I was interviewing a candidate for a job opening at my work. I asked him how he motivates his team and he made this comment about how you truly measure if you can motivate a person
Think of a 16 year old working part time at a retailer. She is just working to earn money to buy some lipstick or perfume. Think how you can motivate her to work on a thanksgiving weekend!!
Good article regd. communications (verbal and email) on NY Times at http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/are-your-messages-being-heard/ . I esp liked the comment about keeping messages short and smiling. We spend some much time at work (and most of that on email) in the modern work place. And I think these two things will make your colleagues appreciate you a lot more :).
Bold forecast :).. But in 5 to 10 years, I predict the majority of a company’s infrastructure will be hosted in a “cloud”. If you recall (circa 2000..), most of the companies were hosting “anti-spam” services in house. If anyone suggested that we can outsource that service, you would get a “are-you-crazy” look :). And now, you will get the same look if anyone suggests they run the anti-spam service in house. I believe the same is going to happen for infrastructure. You might still be running some components in house, but it will get smaller and smaller. Companies will be forced to focus on their core competency rather than try to maintain an army of engineers to perform tasks that someone else might be a lot better at.
Speaking of being visionary, apparently Netflix operates most of their infrastructure in the cloud. If Netflix can operate in the cloud, a majority of us can too :). Here are some links regd their lessons from moving to a cloud.
http://blip.tv/file/4252897 (Video of Netflix Director of Engineering explaining their move to the cloud)
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxwcmFjdGljYWxjbG91ZGNvbXB1dGluZ3xneDo2NDc2ODVjY2ExY2Y1Zjcz&pli=1 (Write up by a Netflix engineer about the move to the cloud from a storage and DB prospective)
This picture (credited to Uptime Software) shows how you can classify outages so that you know which ones to tackle first. A very good way to take stock of things and show progress over time.
As I was channel browsing yesterday, I happened to run across an episode of NOW on my local PBS station. It featured a Harvard educated man that decided to run for the mayor of a rundown steel belt town (Braddock, PA). Besides being impressed and humbled by Mr.John Fetterman, I thought he displayed all the characteristics of a true leader (IMHO).
Highly recommend watching the video, if you have the time 🙂
Jeevan Kumar, one of my colleagues and friend, came up with this graphical form of what makes a creative genius.. And I thought, it is only fair to share this art and Jeeva’s talent with the world :)..
Some background.. I get an email from a sales rep from one of the biggest telecom provider. The sales person attached a 4 MB document that shows the services offered by the company in one page.. Yes, a one pager document that is 4MB in size!!.. And this document tells me how this company can do everything other than wash my dishes for me..that they are biggest and baddest out there.
Do you think that this person even gave a minutes thought before filling up my mailbox with a 4MB attachment? Nope.. will he be getting my business? Nope.. It is not that the sales rep sent me such a large attachment, but because the company that can supposedly offer the best technical solutions out there cannot figure out a way to show their offerings in a single page without bloating it. Shows that the company is not innovative and thinking of customers.
Maybe I am being harsh here.. but then I have pretty high standards :).
The first five reasons are in this video.
The sixth reason.. you are actually watching the video above to decide if you are cut out to be a CIO :).. Come on people!!
Another picture from a chain mail :). My friend, Shashi, forwarded this via e-mail. Sarcastic look into communications in the corporate world. Not sure which publication this is from, so apologies in advance if this looks like palgarism. Click on the image to view a larger and legible image.
Comment by a colleague about progress
Somebody told me once that getting it right the first time is accident, second time is coincidence and the third time is consistence.
