started watching one of his videos, to actually forget one of the most dreadful chores in an office-going guy's life. Yeah, you have guessed it right, its "ironing clothes". (Just waiting for the day when some genius would invent a portable machine to iron my clothes. )



This video of Guy Kawasaki is one of the best videos for a budding entrepreneur.
Its both incisively informative and humorous. He just throws out pearls of wisdom, one by one in the most simple yet humorous way.

.If you are not into entrepreneurship, you should watch this video to analyze how to make your presentations effective and interesting.
Some of his pearls are:

• His famous 10-20-30 rule for an effective presentation. Your presentation should have less than 10 slides, should be less than 20 minutes and have a font size greater than 30.

• Always ask a woman about your business model. Don't waste time asking men.

• Always hire a person who is more intelligent than you. If your employees hire less intelligent people than you and the cycle repeats down the chain, soon you will see dumb people all around you.

I don't want to spill all his pearls. I'll let you watch the video and have some fun.

Remember, the time spent watching this video would be one of the best things you did since the last time you read a good book.

TED

End of a boring day, you feel an uneasiness in you. Feel that the whole day has passed off, without even having to switch on your brain. All day it was feeding on beautiful babes on VH1 and those larger than life hollywood homes, which try to make you believe that sometimes elephants do fly.

Wanna switch on your CPU(brain) for a bit? Switch off the TV for a moment and watch this video while your having your dinner.

I bet, it would give you something to chew on.. and make you feel a bit better than what you were an hour ago.

TED (Technology Entertainment Design) is an annual conference held in California, USA. It defines its mission as "ideas worth spreading". Its lectures cover a broad set of topics: science, arts, design, politics, culture, business, global issues, technology, and entertainment.

For a start, try watching this video:

His product designs are both simplistic and innovative.
In between "Product Design is my new fad.

Viktor Frankl

"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue... as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself."

Scarcity and its effect

Seth Godin, one of the present day’s marketing gurus, is the author of one of the most popular blogs in the world.

Was reading his blog today and one of his tip, set my thinking bells tinkering.


* “Scarcity creates fashion. People want something that others can't have.” (Refering to iPhone)

Recollected a conversation I had with a friend from Hyderabad a month ago. Presently owning a BMW does not necessarily put you above your social peers. Because it is no more scarce. Audi is the Zing thing now.

It has happened with Benz also. 7 years back, when Mercedes was just entering Hyderabad, owning any model of Benz put you way above your peers. But slowly Merc was not so scarce with every one’s dad(rarely), uncle or at least having a friend whose uncle owned one. (It automatically becomes as good as your uncle owning one ;) )

So how would it be if Mercedes or BMW played the scarcity game and created an aura around their brand??


* “Give the early adopters a reward. In the case of Apple, I would have made the first 100,000 phones a different color. Then, instead of the first buyer being a hero for ten seconds, he gets to be a hero for a year.”


You can read the whole post here.

Business Incubators in India

Came across this interesting video of how Business Incubators are empowering the young guns with nothing but a powerful idea. Kudos to Mr. RMP. Jawahar and his team.

Here is the description of the documentary on TREC-STEP:
Business Incubators help to improve the survival and growth of innovative start-up companies by providing facilities, management advice and support services.

Since 2002, infoDev has supported more than 60 business incubators in over 40 developing companies around the world.

InfoDev is a global grant program managed by the World Bank to promote innovative projects on the use of information and communication technologies.

STEP is a model interface institution, which delivers innovation, science and technology and entrepreneurship through training, development and consultancy initiatives. It was established in 1986 in the sprawling environs of Regional Engineering College, Tiruchirappalli is the first STEP in the country. It has been continually engaged in promoting a new genre of entrepreneurs and many new initiatives for ushering in technology based growth.

World Bank - InfoDev

Protect your idea

IT has happened umpteen times and it still happens again and again. People have great ideas. They are not sure, if the idea is commercially viable. They make a prototype, their well wishers love it as if its the next big idea after Edison's bulb invention. But they are still unsure. They make more models. The models start selling. This phase is so exciting that they forget everything else. They pump in money and start production. The market enamors the product. The sales keep on growing exponentially month after month…!!!! Suddenly they notice a blip in the numbers. They attribute it to some external factor. It repeats the next month and the numbers start plummeting….!!!
What has happened?
They look back and see a blunder!!!
They had not bothered about protecting their idea with a patent. And now, everyone in the market is making one. Now they are back on earth and are no more coasting amongst the clouds.

Like a bike (Kokua) is one such product. A bike without pedals, so that kids can cruise along without having to worry about their balance. Here are some cool pics.

Read the full story here in Financial Times.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done."