A new take on the coffee or the cup - Article for the day 23 Sept

There is an Aesop fable like story of the professor offering alumni coffee in different mugs and people fighting over the mug when they should actually be worried about how the coffee tastes. It is the coffee that counts is what the "moral of the story" is. However, I came across a post that made some very good arguments on how the coffee cup also matters.

http://happysmarts.com/the-coffee-or-the-cup-which-is-more-important/

In essence this is what every marketer talks about. Packaging is necessary. However, if the final product sucks, no amount of marketing can save you. :D

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post

Investing in art as an asset? - Article for the day 20 Sept

In the last few years there have been a lot of people talking about "diversifying" by "investing" in art. Well how does one find out the fair price of art? Well, you turn to the "experts". Experts who can't seem to distinguish between an original and a fake it seems. Add to that

That art market pretends that great artists are inimitable, and that this inimitability justifies the often absurd prices their work commands. Most famous artists are good: that is not in question. But as forgers like van Meegeren and Pei-Shen Qian, the painter who turned out Ms Rosales’s Rothkos and Pollocks, show, they are very imitable indeed. If they were not, the distinction between original and knock-off would always be obvious. As Ms Rosales’s customers have found, no doubt to their chagrin, it isn’t.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21586580-fakes-say-some-interesting-things-about-economics-art-emperors-new-pictures

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post

Ignite, Pomodoro and getting things done efficiently - Article for the day 19 Sept

Came across a video today that linked to a lot of ideas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH-z5kmVhzU

Ignite - A way of making presentations that are only 5 minutes long and the slides auto advance every 15 seconds. I loved the tag line: Enlighten us, but make it quick. I once had to make one of these presentations and it is incredibly hard. You have to figure out what is really really important and how to say it such that your audience is still engaged. It makes you have to throw out all the inessentials and focus on the main idea. I am sure we have all been to meetings at work that you wish this could have been the case :)

The Pomodoro technique seems brilliant. As I was watching the video, my phone buzzed and I paused the video to answer it. We are distracted and distracted all the time. This looks like something I would like to work into my daily routine. Lets see how it goes.

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post

Whole foods for the mind? - Article of the day 18 Sept

So I came across this article on Whole Foods today. I loved the authors take on things including the headline

Whole Foods is like Vegas. You go there to feel good but you leave broke, disoriented, and with the newfound knowledge that you have a vaginal disease.



For those of you who have been lucky enough to not visit a Whole Foods outlet, it is Upscale Grocery store that sells organic and whole foods (Minimal processing and refining). Thus they charge more for their products. You can enjoy the article over at

www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-maclean/surviving-whole-foods_b_3895583.html

P.S. Well in Freakonomics or Super Freakonomics the cost of a average basket of goods from Whole Foods is more likely to be similar to any other grocery store. However, given the amount of Organic varieties and their target clientele there is an aura of it being a more expensive 

Wanderlust - Article for the day 17th Sept

If you woke up one morning, had all the money in the world and no responsibilities what would you do?

Most of the people respond saying that they would like to travel. Travel expands our horizons. New ideas, new places and new cultures force us to review our existing model of how the world works. It is a break from the monotony of our lives. We all seem to know it deep down.

But how many of us have the courage to actually follow our dreams? We keep postponing it to when we have more money, more time, etc etc. There never is the right time and there never will be enough money.

To drive home the point, I came across different people who have traveled in their own style. There is

this post of Quora about traveling across Bhutan for 1 week and Rs 3000. (or $50). There is also these guys who took 6 months off and did 13 countries in 3 continents for $20,000.

Whichever way you choose to travel, make the time and effort to travel. It is always worth it in the end.

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post

Designing your goals - Article for the day 16 Sept

While working in Incentive Compensation design (How to measure people's performance and pay them for it) we always faced the dilemma of relative pay or open ended pay. In relative pay people needed to be ranked and paid according to their ranking. Open ended pay was based on how you performed against your baseline performance. Most companies I know force rank people into a "Bell Curve" for grading so that they can control how much profit goes out in bonuses. But as this article describes, if you want amazing performance from your people with lower anxiety; make it about challenging themselves, rather than comparing them against others.

The way we design our working and learning environments can change people's motivation for achieving important tasks.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/may/shape-achievement-goals-051012.html

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post

Who will watch the watchers? - Article for the day 13 Sept

A very well written critique of what NSA's activities have caused.

Mr Snowden’s ability to walk off with a stash of NSA documents is grave evidence of a woeful lack of internal controls. He has gone public, but could just as easily have put his stolen documents to criminal use—as others in his position may already have done

(It) damage(s) the reputation of America’s technology industry and leave its government looking untrustworthy and hypocritical..

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21586345-covertly-weakening-security-entire-internet-make-snooping-easier-bad

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post