If you have time on your hand and want to learn something useful, head on over to Academic Earth (http://academicearth.org/) and view lectures from some of the best professors in the world..
I liked this one by Alan Blinder about the cause of the current economic crisis
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Quote from his lecture.. NINJA (No Income, No Job [and] Asset] loans are bad 🙂
Comment by a colleague about how useful your contributions are at work..
Yesterdays recipe is today’s shit
In other words, there is no end to the race :)..
I stopped at Hippos, a hot dog place in Elk Grove for lunch today. I was using the drive through and saw this sign on the drive through window
The owner put together a combo for $15.99, which will get you a meal for 4 people. The sign reads “Feed a Family of 4 for under four bucks per person!!! Times are Tough. Hippo’s will help you get through it with our stomach stimulus package.”
After I pay for my lunch, the hostess hands me an envelope which looks like this
Simple but brilliant marketing. First connect with your customers in this tough time.. then give them an incentive to come back. I would go back to the place to check out if I won anything.. and guess what, even if I don’t win anything, I will most probably end up getting something to eat there. I am sure this joint is going to survive
My friend, Ravi, responded via e-mail to my ranting about the end of affordable flying in India and the note that we might be slipping back to socialism..
I understand that there will be no Rs.99/- deals in future (Yes, Rs.99! + Taxes, which are close to 20 times the price of the ticket). There should not have been such deals in the first place. Many airlines to gain market share have priced their fares dirt cheap and are now facing the consequences. If they are not even making money to pay the salaries, how are they going to become profitable by bearing operating costs and considering all loans they are unable to repay even after 5-10 years of starting their operations.
In a way I feel it is good that the airline sector is making some adjustments at-least now but the managements made some blunders in implementation of their ideas. If you followed the story of Jet employees getting sacked, it looks ridiculous and shows how stupid the management was. This is a perfect example as to how a company will have to take back it’s decisions due to social pressures if it makes decisions without proper implementation plan. People like Raj Thackeray making comments like the Jet airways will not be allowed to land if the employees are not taken back, etc and his previous hatred comments against North Indians shows how narrow minded politicians are able to speak whatever they want and can come to limelight and ENJOY their actions.Read the below article which describes how a CEO of a company was attacked and killed recently in India. There may be various versions of the same story but what bothers me most is people get away with no one being held accountable for the crime.Also, there are so many political games in all states in India that it has become difficult to feel secure to do any business though you abide by the law, unless you have local support. Recent move of Tata Nano plant from Singur in W.Bengal to Gujarat is a perfect example of how things can turn due to political gains.Yes, there is corruption anywhere in the world but in India you can get away with relatively easily, even if caught. This is a major setback and I fear things will get much worse before some radical decision comes out later to tackle such situations.Sorry for going into social aspect of the problem rather than financial aspect.Anyways, we need to have political power to do anything better for the society on the large scale and to get there we will face the same issues of combating corrupt and dangerous politicians who are ready to do anything to regain their position.I will go back and spend money for the betterment of the system if I win BigGame 🙂
Thomas Friedman, author of “The world is Flat“, is giving away an audio version of the book until August 4th for free!!
You can register for the giveaway here (http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/giveaway)
or you can go to this link and download the MP3 directly (http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/pop/giveaway/)
The world is flat, an international best seller, describes the authors notion of how we he sees the world becoming a level playing field due to 10 “flatteners”. Regardless of which field you are in, I would highly recommend reading this book, to understand the new world we live in now..
I am always looking for people, books, sites, podcast that can make me a better person to work with. There are quite a few sites out there that have help for managers, but the one I found that has the most relevant and interesting information is Manager-Tools.com. It is a weekly podcast by two management consultants (Mark Horstman and Michael Auzenne) with practical advice that can used in our day to day life. Mark and Mike provide an fresh insight into business advice, management consulting and personal coaching. Highly recommend it to anyone thinking of moving into management.
